Category Archives: Ride Reports

Whatever you do, don’t go to Mexico!

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That’s what my mother said to me when I mentioned I was planning to travel this summer. Gulp. Uhh yeah about those plans mom…

Somehow I managed to describe the plans for my awesome Mexico motorcycle adventure in such a way that seemed to put her at ease and only made me feel slightly guilty.

I explained that I would be going down past all the “bad parts” of Mexico with my bike on the back of my scuba buddy’s truck in the safety of a convoy of other divers. This ended up half true.

***********

It was the morning of departure and my buddy is running late. We’re supposed to be meeting the convoy in 15 minutes and we still need to load my bike on his truck. Just as I’m considering riding to the convoy meeting spot without him his truck comes screaming around the corner, a teetering tower of camp supplies precariously piled in the back. He’s frantically apologizing as he stuffs the bike hauler onto the hitch.

“You can load the bike right?! I have to repack some of this…and I only have one contact lens in!” He rushes off securing items while simultaneously trying to stuff a contact lens in his other eye.

My friend Skip loaned me the hauler and gave me a nice demo just a few days earlier, but it’s not even 6am yet and with panic levels at an all time high I don’t think all pistons were firing for me mentally. I manage to talk my roommate out of bed to help me muscle my fully loaded bike over the hitch. I’m going through all the steps in my head and yet when I finish the bike is leaning off the back of the truck at a 45 degree angle.

We’re on the final countdown now, we’re going to miss the convoy.

I keep visualizing my bike falling off the hitch as we fly down the freeway. I can’t take that chance. There’s no time to figure out what’s wrong! I’ll just ride it!

I run back inside and do a quick change superman style into my riding gear, leap on the bike and haul ass to the dive shop. They’re leaving at 6:00am. I arrive to an empty parking lot. It’s 6:01. DAMMIT. They must have left early.

We’ll have to catch them at the Mariposa exit instead. We speed down I-19 as fast as my 400cc’s will take me and suddenly my bike is surging and popping. I reach down and flip the tank to reserve and continue riding. Just as we hit our exit the bike runs out of gas for good and I roll up to the fuel pump running on vapors. But it’s okay. The other divers are here filling up too and I’m just relieved we caught them.

I get a lot of “You’re riding your motorcycle?!” from the other convoy members and some kudos from the more adventurous among them before we take off again.

It’s a long haul to the dive location near San Carlos and even slower in a convoy. We have to make an emergency fuel stop for my bike, full throttle in top gear is burning through gas at an incredible rate. I pat my DRZ, he’s just not built for this.

I’m not sure I’m built to ride nine hours straight in 100 degree heat. In my rush I failed to put on sunscreen and the sun has burned me through my mesh jacket in a barbecue pattern. It seems appropriate.

Finally we reach the turn off for the final stretch. 16 miles of dirt roads to the dive site. I move to the front of the pack and take off. I need to be in the ocean STAT!

I’ve never ridden my bike fully loaded in the dirt like that and the heat and exhaustion weren’t helping. Suddenly I hit a long stretch of deep sand I start screaming at myself to get my weight back and get on the throttle, but my body just won’t obey. I death gripped on the handlebars and slowed down, which promptly sent me into a tank slapper before catapulting me off the bike and sending me rolling across the dirt.

The car behind me stops and a couple guys rush out “Holy crap are you okay?!” I’m much more used to crashing than they are. I assure them I’m fine and they help me lift the bike. My mirror has snapped off, but I find it in the sand and throw it in my duffel. I proceed more cautiously until the last turn when I spot ocean on the horizon. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel. I blast through the last series of twists and washes and up onto the gravel beach until my bike gets bogged down and stalls. I kick down the stand, jump off and run toward the water shedding my gear on the way and finally leap in. The water is so cool and refreshing it feels heavenly. When I pop my head back out of the water a group of divers are staring at me looking confused. Later a guy tells me when he saw me ride up, he thought I was a hallucination.

Eventually the rest of the convoy arrives and I haul myself out of the ocean to set up camp.

It feels good to be back on the beach in Mexico.


A dirty DR-Zebra after a long day.


Mushroom rock at Himalaya Bay.


Some of the dirt road near the bay.


Classy camping Mexico style.


Sunset on day one of my second moto trip to Mexico.

“We’re not trying to make you crash, we’re trying to make you good.” – Allyn

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In the early stages of planning, this was going to be a small group, noob run up the mountain, but it ended up quite different.

First off Sean and I met with Skip and Cathy for coffee and bike prep.

Sean isn’t featured nearly enough in my posts.  Unfortunately, his conflicting work schedules and taste in terrain means we rarely ride together, but he got the day off so we could do this one. 🙂

Back off girls!
We met with a few more guys for breakfast and then headed to the gas station to meet the others. 
I think we had 11 people all together.  Thomas brought his new ride…dang it’s pretty!  And far too shiny…but there are people willing to help him with that little problem. 😉
We start off and then Allyn suggests we split into two groups and some of us ride a “fun little bypass” and catch up with the rest of the group later down the line.  Okay, Allyn is being blacklisted with Brian in the ‘people who cannot be trusted at their word’ doghouse.  Apparently his definition of easy is just that it was something I have ridden before, or similar to things I have ridden before.  Yeah, but I like -barely- rode it successfully those other times and this particular day it seriously kicked my ass.
Takers on the mini-adventure included Skip, Cathy, Nigel, Thomas, Allyn and me.  Please note:  Everyone else is a total badass
This was one of the easier climbs:
The first descent was like a freaking stone staircase and I was trying very hard not to do an endo the whole way down.
I was talking smack to them for my own benefit, something like “You bastards tricked me!  Holy shit!  Hahahah I made it!  This is awesome!”
Going up one of the inclines I bounced funny off a rock, tried to blip the throttle and save, but ended up spinning the bike around fully, landing on my ass and smacking the back of my helmet hard on the ground.
I chose a poor line up another climb and fell over low speed.  Nigel helped me up and made fun of me for being young and totally exhausted already while all the old folks were just getting started.
Eventually we reconnected with the main road and continued on to meet the group.  Nigel gave me some pointers for taking the turns faster on the high speed gravel (that stuff makes me nervous, I get phantom pains from my side scar) and I thought I was doing a lot better, but he was sitting down in front of me, waving his arm to coax me faster still.  Oh well.
Eventually we caught up to everyone and took a nice long break.
We got going again up more easy dirt roads.
Sean and Mike taking a break to soak up the scenery.
We hung out at Peppersauce to regroup.
These two crazy kids did the whole thing 2-up on a DRZ!
Here’s John goofing off
At Peppersauce, Allyn and the group from the earlier detour tried to convince me to come on another ‘fun easy little loop’ and I was honestly about to go, even though I knew it was a tra, but I was so exhausted I dropped the bike turning around.  I took it as a sign and stuck with the slower group instead.  Thank you Zeb!
I was shocked we arrived at the top first, considering how slow and easy we were all taking it.  About an hour later these fools roll up bruised and dirty.
Apparently the ‘easy fun loop’ was more like a gauntlet run and it eventually beat our best riders into submission and sent them back the way they came.  Allyn and Nigel both got flats and I know there were some getoffs too.  Yikes!  I’m glad I dodged that one!
We had yummy pizza and hung out, with riders heading down at various times.  Nigel got a ride down with Mike to get his truck and come back up for his bike while Sean and Allyn set about trying to fix the other flat with a tube snagged from Thomas.
The tube got pinched and he ended up throwing it in the truck with Nigel’s bike instead.  Oh well, good effort!
And lastly, here’s a picture of Allyn trying to figure out how to use a cell phone to call for help.  Hee hee hee…
And of course, as much as I love giving people a hard time, I have to admit that first detour was my favorite part! 
My body dissagrees though and I am really glad I missed that second detour!

Overland Expo 2010

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As a member of the staff at the Overland Expo I worked hard…and played harder!

I met so many awesome people and had such a great time, I don’t even know where to begin.

I was working the HQ booth so I started the day off busy, but eventually made it out for a look at some of the vendors and exhibitors.

viking

I thought the Disabled Explorers were a really cool group.

kickass wheelchair!

There were lots and lots of bikes!

beemer

Sherpa

Mmmm Super Enduro

SUPER!!!

tiny bike

Orange juice stand:

KTMs

This belongs to Gabe. He’s partway through a round the world trip and stayed with us for a bit with his girlfriend. I don’t know why I didn’t manage to grab a picture of Gabe himself, it was great running into him again, but you can check out his website HERE.   He and Charlotte were wonderful guests and really fabulous people!

Gabe

I wandered around and recognized Nicole from her ride reports on ADVrider (She makes some nice DRZ accessories over at Rugged Rider) and she was really cool to talk to.

rugged rider

This rig belongs to Ara and Spirit

sidecar rig

Sean and Ara got chummy right away when they discovered they were both Armenian!

Armenians

Spirit got his own VIP badge

Spirit

We worked the booth a bit more and then jetted over to listen to Austin Vince and Lois Pryce talk about their trip across America in a Ural sidecar rig.

Lois and Vince

It was a really fun presentation and of course made me kinda want one. 😛

After that we ran down to the vehicle recovery area where the guys from RawHyde were teaching techniques for getting your bike out of tough situations. People swear buy their training camp and I see why. All the guys on their staff were very amiable and did a great job demonstrating and explaining techniques. Also, they can manhandle a 1200GS like you wouldn’t believe.

Oh no it’s buried in sand!

Sean to the rescue! He got the bike out easy. 🙂

nice shoes Sean

Next he demonstrated what to do if you dropped your bike halfway up a steep hill. (remember this hill and that sandpit, because they return later in the story…)

You stand on the uphill side, lean the bike towards you and wiggle the handlebars back and forth until you slide the front tire pointing downhill. Then you jump back on and ride off!

hill

I did it on the GS 🙂 I’d like a picture if anyone got one?

We went back to booth working until closing time and then ran off to happy hour and watched Mondo Enduro at the Austin Vince Film Festival. Eventually we wandered back to Aaron’s where we were staying the weekend.

I was really looking forward to the Overlanding from a Woman’s Perspective seminar on Saturday because there were some really cool chicks who did some really cool trips.

awesome chicks

That lady with the hat is Roseann and she put together the whole expo and also runs an awesome organization called Conserventures which is responsible for a number of different conservation projects.

And the lady talking is Lois Pryce, who has ridden a motorcycle from Alaska to South America and also from London to Cape Town.  She is largely responsible for getting my into dual sport bikes. 🙂

During the presentation where they let the audience ask questions and talk about their experiences, this girl Nikki got my attention. I spoke to her afterward and found out she rides with an Indian motorcycle club called 60KPH and has been in a movie called One Crazy Ride, which I had heard of and been meaning to check out. Well, we got to talking and I find out she’s been riding a Bullet for all her adventures and never been on a true dirt bike. I rolled Zeb out for her to take for a spin and once she got used to how incredibly tall he was, she really liked it!

Nikki

I love finding other chicks really into riding and Nikki truly is. If you think people are shocked by girls riding here, try being from India! She was an awesome chick and now I really want to visit India and go ride with her club haha!

After some more booth work we wandered out to the beginner rider course. It was nice to see Marisa on a bike again, she hasn’t been out on the TW much since Death in the Desert. I think that bike is just not the right fit for her, but she managed to borrow this NX250 and did quite well on the drills.

Marisa

We broke off into two groups (with Marisa and Sean in a different group than me) and my group practiced bike lifting techniques. If you are going to ride off road, you need to know how to do this. Trust me.

Then we did some cone drills.

Wheee cones!

CONES!

I was a little advanced for the beginner course, but practice is always good…and if you need to challenge yourself, just do it faster! Brian told me to do it in second gear and I did! Without slipping the clutch. I felt like a badass.

I convinced myself I was more badass than I am I think because I decided to go ride the recovery course (remember the hill and sand pit…), well I sped toward the hill and soared off the top of it!

Chris supposedly got a picture of me in the air and if I manage to get it from him I’ll post it up.

I landed a little sloppy but energized and made the turn, popping over the whoops while fantasizing I was a motocross racer…I got some air of the last one and then realized I was about to land, at speed, in the freaking sand trap. I landed hard, tried to throttle out, but in the end the bike dove and I flew over the handlebars, ass over elbows and somersaulted across the ground a couple times.

I jumped up and someone else came over and turned my fuel tank off because the fuel line had pulled loose and the bike was dumping fuel (remember this for later too). I checked myself over and decided I was okay before riding back over to the onlookers who gave me an applause.  I’m glad I was at least entertaining.

Sean had apparently dumped his bike as well and I went back to the booth to check on him. We were both pretty knackered and decided to ease our pains with some home remedies back at Aaron’s place.

APPLE PIE! Or is it pancake drink?

I had purchased One Crazy Ride, Riding Solo to the Top of the World and Terra Circa and we put on a little film fest of our own. A few other people came over to hang out and we had a good time. Such a good time that I need to rewatch all those movies and Sean couldn’t get up in the morning.  Those little jars contain a demonic and tasty beverage known as Apple Pie or Pancake Drink.  It’s -evil-.

I do remember though that Sean would yell “Hi Joe!” at the TV every time Joe was onscreen in Terra Circa. We were absolutely stunned to see him there. You see, we weren’t working the booth alone. Joe and Lara were our awesome boothmates and we spent a lot of time joking and poking fun at each other. Joe would often ask me for riding tips and I would share what I knew and then make fun of him for riding a Rokon (there’s nothing wrong with them, I kinda want to ride one but my joke was that you can’t be ‘good’ at riding a Rokon, it just plows over everything like a tank) so then we’re watching Terra Circa and Joe pops on the screen riding a DR350 on part of a round the world trip! What a punkass! Joe and Lara are also featured in Lois Pryce’s book Lois on the Loose…Lara is the chick who curses like a sailor. I got them to sign my book and Lara put some expletives in to make up for how well behaved she was at the booth.

Here’s Joe looking studious

Joe

And Lara modeling her kickass hoodie!

Lara

These two really made booth work a blast and were honestly two of the sweetest and most fun people I have had the pleasure of spending time with. I can’t wait to run into them again.

The other cool part about booth work was that Lois Pryce, Ted Simon and Austin Vince were set up right next door so we could chat with them when they weren’t busy. They were all really super folks.

I managed to snag a bunch of my heroes together for a picture. 🙂

AWESOME
Lorraine Chittock, Lois Pryce, Austin Vince, Me, Ted Simon & Gaurav Jani

My knee had turned funny colors from the previous days accident, but with coaxing from Joe, I decided to go out for the advanced ride and I’m really glad I did. It was a beautiful day and a nice trail I hadn’t ridden before.

This off camber curve was absolutely awesome!

There were a ton of wildflowers

We had a good mix of bikes

Cool people

Beautiful weather and a beautiful view!

Sean finally stumbled up around 4pm and we had some delicious barbecue, said our goodbyes and headed home. Sean took off on the ride to Aaron’s to pack up our stuff and I ran out of gas. I flicked it to reserve and continued on. My leg was starting to feel wet all the sudden. I pulled into the gas station to find my fuel line had popped off again and I was positively bathing in gasoline. I popped it back on, refueled and went over to Aaron’s to get myself. I grabbed my stuff apologized for smelling up his place and rode home for a nice shower. All in all a great weekend in spite of minor injuries and fuel leaks!

Full photo album HERE

Redington Ride

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I’m behind on my posting! In an attempt to catch up, I’ll keep this mostly pictures. 🙂

The crew:


Cathy


Dave


Allyn


Mikey


Skip


Cathy gets two for being photogenic.


Allyn looks tired out after manhandling my KLR

Action pics!


Sleepy bike.

A nice challenging ride with a little waterfall for the reward!

Cha-cha-Chiva!

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I maintain that this ride was a carefully orchestrated conspiracy between Skip, Cathy and Aaron. They took me out “to play around Redington Road” and next thing I knew, we were on the way to Chiva.

We met up with Emerson and his son for some easy but fun roads off of Redington first. It was nice riding with another noob, especially a kid. Everyone pars it back a notch and it’s just pleasant, fun riding.


The gang chillin’ at Chimney Rock

After a while we split off from Emerson and headed ‘across the street’ (code for ‘Becktastic pummeling grounds’).

The beginning roads to Chiva are twisty with some decent rock parts which were good practice and I didn’t feel intimidated…until the rocks and climbs started getting a lot bigger. Good line choice became paramount and it’s still something I really need to work on. A couple times a picked a crappy line, right at a big rock and tried to force the bike up with a handful of throttle. The little Zeb is a wheelie monster though so he just reared up like a wild mustang and dumped me on my ass. Two of those incidents on the way in, but otherwise okay even though I was all wide-eyed under my helmet on that steep downhill.

Finally we arrived at the falls!

I went down to wade in the pool while Aaron hiked to the top.


View from below.

The water was -really- cold, so I ditched the swimming idea and hiked up to join him at the top.


Those little dots are our bikes! And Skip and Cathy making out.

We hiked back down after giving Skip and Cathy sufficient “alone time”.


The crew and the falls


Cathy heads out on the KTM to get some pictures.


Do you believe Aaron rode that crap on a KLR? Didn’t go down once, but somehow dislodged his license plate (luckily another rider happened across it, so he’ll save a trip to the DMV!)

I probably should have relaxed more instead of hiking. I think I may have been a bit fatigued from the ride in or just letting the climbs and spills get to me…because I was just dropping the bike left and right on the return trip. So many of them there was just -no- reason for it. I started to get really pissed off at myself.

We came to that big downhill I had been all bug-eyed about, but now it was time to go -up-. Since I had just dropped it on a climb half the size, Skip kindly escorted Zeb up the mountain while I hoofed it.


Thanks Skip!


Cathy does the hill (you can see Skip and Aaron’s bikes at the top already)

I don’t know what got into me, but in spite of pep talks from the group, I just wasn’t getting back in the groove. Finally I tried pep talking Zeb. I told him he was an awesome bike and I knew he could it. A little loco I know, but it worked!

We had a kickass time after that!


A little climb.


Skip crossing the river.


Zeb crossing the river.


It was a beautiful day to be riding! (This and a bunch of other pictures stolen from Cathy)

Thanks for taking me out guys and for helping me pick up my bike a million times! Even though I wasn’t planning to ride Chiva yet, I’m glad I know what I’m up against and I have a new obstacle to guage my skill level on (since Death in the Desert has been conquered). My next hard ride should be a re-ride of Sibley, but then I’ll be down for another Chiva attempt!

A couple good close-ups:


I found out afterward that Emerson’s kid was having a tough time too…and it was even caught on film!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-HDHTIbTvk

Viva Mexico!

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Work and school have been killer lately and I was looking forward to doing a bike trip over Spring Break. I had wanted to go to Mexico, but plans just weren’t coming together. All my choice riding partners fell through and I didn’t really want to go alone, so I resolved to go ride near Phoenix instead.

I’m big on CouchSurfing so I went to see if I could find a host in the area (preferably one with a bike who might want to ride with me) and came across Perry.

Perry aka whiteknucklemc
Bike: 1150GS
Previous riding experience: Canada, Mexico and the US

For whatever reason (satellites I’m guessing), his profile declared he had recently logged in from somewhere in Switzerland and I was disappointed he probably couldn’t host me, but dropped him a message anyway.

He messaged back “I’m not in Switzerland, but I can’t host you this weekend anyway because I’m going to Mexico…however you can come with me if you want.”

I took it as a sign I was meant to go to Mexico after all and told him “Hell yes!”

I got up bright and early Thursday morning and slabbed it out on Ajo to meet Perry in Why. That’s such a weird name for a town and it’s like all the signs and shop names are rhetorical questions.

I need a bigger tank for the Zebra, I hit reserve just before Why and had to gas up at this casino.

I arrived at our meeting point extremely early and took pictures of motorcycles at the gas station. I thought this little Yamaha 400 was adorable.

Perry arrived, we said hello like we weren’t really complete strangers and headed off to the border together.

I had to get gas -again- at the border.

Crossing the border was a breeze. You just ride right through. There was heavy traffic but everyone was putting around so slowly it wasn’t scary at all. We just zipped around everything and hit the slab to Puerto Penasco.

There was a whole parade of these amusement park rides trucking along which made for exciting passing practice. I had one ‘holy crap’ moment where I cut it a little close, but otherwise it went pretty smoothly and before long we were there.

Perry had already arranged to Couch Surf down there and his hosts kindly let me stay there too.


Rita and Tommy (and I think the horse’s name was Nutmeg)

CouchSurfing Mexican style:

Perry made some crack that Sean would be watching the Spot all night to make sure it didn’t move over to the other couch!

After unpacking we set out to explore the town and found some sand dunes and Competition Hill.

That’s it in the background. Definitely the biggest and steepest pile of sand I’ve ever tried to climb up, but I thought why not and took off. I was going to wait for that jeep but they were so slow I just went…then they decided to run me down I guess.

I drop the bike at the end of that video, but I did manage to pick it up and ride back down. I let Perry borrow my bike to show my how it’s done (he wasn’t sure about doing it on the 1150GS)


Would you ride this up there?

I got back on and did the hill without incident…of course there’s no footage of that!

We were the only bikes out there and I asked the guy at the bike shop why it was just quads and he said there’s not much riding for bikes. I pointed out the dunes and Competition Hill and he said “Most folks can’t handle that” I was grinning my ass off after hearing that.

We found a restaurant with a nice view and had some shrimp at sunset.

The next morning our hosts made us burritos for breakfast.

I’m not sure it was the burritos Perry was really taking the picture of…

Rita was really excited about the new horse she bought “for her daughter” and we spent a lot of time chatting about horses. My parents have horses and I absolutely love them. I always think of my bikes as urban horses. She let me ride it!

They also had cute dogs. This is Negra.

And Taco, the little skin and bones puppy they rescued (she needs a home!)

There was a cute little parade as we were taking off.

I told Tommy I had dreams of riding my bike on the beach, so he led us on his DRZ away from the congested area to a more secluded beach where our bikes could frolic without penalty.

Beach!

Riding on the beach wasn’t so easy. Parts were fairly solid, but other parts were like quicksand. Perry got a workout on the GS.

I started to head back to where we came in, but Tommy said we were going to ride out down on the other side and zoomed off. As soon as he was out of sight, I buried my bike trying to turn around.

It took them a while to come back for me…because they were busy digging the GS out around the corner!

Perry made me ride the GS a little (not on the beach) and it was surprisingly easy to handle. I really thought I was going to drop it just because it was so heavy and I could barely touch the ground, but it wasn’t any worse than my KLR.

I don’t know what it is with guys and wanting me to ride their bikes, you would think the last thing they’d want to do is hand over their keys to some newbie rider chick?

There were some massive pelicans.

and lots of gulls

We hung out quite a while and then headed back home. We wanted to check out a mine, but my range was a limiting factor and we called it a day. Everyone was pretty exhausted though so it was probably for the best.

We gave the bikes a bath and I took a nap before heading out into town.

The guy at the shop was super nice and lubed my chain even though he was technically closed.

I like this statue.

The sun is going down again! Vacations are always too short…

We had some more shrimp and a couple cervesas on the water.

As we left the restaurant a massive pack of dogs chased Perry down the hill and I just laughed because they ignored my bike completely.

The next morning our hosts made pancakes (did I mention they were really awesome hosts?) and Perry and I packed up the bikes to slab it back home.

One of the most fun parts of the trip for me was when we got up to the border and saw the mile of cars waiting to get back in. Perry says he just blazes up to the front, so I followed him, but it was like running the gauntlet. We were riding across rutted dirt drainage areas, paved streets, sidewalks…at one point some people pushed a truck off the road down the hill right where I was riding! I felt like I was playing Frogger. Eventually we made it to the front and the guy running our lane went to lunch or something so we still had to wait a while.

We got through without issue and gave each other a big hug in Why as we split off to go home. Some way to make a new friend eh?

Powerline (un)Ride

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That icy ride back from Dragoon really knocked me for a loop. I came down with a wicked cold and wasn’t up for doing much of anything.

So it was almost two whole weeks before I jumped on the Zeb yesterday, oh my what fun that bike is! I had almost forgotten.

I rode down to Aaron’s house where Alan and Mike would be joining us later to ride. I showed up early so I could try riding his Gixxer. Bikes with that much power intimidate me, but he was insisting that I could (and should) ride it, so I finally worked up the courage.

I had horrible butterflies in my stomach as I went to get on the bike. I was convinced it would rocket off and do back flips as soon as I kicked it out of neutral.

In fact it was totally smooth and completely manageable and now I kinda want one. Though I would feel like a poser owning a bike like that and riding on the street all grandma like.

So we return back and Mike shows up on my KLR (poor guy doesn’t have his own dirtbike yet) and then takes the Gixxer for a spin while we grab some tacos. At the taco joint we all got to talking about dragging pegs on corners and on the way home Aaron tried to prove some kind of point by dragging the whole right side of his bike.  Dragged the peg clean off!

So Mike and I hang out and chat while Aaron runs to Ace and tries to reattach the poor peg. Alan finally arrives after taking a scenic tour of North Tucson by accident and we all eventually head out to ride.


The guys and the bikes

We played on some sandy trails and then hit the powerline trail for some nice ravine action.

 
Alan hill climbin’

Mike did great for being a dirt noob, didn’t drop my bike once! It was nice riding with him, good to see how I’ve improved. The last time we rode was Mt. Lemmon and he was leaving me in the dust, this time I was faster (of course he was at a disadvantage being on the KLR with me on the DRZ, but don’t burst my bubble!)


The KLR happy to get some more dirt action

I did trade back for a short bit and I was surprised how much easier that bike felt to me too. Damn it feels good to be getting the hang of this.

Well, Aaron banged his newly bolted footpeg on a rock and off it popped. We decide to head back with him to the main road and then maybe explore some more. We stopped at a crossroad for Alan to catch up. It’s odd he has fallen so far behind. I drop my bike from a standstill trying to turn around and go back for him and Aaron asks if I’m qualified for a search and rescue…hurm.


Aaron and Alan hanging out

Before I can pick it up and finish turning, Alan comes over the hill and declares he needs gas.

A funny thing about those XRs, half their gas is trapped on one side of the bike. Whenever he runs out, he has to throw it down and flip it over. Quite a sight.

So we all decide to call it a short day and head back for gas and repairs. By the time we return, the forks on Aaron’s KLR are badly weeping.

We decide it’s too much to think about fixing now, Sean stops by to hang out and we all settle in for beer and pizza.  Not much of a riding day, but good times none the less!

Dual Sport Desert Daze 2010 (Part 3)

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Sunday:

We had stayed up pretty late roasting hot dogs and chatting the night before, but when we ducked into the tent the sky was a clear blanket of stars. We had heard a winter storm was coming in our way, but thought maybe we had lucked out and it blew over.

I awoke in the middle of the night after dreaming our tent had flooded. In reality, the air mattress had just partially deflated to feel like a waterbed and I could hear the rain coming down hard.

I went back to sleep and when I reawakened it had calmed to a relaxed sprinkle. Sean and I packed all our stuff up in the tent and went for another awesome breakfast.

The rain ceased as we finished up and we ran out to take down the tent and throw our stuff in Raven’s truck before the rain started up again. (Big thanks to Raven for carrying that stuff for us, planning and promoting the whole event, getting stuff to raffle, doing everything and just generally being awesome!)

Wet bikes all packed up.

Just as we were finishing gearing up, it began to snow!

We wanted to say goodbye, but opted to get out while the getting was good and booked it to the freeway.

I don’t know why I didn’t pack my waterproofs, but I will not make that mistake again.

Riding down the freeway in the freezing rain, in dirt gear was among the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. It was more or less waterproof for about 20 minutes and then I was soaked to the bone. I had pulled my Buff bandanna thing over my nose and mouth and I was thinking it was nice I had that or the rain hitting my face would probably hurt.

Then it fell down off my mouth and the rain felt like needles.

It took us about an hour and half to get to Vail. By that time I was shivering violently, my fingers were frozen to the bars and I was alternating cursing and whimpering pathetically in my helmet. I was truly misearable and on the verge or tears, but as they say “There’s no crying in dirt bikes.”

I ran into the gas station in Vail and worshiped the hand dryer in the bathroom for an eternity. Eventually I dried out enough to crawl back on the bike for another 20 minutes of cold, wet riding home.

A long, hot bath later I was feeling about normal.

But geez, what a day.

Dual Sport Desert Daze 2010 (Part 2)

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Saturday:

The ranch included breakfast with tent camping and it was deeeeelicious!
Nothing beats a massive hot breakfast before a long day of riding.

We stuffed our faces and then played around waiting for Aaron to roll in from Tucson and a few other people to finish eating.

I was really excited about riding over this rock.

I think I need a trials bike.

I really liked the casual way the rally was put together, there were gps tracks made available and maps laid out with routes color-coded by difficulty. You picked your route, found some buddies and explored at will.


Riders plotting a course.


People starting to gather in front of the saloon.


I thought this bike was really cute.

There were -a lot- of KLRs


KTMs were well represented too!


Karensa, another badass ADV lady. I also met Maren, who owns a green ’08 KLR. I suggested the three of go for a ride sometime, a whole rainbow of chicks on new model KLRs!


Aaron’s bike posed by some cool rocks.

We took a few minutes to crawl up them.

Here I am sneaking behind him like a ninja!

Or trying not to fall…whatever. Those MX boots aren’t too great for rock climbin’.

Thomas joins us on his GS with street tires.

We decide to join another group of bigger bikes planning a route of easy dirt to the border road.


The whole gang at the first rest stop.

One of the KLRs decides it doesn’t really want to go again.

Aaron, our resident KLR whisperer; diagnoses, dissasembles and repairs the bike in no time.

There’s your problem, dirt where it doesn’t belong. A couple grains of sand on the float needle were all it took to take the pig out.

We proceeded down long stretches of graded dirt and gravel roads. All the big bikes were flying up at 70+mph, my bike didn’t really want to do that and at 50 it got a bad wobble going on, so I plugged along around 45 to meet them at the top. The last bit did get nice and winding though.

We let a little air out of my tires and it felt much better on the gravel after that.

It also got a little rougher, so I stood on the pegs and the bike just feels better to me like that. I was finally keeping up with the group as we hit the border road.

That part was really fun for me. It was pretty well graded, but rough enough to be interesting and had steep, smooth hill climbs and descents. It was like a roller coaster!

I recalled our guide Bret saying there was a very steep one “You’ll know it when you see it!” where we would stop to regroup. My eyes widened as I approached a very steep climb. I throttled up and realized there was no one waiting…that means there is a -bigger- one!

I continued along, pondering how much steeper it could possibly be and then I saw it, the mother of all steep climbs. I wasn’t going to stop and lose momentum, so I just throttled over and then used all my concentration to stop on the top and not to launch into the stack of bikes waiting.

Sean was nice enough to make this elevation profile though to give you an idea.

We waited for a while and discovered Thomas and James hadn’t been seen for miles. I was worried about them, but the group decided there were plenty of Border Patrol to help out if there had been a problem and it was most likely the GS was struggling on its knobless tires and they just turned off.

I tried to restart my bike to leave, but it would just stall. Aaron pushed me down the hill to bump start it. It stalled again further up the road when we stopped and we figured out it was just the clutch lever adjustment, it had jiggled loose and wasn’t engaging properly. Just as we fixed it, Thomas and James rolled up!

Apparently James’ rack had given up on him and they abandoned it in the desert.

We then did a bunch of zip tie repairs to a KLR rack and my license plate, which has started splitting in half.

From here the group split up, several heading back to Tucson while the rest of rode some twisty dirt and pavement back to the ranch.

I took a long hot shower and watched the sunset.

Dual Sport Desert Daze 2010 (Part 1)

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Friday:

I had hoped to get an early start Friday, but one of my classes had a mandatory quiz, once I finished that up I met with James to head out to the Desert Daze Rally


Riding Buddies

He had google mapped a route to take us all the way there almost completely by dirt. Genius! If you are going to ride a distance like that, may as well make it fun!

It started out on some familiar trails Southeast of Houghton and Sahuarita Rd. We popped up over my favorite hill jump (didn’t stop for pics this time) and onto the ‘lake’.


This pic and some others by James
From there we rode in the wash under a bridge/culvert thing. Here’s the mouth of the wash where it spits you back out onto a road again.



Takin’ a break under a tree.

You can see how reflective my stripes are in this pic!

We rode some twisty dirt that turned into a ribbon of twisty pavement.

Really nice views and cool rock formations.

The road was nice and varied, not just in texture, but color.

The road signs are no help when all we have are waypoints…

James consults his GPS.



We missed a waypoint.

Oh well, let’s ride…uh, that way!

We started following a gasline road and it crossed these deep, steep and rocky gorges. Ever since the Sibley Mansion incident, these things have made me a bit squeamish, but the first one wasn’t too bad and they got just a bit worse one by one.  James asked if I was comfortable continuing and I said “yeah, it’s not completely absurd yet.” I had just gotten my SPOT back from recall and I was feeling pretty good about attempting somewhat risky terrain.

…but then I came across this one:

Pictures always flatten things out, but I think that tree in the middle gives you a good sense of how steep that drops off.
“Okay, now it’s absurd.”
We just passed a fork and I declare we should try that way instead.
Then I drop the bike turning around.

The other fork took us on some very loose rock with twists and climbs.

James coming down a hill where he was scouting better options.

We did a seemingly endless string of loose rock climbs and descents before hitting this gorge.

I wasn’t going back, so I just plowed on through.

That little dot is me!

When the going got rough, we decided I should lead. That way I could set the pace and James would be right there if I ran into trouble. Well I was zipping along happily and came to a good hill to wait for him. I briefly felt proud that I got up there so far ahead, getting out my camera to catch and action shot of him riding through.

…then I realized I didn’t even -hear- his bike and got worried.
I rode back down and found him trying to fix his homemade rack.


(This picture obviously taken at another time…there were no trucks out where we were…or any signs of life for that matter!
It’s just a prototype. 😉

Eventually he got it secured enough and we carried on.

I got my photo!


Stopping to rest on a hill.

At this point we decided we had truly turned ourselves around backwards and high-tailing it to the interstate to slab it down to Dragoon was the only hope in making it to the rally before dark.

After more twisty, rocky, secluded riding we finally spotted civilization!


The interstate!

We popped out on the side of the freeway, with semi-trucks flying past and no on ramp. We looked at our little 400’s and then at each other, agreeing this would be far scarier than anything we attempted all day!

We somehow made it to Benson without getting squished, ran into another ADV rider at the gas station and the three of us made our way down to the ranch and set up camp.

I actually had to move the tent because I couldn’t put stakes in here, but dang it looked cool nested in the rocks. The rocks in the Dragoons are truly fantastic!

Sean rolls in after work about the time I’m done setting up…how convenient.

We hung out at the Saloon, cooked hot dogs over the fire and talked about bikes!

There were a ton of people there, I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout!