Change in Plans

Please click on the photos to enlarge.

Well, no matter what plans you have in place, sometimes you just have to yield to Mother Nature. It is snowing heavily up in the higher elevations, more importantly, my intended route and destination for the day so I cannot travel up there. Today I am pointing the bike east, and, sadly, leaving the mountains a day earlier than planned. They are calling for rain along my route so it looks like a wet one for me - My last hour yesterday was in a heavy thunderstorm! Hopefully it is uneventful!!


I had a short day planned and had hoped to be sitting in a cafe in the early afternoon, looking out on the mountains and updating my blog while sipping either a nice hot beverage or a couple of good beers. So, with the change in plans, there will be a little longer wait for the full account of each day as well as my favorite photos from each day. For now, here are some more teaser photos, these ones from my trek across Colorado yesterday from Cortez to Denver.

Teaser Photos

I know I promised the next installment of road news but today was another long and exhausting day and I have just enough left in my happy self to drag my butt into bed. It is almost midnight and I need to be in Denver by 5:00 pm tomorrow so I really do have to be disciplined about my departure time in the morning.

Even then, I will provide a couple of teaser photos of the last day in New Mexico and the first in Arizona. The full tale will follow in a couple of days.

Formatting

I am still working on the formatting and this is a test to see if I did something wrong when I posted the photos yesterday. I just checked and these plus a few of the ones from day three do expand when you click on them so at least you get to see those at full size. Sorry for the bungles!

This photo was taken in the eastern foothills of Truchas and Baldy.

This is a photo of the bike after I picked it up off the road and went to take the photo that was the reason for the U-turn in the first place ...... more below!

I am still working on the page formatting and for some reason I cannot get the photos to expand to a full-view size on the day three posting. I will republish it when I get home in a few days. I will be on the road in a few and am looking forward to seeing the Grand Canyon and the Valley of the Gods! Enjoy Memorial Day and have a brat and a beer for me!

Day Three

Click on the photos to see a larger image. The captions are below the photos.

Tired is a small word that when ascribed to a state on the heavy end of it seems small in comparison to what it is used to describe. I have been on the road for three days and I have just over 2,000 miles on the clock since leaving Cleveland.

I got in late last night and went to work on my posting because I knew it would be an early morning and I did not want to fart around with a weak internet connection when there was riding to be done. With only about four hour sleep I woke up to a beautiful blue-sky morning in Tucumcari. I got ready for the day and when I took the side bags down to the bike I picked up a cup of coffee, a couple of boiled eggs, a banana, two toasted waffles and a little cinnamon roll. I ate the waffles alfresco, outdoors, watching the sun light up the sky as it teased the horizon with the promise of a new day. It was in the 50’s and the weatherman called for a chance of thunderstorms along my intended route of travel. No worries, I got packed up and headed out of town on route104 towards Las Vegas, NM. I left a little before 6:00 am and in the first half forty-five minutes I saw three cars! Talk about desolate!

The scenery reminded me of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya with grass, shrubs and hearty yellow flowers alongside the road. Rising up on either side were sheer escarpments of rock ranging in color from tan to a deep, vibrant red.

This is a photo of one of the escarpments north of Tucumcari on the way to Las Vegas.


There is also the smell of the arid lands that I really like in the morning. I think the plant is sagebrush but I probably have that wrong. It smells like one of those ornamental smelly dried plant things you get at Pier One but a lot better out in the open. Anyway, as the rising sun warms up the plants and the dew begins to evaporate, the scent of the plants is released into the air and provides a pleasant sensory accompaniment to the scenery.

In addition to the scenery, I got a wake-up call when I happened upon an antelope of some sort minding its own business munching dew-soaked plants by the side of the road. It was, thankfully, not startled enough to run and the hard braking turned out to be a practice run. I continued along the grassland until the road ran right to the foot of the western escarpment and twisted up. I stopped at a turn-out on the way up to take a couple of photos and check out the bike.

In checking out the bike I got down flat on the ground so that I could get a good look underneath. Just doing that and getting back up had me panting like I had climbed a few flights of stairs! Ah, yes, back in the mountains! I really did not realize that what had seemed like a trek along a valley floor was actually a steady climb to altitude.

I tried to get this done last night but I was so exhausted I almost fell asleep on the keyboard!

This is the photo I took half way up the escarpement looking south towards Tucumcari. This is also where I checked out the bike and got winded just getting back up.

I crested the escarpment to find lush grassland out to the distance which was lined by a snow-capped mountain range. It was quite a contrast to the tough scrub of the lowlands. There were a couple more spots where I rode past strange-looking deer enjoying their breakfast by the road. I stuck to the posted speed limit, ever ready to hit the brakes.

A view of the distant mountians after I crested the escarpment.

On reaching Las Vegas, in the foothills of that previously distant mountain range I took route 518 north towards Taos. After about twenty miles or so I saw a pull-off with a pretty good view of the snow caps and there was a fellow BMW rider pulled off to the side for a smoke. I stopped for a chat and learned he was from Austin, Texas just out riding the mountains for the holiday weekend. He had also ridden through the rain storm the previous night and so we chatted briefly about how that, tires and good roads.

There goes the guy from Texas with the mountains ahead of him! My turn next.

He took off while I was finding the perfect spot for my photo. That done I continued up the road as it climbed towards the pass that would take me over the top. On way up I looked back down the valley at one point and saw a pretty good view so I found a spot on the road with decent visibility in both directions (mind you, this is a curvy road going up a mountain) and decided to execute a U-turn. Now, in preparation for the trip I clocked thousands of miles tearing through West Virginia and the hilly portions of Ohio so I arrived here ready for a good challenge and some brisk riding in the twisties. Well, one thing I did not figure was the difference a load makes. When I travel to WV I normally only have just a water bottle for a day trip or just one night’s worth of clothing. A week’s worth of clothing, shoes, water bottle, rain gear, tool box and a host of other stuff weighs a whole lot more and thus changes the handling dynamics of the bike. Not having thought that little detail through as I began to execute the U-turn, I was unprepared for how quickly the bike leaned over and, yup, you got it ....... I laid it down flat on its side in the middle of the road!!

My first thought was s--t, it’s going down, the next thought was, you f---king idiot as I stepped clear and hit the kill switch. I quick look up and down the road revealed that there were no cars coming from either direction so the next order of business was to figure out how to get my fully laden bike back upright. The first try failed and if I did not get it up on the second I would be pulling bags off the bike and surely there would be cars waiting for me to clear the road! Thankfully, I got it up on the second try and then pushed over to the side of the road where I leaned it over on the kickstand! Now remember a little while ago I got winded just getting up off the ground? Well, I was now about two thousand feet higher up and pushing a 500 pound fully loaded bike up hill to the side of the road.

I was winded and pissed off! Thankfully, the folks who design touring bikes anticipate this sort of stuff so with the exception of a couple of scratches on the left saddle case the bike was fine. Me? The cockiness fueled by all my hill riding leading up to this trip had just been dope-smacked the hell out of me.

I got the bike turned around and went a little ways down the hill to a pull off to take the damned photo and examine the bike a little more closely. The picture did not turn out very well but the bike was fine and my ego would recover.

One good thing about this happening is I was now fully cautious, as I should have been in the first place. At every point where I saw the “Elk Crossing” sign, my fingers were ready for the brake and I became more vigilant than I had been on the blind corners.

This is the shot I had turned around to take when I dropped the bike. The U-turn was more dramatic than the shot!

Up over the top I took a couple of roads that got me pretty good views of Truchas Peak, 13,102 ft. and Santa Fe Baldy at 12,622 ft. These were the southernmost of the snow covered peaks I had seen from the top of the escarpment earlier.

There is no way I can finish this without burning up a good portion of the early morning so, I am off to the mountains, again and I will work on it in Flagstaff.

Well, I am finally in Flagstaff after quite a day of riding. The state motto for New Mexico is the “Land of Enchantment. After having spent a couple of days there I have to say it is quite enchanting. I entered the state in a drenching and frightening rain storm, rose from high plains to snow covered mountains, out of the mountains into the desert, out of the desert, into the high plains, back up into a different set of mountains and then on out into Arizona for the second half of today’s ride. But, more on that in the next posting. I have to finish this one first.

Next on the agenda was a decision, do I go to Taos and ride the enchanted circle or do I do a reverse routing of my original plans to ride some other roads? Chose the latter so that I could see roads I might otherwise not see. The first part of the new plans was an exercise in frustration. The roads were narrow and the speed limit was only 40 MPH which is a royal pain when you are trying to squeeze in as much as possible in a day.

Once I was through the populated area the road opened up to some nice sweeping turns and rapid changes in elevation taking me to the views of Truchas and Baldy The ride to those views went from high alpine forests with amazingly green pastures that had crystal clear streams, which I assume were melt-water from the snow caps, to small farms and dwellings. From recreation areas to a place where it looked like people make part of their living from the earth. The homes looked similar to small-holder plots in Kenya.

The mountain in the background is the south shoulder of Santa Fe Baldy with the smallholder plots in the middle ground.

Truchas Peak from the west side framed by an abandoned roadside kiosk.

From a high vantage point in this high farmland I could see across the valley of the Rio Grande to the Jemez Mountains on the other side. My plan was to cross the Rio Grande and ride through the Jemez Mountains and the on to Taos in the afternoon. The descent into the Rio Grande valley was adorned with dramatic views of the mountains I was leaving, the valley into which I was descending and the mountains into which I planned to climb. Part of the ride down was along a ride line with Truchas and Baldy to my left, green with snow caps, the arid and dusty Rio Grande valley to my right against a purple backdrop of the Jemez Mountains. It was a challenge to pay attention to the road while catching glimpses of all the scenery around so I stopped from time to time just to take it all in.

On the way down I was moving along at a decent clip, passing cars that were plodding along, not being able to take corners like the bike. I was however surprised when some kid on a dirt bike came screaming past me and left me in the proverbial dust; that bike was MOVING!!

Looking across the Rio Grande valley at the Jemez mountains.

A close up shot of the terrain on the descent into the Rio Grande valley.

I stopped to get gas in the valley on the road leading up to Los Alamos where they have the National Research Lab. At the gas station it was pretty easy to pick the scientist from the truly local folks. It was an easy climb out of the valley and then up around Los Alamos through ponderosa pine forests. I have always heard of ponderosa pine but I had yet to learn how to identify it. The tree is beautiful, the bark has the heavy texture of an oak tree but it is about the color of oak furniture with a deep honey stain. The cracks between the bark is black, providing an interesting contrast even when viewed from the road. The forest had the typical pine smell and that just added to the moment. I wanted to take a photo but there is no way a digital, or, even film camera could capture the subtlety of the texture.

I rode on westward and the further I went the less traffic I saw. Most of the vehicles on the road were some awesome bicycles. I really miss my bicycle and thought how wonderful it would be to have this as a cycling route.

The ride over the top did not provide grand vistas but the road was great. It rained a little at the top but that only lasted for about five miles and as I started the decent on the other side the rain soon stopped and the temperature went from the low fifties into the nineties within a distance of about twenty miles.

Time was moving along faster than I had planned so I nixed the initial plan of riding all the way to Taos for lunch as it was already noon and the ride to Taos would take another couple of hours ....... at LEAST! After my close passes with large four legged beasts earlier in the day I thought it best that I not be on the road after dark so not only did I nix lunch, I also took Taos off the plans for the second time in a row – last year I did not make it to Taos because I killed half a day waiting for a new tire. I guess I have unfinished business in New Mexico which simply means another trip out here either later this year or sometime next year.

Having had a rather light breakfast I was starving and wanted a good and hot lunch rather than the trail mix that I pretty much live on during the day when I am traveling. The first decent sized town was Jemez Springs and there were two prominent restaurants right across the street from each other. Not knowing which would be better, I let the availability of parking dictate where I ate and it turned out to be pretty good.

I learned that there is such a thing as green chili and that it is good. I cannot remember the name of the dish I ate but it was pretty much a burger patty with the top part of the bun under it, spicy fries around it, the two of those smothered in the green chili and that was topped with lettuce and diced tomatoes. Man, was it good! If I am back in Jemez Springs some time in the future I know where to grab a great meal!

A small church in Jemez Springs about a hundred yards from where I first had green chili!

This is a close shot of the rocks above teh church.


From there I went north along 550, back in the desert and temperatures in the 90’s. I kept my layers on because I knew I would need it crossing back over to the Rio Grande valley further north and rather than go through the hassle of pulling it off only to have to put it back on in about 30 minutes I just sweltered a little for about half an hour.

Cliffs on the drive up 550 after lunch in Jemez Springs

The ride back over was along the Rio Chama River that appears to form the dividing line between the Jemez and San Juan mountains. This run was nothing close to as beautiful as the Jemez Mountains route but it was still beautiful, climbing out of the desert into the lush highlands.

The descent into the Rio Chama river valley offered some nice views of meadows and hills.

I liked this pasture along Route 96 between Gallina and Arroyo del Agua.

This is a cliff just before the drop to the Abiquiu Dam where I would turn south towards the Rio Grande and on to Socorro for the night.

Back along the Rio Grande I stopped for gas and also to remove some layers as the rest of the trip was going to be in the hotter lower plains. Lower is a relative thing because the plains have an elevation of around five thousand feet or so!

The ride through Santa Fe was frustrating because of the lights. By this time I was exhausted, hot and hungry and all I really wanted to do was get to my hotel, grab a meal and hit the sack. Once on the freeway things improved dramatically; the speed limit is 75 and there were people doing 85 – 90 so I tagged along and that made quick work of the miles. Between Santa Fe and Albuquerque the winds from the south picked up the poor bike had to work hard to get back up to speed if, for whatever reason, I had to slow down. All along the drive to Socorro there were beautiful mountains to the east with plains to the west.

When I got to Socorro, I gassed up the bike checked in, found a restaurant a couple of doors down that actually serves alcohol and enjoyed a couple of beers with what the waitress said was pretty standard fare for local food. After dinner I walked back to the hotel and tried to write this entry but my eye lids did not allow me to complete it.

It was my plan to write both days up today but I am tired and I will just post this and some photos from the ride and leave today’s posting for tomorrow. So, like my last trip, the postings will lag about a day behind.

Speaking of night, it is time for me to hit the sack. I have looked at the intended route for Memorial Day and cut about 150 miles off it just so that I can spend a decent amount of time enjoying the Grand Canyon. It looks like I will be back in this part of the country in the future so that I can finally get to see Taos and then the parts of Utah that are now cut out of the route for tomorrow. Anybody want to come along?

Day Two

Well, providence granted another trouble-free day of travel. I started the day later than planned because I thought that getting a couple more hours of sleep would probably serve me better than trying to get a jump on the day. I was on the road by 6:40 and enjoyed welcoming the new day on the bike. Even though it would be another day on the super slab, a day on the bike is better than a day in the car.

The morning went well as I plowed through Missouri. Interstate 44 from St. Louis to Joplin passes through part of the Ozarks and a forested portion of the state that is part of the Mark Twain National Forest. It is a pretty part of the state and those of you who have traveled along interstate 80 through Pennsylvania will have a good flavor of the scenery in the Ozarks in this part of Missouri. There are no tall mountains, just rolling hills and forest.

It made for a scenic ride through the state and the views of little valleys here and there helped pass the time pretty quickly. One thing that cracked me up on the trip from St. Louis to Oklahoma City is the local war. There are numerous establishments along the freeway that advertise themselves as “Adult Bookstores”; without fail, just prior to each sign advertising the adult bookstores there was a larger and more colorful sign sponsored by a local church condemning pornography. The funny part is, with all the billboards on the road the adult stuff gets lost in the mix but the prominence of the church effort just brings attention to something that would other wise be missed by most folks. Unintended consequences of good intentions!

I was famished by mid morning so I ate at a Cracker Barrel in Springfield, MO. When I stopped, for some reason I thought I was already in Joplin and was a little bummed out to learn that I still had an hour to drive before getting into Oklahoma.

I liked Oklahoma. They must have planted a whole lot of winter wheat because the waves of grain are already turning amber here while on the rest of the route so far crops are either just being planted or have just recently germinated. With the recent spring rains everything is so wonderfully green taking in the contrast between the amber fields and the lush green vegetation really was a great way to spend a good chunk of the morning.

One thing I can say about Oklahoma is there is certainly no shortage of beef here! Yesterday I joked about counting brown cows. Counting cows today would have been serious work! Speaking of cows, crossing over into Texas I did notice a significant drop in the number of livestock within view of the road. I also noticed that there was something out of place. Not a single one of the Texas cows had horns; a blasphemy in the land of the Longhorn! I think the offending cows will soon show up on a plate near you. Texas was pretty much a boring ride. There is not much to see and the speed limit is only 70 during the day and 65 at night. Oklahoma and New Mexico both have a 75 MPH speed limit.

I got off the freeway just before Amarillo, TX to don the rain gear as I could see a huge storm system way up in there in my intended route of travel. I put everything on from gaiters my boots to a supposedly waterproof balaclava. I have experienced wind storms out here on the prairies and I did not want to be caught unprepared in the event the storm was as bad as it looked.

With a little over 100 miles to travel to Tucumcari, NM, I preferred that it rain right away so that I could get through it and give my clothing a little time to dry out. As it happens, the rain finally hit close to the border with New Mexico. Boy did it ever hit!!!

How hard did it rain? Put it this way, if you are ever traveling across the prairies and you anticipate hitting some rain, bring a snorkel! It was just about dusk when the rain started. First there was a sprinkle, then a little heavier and then the wind picked up and we got those huge drops plus some hail about half an inch across. Those smart when they hit. Of course the wind was blowing down from the north so I was getting it on my right side and my right arm, shoulder and hand probably have a few welts from the impact of those little buggers.

I slowed to about 35 in that downpour, which lasted for ten minutes, or so. Both the rain and the wind let up for five minutes and then the real stuff came!!! It quite literally rained horizontally!!! And right across my path of travel. I lowered the windshield to the lowest setting and got a good whooping from the storm. At 35 MPH I was hydroplaning a little so I dropped it down to 25!! Even then, the bike was still getting tossed about like a rag doll. I don’t think I have ever seen rain that heavy!

My until-now waterproof riding gear turned out not to be so. The heavy, 25 MPH stuff continued for an honest1/2 hour and then cleared up as I entered New Mexico where the speed limit thankfully went back up to 75! I pegged the needle on 80 and raced to my hotel in Tucumcari. I filled up the bike, checked in and ran across the street to Subway, the only place in town open after 9:00 PM. With the exception of my feet and my head, everything else is damp!

Tomorrow, my days in the mountains start. We shall see if the weather cooperates!

Day One

This is going to be a short one. After about eleven and a half hours on the road I am safely in my motel room in Eureka, MO. Thank goodness for a half way decent memory! I forgot to bring my itinerary but, somehow I remembered the exit for the hotel (well, almost – I got off on the wrong road and had to get back on the freeway to the next exit) and found it by recalling the visual I had of the map on Yahoo Maps when I looked it up last night.

It was, thankfully, an uneventful ride down and I am hoping for the same tomorrow. The forecast is calling for mid 70’s and rain from here to Oklahoma City! That is about an eight hour ride – FUN! Actually, checking the forecast for cities along the route they are calling for showers in the morning in Missouri and then scattered thunderstorms throughout the rest of the day. Well, scattered means they could be scattered away from the road so, we’ll see what the day brings. It is even supposed to rain in Amarillo, Texas!! I thought that was in the desert!

After sitting in traffic in Indianapolis with the temp sensor showing 96F on the black asphalt of the outer ring road for about 20 minutes I am grateful for a milder forecast for the passage through the Texas and Oklahoma pan handles.

I really thought it would be cooler today but, man did it get hot!! At my first stop just north of Columbus, OH I turned on one of those outside faucets they have at rest areas and soaked the pant legs of my riding gear. In the winter I ride with neck warmer thingy (I think it is called a dickie, or some such thing) tucked into my collar and helmet to keep the wind off my neck. In the other seasons I put it on but don’t tuck it into the helmet. That way, if it gets cooler, I can just tuck it in and keep going.

Well, I read someplace that if you soak it with water and then put it on it is supposed to help cool you off on a hot day. Boy does it ever! At my next stop near the Indiana border I soaked both that and my vented gloves and when I got on the road, though it was in the low 90’s, my hands were cold and my neck was cool! The gloves dried off in about 20 miles but the neck thing took a little longer because I let the water get down onto the top part of my shirt so all that had to dry off. It was almost like being in air conditioning! I am glad to have a new one in my little bag of tricks!

When you are on the freeway in the summer, just as in a car, you get the sun predominantly on one side. What happens on the bike is the foot in the sun gets hot. Strange thing happened today, my right foot was in the sun for a couple of hours but it was my left foot that got hot. Hmm, strange!

I am glad it did not rain today (the forecast had called for early evening rain in the St. Louis area tonight. I did pack my rain gear but as I contemplated the possibility of rain somewhere in either Indiana or Illinois I could not remember where I packed the bits and pieces of my rain gear. Needless to say, tomorrow, all the stuff I need for rain will either be on my person or at the top of the bag so that I can quickly grab it in the event it is needed.

Long slogs on the freeway on the bike are an exercise in mental stamina. There really is nothing to do. The bike is balanced and stable so steering inputs are minute. You do think about your butt because after a while you need to start scooting about the seat so that you don’t get monkey butt. I play music on the radio and boogie, probably, to the entertainment of a motorist here and there! After a while, though you get weary of that, you get tired of listening to music, tired of counting Wal-Mart trucks, red barns, brown cows, Florida license plates, yellow butterflies, etc. Then, you think through stuff until you get tired of thinking then you look at the map only to see that you still have five hours on the road! Then you get random nutty things in your head. I so much prefer to ride in the mountains where the road challenges you and makes you think and the scenery takes your breath away!

Hopefully tomorrow goes as smoothly as today and the weather clears up when I get to the mountains on Saturday so that I can enjoy the roads and get some good pictures. Speaking of pictures, no photos from today. I could have taken some shots of the corn crop coming in but ............. that didn’t happen!!

Well, my butt feels a little better and I am yawning like a hippo so I am going to sign off, get some shuteye and try not to think about rain!

Last Minute Stuff and Packing

I am in the process of trying different methods of putting photos on the blog and seeing what the layout looks like.

I don't like this layout but I will leave it here for now and just keep trying different things while I am on the road. In a couple of days you will see more than the bike in my garage, really!!

I have tried to explain to some of you how the bags work on my bike and I am not sure I really get the picture across so as I worked on the windshield brace today I took some photos of the bike with the cases on and off.

Anyway, if we go from the top and work left to right, the first photo is the mess in the guest bedroom as I pack; this is all the stuff that will go into the tank bag, with the exception of the blue swimming trunks under the bag and my helmet.

The next photo is of the bike with the bags on, basically, how it looks on the road.

The third and fourth photos are of the bike with the bags off. You can see the little handles that basically turn them into suitcases and allow me to carry them into the motel.

I need to remember how to put captions under the photos! I think I centered the photos and that made it much easier! Well, hopefully I get better at this as the days pass. Your patience is appreciated.

Jiminy Cricket

Of all the trips I have taken on this bike the lead-up to this one has to have been the most eventful. It is all little stuff but when compressed into a couple of days, days in which I should be simply going through check lists so that I don’t forget stuff for the trip, it adds up to more excitement than is probably necessary for this point in the plans. But, life is like that, no matter how much you plan and prepare, stuff just comes up and you simply have to deal with it and keep focused on what you want to get done.

From my previous post you know that I had my bike apart over the weekend trying to get the auxiliary lights working. That did not pan out because MotoLight did not ship the replacement parts on Monday so they did not get here in time for installation ahead of the trip. I think they arrived today but having them installed requires an overnight stay in the shop for the bike and that is not something I am going to do the night before a big trip! So, much as I would prefer not to, I will not have auxiliary lights to add to my visibility so I will just have to be more vigilant in looking out for inattentive car drivers.

I had not ridden the bike on the freeway since last week’s service so I decided to ride into work today so that I could get a good feel and listen to the bike. The ride in was fine but as I got on the freeway on the way home I noticed the windshield was flopping about and when stuff needs to get done, a guy really does not want anything flopping about! A quick look revealed that one of the support braces had broken. Now, thankfully, I had anticipated this but did not expect it to happen until I was out in the middle of Kansas, or something. In one respect I was kind of miffed that it broke before the trip because now I don’t have a spare part but I also realize that it was probably better for that to happen here where I could take care of it in my garage rather than on the side of the road. The reason I anticipated it is because one of them broke a couple of weeks after I returned from my last trip out west. Given that, I ordered a couple of the support braces to take along with me on the trip in the event that the part failure came when I was in Nowheresville.

The windshield is designed such that it can be raised and lowered electronically using a switch located near my left thumb. It is a neat mechanism because I can put it up a little when it rains in order to keep the road spray off my helmet visor, when it is hot I can lower it a little in order to get more air on me and I normally keep it in the middle position to make sure the bugs splat on that rather than on me! Keeping the wind off me makes it possible to ride longer before the fatigue sets in and that is why it is important to have the replacement part on long trips. The prospect of trying to pull a 14 hour day with the windshield in the lowest setting and the wind knocking me about for the duration of the ride is daunting, to say the least!

Well, in order to install the part I had to take the bike apart, AGAIN!! But, I got it all squared away and now it is ready. The gas tank is full, oil level okay, windshield working as specified, new tires pumped up and now I think all that is left is to pack and get a good night’s rest.

The other thing that happened is the wireless internet functionality on my laptop decided to give up the ghost yesterday morning and I had to monkey around with finding an accessory that will work while I am on the road. Thankfully Radio Shack had one AND, it was in stock!! I tried to get it working with my home network but they would not talk, the toll-free tech support line told me they could not help me because the network pieces were out of warranty but there was another number for out-of-warranty items that I could call for the small price of $29.99 – WOW, customer service ......... for a price! Needless to say, I decided to wait until I come back to deal with that, as it can be fixed with a lot of patience and a little brainpower.

So, I ran about town a little in order to find a wireless hotspot where I could check email, weather and such. Little stuff, yes, but, jiminy cricket, I really did not need it before this big trip. It is my hope that with all this having happened prior to my departure, all the potentially unpleasant misadventures are now out of the way and what lies before me are adventures of beauty and wonder.

I am writing this at home so I am about to grab a quick bite and then hop into the car to run down to Arabica Cafe where I can check my email, post this blog entry, check the weather and take one last look at the DOT websites for Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri so that I can have the latest information on the location of road construction sites. This is really important in planning bathroom breaks.

One cool thing I picked up while I was in Radio Shack is a little FM transmitter for my .mp3 player so I can listen to my music though the bike radio without having to take CD’s (all three that would fit in my luggage). I tested it last night and it works quite well!! I don’t wear headphones when I ride so this is a big thing for me!!

Hopefully the only thing left to do is pack the cases and get them back on the bike, drop by the office in the morning to wrap up the last few things and then jump on the road and start reeling in the miles!!!

The Intended Route

I will leave Cleveland heading south to Columbus and then turn west on I-70 for the trek to St. Louis via Indianapolis, IN. On the first night I will sleep in the grand metropolis of Eureka, MO, just south of St. Louis. I think it should take about ten hours to get there unless I am delayed by traffic in construction zones. It is my plan to eat at a Cracker Barrel somewhere in either Indiana or Illinois. I am thinking about going to the grocery store today to pick up something for breakfast on Sunday but it may be a good idea to do what I did last time before my prairie crossing and that was to get about four hours done in the early morning and then stop for a hearty breakfast when I stop for gas.

The second day, Friday will take me from Eureka across Missouri, to Oklahoma City and then on to Amarillo, Texas in the pan handle before ending in Tucumcari, New Mexico. This will be longer of the two days to the Rockies with a total of over 800 miles. I expect to be on the road for about 15+ hours and I really hope that construction is not a factor. In looking at the weather, it looks like the trip on Thursday should be sunny but Friday, this long day, calls for rain. I normally do not mind riding in the rain but I will be passing within about 50 miles of Greenburg, Kansas, the town that was 90% wiped out by a tornado about a month ago. Rain on a hot day through tornado alley is really not a comforting thought but, I will remain vigilant and tune into the local stations once the raindrops start falling.

Saturday will take me from Tucumcari along a back road to Las Vegas, NM and then up towards Taos. Just south of Taos, I turn onto a series of roads that circles back to Taos, where I plan to eat lunch. That route around back to Taos is called the enchanted circle as it is supposed to offer some of the most beautiful sights in New Mexico. Right now the weather man is calling for rain in the Taos area on Saturday and this is one of the times I hope the bugger is wrong!! Get a weather woman to do the job and we might start getting forecasts right!

After Taos I have two options one is to first head north towards Colorado and do a swing through the San Juan mountains northwest of Taos or head south towards Los Alamos. The northern swing would bring me back around through Los Alamos but that way longer. It will depend on time and weather. Once I have ridden the mountains I will head south through Albuquerque, where I may stop to eat, to Socorro, about an hour south of Albuquerque ( I had to get that in again because in researching for this trip I learned how to spell it correctly without the help of the spell checker – YAY!!) hey, it’s the little things in life that make our stay here fun!

On Sunday I leave Socorro heading west on route 60 towards a range of mountains along the New Mexico and Arizona border. I am surprised that this has not been developed into a tourist area as the map show peaks of over 12,000 feet and I would imagine that mountains that tall would be snow covered for skiing in the winter and just plain beautiful to see otherwise. I guess I will see when I get there. That is part of the fun of a trip like this is to imagine what these strange, new places look like and then to get there and be blown away by the inability of your imagination to even come close to what nature created.

I will travel south on the New Mexico side along 180 and then cross over to Arizona on 78 and travel north on 191 along the range to Eagar where I will meet up with 60 again. Depending on how time looks at this point, I have the option of heading straight up to the freeway and then over through Winslow to Flagstaff or, stay on 60 heading towards Sedona for a little more time in the twisties.

I do need to get to Flagstaff at a decent hour so that I can get a good night’s sleep and leave before dawn because it looks like I was a little overambitious when I planned the route for Monday. I chuckle here because Friday, Saturday and Sunday will all be pre-dawn departures so how is this any different? Silly boy!!

On Memorial Day, I head north out of Flagstaff for the approximately 250 mile ride to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I want to leave around 4:00 in the morning which is earlier than the other days but after seeing the Grand Canyon, and spending enough time there taking it all in, I still have a few hundred miles of riding through the Utah desert and three more National Parks to visit before bedding down in Cortez, Colorado.

From the Grand Canyon I head northwest into the southwest corner of Utah where I will get to ride through Zion National Park before heading north on 89 to Bryce Canyon National Park. From there it is east along 12, catch 24 and then down 95 to the Valley of the Gods in southeastern Utah. I really want to see the Valley of the Gods because last time I was here, a worn tire kept me off the unpaved road through the Valley. After I see that it is on to Cortez for a hot meal and a warm bed.

Tuesday I will head up through the heart of the Rockies to Denver. Right now it looks like I will go up 145, on 62 and then up 550 to Montrose. From there I will take 50 over to 285 and ride that up into Denver. I am meeting good friends for dinner in Denver and they have very generously offered their spare room for the night. I am looking forward to seeing and spending a little time with them!

My initial plan for Wednesday was to ride up to Estes Park and then through the rocky Mountain National park but the Colorado Department of Transportation website calls for lengthy construction delays in multiple places and I have no intention of sitting around for hours along a line of orange barrels. So, I will head south and ride through Vail, Aspen and Breckenridge to see the fourteen-ers in that central part of the state. It is supposed to be awesome, peak after peak over 14,000 feet. My route for the day is unplanned but I will spend the night in Dillon.

Thursday will put me on the road back east across Kansas with an overnight stay in Overland Park south of Kansas City and then Friday is the long day, another one over 800 miles, back home to Cleveland.

Wrinkles

I am, to some extent, a skeptic therefore, I tend to look over my shoulder when something is going way too smoothly. Conversely, when I run into problems, I know that dealing with them is just a part of life; the normal course of things. This may seem strange coming from what may be the most non-spontaneous planning-type, always travel with back-ups guy. Yes, I do like to plan, think through what may happen and be prepared for the worst that I can imagine but even with all that planning, the world still throws stuff at you from places that you never considered. When I tour on the motorcycle I have three flashlights, three keys, two sets of maps, four pairs of gloves, waterproof gaiters to pull over my waterproof boots in the rain and on, and on, and on!!

With all that planning I was running around today looking for a backup battery for my digital camera and ended up going to three locations before finding what I was needed. I saw that inconvenience as one of those things that life throws at you and I gladly associated it with the trip so that I can travel in peace knowing that something already “happened” so I should, knock on wood, be okay.

Well, one of the most important things you have to make sure you do as a motorcyclist is overtly make yourself visible. An important tool in this endeavor is lighting, especially at the front of your bike. This motorcycle has a headlight assembly containing five light bulbs. I so totally LOVE that!! My last three motorcycles only had a single bulb!! Anyway, when I bought this bike I had the dealer install a pair of driving lights mounted down low so that there are three bright points of light to alert motorists; the headlight assembly, and the two driving lights. My left driving light had a seal that was not properly seated and it allowed moisture to get inside the housing, moisture which corroded the lens and deteriorated the lumen output of the lighting unit. I want the driving lights to be as bright as possible so anything below 100% is unacceptable to me. I called in the warranty and the manufacturer honored it and sent replacement light bulbs to the dealer.

I went out to the bike this afternoon with the intent of replacing them today and, almost immediately, ran into problems. The moisture had corroded the inside of the unit to the extent that one of the wires popped out of the ceramic insulator. I went to the dealer and they did not have a replacement in stock so I have to call in the warranty tomorrow and have the manufacturer overnight the replacement set to the dealership so that I can have them installed before I leave in a few days.

I thought it would be a quick job but in looking at the wiring harnesses that come with the lights the bodywork of the bike has to be removed and that is supposed to take a while. I know that this coming week will already be a short one at work and I have a TON to get done before I leave for the trip so I cannot get the bike to them in the middle of the day and leave it there for them to work on so any warranty work will have to be done in the last half hour the workshop at the dealer is open.

So, I took out the old toolbox and stripped the bike of its bodywork and learned that it does not take entirely too long but it is a pain. This is indeed a wrinkle in my planning!! I thought that all I had left to do was go over my packing list and get ready for the trip but now I have an extra complication. I really do not need to take my bike apart in the days before a trip but, that is life!!

With my bike in a few pieces I learned that there is a seal, maybe two that is/are allowing oil to seep out. This at 23,000 miles on a BMW!!! Bavarian Motor Works, MOTOR is right there in the name!! This is way too young a motor for that to occur!! I sent an email to BMW of North America as well as my dealer in order to let them know that this is something below my expectation of this motor!

Here are photos of the bike prepared for the lighting warranty work. Yeah, yeah, I know photos of breathtaking mountain views are preferable but I have yet to point the bike to the western horizon and rolled on the throttle, ticking over the mile markers as my iron steed, locked on the imaginary line at the limit of my terrestrial vision, the line we call the horizon, a limit that beckons to me with that most tempting promise of adventure.

Please click on the photos if you would like to see a larger image. Captions are above the photos.

Below is a photo of the bike's bodywork on the shelf in preparation for the warranty work on the driving lights
















This is the left side of the bike seen without the bodywork that makes it so beautiful to many an appreciative eye.

This is the right hand side of the "naked bike."

Below are the offending lights that need to be replaced. I call them offending only because of the last minute work ahead of the trip. They do light up my presence and, hopefully, alert inattentive motorists of the presence of a motorcycle.

Getting Ready

Preparing for this trip is a little different than it was preparing for my first trip out west last year. Back then I was setting out after having read books written by grizzled and highly experienced endurance riders as well as research on the internet. This time I have the benefit of not only that research but also the experience that trip gave me. There were a number of lessons I learned on the road that should, hopefully, serve me well on this adventure.

Probably the hardest lesson of that trip was tire management. As I set out I made one assumption that cost me half a day on a workshop bench. The assumption was that motorcycle tires wear the same as car tires – 40,000 to 60,000 miles, depending on whether you chose high grip summer tires or long-tread-life touring tires. I left Cleveland with 3,000 miles on the tires only to learn in the middle of the desert in Utah that the life of the stock tire is approximately 6,000 miles!! This time I replaced the tires less than a week before my departure so that I don’t end up on that bench again. The object of the trip is to do what I love with this bike and that is to ride it as it rolls through beautiful scenery and sitting around waiting for a new tire doesn’t come anywhere close to that.

In the time since that trip I have worn through three sets of tires, leaving rubber shavings on the roads of Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Each set was a different manufacturer with the same promise – better grip and longer tread life. Well, promises and all, none of the tires lasted much beyond 6,000 miles. In fact, the last set I tried, the Avon Storm, lasted only 5,000 miles – and I took that one all the way down to the threads!

On that trip and numerous other shorter ones I have taken, I have learned how to manage adequate hydration. In addition to quenching thirst, adequate hydration staves off fatigue and when you are putting hundreds of miles on each day it is crucial to avoid getting dehydrated because it takes several days to recover from it; not to mention that the disorientation that results from dehydration is dangerous!

On my way back home through Kansas I experienced serious butt-whooping cross winds that drove me so close to desperation driven madness. That wind blew so hard that fully loaded semi trucks were getting tossed about and when I stopped I made sure to point the bike into the wind so that it would not get blown onto its side!! Hmm, you say, that is a 500 pound machine loaded up with an additional 50 pounds + of luggage, now how would that get blown over on its side. Well, at my first stop I put the side stand down with the bike parked broad side to the wind and as I was getting off a gust of wind hit me and as I struggled to maintain my balance I noticed the bike was wobbling just like me!!

Well, long story short (you can read about that day on the blog I kept for that trip at http://wheresthehorizon.blogstop.com where the posting is titled Kansas Crosswind) that wind took its toll on the windshield support pegs and a couple of weeks after I returned home one of them broke (in fact, it was on a trip to West Virginia). Knowing that I will be riding across the plains again, out on the lower road through Oklahoma and Texas and back through Kansas, I want to make sure I am prepared in the event one of those chooses to go if I encounter those winds again!

I am planning on doing my normal routine of a good hearty breakfast to start the day and a large dinner at the end. I work through the day on surviving on Planters Trail Mix, munching a handful when I stop to rest and stretch. Those packets cost about $2.50 and I was thrilled to finally find a grocery store that carries them at 2 for $3.00 – needless to say I bought a bunch to take with me!

I learned that “water proofing” spray does no such thing to gloves. I tried that on a pair of leather gloves I owned only to end up with wet fingers and soggy gloves. Thankfully, the sun came out after about four hours of rain and the combination of the sun and wind dried them off before the end of the day. After I lost one of those gloves in the middle of the night riding through Missouri I bought a pair of fabric and leather gloves with a gore-tex liner – also supposed to be waterproof! You guessed it, after a couple of hours riding in a rain storm (and this time it was in the lower 40’s!) I had soggy gloves and wet fingers. Now, when it rains, I pull out my $6.00 industrial rubber gloves and little wool glove liners and use those to keep my fingers warm and dry. For those of you who do not ride in inclement weather, glove liners are basically a thin fabric glove worn as a first insulating layer. I had tried just the rubber gloves but, as you can imagine, they are not the most comfortable thing in the world to wear and, especially not for extended periods.

Little tweaks here and there and hopefully they serve me well on the road. The little remaining things I have to do include getting new batteries for the three flash lights I carry as well as one for my digital camera.

My best meal last time was in a single-location family-owned and run Mexican food restaurant in Durango, Colorado. I am looking forward to a couple more good helpings of Mexican food when I am in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah!!

In my next posting I will lay out the route so that anyone who has any interest can follow it on a map.