THE PLAN
Sitting in our favorite moto-themed bar, the TT Roadhouse, one Tuesday night, just a couple days after finishing a few hundred mile group ride over the past long weekend, I hatched an idea for a new ride – Four states in four days. The ride was to cover Arizona, Utah, Colorado, & New Mexico. Some ideas and routes were kicked around the table. Eventually my good friend and riding partner Charles took the lead on this one and started planning. A few emails back and forth, a couple more stops at the TT, and we had a pretty solid route. Luckily for me, almost the entire 1500 miles would be on roads I had yet to ride. A casual email invite was sent to the usual players, but being a little short notice, and the cold weather fast approaching, it looked like this was going to be just the two of us. Part of the plan was to incorporate some camping off the bikes, also new for me as I have always been more of a “car camper”. We both collected gear, and negotiated the necessary days off work. The future held days full of twisty roads and just enough adventure to keep things interesting… Before we knew it we found ourselves at the meeting spot in north Phoenix gassing up for the first and longest day of the trip.
DAY 3, NEW
MEXICO, ~270 miles
DAY 4, ARIZONA, ~430 miles
We left Phoenix about 7am for a quick run up I-17 for some breakfast at my favorite little place in the northern Arizona town of Flagstaff. I was really more excited about the trip than this pic, the coffee must not have kicked in yet:
The next leg took us up through beautiful northern Arizona, with high desert landscapes that changed color every few miles. Through Indian reservations and long stretches of road into Utah. Destination: Arches National Park, just outside of Moab.
Stopped for pics while going through Monument Valley. Notice the weather – It was gorgeous, with just a hint of turmoil:
We rode through a quick thunderstorm or two, and almost stopped when we could see lightening strikes ahead, but they were off the road so I motioned to press on… We got just enough blue sky, combined with highway speed cruising to keep things dried out.
Once in Utah, Charles had planed a quick diversion not much out of our way – The Goosenecks State Reserve. A very cool geological feature where the San Juan River flows 5 miles but only covers 1 mile. Hard to capture the full effect of the winding river from ground level. The little curvy road to the lookout was well worth the trip:
Riding through all the Indian reservations had me trying to look stoic:
(Of course this ride report wouldn’t be complete without all the photos of our bikes at gas stations. It happened often!)
We rode into Moab, UT, and
while originally planning on stopping for a bite to eat, instead we just grabbed
a couple cans of beer, securely bungeed them on top of my bag, and continued
through town to the Arches park entrance.
Once through the gate, it was 17 miles to the small campground. The road was
under construction at the time, and in the worst possible way for a motorcycle –
a new layer of gravel chip seal freshly being applied. It was like riding on
marbles. Sharp, pointy, tar-stuck marbles. Good thing the views that opened up
around every corner were completely breathtaking:
I don’t know if it was the time of day, that we had been riding all day, or what, but the scenery became very surreal:
We had lucked out with weather so far, but it seemed to take forever to get to the campground, and became uncertain if we would beat the storm that was rolling in, having entered the park about the same time we did.
The rain started drizzling just as we found our camp site. We quickly pitched the tents, tough for a novice like me among the wind that had started gusting. Once everything was staked down, we threw our gear in the tents, covered the bikes, and did a little exploring just in time for an amazing sunset.
Originally we figured that a couple granola bars would get us through the night and we would just get breakfast the next morning. Of course I chickened out, literally, and brought along a self-heating gourmet chicken parmesan pasta dish from REI. The rain picked up so after yelling back and forth from the shelter of our own individual tents, I grabbed the beers, some Thai flavored trial mix, my chemically heated meal-in-a-box, and dove into Charles’s tent for dinner.
While we ate the storm
blew over, and the sky opened up to some high cirrus clouds, lit up by the moon
that was just a few days away from being full. It really felt like camping when
we got the fire going with some leftover wood.
It got cold, but I slept pretty well on a small inflatable mattress, snuggled up in a Ducati branded sleeping bag for good luck.
We awoke to a spectacular day and explored around the park a little. At one point we lost the trail, and I’m not afraid to admit I was a little concerned when after examining some fresh animal tracks Charles calmly proclaimed “Those are paws, not hooves…”.
Well, we had to get back on the road sometime, so we went back and broke down camp.
One thing we had to have
was coffee, but to do so with minimal supplies. Here’s how it worked:
Step 1: Gather supplies - Concentrated coffee packets, bottled water, beer cans
cut down into coffee cups, chemical toe warmers, duct tape.
Step 2: Brew – Let nature and science warm the water. Mix and enjoy.
(Insert puking smilie icon here)
Something tells me this guy wasn’t selling insurance:
Back out the 17 miles of chip-seal, and back into Moab for some quick breakfast. Found a great little place called the Jailhouse Café. Great food and service.
Next stop…oh wait... I’ve
got a flat. As soon as we started off I knew it, rear tire was almost completely
flat. So I hit the horn to let Charles know and pulled right back to the curb. I
tried to find the leak, but with so little air I couldn’t find it. Decided to
walk the bike to a nearby gas station to air it up. I started the bike and
feathered the clutch in first gear while walking briskly beside the bike about 1
block to the station. No big surprise their air compressor was broken. Across
the street I saw a little bike accessory store called The Lone Rider. I ran over
there to see if they might have a compressor. Came back and told Charles “The
grumpiest biker in the world says we can use his compressor…”.
“What do you mean?” said Charles.
“You’ll see” I said with a half-excited smirk…
We got the bikes over there and the shop owner opened his small garage door.
This guy was the most pessimistic, grumpy old biker dude you ever met. He was
complaining about the local people, the tourists, the politicians…you name it.
It was hard not to chuckle at him because all the while he was helping me get
the tire aired. We found the leak, I plugged it and looked like it was going to
hold. I reached into my pocket “How much do I owe you…” “Nothin.” “Well, at
least let me buy a t-shirt from you or something…”. “You don’t have to do that.”
I went in and picked out a shirt. We made some small talk about living in Moab
“too damn long!” and about me growing up around Harleys. He finally introduced
himself as “Grumpy John”. Well, thanks Grumpy John, for getting us back on the
road….
Hard to explain how great the roads were in Colorado. The plan for today was to cut over through Ouray, hit the Million Dollar Highway down to Silverton, south through Durango and end up for the night in Pagosa Springs.
I’ll let the pictures do the talking for most of Colorado.
A quick stop to check on the tire plug. Seems I was riding with the rear PSI at about 50, so I guess it was holding air!
And a little boost for us…
On to Ouray, the Switzerland of America…(sorry for the wavy pics, they were still shots taken on the move from my GoPro camera…hard to keep up with the Ducs sometimes). The couple mountain passes over 11,000 ft. elevation were about the coldest time of the whole trip.
Ouray, CO:
Leaving Ouray on the Million Dollar Highway:
We motored through Durango and on to Pagosa Springs. Got a choice parking spot in front of our room at the Pinwood Inn:
What started out as a quest for a nearby café that served locally brewed beer, turned out with us being a little out of place at a fancy restaurant down the street (Pagosa Springs closes early on a Friday night…). Well, they let us in anyway, in t-shirts and smelling like the road. At least the food was excellent, and the beer was good too….
After a good night’s sleep it was hard to leave…
But, we had a new destination for the day and had to hit the road.
Charles had a couple good roads picked out to get us into New Mexico, and the scenery was great. Unfortunately we had a little drama ahead.
Northern New Mexico was filled with fast sweepers that linked us up to a straight but quick section of road back into civilization. It was a good feeling to know that our moto-touring world was different enough from the local punks that we were not even noticed fueling up the bikes while witnessing a little altercation at a station in Espanola. We decided to have lunch in Los Alamos.
Then, we made a startling discovery about my tire:
I was sure I had at least a couple thousand miles left in my Pirelli Diablo Rosso, but I guess that last track day might have heat cycled it a bit too much. I felt bad because Charles had a sweet twisty route planned into Albuquerque, but we decided to try and get to town as fast a possible to try and get a new tire mounted. So we called ahead to PJ’s Ducati, and with a now plugged and cord-showing rear tire, hit I-25 south for about 70 miles at 80 MPH into the city. Charles followed me to watch for a disintegrating rear tire, and we made it to the shop with time to spare. I picked out an inexpensive rear that looked close to the Pirelli profile, and we were soon back on the road. BIG thanks to PJ’s for helping us out on a Saturday afternoon. Nice shop by the way….
We checked our bags at Charles’s parent’s place, and headed out on the town for a beer and a bit to eat.
Although the focus for the day should have been getting home, we were determined
to cram as much bike stuff in as possible. We headed out early to a local
motorcycle hot spot, Sandia Crest, which is just outside of Albuquerque. The
coffee shop at the bottom of the hill was filled with locals giving each other a
hard time and tons of bikes coming and going. In order to prepare for the hill,
I had to have a fresh cinnamon roll.
The run up and down the hill was amazing.
Could we have asked for better weather?
Got back to Charles’s
parent’s place just in time for a home cooked steak-n-egg breakfast. But you
didn’t really think we would just pack it up and go home already did you?
Next stop: Sandia Classic – “The Greatest Race in the West” – Vintage Motorcycle
Races. It just so happened that they were going on around the time we wanted to
do this trip, so we planned to check them out on the way out of town. What a
cool event! People were there running vintage bikes from all over the US and
Canada. We first walked around the pits:
Then we ran into this odd character. Who knows how many miles he’s got under his belt:
We even caught a race before having to hit the road. Looks like a total blast:
And finally it was time to go.
We jetted across I-40, heading west back into Arizona. Picture running 90 MPH for an hour, running with semi trucks, stopping for gas, and repeating about 3 times. We then cut down through a couple small towns so we could hit the last few sweepers that lead into Payson. It was getting late and the biggest concern was getting up close and personal with any 4-legged critters that might wander onto the road. We made it into Payson, stopped for our last tank of gas and grabbed a quick snack for the final run back home.
The ride down the Beeline
Hwy was the most nerve racking of the entire trip, being after dark, with tinted
visors, and dealing with all the weekender traffic heading back into the valley.
Where usually the bikes are the fastest things on the road, we were getting
passed by dump trucks and trucks pulling trailers who I suppose could see better
than us, and didn’t mind the occasional deer or elk bouncing off their bumpers.
Just several miles from the city traffic was stopped, backed up for miles due to
an SUV that had rolled into a ditch. We tried to play fair, and I entertained
myself by making shadow puppets on the back of the white van ahead of us in
line. I watched the temp gauge climb, and finally calmly dove onto the shoulder,
Charles followed, and we kept moving. We waved at my turn off, and went our
separate ways.
A few miles from home I felt my rear tire going flat again. I wasn’t sure if it
was really getting low, or if it was just me with tired muscles after 1500
miles. As long as I could roll, I wasn’t stopping. I rode into my garage on a
flat tire at about 9pm. Turns out my sealant job, the same that allowed me to
plug the tire in Utah, got nicked bad by a tire iron when mounting the new tire
in New Mexico, which jeopardized the seal around one of the spokes. The bike is
still up on my rear stand as I go through the process of re-sealing the wheel,
getting the bike ready for more miles to come.
