Questor and Motoadventuregal ride the Trans-America Trail

Hello Werewasi.

In the "East", say anything east of Colorado, most of the land is privately owned and tresspassing is not a good idea.
In the "West" there is lots of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land that is good for camping. The tricky part is finding it as it is not marked, and I did not carry the thousands of maps that would be required to locate it. National Forests are also a good place to find camping, but you have to be something like 100 feet from a road and not visible.
Eventually, we did get better at "bookdocking"; that is, finding an out of the way spot and stealth camping for the night.

At no point were we concerned for our safety while camping. I just wanted to be respectful of private property, and have a relaxed night sleep. Also things like water and showers were a luxury after a long, hard, hot day of riding.

As for the mileage stats, those are totals for the day as recorded by the GPS. So they would include the wandering around looking for gas, and camp sites.

Good questions.
Q~

Hello Fourty2ri.

We were on a bit of a schedule as MAG needed to be a certain airports on certain dates so she could fly back to work once and a while.

But mostly, it's me. I get in a mindset where I can't stop. I used to have a life with a lot of responsibilities and deadlines. When I set a schedule or a plan, I have a very hard time breaking the habit of staying on plan. Often I would not even stop for food.
(I'm still trying to learn to relax. Massive quantities of beer help. )

As for riding off the road: I'll blame the bike. It was squirrel! I'd see the corner, know what line to take, and the damned bike would not carve the corner. It would just front end push right into the shoulder and off the road. Most of the time I was going less than 15mph so no harm was done. But again, I blame the bike.

But you're right. Two or three blown corners in two hours and it WAS time to stop. That's why we stopped in that town and took a coffee break.

[Spoiler: You should see some of the days I put in when I was riding the first half of the Continental Divide Trail by myself. :eek1 ]

Q~

It was an interesting evening...
We had big rolling thunder all night, without much rain; and we were listening to any sounds that might indicate that Cinnamon the bear was lurking around our campsite.

But eventually the sun came up, and we slowly broke camp.
Motoadventuregal had a splitting headache from the high altitude.

So we rolled back down to civilization.


Past interesting rock formations.


And had breakfast in the town of La Veta.
The 'locals' breakfast spot was busy on this Sunday morning, so we had to wait for a table. But while we were waiting MAG struck up a conversation with Frank, a local rancher, who came down from his property once a week to get his favorite breakfast.
We had what he had.





The conversation was interesting, and reading from my notes I have one of his quotes. "A three piece suit is just another kind of uniform." And I had to agree.

After breakfast we continued following the Trail.


We saw old road grading machinery on the sides of the road.


The TAT took us up an amazing valley in a National Forest.


and we kept climbing. Motoadventuregal's bike was not happy. It was sputtering and was not running right. Perhaps it was not liking the rarified air at these elevations.

Eventually we came to the ridge at 10,800 feet.



On the windward or western side of the ridge, the terrain was completely different. Lots of tall trees.


We dropped down into the valley below and rode towards Westcliffe, CO.
Thats where we met Chris and Brett (soloyosh on ADVrider).
Apparently some of their gear had come flying off the back of one of their bikes and they were retracing their route looking for it. :eek1


They gave up, and we followed them down into town, for gas and lunch at yet another Subway.


It was there that we met a guy who had lost his dog. :eek1
But he saw a sign that said somebody had found it, and he used my cell phone to call them. Within 20 minutes, man and dog were reunited.

Chris and Brett took off towards Salida, where there is a decent outdoor gear store, and Motoadventuregal and myself looked at the maps.

One of the places I wanted to visit again was the Orient Land Trust, also known as Valley Veiw Hot Springs. It's an awesome spot and I wanted Motoadventuregal to see it. So I checked with my 'trusty' GPS and plotted a route, over the mountain pass to it. According to the GPS it was only a 2 1/2 hour ride, and we would be there in time for dinner and a soak in the hot springs.
We decided to go for it. Hermit pass was along the route...
The trail started easy.


But we quickly gained elevation.



But Motoadventuregal's bike started to act up again.
It simply did not have the power to get moving. So the only thing MAG could do was give it full throttle and slip the clutch. Each time she stopped, I would have to get off my bike, and give her a running push to get her going.


The terrain was difficult, and after the 20th "run and push" I was getting exhausted. But we kept going up Hermit Pass.
Motoadventuregal was doing amazing things on a sick DR350. She's got skills I tell you.


If anyone ever asks me, "How do you train for the TAT?" I'd tell them to put on all their riding gear, and start running up the steepest hill you can find till your exhausted.

We saw alpine lakes below us.


Three hours later, we still had a long way to go...




Eventually we got to what we thought was the top.
MAG's bike was starting to have problems with the clutch due to all the clutch slipping required to keep moving. We decided to take a break, and I would ride further to check the trail ahead.

Well about a mile later I came to this. :eek1


The trail was blocked by snow! It was deep, and totally covered the trail. There was no way around.
Looking at the GPS, we were so close, but we could not go any further.


At nearly 13,000 feet we had to turn back.

The view before I turned around and saw what we had ridden.


It was a monumantal effort, and having to turn around was sickening.
That and we may have done some damage to MAG's bike in the process...

We rode all the way back down.
It was amazing that we had ridden up this in the first place.



Eventually we found a secluded place to stop, and set up Camp Snuggly at 10,000 feet.


I don't remember what we had for dinner. Probably some version of Glorp.

But I do remember the sunset, and the mosquitos.



Stats for the day:
140 miles.
Moving average 25.8 Moving time 5:25
Stopped 4:01 Total 9:27

Q~

Sorry John about the pics. Questor is saving a "place" for me to upload my pics, so the pics stay consistent with the days, and then I tell the viewers when i do an upload.

I am trying to keep up, but I leave next week for 6+ months riding in South America and, well, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Thanks for bearing with us.

You didn't mention how terrific that storm was at almost 11,000 feet. It drenched our fire, and you had to run out and get something--I cannot remember what--and you came flying back into the tent.

Also, I want to mention that we rode about 30 miles out of our way (?) off the TAT to find a free campsite...which wasn't free! My bike kept stalling...my carburetor issues were becoming more and more pronounced. You finally had me lead up to Bear Lake because my bike kept choking and dying.

I was really stressed, after a really long day, the bike being poopy, and then when they came and told us that we were camping in the bear's favorite campsite, my stress level went through the roof (compounded by the 4 wheelers doing laps around the campground and the camp host who couldn''t do anything about it even though there were signs everywhere no ATVs).

Wow! That really looks grueling! Had to kill you to turn around and do that again!

Nice perserverence!

The real bummer was that we didn't make it over AND I cooked my clutch. The bike felt strange coming down, but our descent was just before dark, and we were both spent from the effort it took to get me up the pass with my engine running poopy.

Like Q said, he'd catch up with me, and very often have to give me a push start to get going, then I'd gun it like hell in 1st or 2nd gear until the terrain or pitch of the mountainside would stop me again. Then grind-grind-grind the engine to get it started, shove off, and ride like hell again. The good part was I was so frustrated, so determined, so full of adrenaline I was a heck of a rider for those spurts.

My skill level decreased dramatically the next day.

That night we boondocked on the mountainside at about 8,000 feet.

I have noticed there are "GPS" miles and REAL miles, and seldom the 2 are on the same page. It is so noticeable that the guys that ride with me when they ask how far it is to "xyz" and tell them "oh about 5 miles" they ask is that GPS miles or REAL miles. Then there are TAT miles but that is a whole nuther subject.

Good job on the RR so far! the TAT can pretty much surprise and dish out just about anything you can think of and a few things you cant.

We broke camp early and headed back down to the town of Westcliffe.


Motoadventuregal's clutch was definitely acting funny. It was slipping randomly, even on flat terrain. And there was also the issue of the malfunctionaing carburator. :eek1

While in town we had breakfast and met Johnathan who lives there and runs The Courtyard Bed and Breakfast. He's an ADVrider, andf Iron Butt rider. He was generous enough to let us use his Wi-Fi. We scourd the Net, made phone calls and came up with a plan.
We would limp the DR350 to Salida, hook up with Heyduke, and see if we could make any repairs.
So we rode to Salida, very slowly...


And eventually made it to town.


Main street.


We found Dukes shop, Fat tees.


We knew we were at the right place when we saw this.


Duke was there and nice enough to let us stay at the "Adventure Cottage" at his house. So we got directions, a 12 pack of his favorite beer and headed over to Duke's house.


Then I proceeded to dig into Motoadventuregal's bike.


The air filter was dirty....again.


When Duke got home from work, we checked out the carburator.




It turns out that the previous owner of the bike did not replace the main carburator gasket when they last worked on it. Instead they used gasket sealer to 'glue' the carburator back together.


The combination of the vibraton, heat, and the gasoline caused the gasket sealant to disolve and chunks were getting sucked into the main jet and blocking the fuel.
We tried to put the carburator back together with the defective seal, but when we turned on the petcock on the fuel tank, gas just gushed out all over the ground. Well, now it's broken.


Our only choice was to take the bike to Denver and get parts and get both the carburator and clutch fixed.

In the meantime, we were all happy to be together with ADV friends.
(Note the coveted ADV flag. You can buy one in the Vendors forum. )


Then we cooked a big dinner.
No glorp tonight. Tonight we eat real food.



Stats for the day:
64 milles
Moving average 30.7 Moving time 2:07
Stopped 6:05 Total 8:13

And a big "Thank You" to Heyduke!

Q~

great pics, great story. I look for this thread each morning!

[



Was this actually Saphire in North Carolina. Very attractive looking place. I need to put it on my list of places to go through.

What a great read.

Hullo, where are you?
we're all going cold turkey out here.

Hello All.

Sorry for the lapse in posting.
Motoadventuregal and myself have been busy getting ready for a TAT presentation we did at ARES CYCLES in New Britain CT.
We did the presentation last night. We had a good turn out actually. We had 35 people show up and sit there as I talked for over two hours.

Also Motoadveturegal is getting ready to leave on her 6 month ride through Central and South America next week, so I've been busy helping her get ready.

I promise to get back to regular updates of this post really soon.

Also, I have not really been Home in two weeks, and I need a very fast Internet connection to upload all the pictures.

I enjoy writing this Ride Report, and look forward to having the time to do it correctly.

Sorry for the delay...
Q~

Well, we woke up the next morning and still had a broken bike to worry about. We needed to get it to Denver to a fellow ADVrider "Bendejo" who we had contacted and said he would be able to help us out.
But how do we get a non-operational motorcycle to Denver some 100+ miles away?
Also, Motoadventuregal needed to be in Denver to catch a flight to the BMW National Rally in Tennesse in two days...

Well, we had another freind in Hartsel CO, about 30 miles away who said he had a truck and trailer we could borrow.
Heyduke was kind enough to offer to drive us, and the bikes to Hartsel.
So we loaded the bikes onto his trailer.


Tossed all out gear in the back of his Trooper, and drove to Hartsel about an hour away. Thank you again Heyduke, you really saved the day!


In Hartsel, we met up with our friend Chris.
Chris is building a summer house.


He's doing all the work himself, including building a deck to watch the sunsets.


After socializing for a few hours, we loaded the bikes onto his trailer, hooked it up to his truck,


and headed to Denver.



We stopped at BMW of Denver to pick up some tires we had shipped there.

Here's actually a funny story. So we pull up in front of this gleaming BMW dealership in a beat up old truck, with to trashed looking Suzuki dirt bikes on a trailer. I go inside and a sales rep approaches me. I tell him how much I like BMW motorcycles, and how much I liked the BMW R1200GS Adventure. ( I already own one... ) So we go through the motions...
How much they weigh, range, features / benifits, etc. "So how much will it cost?" I ask.
He tells me.
"OK, and how much will you give me on trade in for my Suzuki?"
He looks out the window at the bikes and says "Are you serious?"
I laughed, and told him I was joking, and that I was only here to pick up some tires that they were nice enough to allow us to ship there.

So after the BMW shop we went to "Bendejo's".


We explained to Bendejo what need to be done, and how we would be back in about two weeks.
Motoadventuregal had to work in Tennessee, and I was going hang out in the Vail Colorado area with my Aunt until she got back. Poor me...

Stats for the day:
Well technically we didn't do any riding...

Q~

Hey Gadget Boy,

We actually flew the ADV flag at a TVA location the very first day of the TAT

I posted it at post #38
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11033695&postcount=38

I was planning to show up for that, but alot of drama got in the way. Have to get the story from here. It's all good.

Sorry to miss you. We had a great turnout--we ran out of chairs!

I'd be happy to do a presentation for our dualsport club, Rusty. I have a really fond place in my heart for the club (and for you!). You were one of the first people that helped me on ADVrider a couple of years ago when I first wanted to get into dualsporting. You also told me about the Berkshire Trailriders, which has been really helpful to me.

The presentation will have to be next year, however...

Well, Motoadventuregal is away in Tennesse working...
I stayed with my Aunt in the Vail area of Colorado.

It's a great area to have a dirt bike while waiting for a few days...

I had a few adventures out there too.
See my Ride Reports about some of them:
Schofield Pass
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10389021&postcount=139

On July 20th I ride back to Denver to meet up with Motoadventuregal and pick up here bike at Bendejo's. We would also put the new tires on our bikes, and head back to Hartsel CO, to join back up with the TAT.

Q~