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Introduction: The Trans-America Trail is the product of an incredible amount of effort by one man, Sam Correro. His quest was to create a coast-to-coast route across the USA without using tar roads...or using them as little as possible. When I first read about this undertaking I was in awe but I am now even more impressed after having ridden most of the western half of the trail. One night about four years ago I was up very late working on an assignment for my doctoral studies. Taking a break, I scanned some motorcycle websites and came across mention of the Trans-Am Trail. I was fascinated and immediately decided that a trip on the TAT would be my gift to myself upon the completion of my doctorate. Mike and I did a lot of research and because he had use of a house in Texas and the fact I had limited time, we decided to ride from Oklahoma to the west. What follows is the story of two guys who happened to have the right bikes, understanding families, and enough time off to undertake this odyssey.
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Day 1 7.10.2007 |
This was a transit day from our western base, Granbury, to an Oklahoma town very close to where we'd pick up the trail. All tar ride. We got a late start because I'd flown in around midnight the night before. After packing and double checking the bikes, we started our day with a great Mexican lunch at el Señor Ayala's restaurant in Granbury. During lunch we talked about the differences in our bikes. Mike said "Yours (KTM 950 Adv.) looks like a stallion. Mine (BMW GSA) is more Shrek-like." In the pic to the left you can get a good idea for Mike's approach to packing the bike. He used one long strand of rope to hold down various river bags, a canteen, an extra helmet, and his Crocs. I soon dubbed this conglomeration "the hobo pack". Stomachs full of tortilla chips and burritos we headed out and made it to Boiling Springs State Park in Woodward, Oklahoma by 8:00 pm and set up camp. A great place to camp except for the throngs of mosquitos that had been brought out by the unusual amount of summer rain they'd had recently.
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Day 2 7.11.2007 |
It was a short tar ride from Woodward to Buffalo, OK where I had plotted a GPS point of the trail at an intersection with a state route. We took a couple pictures, shook hands, said encouraging things, and hit the trail. Much of Oklahoma is laid out into a grid with dirt roads forming 1-mile-by-1-mile squares. Initially the riding wasn't very interesting or challenging, but it was a good way to initiate ourselves to the trail. Mike took the lead and took off in a huge cloud of dust. It was hard for me to pace him because I was hanging back so far I couldn't tell how fast he was going. Soon we fell into a riding rythm and probably got a little too complacent. Halfway through the day pockets of baby-powder-like sand started popping up and they were certainly an eye-opener. Mike handled them much better than I could. The skinny front tire of the KTM would instantly and violently knife into the sand and try to throw me off. Often the bars would shake from one steering stop to the other...a very scary thing at 40 or 50mph. So, I learned to look hard and spot these slight changes in color in the road and slow down....way down. Later on we, and by we I mean Mike, experienced our first minor crash. At an intersection we found the remnants of a big mud puddle left from the aforementioned unusual rains. Mike was in the lead at the time. He steered around the puddle to the right but when he tried to drop back onto the road he hit a greasy patch and spun the rear around in a slow low-side spill. He and the bike were OK, but it took all the strength of the two of us to lift that bike up while our feet slid out from under us in the grease. We rode into Boise City, OK for gas and Mike talked a guy at the local public works garage into letting him use their power washer to get the greasy mud out of the cooling fins of his motor. We noticed the sun was getting low so we needed a plan for the night. GPS pointed us to Clayton, NM where there was a KOA. So, we hustled along the trail to the NM border, took a picture of the state line sign and rode tar to the campground
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Day 3 7.12.2007 |
An absolutely perfect and beautiful day. A bright clear sky with moderate temps, we had great conditions. The terrain really changed as soon as we crossed the border into NM. Hillier and thicker soil, the riding was great. Speeds varied from 70's on the straights to slipping the clutch in 1st gear on a few tight switchbacks. On NM route 370 I came very close to hitting a cow. I had slowed from about 65mph to 30 or so when I saw her standing on the side of the road. I took a line on the opposite side, but when I approached she darted across right in front of me. It didn't take me long to catch up to Mike on the crash tally. We made a small navigation error and accidentally ended up on a private ranch road for about 0.2mi. We realized the mistake and doubled back. I dropped into a greasy puddle with my front tire in one rut and the rear in another. This was a 2-second lesson in the differences between the heavily loaded 950 and my 450exc. On the exc, just gas it, wheelie, and power out of it. On the 950, gassing it produced a wicked rear-end slide. It dipped to the left, turned 90 degrees to the left and then promptly high-sided ejecting me about 15 feet down the trail. Unfortunately, the helmet cam was not running at the time.....that's my story. Soon thereafter we climbed a mesa up a tight set of rocky switchbacks and crossed into Colorado. The only indication of crossing a state line in this remote location was the grey line on the GPS screen. At this point my low-fuel light came on leaving me about 45 miles range. We'd planned this and assumed that the next town on the route, Branson, CO, would have a gas station. We'd assumed wrong. We stopped at the town's office and a nice lady gave us directions to the nearest gas station 17 miles away. We headed off following her directions only to find the road became more and more remote. We stopped and decided that the directions must have been wrong. We turned back to a large ranch that we'd just passed to ask directions. Instead the rancher volunteered to sell us some of his gas. A super nice guy, we talked with him and his son for about 20 minutes, each paid him $20, and got back underway. After lunch we crossed through the San Isabel National Forest. Views were spectacular and the riding was perfect with lots of gravel road twisties and good traction on the ascent to 10,000 feet. The descent, however, was quite a different story. The roads were very marbly and attention to detail was very important. At one point I stopped to take a leak. When I got back on the bike it wouldn't start. The starter wouldn't turn. I tried pop starting it but no spark. I got really worried and my heart rate climbed. Then I realized the problem. I'd accidentally knocked the kill switch into the OFF position. I took a deep breath and rode on to find Mike coming back to find out what was wrong. We pulled into the little town of La Veta, CO which was suggested as a stopping point on the routesheet. It was only 2:00 and decided to gas up and pound out another 100 miles to Westcliffe. We got to Westcliffe and found no rooms at the inn. The town did not have a camp ground (just an RV park) and all of the hotel rooms were booked. Seemed that we happened upon a Bluegrass festival. A guy outside the bowling alley could tell that we were looking for a place to stay and said that there was festival camping in the field next door and showers could be had for $5 at the health club up the road. So that's what we did and it worked out great.
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Day 4 7.13.2007 |
Westcliffe, CO to Gunnison, CO While breaking camp in Westcliffe I noticed that I'd been riding the previous day with a stowaway. At some point in the previous day I'd collected a small bird between the oil tank and left-side fuel tank. He was long dead. For the past two days, birds had been harassing me by flying up out of the bush and right at my head as I'd ride by. This guy got too close and paid the price. Out of Westcliffe we rode ranch roads to Cotopaxi where the trail got a lot more interesting. We climbed a beautiful pass through pines and aspen trees up close to the tree line. Views were spectacular and the conditions were perfect. At the top the routesheet instructed us to take a left for the descent but we found a road closed sign. Using the GPS we found a very easy go-around by heading straight at this intersection down to Missouriville where we picked up the trail again. We made our way down to Salida, CO. We didn't know it at the time, but we were going to be spending more time here than we'd planned to. Coming out of a Subway after lunch Mike spotted a nail head in his tire. This was a very lucky discovery rather than having it go flat in the middle of nowhere. Just up the road we found an ATV dealer who agreed to let Mike use his compressed and then Mike got to work on pulling the nail and plugging the hole. While he worked on that I went down the road and picked up a can of tire slime as a backup measure to the plug. We finished up and headed out of town to find the trail that was designated as a bypass for riders on big bikes like ours. We got it wrong and got on the highway in the wrong direction. Back to Salida and through town in right direction. We found the trailhead and hit some great trail up a pass to a campground at a mountain lake. Unfortunately, a gentleman there told us that the road to Sargents was washed out and that we'd have to go back to Salida (for the 3rd time) and take the road around on Marshall Pass. It was a pretty road, but clogged with RVs and semis. On the way down the pass, Mike dropped his camera as he took a picture while riding. He was lucky to get back to it before it was run over and found it in working condition. On my ride down the pass a woman in the car in front of me nearly swerved off the road and off the mountain! I hit my horn a few times and then held down the horn as I passed her quickly. We stopped for gas at Sargents at the bottom of the pass. A woman pulled up and got out of the car I'd just seen. She said "Are you the guy that was honking at me?" I thought we were about to have an argument. Instead she said "Thank you for honking, I was really, really, tired." I told her to take a nap and take care of herself. We'd lost a good amount of time fixing the flat and doubling back into Salida so it was late. Sargents was just barely big enough to have a gas station but no lodging. We took 30 miles of tar into Gunnison and got a room at a motel where the very kind owner let us use her hose to clean up the bikes.
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Day 5 7.14.2007 |
We decided to ride tar from Gunnison to Lake City and picked up the trail there. While we were in Lake City, Mike decided he wanted to offload some of the stuff he'd been lugging around in the hobo pack. We found a little store called Storm Front Gallery where the owners were nice enough to open 30 minutes early for us so that we could UPS some stuff home. They gave us a large box and Mike and I filled it with 26 pounds of stuff we didn't want to carry anymore. My contribution to the 26 pounds was a set of elbow guards, knee guards, and a camping mess kit. The rest was Mike's. Out of Lake City we headed into the heart of the Rockies, up Cinnamon Pass. We were having a blast riding up the beautiful jeep road when our second flat of the trip struck. Mike had a front tire that had deflated immediately after hitting a sharp rock. Sounded like a pinch flat. We hopefully got out the plug kit thinking that perhaps two plugs in the same 1/2" long hole would plug it. It worked, but when we tried to inflate it we found another 1/2" hole in the sidewall. Things were not looking good until I suggested we take one of my spare tubes and use it as a temporary fix to get us off the mountain. It worked and we were on our way in about an hour. He couldn't have picked a prettier place to get a flat, though. Up and over Cinnamon pass was incredible riding and incredible scenery. On our way down we made a navigational error and ended up descending a trail that would have been a challenging section in a NETRA enduro. Very steep and covered in 12" loose rocks, we were the only people on this trail...and with good reason. We were now well off the trail and in need of a 19" Continental TKC80 tire. We got directions to Silverton from a local and headed there; Mike gingerly riding over each rock trying to preserve his wounded tire. When we got to Silverton we found the town had no motorcycle dealer of any kind. We parked on the side of Main St. and guy and his son parked next to us in a decked-out Toyota FJ Cruiser. He complimented us on our bikes and told us that 200 FJ's were in the area for some kind of rally. When the guy stepped out of the truck we could see that he had a prosthetic leg below the knee. He told us that he used to ride a Ducati quite a bit until a drunk driver hit him. Terrible. We got on the phone and used the GPS to try to find the nearest motorcycle shop of any brand. With the sidewall now splitting open, we were both picturing ourselves stuck in Silverton for days. While Mike was on the phone with a dealer in Durango I spotted a gentleman riding by on a BMW GS and flagged him down. I told him my buddy needed a tire for his bike and he replied "Well, you're in luck. There's an adventure rally in town this weekend. There's a dealer there with a trailer and he's got tires." Incredible luck that got even more incredible. We met the tech from Colorado BMW Ducati and he explained that his last set of TKC80s was actually sold last night, but the buyer brought them back wanting a more street-oriented tire. We mounted the front and Mike strapped the new rear to the hobo pack and we were on our way by 2:30. While Mike was working on his tire I had a chance to talk with Michael Murray, one of the producers of the movie Road Less Traveled about the Trans-Am Trail who was at the rally to present the movie. Like I said, incredible luck we had. Out of Silverton we headed to Ophir and picked up the trail again. On to Dunton and a road numbered 727. This was 13 miles of some of the most technical riding on the trip. Slow, bumpy, and relentless, there were lots of ruts, rocks, and obstacles that were a big challenge on big bikes. We finished this section at 7:00 pm and looked for the nearest possible lodging on the GPS. We headed for Dolores but found a campsite in Stoner before we got there. We met Larry, the owner, and his family who ran the campground and restaurant there. We had great conversation with these good people. We asked Larry if he knew the weather forecast for the next day and he replied "If it don't happen on these 5 acres I don't know about it." Beginning in Lake City I had some hard-starting issues with the KTM. I'd read a lot on ADVrider.com about this and knew it was likely some kind of pressure imbalance in the canister connected to the fuel system. After dinner I unplugged a hose under the right side of the skidplate and some goop came out. I hoped that that would fix the issue. We didn't know it at the time, but this would be our last night camping. I'd hoped to camp much more but many of the towns we stayed in did not have campgrounds. Another factor was the very cheap hotel rates. We rarely paid more than $60 for a room. After a long, hot day on the trail AC was nice to have...I'll admit.
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Day 6 7.15.2007 |
This was the day we said goodbye to the Rockies. Out of Stoner we rode some fabulous tar twisties to get back on the trail. One on the trail again the roads were a wide, manicured, fine red gravel that just unrolled in front of us like they were custom-made for our big bikes. The scenery was up close and personal and seemed to fill every bit of my goggle lens with color. It was hard to keep my eyes on the road. We crossed into Utah near Monticello and then proceded on to Moab. It was blazingly hot in Moab and this was where I committed an error that would be my biggest scare of the trip. After lunch we got back on the bikes and found the seats were now at least 150 degress from baking in the sun. A short ride up the tar took us to the trailhead and into some of the area's famous slickrock. Going was slow but very fun over the large, smooth rock outcroppings. About 6 miles into this section the KTM began running very poorly. Sputtering and stalling at low RPM and running the hottest it had all trip (6 of 7 bars on the dashboard indicator). Thoughts of being stuck in this hellish heat were hard to keep out of my mind. At a turn I told Mike about it, took the lead, and never stopped until I reached the next tar road. If I was going to need a rescue I wanted to be accessible. When I got off the bike Mike noticed that the bike was pissing some kind of liquid from the left side. After checking to be sure it wasn't a cracked tank I verified that it was coming from the tank vent areas. I had read about this and immediately opened both gas caps. The right tank was brimming full and the left was down 5 inches. I realized my mistake. I had overfilled the tanks in Moab and as the fuel expanded in the heat the lack of proper fuel venting was made worse by the aggressive trail conditions. I let it sit for 5 minutes while we plotted a tar route to Green River, the next town with a hotel. Ten minutes down the road the bike was running perfectly and my blood pressure got back close to normal. I was kicking myself for creating my own problem.
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Day 7 7.16.2007 |
Green River, UT to UT/NV Border at Route 50 Out of Green River the trail was faint and little-used compared the manicured roads from the day before. This is where the route sheet started to make liberal use of the words "Find It". The trail soon turned more challenging than we'd seen so far. We made a wrong turn and dropped into a dry creek bed instead of the prescribed trail. It was easy to do because there were plenty of dirtbike tracks there. I was leading around a couple corners in this bed. I stopped briefly in a big sand wash and then kept going. Mike stopped behind me and didn't keep going. His rear was buried up to the hub. We dug a little and lifted the bike to make a quick ramp of rocks under the wheel and the bike came out on the first try. No big deal but we were not willing to take these bikes through 15 miles of this. Neither of us would have a clutch left if we had. We turned around and got on the real trail but found more of the same conditions. We swallowed our pride and got back on the tar to go around this section to find the defined Big Bike Bypass at exit 105. But, exit 105 was nowhere to be found so we kept going about 10 more miles until the trail got close to the highway again and got on a very fun frontage road that ran alongside I-70 for about 13 miles. The road had cool tunnels and a great rythm and pace. On this frontage road I came around a corner to find 2 squirrels in the middle of the track, legs-up and twitching. At the next stop I asked Mike if that was him and he sadly said that it was. He'd killed 2 squirrels within 100 feet of each other. Weird. We pulled into Cove Fort at the intersection of I-70 and I-15. We had heard and seen evidence of wild fires in the area and were worried that they might block our trip across the next section, the Black Rock Desert. We came across a forestry worker who told us the road was OK so we gassed up and headed out. The picture on the left shows how the road worked as a fire break. Left side is burned, right is not. The ride across the desert was much more exciting than we'd planned. The weather couldn't have been better. It actually rained a little and was overcast. The downside of this weather was that lightning strikes were all around us and we were both really worried about getting hit. Once past the storm, we did the rest of the 80 miles at a quick rate...usually above 75mph. The bikes were perfectly suited to this kind of riding and the riders learned as they went. We pulled into the prescribed hotel in State Line, Nevada. Except, State Line doesn't appear on any maps or the GPS. It's not a town just an outpost of sorts in the middle of the desert.
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Day 8 7.17.2007 |
UT/NV Border at Route 50 to Eureka, NV We picked up the Nevada trail at mile 70 and had a beautiful ride for most of the day. The roads were smooth and flowing ranch roads with just a little bit of really nice double-track mixed in. Riding was great, weather was hot and dry. Very, very remote areas we traveled through. One of which was the ghost town of Hamilton. Pretty cool stuff. After lunch, the trail conditions changed pretty drastically. We did about 40 miles of rocky, sandy double-track. We were about 30 miles from Eureka, NV when Mike got his third and final flat of the ride. This time it was the rear. He was still carrying the spare tire from the pair that he purchased back in Silverton so we were in OK shape. We got to work on the change in the blistering sun. Mike had to use a long dead branch to prop up the back end of the bike in order to avoid unloading the whole hobo pack. The tire change went well but getting the bead to seat on this tubeless tire was another matter. We took turns with the hand pump and even tried two of my CO2 cartridges but without luck. We just couldn't get a big enough volume of air into the tire fast enough. So, we had to use one of my spare tubes, again. As we were finishing three other TAT riders came upon us, stopped, and lent a hand. They were on a Husky 450, a Husky 520, and an XR650. They were nice enough, but gave us some ribbing for riding big bikes on the trail. That's OK, when the trail opened up again we left them behind. Not too much later we rolled into Eureka and got a room. Mike then had to pull his rear tire to remove my tube, install a valve stem, and then reinflate with compressed air at the gas station next door. That made a grand total of five tire changes due to three flats.
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Day 9 7.18.2007 & Day 10 7.19.2007 |
Eureka, NV to Sparks, NV & Sparks, NV to Alturas, CA Last night we had a chance to talk with some people in town and found out that I-80 was completely closed at a town called Battle Mountain because of wild fires. Well, Battle Mountain was supposed to be our next destination. With that in mind and the really dangerous state of my rear tire we decided to make this day a road ride to get some maintenance done for both bikes. I was carrying a listing of all the KTM dealers in the states we'd visit. I called the nearest one in Sparks, NV, Nevada Motorcycle Specialties. With luck they had a rear TKC80 in stock so I asked them to hold it for me and we set out on the 250-mile road ride to get there. We rode US-50 which is called "The Loneliest Road in America"....how true. This was actually tougher than most of our trail rides. The crosswinds were severe. About 50 miles outside of Eureka I nolonger could see Mike's headlight behind me. I pulled over and he soon caught up. He told me that he'd lost his Sidi Combat Boots that were tied to the hobo pack. He acutally found one boot under his rear fender, wedged between the tire and the sub-frame. The tire had worn a good-size hole in it. He was bummed; not so much by the cost of the boots but by the fact that he'd just gotten them broken in. The Nevada Motorcycle Specialties guys were super hospitable. They let us do our work under an EZ-Up in their back lot. I changed my tire and oil. Mike did an oil change too. The hotel we were staying in looked pretty shady and we were a little afraid for the security of the bikes. When I finished with my work I asked Alan the parts guy about buying a chain lock. They didn't have any in stock, but very generously offered to keep the bikes at the shop over night for us. We offered to pay rent for the night but they refused so we showed up the next morning with pastries from the Mexican pastelería across the street. That morning we had a great chance to talk with a Sparks cop that rode. We spent about 20 minutes with him going over the NV/CA maps. We were lookingto get back on the trail where it began in Oregon and he pointed out a really nice road ride for us up to Alturas, CA where we got some great Mexican food and a room for the night. Just before we arrived in Alturas we came up to a construction zone. In the west, construction on two-lane roads is typically done with one lane closed and marked by a worker with a lollipop stop sign. Mike and I pulled up first in line at this worker. I came to a stop and couldn't get my left leg out...my shoe was wedged in somewhere near the peg. The bike did a slow-motion fall to the left. I got my leg out and caught the bike when it was well past 45 degrees but it was too late. The bike tipped over right in front of the lollipop guy, Mike, and the SUV full of people behind us. Other than that, this was a nice rest day getting ready for the final trail push to the OR coast.
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Day 11 7.20.2007 |
Thankfully, this was a fun and uneventful day. We rode out of Alturas and picked up the trail in Lakeview, OR. The trail was beautiful red gravel logging roads. We made good time and had a blast taking in the forest and meadow scenery. After gas, the trail changed and was much more challenging than the morning. We now rode on tight, sandy, rocky two-track that required constant attention to the 3" deep sandy ruts that we were forced to take as a slow pace. We barely had time to notice the bobcat that ran in front of me....pretty cool, none the less. Somewhere around noon Mike realized that he did not have his cell phone. On a stroke of luck he called the hotel in Alturas and they had it. They mailed it to Texas for him. Near the end of the day the trail took us onto an abandoned rail bed. It was the same red gravel we'd seen all day, but this time it was piled about 12 feet high and just dropped off on each side. This was very technical riding on the big bikes because of the loose conditions and ruts. When we got into Crescent we could not find a hotel room or campground. The nearest other options were almost an hour away. Mike talked to a lady at one of the booked hotels and she suggested a boardng house down the road. With a little trepidation we checked it out and met the owner, Mike. It turned out to be a very clean and friendly place with just two other guests for the night. The owner even let us put our bikes in his garage for the night.
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Day 12 7.21.2007 |
Crescent, OR to Canyonville, OR Another outstanding day of riding! Today's terrain was all grey gravel roads carved into the side of the Oregon mountains. It looked like a gravel version of Deal's Gap. Constant winding twisties that took us up and down beautiful passes. The designated gas stop was called Tiller, OR. When we got there, we rode through town three times before we realized THAT WAS THE TOWN. Tiller actually just consisted of one general store/video rental/burger joint/gas station. We missed it twice because it was hard to see the single old-fashioned gas pump around the side. We gassed up and got a quick lunch and headed back out to lots of the same excellent riding. We hit a stopper in a big way at mile 421. The trail suddenly got much steeper and narrow as it wound up a pass. On the edge of a sheer drop the trail turned 90 degrees right and sharply uphill on a sandy path with 10" loose rocks. Mike was leading at the time and buried his rear wheel on his first attempt. His second attempt is in the video to the left. It took us about 20 minutes to get his bike off of that hill and get us both turned around to look for a bypass. The trail maps offered no good go-around so we GPS-ed ourselves into Canyonville for the night. We got a room and headed a couple miles up the road to the local casino for dinner. The food was pretty terrible and the atmosphere was no different from Mohegan Sun.....lots of people who seem to be addicted to gambling, eating, smoking, drinking and whatever else you can think of. When we got back to the room Mike and I congratulated each other on such a successful trip and looked forward to an easier next day because it was only 150 trail miles instead of the typical 200-250. This was a mistake.
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Day 13 7.22.2007 |
Canyonville, OR to Port Orford, OR - THE COAST! On the last day the trail would not surrender to us without a fight. Because it was fewer miles we'd convinced ourselves that we'd be having drinks on the beach by 2:00pm. Not even close! The trail was again beautiful and a pleasure to ride. Grey gravel roads that took us up and down Oregon's spectacular scenery with lots of beautiful openings in the trees provided by the logging industry that seemed to be everywhere. What we failed to notice in looking at the maps and route the night before was that there was no gas/lunch stop on this day. It was 150 miles of trail and nothing else. It turned out that this was one of the most remote days of the whole trip. We rode for hours without seeing another soul. Our average speed was down from the previous two days because of very twisty conditions with some tight ATV trail thrown in to keep it plenty interesting. Closer to the coast we got into the very impressive redwoods. After about 110 miles the low-fuel light on my dashboard came on indicating I had about 1.5 gallons left. Because of the slower, more technical pace I had gone through the first 4.5 gallons quickly. I quickly estimated my mileage to be only 24mpg. With 38 miles remaining it was going to be close...very, very close. I told Mike about my fuel condition at the next turn. At this turn the routesheet said "Ignore Road Closed Sign". So we did. It was another typically beautiful road on the side of a forested mountain. About 5 miles into it we found the trail unpassable, blocked by a huge rockslide. We were forced to turn back to the last intersection; burning more of my dwindling fuel. On the GPS we found a tar route to a coastal town called Gold Beach. It was a little disheartening because it meant that we weren't going to finish the trail into Port Orford as we'd been planning for a year. Luckily, the road that had been blocked actually came to an intersection with the bypass that we were now on. I pulled over and discussed the options with Mike: 45 miles of tar to Gold Beach that I felt certain I could do on my remaining fuel OR 36 miles of trail that I was fairly certain I could do on my remaining fuel. I decided it would be something I'd regret forever if I didn't take the chance on the trail. So, I took my 1 liter bottle of emergency fuel out of my saddle bag, dropped it in the tank and off we went. Luckily, from this point to the coast was about 75% downhill. I was able to pull in the clutch and coast a lot of the time. Later we found another trail marked "Road Closed Ahead" and we heeded this warning. It was only about 6 miles from the end but it forced us into a 12 mile bypass. We soon popped out onto US-101 just north of Port Orford. We stopped at the first gas station we saw where I put 5.45 gallons into my 5.8-gallon tanks. We got ourselves a room with a view of the rocky Oregon coast, showered, ate, and then took the bikes down to the beach for some triumphant pictures.
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Days 14-17 |
Port Orford, OR to Granbury, TX These were transit days back to the house in Texas. Except for the first day riding down the OR and NorCal coast in the redwoods it was hot, very hot. We did as many miles per day as we could stand. Three of the days were well over 500 miles and one of those was about 620. That's a ton of miles on a bike with a tiny fairing and knobby tires. Mentally it was torture. Very boring for a long time. In the video to the left you can see that I'm using my crash bars as hi-way pegs at 80mph while shooting video with one hand. There is just nothing out there on the plains of Texas. We got back to Granbury and finished the trip the way we started, with a nice meal at el Señor Ayala's restaurant. According to my odometer the trip was 5,275 miles. But early on we discovered that my odometer read almost 10% slow due to tire-size issues. So using Mike's odo we think the number is closer to 5,800 miles.
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Epilogue: It was an incredible trip and each day I felt fortunate for being able to do it. I'm also very thankful that Mike was interested in this odyssey. I've read reports of guys doing this ride solo but I certainly would not want to. There were physical, mechanical, technical, and emotional challenges along the way but in the end it was definitely worth the hardship and this is a journey that I would strongly recommend to anyone who feels the passion to spend part of their life on two wheels. The bikes we rode are called "adventure-class". This trip certainly embodied that moniker. The ability to do long stretches of dirt and paved road meant that there was very little terrain beyond our reach. As you've read, several times we were forced to invent our own bypasses. With the help of GPS this was never much of a concern thanks to the capability of the bikes we chose to ride. Some of the trail sections might have been faster, more enjoyable, or more possible on a smaller trail bike, but when I consider the sum total of what we accomplished there would be no other bike that I'd choose for the job. And, of course, it was great to come home to my wife, Linda. She did such a good job of pretending that she was interested in my motorcycle stories when I phoned in most nights. My thanks to her for putting up with this thing that has been an obsession of mine for the last four years.
AJG, Ed.D. 2007 |
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