OSO LOCO!! KTM 990s attack Colorado, Utah, and the best of the TAT

Thanks, Joel!
More mud pics and punishment tomorrow

We're going on a Oso hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one.
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh, oh!
A river,
A deep, cold river.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go through it!
Splish splosh, splish splosh.

Oh Kelly, you are the best... thanks for sharing your trip

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I LOVE Colorado. Definitly seems you guys were having a great time even if it was raining. Matt laughing the whole time, taking the anchor position in the tug-o-war with the bike. Great stuff!!!
Ok, now back to work. Thanks for the read.

Gee, there were for riders from aridzona in colorado at the end of july!!!

doesn't look like the weather has changed a bit. We rode 5 days in colo and it fricken poored every dang day-all day. We had hoot though, ran didn't stop us from riding all day, every day!! We had to repeat ophir pass cause the first time over it was raining so hard and socked in by the clouds, couldn't see a thing.

What it did stop us from doing-camping. we took all the gear but ended up somewhere with a roof every nite. totally worth it. dry clothing in the cool mornings was way worth the cost.

Looks like u are all having a blast-keep it coming

Monte

Wow, Man, that was some serious mud there! I was over in Colorado about that time & my rain gear got used for the first time. Luckily I was on the pavement & didn't have to run through that stuff. I think I would have just parked it & waited a few days for it to dry out some....

You guys got some major hair, I'll say that!!! :eek1

Great report, but then yours are always the best!!!

Aw, thanks CB160!
Thanks for joining us (again!)

Hi Ladybug!
How was Alaska? hope you had a wonderful ride.
I might have some flower pics for you later (not sure if they turned out)...

Oh, yeah - we had fun, even with the rain.
Good thing, too. It rained a LOT.

Hey Monte!
Yup, we had to ride in the rain or not ride at all.
Didn't do much camping there, either.
Guess this has been a pretty wet August for Colorado.
thanks for signing in!

Hi VFR,
heh, I take it that having "hair" is a good thing?
Thanks!

yeah, mud. I think that freaks me out more than anything.
well, except maybe silt. Or tilt (terrifying silt).


This was not the last mud we'd see on this ride, either...
(insert Dramatic Gopher music!)

Day 4: 8/4/13
Salina, UT to Gunnison, CO 416 miles, continued.






Heh. Make mud your favorite!
We had a lot of it on this ride.




Here are a few more pics and stills from the mud hole.


Me, falling in the mud while Matt laughs his ass off...








Look at that nasty glop - you can’t even see Bartek’s tire. :eek1








The SE gets a Colorado spa treatment...








Matt called for a strap to pull out Scott’s bike,
but we were too busy taking pics.








Here’s mine. Blurry.







At least Lica got a good one!








When we left his house in NV,
Scott had suggested playing a game where we’re awarded a letter for every bit of adventure we experience.
To see who could spell out "adventure" first.
Starting with “a,” then “d,” etc...
I think he was up to “N” (adveNture) at this point.















I took a couple shots of the guys pulling, then went to join them.








I think Scott’s Colorado welcome kiss was a nice, juicy French kiss








Don’t worry, Scott - we know it’s not your fault.








I was hoping that the GoPro might have captured some of the lightning.
But, all I saw was this:









OK, laughing time is over.
Back on the trail.















It was still wet and rainy.















With lots and lots of mud.








We got out of the forest and onto the pavement...








We waited for Scott and Bartek, laughing about the crazy mud.








Osito said, (in that super-laid-back way of his) “I’ve never ridden in the rain before...”
:eek1 Holy shit - Osito!!!








The rain was still coming down, so we found some shelter...
the park bathrooms/picnic area.








Unfortunately, it hadn’t all been fun and games - when Scott and Bartek pulled up,
we were upset to hear that Bartek had had a crash on his way down the mountain.

Oh, no!

He had slipped in the mud and hit a fence (going pretty fast).
It looked like he had injured his shoulder.

Testing it out.







It was pretty bad. Bartek was in a lot of pain.
The group had a fair amount of injury knowledge between them...
it was determined that Bartek probably had a partially separated shoulder.


K-word!!
(Polish swear word - last time I used it in a ride report, I got Bartek in trouble. )





What really sucked is that now Bartek wouldn’t be able to do Schofield Pass with us.
That was coming up next.
Actually, we were worried about how he was going to get out of here, period.
Even on the slab, it was going to be hours to Gunnison (we had room reservations).





He took some pain pills (just strong motrin) and said he would be fine.
Those Polish guys are tough!

Matt helped program his GPS to show the way to Gunnison.









Scott had already ridden Schofield Pass before, so he generously offered to go with Bartek on the street.
I think it made everyone feel a little better about splitting up.
Thank you, Scott!
We knew Bartek was in good hands.






Consulting the map.
Matt and Radek were confirming the way to get to Marble and then Schofield,
Scott and Bartek were checking out their route to Gunnison.








We were at Vega State Park -
Google says that this is the way Scott and Bartek would have gone if they did all highway,
BUT from what I understand, they actually rode a lot of the same dirt we did, just more carefully.



Maybe someone else will chime in. *ahem*








Blurry map showing where we were going. Vega - Schofield - Gunnison.









It was getting late, so if we were going to do Schofield, we had to go.








Scott and Bartek had a long ride ahead of them as well.









When we did our Summer of Stupid ride and rode Black Bear Pass (2up with camping gear),
I got lots of PMs afterwards.
People wanted to know if we were going to try other tough (for ADV bikes) passes,
like Schofield Pass and Pearl Pass.



I had never heard of either one of those, but you know they went on our short list for next time.







We had a pretty tight schedule,
so if we were going to do Schofield it had to be today.
Right now.
Even though it seemed like a really, really bad idea.


Blurry pic just to show the ominous clouds...







It was around 4 pm. That didn’t leave us much daylight.














It was still raining pretty hard. Here are some blurry cows.















Did I mention that it was cold?
We were all feeling chilly.








Had a tiny bit of slab to get to Marble.









Here we are.








Fire truck for Bob! See, I’m still always thinking of you, Bob.








Beaver Lake








We must be getting close








Blurry again...
















Lica, enthusing about something.







None of us had ever been here (only Scott), nor had we done much research.
All I remembered were photos of the Devil’s Punchbowl and the old wooden Mill.
Also, that there was going to be a water crossing at some point.




Once we left the town of Marble, we figured it would be pretty straightforward.
I don’t think anyone was paying attention to their GPS screens.






Here we go!
Wow, it starts off steep and slippery...








It wasn’t long before we were sliding around.
These rocks were SUPER slick. Like they were covered in Crisco. :eek1







The mud was no better.







Hoo boy. This is going to be fun.




Up ahead of us, Lica went down - Radek almost did, too.








Behind us, Osito was down.
It was only a matter of time before the schoolbus ate it, too.







This was going to be slow going.








Steeper than it looks.
















At one point, Lica was helping ride Osito’s bike through a tough spot.
It was still super slick and steep.
When he lost forward momentum, Lica tried to save the bike instead of dropping it...
and ended up tweaking his knee.

We could hear everything in our Senas.

Oh no!





We were worried about Lica, but those Romanians are as tough as Polish guys.
He said he could continue on.

Oso!!














The longer this went on, the more tired everyone got.
Matt was exhausted from wrestling the schoolbus - our weight was killing him.
We went down right here and I landed on my back, head facing downhill...
I was able to get up but it took some work.
(looking back the way we came)







The second time we fell, it was even worse.
Same thing happened (I went turtle), but I got wedged into a big rut.
Help! Matt had to pull me out.
(I thought there would be video of this, but the GoPro was off)







As we were resting (these bikes are so freaking heavy to pick up, especially when they’re facing downhill),
Matt looked at the GPS more closely.

Mother brother!
We were off track!






After all that, we weren’t even going to Schofield, we were going up some other mountain.
We had missed the turn, waaaaaay back there.





Monkey fighter!
We had just wasted an hour of daylight (and massive amounts of energy)
on the wrong freaking trail.
Later, Radek said it was called “Dead End Trail” (I think he saw that on his GPS?)




So, it was time to turn around and experience slipping and sliding DOWNhill now...








Looking at the video, I can see where we missed the turn...

Back at the very bottom, there was a fork.
To the left is the road to Schofield/Devil's Punchbowl.
If you keep going straight, you end up on Dead End (or whatever it’s called)







Sigh.

Let’s try this again.
Now that everyone had been down at least once...
And Lica was hurt...

And it was after 7pm...
Did I mention that we didn’t eat lunch today?
Schofield Pass, here we come...

Hi guys!

Following along keenly.



Cheers!

JM.

When I'm in these situations I tell myself "We'll laugh about this six months from now" Are you laughing?

John

More please....

Wow, you folks are nuts! I lived in Gunnison for years, rode Schoefield a bunch of times, but NEVER uphill in the rain! I don't suppose you heard about the wreck there in '70 (I think it was '70) that killed 9 people out of 12 when their GMC Jimmy went into the Punchbowl during a rain storm? They were also going uphill in the rain, lost it about 3/4 up the hill.

Anyway, great read! (I was having a hard time trying to figure out where all the ruts and slick rocks were on the way to Schoefield then you figured it out for me: wrong road!)

Fook-Mi :eek1 So my best analogy for you two........... Replace Doctor Evil with..... "Wans" OMG what are you guys thinking.


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You guys are ADV Rock Stars with some mud thrown in. Cliffhanger after Cliffhanger


I should have seen it coming with you two.

If you're looking for a Cliffhanger I think they did Cliffhanger/Amasa Back in Moab......should be interesting to see how they negotiated the first 1/2 mile in and out

Checking back for more. Are we having fun yet?

your ride reports keep getting better and better and the riding harder and harder......

I hate mud... as you know... lol

Oh the humanity!
I can't take the tension.

(and secretly I'm glad I wasn't there...)
Standing by for more...

Q~

There was a sign actually at the fork. It was hidden by some of the bushes.

I also wanted to chime in that this is where my overheating problem got fixed.
So I was having all these overheating issues the previous days. Even disassembled the whole bike to check thermostat, impeler, change coolant.

I took the lead later on the dead end trail and started to tractor up the hill. I was moving steady standing up until i realized that once again my overheat lamp was blinking and I had full bars. I kept going a few more seconds and stopped. I guess all that work we did in St George did not fix it.
There was a difference this time. When i stopped my fans were off. Hmm. For a moment I thought maybe the sensor is malfunctioning and I'm not overheating at all and I should just keep riding despite a red temp light blinking in my face. Gulp. We decided to investigate more....

First thing we tried was pull the rad sensor plug and short out the 2 pins. Lica said that this should turn the fans on bypassing everything else....it just shorts to ground. Fans did not come on.
Last thing to check is the fuse. Sure enough it was blown. I replaced the fuse and the fans turned on with vigor. One thing I noticed right away is that the fans seem to be stronger.

At this point we decided to turn around and headed back down. I could tell right away something was different on my bike. Before my fans would just stay on the whole time, now the bike would hit higher temperature, the fans kick in, and a minute later they go off because the engine was sufficiently cooled down.

So....

It looks like my whole overheating was a higher resistance on the fuse which cause a lower voltage on the fans, which caused them to spin slower.
Could a fuse have been partially blown before causing slight resistance and in so causing a voltage drop? Perhaps the fuse connection was bad?

On pervious days I never suspected the fuse because I could hear the fans coming on so it did not cross my mind that this could have been my issue.

And in fact this was the issue as for the remainder of the trip I no longer had any overheating issues. So take note and if you have some strange temp issue perhaps its this also.

I'm all caught up now you can continue the report. Looks like there is a trend of a least one element of nature giving you guys a hard time on your rides, snow, sand and now lots and lots of mud. At least you make the most of it and have fun. So how many times did you make it through A.D.V.E.N.T.U.R.E.?