The "WTF" Arizona Two Day Massacre

Sometimes a well planned trip on some easy big bike trails just doesn't go quite like you think it will....

The plans were layed months ago to do a two day loop into Southern Arizona from Phoenix with a night in Patagonia. An email was sent out to all the very capable riders and 10 hands went up for the ride and one very generous offer of a chase truck with two inside.

The line up

YBRacing - KTM 950
AZRedline - XL650L
4Play - Ninja 650
Refokus - DR650
Cyberdos - DR650
Big-E - KTM 690
Oldtimertc - KTM 950SE
DOD - XR650R
Montek - KLR650
Reidy008 - KTM950

Uncle MilT & The Ghost - Ford Raptor chase vehicle

Teaser pic




This thread will be filled with pics and stories from the group as there are so many things that happened and great stories to tell that it will take all invovled to tell this tale.



I will begin with stating a few highlights and then let the posting begin...


Just over an hour into the ride the Chase truck was stopped by three law enforcement vehicles....

There could have been some sand on this ride...

Tire issues started early and would be the constant for the two days...

There could be some rocks on this ride.....

The border patrol would be asked by the reservation police to detain the bike riders with the chase truck....

By 6 O'clock the ride leader had not one rider still with him on the trail...

Everyone would make it to Patagonia all be it late...

Hotel manager would have to ask the group to be quite....

10.30 am day two the first rider gives up and heads home...

More tire issues....

There could be some hills on this ride....

More riders bailing....

By 3pm the ride leader would have one one rider left with him to complete day two....

One thing I know about this ride is everyone on it has a story or two at least to share. Pictures should be plentiful and I will long remember this one...

Big thanks go out to

YBRacing for the gps tracks.

AZRedline for the scouting days we did.

MilT and Ghost for the chase truck support and any repairs that will be needed.

To all in the group that made this one to remember

Cheers mates.... that was a bloody ripper.

Here are a few pics I got from the slight down hill with a few rocks on it...

AZRedline


Big-E


Refokus


4Play


Montek


DOD


Oldtimertc


YBRacing


Uncle MIlT and the Ghost

I know this group and if there is no pic then it didn't happen so we stopped just long enough to prove we made it over Penal Peak and into Globe

YBRacing


Reidy008

I shot this short video with some Refokus and Reidy008 commentary... including the ride title.

HEY, I don't think I would call it a massacre. A massacre would indicate that everyone died. I know of at least 2 survivors .

I'd like to ride with you guys, I think.:eek1

You're gonna have to bring some tubes. Like a bag full of them.

I just opened up the tracks and looked at your route. Maybe I should have relayed my story of piloting a fast moving truck Southwest of I-10. For some reason that comes across as "suspicious behavior". I think I know why you guys were "detained".

It's a good thing I didn't go with you! I have tubes packed in both fairings of my 990... But they're swimming in baby powder. I'd hate to see what they would do if they spotted the plastic bags full of white powder in my fairings!

I don't know, massacre isn't that far off. Yes there were survivors, but nobody made the entire route as laid out. If you were a tire or inner tube, you'd definitely agree it was a massacre!

Thanks for a great route and ride Reidy and YBRacing. My final tally was about 638 miles.

I think the heros of the weekend were MilT and the Ghost in the insane Raptor, who showed the patience of saints helping fix flats and generally handling the sweep function all weekend, but I’d also like to thank the friendly LEOs for not ending their weekend early with a trip to the crowbar motel.

I don’t have as many pics as I would normally take due to some camera issues, but here are some from the first day.

The group reformed at an intersection just in time to see the 3 friendly officers come in hot pursuit of our beloved sweep truck. Apparently blowing through a hunters check point at 70+ is frowned upon…Who knew? Look at that straight road back there, whose gonna hold 35mph on that? (The three trucks behind us are our performance admirers, I’m sure others will have better pics of them…)



DOD and BigE pose just before the cavalry arrived



Down by Oro Valley North of Tucson there was a great section that gave us all one form of trouble or another. Think DEEP sand, cactus and big ruts. I didn’t get a picture but had a great view of Reidy’s rear tire going up while the front of the bike went into a huge rut. Seems we carried a bit too much speed out of the sand and he did a good job of preventing a cartwheel by getting the beast to fall over sideways first. Once we got past the sand, it got better.

Regrouping





I think this is YB, the bike just tipped over, nothing spectacular, but I post this pic because Reidy seems to be laughing while on his way to assist.



This is where I started having camera troubles, so my last photo of day 1 is at our rest stop in the rock garden.



Day 1 concluded with 4 of us deciding to take a pretty long section of dirt between Three Points and Green Valley. It was starting to get dark, but if everything went well, we should have been able to get most of the way across while it was relatively light. Yea, sure. Story time… (If you don't like long, wordy stories, this is your warning to skip to the pics.)

Cyberdos, Reidy, 4Play and myself stayed pretty tightly grouped when we got to the rougher stuff, with Reidy and Cyberdos maybe 1 or 2 min ahead of 4Play and myself. Somewhere, the first two got off track, and 4Play and I passed them without our knowledge, or theirs. Reidy and I had the Scala communicators on, and we lost connection, which had been common throughout the day since we were in a rough mountainous area.

Sometime around then, we blew a turn by a few feet and had to stop to take the other fork. I took this moment to get rid of my sunglasses, while 4Play got on the gas. I fumbled around trying to get them secured somewhere, then took off. Due to the dense brush and trees, and serpentine nature of the trail, not to mention 4Play can haul ass, and even though I was only stopped for maybe 30 sec or a minute, he was out of sight. No problem for now, cause I didn’t come across any forks or turnoffs, so I kept rollin’, trying to reel him in. After about 10 min without seeing any dust, or tracks, I was starting to think maybe I missed a turn, even though I hadn’t seen any off shoots. What bothered me was I only occasionally saw what could be a M/C track, when I was expecting to be able to see 3 tracks ahead of me. I went on a little longer, and came to a 4 way intersection. I knew we had to generally head south and east, so I ruled out the north bound trail right away. Still, I thought I better stop here and look closer for some tracks. I checked the 2 possible forks but there was not a track to be seen, so it was time to think it over.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I did have a GPS unit with me, but I don’t yet have a mount on the bike for it, and I am not sure how to use it. (Yes, YB, I hear you groaning!) Nonetheless, I pulled it out of the pack and took a look. I believed I must still be on the track, but before taking off I thought I’d try calling Reidy, who usually keeps his phone on and connected into his helmet. Bingo! He answered! Here is a rough transcript of part of that call:
Reidy anwers: “Hello, who is this”
“It’s AZRedline”
Reidy: “Where the F$#% are you?”
“Uh, I think I’m lost”
Reidy: “F$%^, and I lost Cyberdos”
“WTF, I lost 4Play”
Reidy: “Are you on track”
“Uh, possibly. Are you?”
Reidy: “Yeah, but Cyberdos just blew past me the wrong F$%&^ way and I’ve been here waiting for 10 or 15 min. I’m in a bad spot here.”
”Are you ahead of me you think?”
Reidy “I don’t know”

It went on like that for a while, with a failed attempt to have Reidy enter my coordinates into his GPS and a horn honking episode that also failed to bring results. Then we started describing mountains, like the one that looks like a nipple, and the one with some towers on it. After a couple min of this, and confirming we were looking at the same mountains, Reidy just started riding the track again. We figured if we could get together we could figure out what to do next. I described the trail as I recalled it, and he described what he saw as he went. First a nicely graded section on a hill, some hard chalky type dirt, then a structure of some sort on top of a hill to the left. As I described that, he said “It’s right in front of me!” About 2 min later I saw a headlight bouncing down a hillside and heard the rumble of the big Katoom.

In the meantime, 4Play had gotten way out in front of us. And after some time, he stopped and waited a while, then turned and came back looking for me. I didn’t hear him coming, but he stopped about a quarter mile before reaching my stopping point. So now, 4Play is sitting in the dark, alone and wondering where in the F*&^ everybody went!

I don’t recall who called who, but Reidy and 4Play connected soon after Reidy got to my location. We rode ahead and within a few seconds came upon 4Play. Whew! From there on it was just a matter of riding a semi-rocky and rutted up trail out of the desert in the dark. We ran across a border patrol officer out there and asked him to keep an eye out for Cyberdos, and he agreed to do so. Then a few min later, Reidy got a voice mail that Cyberdos had made it to a highway and was going to slab it into Patagonia. Double Whew!

After that, the ride out was rather pleasant. (Thanks to 4Play for letting me share his killer headlight as he rode just off my left flank all the way out, and we didn’t even run into each other!) We even saw a Coos Deer and a bunch of Jack Rabbits.

I took a few pics on day 2, but was mostly too busy having fun to stop.

De-wiring Cyberdos to prevent further electrocution. (He can tell that story)



Waiting to regroup



4Play at the regroup spot



Later on in a wash heading toward Benson



Refocus on the gas



YBRacing riding sweep for our sub-group. Day 2 we practiced more bump and run and had better luck.



An interesting downhill, rocky switchback on the trail led into a nice shady spot by a creek. We were all ready for a break by then.







I have two other shorter stories to throw in. We came across several border patrol checkpoints along the way, and our fearless leader didn’t have his green card with him. I about busted a nut at the first one when Reidy and I pulled up and the officer asked if we were US Citizens. Reidy has a pretty thick Aussie accent, but when the officer asked him that question, his one word answer of “Yup” in his best American cowboy imitation totally caught me by surprise and gave me a good laugh.

Lastly, on the paved portion heading north out of Benson, with only 4 riders and the truck in our group, we were moving along at a fast pace. One of the flowing hills was close enough to a jump that I thought I better see what happens when MilT hits it at speed. In my mirror I saw blue sky under all 4 wheels when he launched, and couldn’t believe there weren’t parts scattered from the impact. It was a beauty!

Sometimes the troubles you have on a ride make it even more memorable. The good news is we didn't kill or maim anything but tires and tubes.

So, are cones in the middle of the road check points or the start line? I can't remember.



The nice officers there to let us know the difference.

I've actually got video of that little section but I wasn't behind Drew to get the action. Dang it. I'm trying to edit some of the video now but it's painstakingly slow with my old 'puter.

I did however get this shot.

I was wondering why
there has been no helicopters flying over the house
in the last 3 days,
they must have been watching you guys.

Do you think they put those ruts in the trails because we don't slow down for speed humps?

Scootin' down the Willow Springs Road is always a hoot.



Well, that is of course, if you're not blowing past a hunter's check point at <s>90, no 70, actually</s> 55 mph.

What I was amazed at that whole ordeal was how they never figured out that this Raptor was NOT a British model. (maybe MilT can share that story)

Those sandy sections sure were a workout.



nothing this mean Raptor can't handle.





YB showing us the way we were not supposed to be heading towards.



Now back on track towards Picacho Peak.



I believe this was Montek.



Then DOD.



DOD showing us where his Breaking Bad meth lab was.





This was my DR650's maiden voyage. I recently bought the bike from inmate Rusty Rocket all the way on the other coast. I brought it back to the West and was a little tentative about going on this ride because I only had a week or two to prep her for this. But she performed flawlessly all weekend. Refokus, who had the other DR650 can attest to how well this baby pulls when we drag raced across some open stretch of road near Sonoita. She's a keeper.

Things would get a little sketchy with these downhill sections. It wasn't overly hard to ride but you just had to keep moving. If you tried to break to hard the loose rocks would just send you down paths you may not want to go. Easy does it through here without teasing the trail too much.



Refokus takes a stab at the intimidating but short lived section.



4Play says let me at her. "Ninja skillz, I haz them."



Big-E just loves loves loved it hard. He even said so himself.
Sorry bud but Brad was already bunking with me for the night.



Oh, you meant this type of hard. Gotcha.



AZRedline wants to test out the integrity of his skidplate riding over this rock.



Oldtimer getting a little too frisky with the trail.



Whew! I thought he was gonna launch it off of the cliff for a second.



and then of course The Ghost and MilT picking up parts.



and leaving big dents on rocks.



I really thought he was going to push that gigantic thing out of the way. I think maybe he saw me at the bottom of the hill and decided to spare me because he reversed (making a big screeching noise from the rock making its mark on the front bumper) and then went around it.



Notice the scrape mark on the bottom right. Of course that would not be the last mark left on this truck for this trip. I'm glad to see that you guys are using this truck as it should.

Does that Dakar sticker make me look fat?? It does!!

A huge thank you to the Ghost for picking my bike up off me on that nasty day 2 hill! And not using me for traction!

Wicked

All I have to say is that I wasn't there, it wasn't me and you can't prove otherwise.

If you have any questions, talk to my lawyer.


-dod

Day one "Lunch"



Morning of day two much better



There were a lot of these little "prayer meetings"

Well then you missed riding this stuff.




YB must have been thinking 'WTF is cyberdos doing stopped right at the corner?' :huh


and rides sideways down the trail. sorry about that.



at the bottom, hey, more sand! Here was 4Play dancing with some powdery stuff.



Regrouping. I guess this was the spot where Oldtimer had his first of 3 flats(?) We waited there for a while before heading towards the 86. Where Montek picked up his flat.