Floribama Riders

Wednesday morning, we make yet another run into Gunnison. Greg needs to pick up his head gasket, I need a new riding jacket, and Jimmy needs to pick up his bike after the shop has made wheel and brake repairs, and installed a new rear tire. We arrive at opening time, and help Fritz roll out his used bikes for sale. His mechanic does not show up for work, and the new rear tire has not been mounted on the bike. Fritz tackles the job himself, while we watch out for customers in the shop. In 5 minutes start to finish, Fritz has the new knobby mounted. It is true what they say about those ISDE riders.

The Fed-Ex guy arrives, we grab the head gasket, and head back to Taylor Park. When we arrive, most everyone assembles for a ride, and Greg and I settle in to re-assemble the 525. With two of us working on it, it goes back together quickly, and starts right up. It sounds normal, so we clean up, eat lunch, and gear up for a test ride.

Monday morning dawns cold, rainy and dreary, looking like a winter day instead of Jul 7th. No big deal, as a sizable percentage of us are headed into Gunninson this morning, instead of riding. Greg's KTM 525 is overheating, and the best consensus we have is that it has a blown head gasket. Mark and Todd are going to seek a medical opinion from the previous day's crashes, and Doug and Sarah are in search of a 4-wheeler skid plate, and a wi-fi connection to handle a little school work.

Greg and I hop in his truck, and head for the KTM dealer in Gunnison. This is a 35 mile scenic drive, and one section of several miles has cattle along the road, and in many cases, in the road. Here's your chance to pretend you are a cowboy, from the comfortable seat of a diesel pickup truck, while listening to satellite radio. Surreal.

One long and one not so long day of driving takes us from Birmingham to Salida, Colorado. Just one tourist stop on the way, at the Capulin Volcano, (http://www.nps.gov/cavo/). We are staying at the Super 8 motel on Hwy 50 in Salida. Greg, Frank and Thom are already there, and are out for a ride. We unload, and I take the WR out for a short spin on the road to try to gauge the jetting. I have some old notes about my normal jetting, and jetting from previous trips to CO, but when I took the carb apart the last day in Birmingham, it wasn't jetted the way my notes said. Did I leave it jetted lean from the last trip? It seems OK, but I won't know until I get on the trail.

I just got back from a week of dual sporting in Colorado. I need a day or two to rest, and to let the experience marinate in the grey matter a bit before I post about it. I thought I would post this photo from a trail near the Cumberland Pass, as a teaser. Out of the 500 or so photos I have of this week, this is one of my favorites.

Over 400 years of combined experience.

Our host, Jim

We ate lunch under the only shade tree for miles. Looked up, and saw this annoyed looking owl staring at us. See the full sized picture at http://alabamadirtbags.tripod.com/death_valley_days/owl.JPG

Jack, in the Goler Wash

Ron, looking for Charlie Manson

We get up the usual time for another fine breakfast, on our last day of riding. We said goodbye to the GeGe and the rest of the support crew of RawHyde, and head up through a pass into the mountains, called the Goler Wash.

The pass is unique, with towering rock walls on either side, and a steady small stream of water coming down the pass. It is incredibly beautiful, and I wish, again, for a high quality still camera that would attach to my helmet, and that would take a picture every time I say "WOW", "DAMN", or 'SH*T". We stop along the way to look at a recently abandoned gold mine that played a small part in a fairly famous American incident, to be explained later.

The RawHyde folks have circled the wagons. I immediately locate a beer, a chair and some shade. There is some talk of additional riding but the rock garden has turned my forearms into wet noodles. I have just enough strength to hold a beer, and eat dinner. To bed on a surprisingly warm, clear desert night. The wind picks up a bit during the night.

Saturday: The day starts with another fine breakfast from Ge Ge, eggs, pancakes, and some incredibly good bacon rubbed in some kind of spice. We suit up, gas the bikes from an onboard tank on one of the trucks, lube the chains, fix some crash damage from previous days, etc. Ge Ge brings out our roast beef sandwich lunch which we put in our backpacks, and we roll out around 9. The day starts out much warmer than yesterday, but we are warned to prepare for anything. I stuff my riding jacket into its own fanny pack. Fill up the camelback with 100 ounces of water, put another bottle of water in for lunch, and we're ready. Today's ride is more scenic, and a bit less 'technical' than yesterday's ride. We ride through various ORV areas. They all have different rules. An 'open' area means you can go anywhere you please. A limited use area means you can go anywhere there's already a trail, but you shouldn't get off the trail. At one point we stumble onto some course markers for a desert race the next day, and follow the course for a few miles to kind of get a flavor for desert races.

Once everyone is down, we ride along a relatively flat dirt road parallel to the face of the ridge. GT has bent his clutch lever, and wants a new one. When the route takes us near the highway, we give him directions to the KTM shop in Mojave, and to our campsite for the evening. We then followed the dirt road to the Jawbone store for a little break.

After the break, we rode the last few miles to camp through an ORV area, playing on some hill climbs. The last couple of miles were through a wide sand wash. I followed Roger through the wash until Bill passed us both, then it was on. I went around Roger and started working on catching Bill, basically as fast as the ATKs would go, which is pretty damn fast. My sand riding skills from growing up in lower Alabama came back, and we had a blast hauling across this sand wash.

Our route takes along a dirt road adjacent to the California Aqueduct. The aqueduct is a buried pipe with a concrete cap, looking a lot like the world’s longest driveway. This gets us used to the bikes and riding together. We spread out to minimize the dust. We occasionally pull off on some side trails to play. A couple of hill climbs, whoops, jumps, and one trail they call 'Razorback', sort on the knife edge of a ridge with a fairly steep drop on either side. Everyone handles the detours well. After 35 miles of this we arrive near the town of Mojave, and ride over near the huge windmill farm you have seen in dozens of movies, TV shows and commercials. There's very little wind, only a few are turning with that characteristic 'whoop whoop' sound. Then into Mojave for gas and gatorade.