RTW on a thumper... Round the World ADVenturization

I met you a year and a half ago in L'Anse aux Meadows, NF while riding with a friend. You offered me a few tips on my the ride I was about to take to Ushuaia. My buddy Ryan and I looked for you in Rocky Harbour later that day but we never found you.

I'm looking forward to reading the stories and seeing the photos. Enjoy your time in Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba and if you find yourself back on the east coast of Canada drop in.

i get exactly what you are saying but with no way of using the front because the slope was so steep it would lock up so i had no choice...well i did kind of, sleep on a mountain at 12,600 feet, i had 4.3 total miles to the bottom so i did it very slowly and ran the bike as much as i could to keep any sort of lubrication going, and tapping the front brake like a manual ABS system...times like these you need to improvise as much as you can...remember i had a complete noob riding with me and he was on fumes and beginning to freak out, i needed off that mountain

i'll be up in toronto for the HU meeting doing a slideshow of the trip so far and answering questions if you can make it would good to see you again

need to get you in some of these photos...

do think our babies with attitude avatars could go a few rounds

a quick ride from Green River to Moab to top off the tanks…

next it was heading to Shafer Switchbacks




can you see Pat on his bike in this shot below?



and here are the switchbacks heading down to White Rim Road




and to the Musselman Arch…



in hindsight that would have been a good time to come off the trail, having never done it before we were interested in the ride to see what all the hype was about…

this is what we saw







here lizard lizard!!!





well great weather cool scenery but after a while it all seemed very similar the sun was beating down and we spent too much time at the start taking photos, not realizing we were drinking more of our water than we thought. By the time we got to Potato bottom were were virtually out of water!!! NOT GOOD…we agreed that we could see the Colorado,

this is what we saw



if we could get to it we were going in the river to cool off, we found a way in by Hardscrabble Campground, we wallowed in the water for nearly an hour in full riding gear




nicely cooled off and now a few clouds were in the sky blocking the sun, all good again, well for about 500 yards, as we rounded the next corner the river had spilled its banks onto the trail and we had two sections of very soft mud to cross with water flowing at a good rate, done not to difficult, 500 yards more and another corner the is a car partially submurged and a guy sitting there,



we crossed the mud and the water and he offered us a gallon of water as he had plenty in his car, nice guy, thanks if you ever read this.

from then on until mineral bottom road



about every few hundred years there was standing water and deep sand washed down from the flash floods that have been happening all over southern Utah for the last few days since we have been here…spending the night in Moab

We should let the kids have a turn at it.

Holy crap I just stumbled across this thread. I'm geeked to read it! Opening post is unreal!

stay tuned, i'm only 5 days in on this part of the ride, another 7 months or so to go before i may take a break (or not!!!)

count me tuned in!

coming out of Moab early in the morning




i headed out on the Utah backcountry discovery route north of Green River, having done a lot of the routes further south i was on section 8.

Over the last few weeks Southern UT has been having severe flash flooding on a daily basis, i was wary about heading out just in case areas had been washed out or made impassable for one reason or another.

Initially the route seemed OK for the first ten miles or so



after that the heavy rains started to show the toll on the trail, there were long sections of deep sand, so if you don't like deep sand avoid this section, there's lots of it right now



i found a section that first appeared to be a gate i needed to go thru, but there was no way



later down the trail i found what i think was the right gate, so i went thru



all good again and at one point you cross the 'spanish trail'



then out of nowhere i hit so rough ground and the GPS cut out, i have a zumo 550, so i did the normal check - taking out the battery and replacing it - nothing, i then pulled out the tools and went thru the electrical system, connections, fuses, charging wires from source to the head unit, everything was good, but all it would do would scroll thru the initial first two flash screens and then cut off.



i have a 60csx as a back up on the bars but it only has base map, as i use it mainly for altitude or compass, now this was my main unit!!!

a quick check of the map showed the main paved road maybe 6 miles away, i was at a point on the trail where i had two choices, follow the trail and head in deeper, but with no GPS tracks and the map has no names and the trail doesn't either....so i headed towards the road - hopefully, it was all a little vague, i was trying to find a definite point i could recognise - i came across a ranch entrance

no i know if you see this you are heading the wrong way



i came to a cross roads after being chased down the trail by a big black bull for about 100 years!!! and there was a truck there, it was the rancher who owns some of this land, he wanted to know if i had see any of his bulls!!! YES, i told him i was chased and he laughed, " that bull is heading this way for water, he was chasing you cause he thinks you might steal his water

so i tell him i am looking to get off the trail as my GPS as taken a shit, we are sitting at a crossroads, 4 ways to go i figure, so i ask which is the best way, he points at two of them and tells me i could use either, and then points in a direction where there is no trail and said you could go that way if you want as well.

he laughs and then points, "go that way" its the shortest, i said 6 miles, which is what it shows on the maps to scale, he told me it was 16 miles, and it was...he took off



the road is fast and scenic





i get back to the highway, but on the way something isn't right with the front end...later in the day i check the bearings that "the guy in silverton helped me with new grease a few days earlier". i pulled the whole front end apart in a motel parking lot




what i found is the "mechanic" just added new grease to the bearings and didn't clean them first, there was old grease with grit and dirt under the new grease, this is what made the front end feel notchy so soon...i went thru the whole thing, cleaned and regreased and got it all back in one piece in about an hour for $10.50 spent at the local Napa store

because of this i decided to head out of UT and go to Reno, long day on the road passing Bonneville Salt Flats, but a whole lot of nothing else for the rest of the day

I have a simple question and two suggestions.

What camera are you using? Looks like a Nikon point and shoot in the one photo with the rear view mirror but I can't tell the model. STELLAR colors! Are all your shots processed post production or is that right off the camera? Just fantastic photography!

Second, might I suggest an ammendment to your california route. Hwy 20 from just outside Ft Bragg to Willits. Some of the squiggliest bits of tarmac you'll ever see. Then keep going east to Grass Valley and take Hwy 49 to Downieville for lunch. (I rode coast to coast in '92 covering 9000 miles and my favorite stretch was the first 120 miles leading out of Grass Valley.) Keep taking that to Jackson Meadows reservoir (onto dirt there) and take Henness Pass Rd (Forest route 7) east to the Nevada State line. Nice country!!

If you are passing through Minnesota on your way to Toronto, you are welcome to my guest quarters (before sept 5 or after Sept 13) as long as you don't mind cute kids and friendly labs! You can PM me with a weeks notice. If you have to come through during the week of the 5th-13th then you get the couch cause my mother's coming to visit!

Safe travels! Keep the greasy side down!

I agree: very impressed with the photos and the colors.

According to his EXIF data the camera is a SAMSUNG MV800

yea the point and shoot is a samsung MV800, reason for that one was , easy to use, i take a lot of shots when i'm riding with my left hand, also it takes panoramic shots both vertically and horizontally, and has a folding screen for self portraits which is also good for video....got an amazing price on it on eBays daily deals

the other camera i use is a DSLR Canon 550 with a 18-200 lens...i use a graduated filter on most shots which makes a big difference on colors, it makes them a lot richer and truer, if i do anything after the fact its crop and adjust maybe brightness, i only use Picasa, and if need be i hit the 'feeling lucky' button - unless i am looking for a dramatic effect or B&W or sepia of course

edit***

i "picked up" a copy of a photo editing program, so i will be playing with that and adding maybe one fully post production shot in each post

hwy 20 is good but only 35 miles and a busy road, you should have gone north to #36, if you start at Lassen and go to the coast you have over 300 miles of the same type of road, the last 140 miles from Red Bluff to Eureka are steller and have no traffic, another road with NO traffic is a back road #128, it probably has four times the amount of bends that Hwy 20 does in the same distance...now thats fun

...and i'll be in touch when i'm heading your way

very late start from Reno, by the time i was outside the city limits it was after 12pm, this would have an affect later in the day.





i headed northwest towards one of my favorite rides, route 36 in northern california, firstly thru Lasson NP and the volcano fields, they were doing managed fires so visibility was very limited only got these few good shots





from there it was onto route 36, from Lasson to Red Bluff its OK but from Red Bluff onwards it kind of reminds me in places of the road from Cusco to Nasca in Peru, perfect payment most of the time and never more than an 1/8 of a mile without a bend

the sign by the side of the road when you rejoin the 36 in Red Bluff after one mile on the freeway reads twisty road for the next 140 miles…and it is



because i was late and riding into the sun i decided not to head for the coast but stayed in a campground, and on a saturday night i was the only one there…weird!!!

Nice stitch on that shot 4th from the bottom.

thats from the samsung, it does it automatically, no stitching required

i'll get to the Zebras in a bit…

i finished riding 36 with the sun on my back all the way to the ocean, only in the last few miles did i hit the fog and the temperature dropped dramatically






the rest of the day was spent with the ocean on my right most of the time or surrounded by big Redwoods











….until rounding a corner i thought i had ridden thru a time warp and i was in an african savanna in the middle of a field was two Zebras!!! yes i'm not losing my mind, and having lived in Kenya years ago i can tell you these were big and healthy





i ended the day in a State Park, i must have had a puzzled look on my face, "are you Ok?" an English accent asks me

i reply, "$40 for a campsite, am i missing something here?"

"nope thats right, you can pitch your tent by us if you want, no problem".

this is how i met Matt, Nicola and there two kids Cosmo and Sky, they were world travelers now settled in California. they understood $40 was most of a days budget for a traveller, so we ended up in the same pitch talking the night away about life on the road around the campfire…and BTW they had the BIGGEST tent i have ever seen, they were now car campers

more coast riding and the occasional diversion to get off the fog to the inland and warm up



...and today i'm back in Argentina!!! seeing a familiar face...gotta lover quirky californians and there choice of animals



when the fog lifted in certain areas of route 101 and route 1 the views as expected are incredible



how about a fixer upper with ocean views...any takers



i arrived into San Francisco just in time as everyone was leaving so didn't have to deal with too much traffic




having been here lots of times before i just headed to the Presidio to take a different "angle" of the Golden Gate Bridge





i ended up the day spending the night with fellow inmate "Hetman" in his apartment downtown and grabbing some food...thanks for your hospitality Dave it was very much appreciated, and he gave me a few pointers to some roads that the locals like....i'm off