The "WTF" Arizona Two Day Massacre

Just a little, especially since we joked about it when they were installing those jumper wires.

it was a rather boring ride and thought you were drifting in and out of sleep in the sand so we all thought you needed a little wake up reminder once in a while.

my only concern, when the Ghost tucked the wires up under my seat, was avoiding getting shocked in the nutz!

DOD don't need no battery powered bike. Don't let them give you shit DOD!

Looks like you guys had a great time - nice weather to change a bunch of flats

Bret aka Ghost will be posting his pics etc. after work.

It was definitely a very ambitious weekend. Glad we could do it and support you guys. Bret and I have not as hard as we did in a long time on both days. First our adventure with the Fish and Game Guys. We did blow the check point but in all fairness it really did look like a Score Checkpoint for special speed section and the Ghost thought I said GOOOO! when I said slow. All I know is that Fish and Game Officers don't like getting dusted when they are in their lawn chairs in the middle of the desert. Did you know that all open roads that are not posted are 35 mph in Arizona? We do.. KNOW!!!
Oh and the British Version Reidy was referring to is the right hand drive of my Raptor. It's really cool. It gives a whole new perspective of driving off road and being a passenger. All I can say is a quality Dad will sacrifice a lot for his children. Including almost taking a bullet, going to jail, getting a ticket etc. etc. It pays to be friendly, courteous, have your hands out of your pockets and have a clean record. Oh and the gift of B.Sing. It gets a couple miles knocked off a speed ticket sometimes. Like about 30 mph in this case. 55 in a 35 shouldn't cost to much I hope.

On day 2 again the Ghost took over after lunch to help relieve an old mans tired body. Well after a few miles on nice paved road and seeing the scenic neighbor hoods just north of I-10 heading north to Mammoth, I got to play co-astronaut with the Ghost. As AZRedline said, we had blue sky under us. The float time off the paved roller felt like floating down the face of a 15 foot wave. All I can say is I'm pretty sure I saw the space station go by at one point. It was the hard landing anticipation I was not sure about for this one. The truck has been in the air a few times. 1-2 feet is one thing. 5-8 feet is another. A stock truck would definitely have cause the notorious Raptor frame bend and a couple of blown out shocks I'm sure. I guess my upgrades and reinforcing certain areas paid off. Thanks RPG and Fox for good race quality parts. The landing was flat with no terrible rebound. Landed like it was supposed to but it was glorious to know we had survived. We made a quick stop to make sure the tires still had air and that they were also pointing in the right direction and looked at each other an laughed in our best Sean Pin, Ridgemont high voice
KNARLY DUDE!! off we go with everything running as normal. We did get the obligatory thumbs up from AZRedline just after the jump.
The truck faired excellent the entire trip. The only real issue was a sliced tire in the rocks that could have been avoided had I been looking a little closer.
A little AZ. pinstripe occurred but this is not a street queen by any means and I am VERY happy with it's performance. I have prerun for the Baja 500 and 1000 a few times in the past and this was pretty much just like that experience.
We got to spend great quality time with friends on an adventure this weekend with an epic ride and experiences that none of us will ever forget.
Thanks guys for letting us come along. I hope we proved our worth as a support truck and will get invited again.

Uncle Mil T Aka Bigdog

Day 2 started out pretty chilly. Waiting for the sun to come up to warm things up.



Actually, I should go back and relate what my side of the story was for what happened to us the night prior.

As AZRedline touched upon already it was only a matter of seconds before all 4 of us (Reidy, 4Play, AZRedline and myself) were completely alone out in the middle of the desert. I still haven't looked at my tracks to see where exactly we were but we were somewhere south of the 86 and headed somewhere south of Green Valley.

When Reidy and I took the wrong turn we started heading back to the track and I looked down at the GPS for a second to see if we had been back to the point where we made the wrong turn. When I looked back up Reidy was gone. So I kept backtracking and apparently I passed right by him and didn't even notice him. :huh It was really the perfect storm because we had been riding in an area with heavy brush and a lot of tight turns so you couldn't see too far ahead on the trail.

I kept back tracking for about a mile and stopped. Looked around and heard nothing. Saw no one.

Now it was about 6pm and the sun setting quickly. I knew I was out there with my tiny little headlight that isn't worth a damn. Plus to make matters worse I didn't want to turn off the bike because I thought it would die and had nobody to help me get it started again. Oh, and did I mention that I had tossed my tool bag in the back of Mil's truck to lighten my load since he was gonna be following us anyway? Yeah, he wasn't following us now so I was out there:
by myself.
with hardly any light.
a good half hour before sunset.
with a dead battery.
and no tools.



Sorry, I know this may be a point of contention with some, but I was getting the fuck out of there as quickly as I could. So i took the route that I knew and back tracked to the 86. Once there I stopped at a gas station and called Reidy and left him a message that I was booking it to the hotel by pavement. It would be a long ass hour and a half there. Cold as hell at spots. Only able to see maybe 20 yards in front of me (yeah, I also had tinted goggles ) nearly clipping a dead javalina with my boot in the middle of the road a few miles out of Patagonia.

Fun times!

Not as many pictures from Day 2 This is Julius, my Bad ass 690 in front of the Hotel


The Stage stop inn



Geetting ready for Day 2

Charlie said that is Mexico in the distance



Here he is running for the Border Taco shop ( or running from the Border patrol, can't remember )



BigE - Time for Tacos

Great ride, great people, beautiful country !

oh yeah, the rest of the pics.











Manifold pizza.



MilT explaining how far off the ground they got off that last jump.

Gnarly dude!



AZ Stripes.



That's all I got. I'll post the remaining vids later.

Remind me to question my sanity if I ever agree to do a ride with you guys.

Anyone notice this RR started with...

Todd isn't that a 950 SE you ride..... Above your bike pic you say it is a 690.... is there something we should know?

DAM!!!! i knew this ride was close, i shoulda PM'ed ya reidy, my bike is all fixed up (even new tires) and i was ready to go.

looks like a missed a great time. maybe ya'll will do it again? and maybe DOD will get that overniter through the white mtns going.

No worries mate, there will be plenty of riding to be had in the future. Your 640 would have been perfect for these kinds of trails.

First off let me say that I did not bring the cable needed to download the few pictures that I took. So, this is going to be one of those boring no picture post. Consider yourself warned!
It all started about a year ago when I got the bright idea to ride to Patagonia Arizona and back from Phoenix. I formulated a plan, drew it on the digital paper map and calculated time, distance and severity of the adventure. The next step was to find some fool to ride this ambitious one-day route with me. Immediately I thought of Drew (Reidy008). We started early and by 5 PM we were only half way there and me with ignition trouble with my trusty 950. It was time to bail and shelve this one for later. We decided it would be a great two-day ride. Later Drew concluded that he should finish the route going backwards so he thought “what fool would go with me on this ride?” I was unavailable so he immediately thought of Steve (AZRedline). They set out early and completed the second half of the ride in one long day. Drew called me and explained why it would be better to run it backwards so the only thing left was to invite more fools to ride with us. Invitations went out and I was surprised we had 8 hearty souls and, two daredevils in a Raptor to go with us. A date was set and after a lot of e-mails and anticipation the start approached. We met at the Waffle House off hwy 60 and South Idaho. Let the massacre commence.
More to come.

Yes. Pm me with your e-mail address and give me a day. I need to delete a section that we should not have ridden. I'm sure the details will come out later.

Great report. Felt like I was right beside you guys... NOT. Good times, for sure.

After reading what has already been posted, there really isn't to much to say. But I have to say a BIG thanks to Reidy008, yb, for the tracks, azredline for the pre-riding the tracks (even though he got lost, has a gps and has no flippin clue how to use it) and Mil T and Ghost for chasing us down and providing help along the way.

This group of riders, when you get them all together it's always a blast. Lot's of laughs, always help when you need it and they all look out for each other. You couldn't ask for anything more. up to everyone that went along. Now for a few pictures. I didn't take too many, only 97 but most of them are not very good so I will spare you all the pain in looking at all of them.

Here is my first shot of the day in Florence, I forgot to take any at the Waffle House


Cyberdos checking his tires.......I wonder if this jinxed us?


Big E ready to go....


And here comes the Raptor




4play looking on thinking WTF......then oh man, this isn't going to be good


These guys were pissed off.....




Here is Big E after coming down that Nasty Hill


Did anyone say their were rocks on this ride


Snack time, the hill made everyone a little hungry


Montek with the only shade available cooling down while we were waiting for the rest of the crew


Cyberdos and azredline were off to climb the nasty hill to see where the others were

I will have to finish later, the internet connection at this shitty hotel is horrible and it keeps kicking me off.

But man, just reading the report that everyone is contributing to here is like riding the trail all over. I am glad I am down the nasty hill.

Oh yea, one more thing, I let cyberdos win the drag race, I was only at half throttle.............

That self shot of cyberdos doesn't look like tinted goggles!? Great looking ride. I love he multiple storytellers!