Motorcycle Trip - 2009: CA/OR Coast

I thought I’d start out my renewed attempt by telling about my recent week-long motorcycle trip with my good friend John Cooper, originally from England but currently residing in Australia. Our trip would take us from Orem UT to the N. California Coast, up through Oregon back down through California and back to UT. After getting really bad weather last year, see the prvious posts, I decided that a late June/July time frame would work out a little better. It also made it possible for John and his wife Noelle to take a vacation and join us. Because of convenience, and the fact that I enjoy it, I took up the task of mapping our route. A motorcycle trip is fun to map out. You first decide on a basic destination or region based on the time available for the trip. Since I had never been to northern California or Oregon I thought this would be a good place to ride to. Next, you get a good atlas and map out a basic route looking for the scenic roadways marked out on the maps, the more mountainous and twisty the better. After that you need to figure out mileage and stopping points for each day. This can change the route a bit because the scenic roads don’t often have a lot of cities along them. I try to shoot for around 300 miles a day. This gives enough riding each day to cover some ground, have some fun, and still leaves room to add in interesting side trips that you always happen upon along the way. We decided to do this trip as a camping trip with just one night in a hotel in the middle to get one good night’s rest and a shower. Most nights were spent in a tent. I was a bit nervous about this plan since I’ve done these trips before and after a long day in the saddle you really look forward to a nice bed to sleep in. The romance of motorcycle camping and keeping the budget low both drove the decision to camp. I’m happy to report that from here on out I will always camp on these trips. It’s fun and saved a lot of money.

Day 1

We got a bit of a late start because John had to buy some new gear, most of his was on a container ship making it’s way slowly to Australia, besides who doesn’t like an excuse to buy new motorcycle gear. After John got done securing insurance and the rented Harley Davidson Heritage Softail (really a great looking bike) we got a start around 5:00 and made our way toward Ely NV by way of the back roads along the old Pony Express route, through Delta UT where we stopped for dinner. While fueling up we met an older English couple that had been touring on their motorcycle for the past 3 months. They seemed to have quite a lifestyle as all of their stories went back to other long motorcycle trips or sailing around on their yacht. It was getting rather dark by the time we got done with dinner. As the stars began appearing I started getting pretty tired. Luckily John didn’t mind the several stops I took to hop off the bike and do some jumping jacks, or at one point a little rock climbing. After nearly ending a large jackrabbit’s life we finally made it to the Ely KOA. Nice weather and exhaustion prompted us to just toss out sleeping bags on the grass and get some sleep. While attempting to sleep we were privy to the increasing volume of the rather dirty discussions taking place among a group that were apparently drinking rather heavily. Had I been there is mixed company I would have been pretty embarrassed.

Day 2

Final destination – Truckee CA, near lake Tahoe. We woke up this morning to a beautiful day. We got packed up and hit the road to find some food. I’ll take a moment to describe our daily schedule.

We usually rolled out of the tent between 8:00 -9:00

Meander around for a few minutes

8:30-9:30 Find the shower

10:00 pack up the gear

10:30 fuel and or breakfast (usually the local greasy spoon, but we had a couple of McDonalds breakfasts when most convenient)

11:30 Hit the road and start putting some miles down

1:00 Stop for a soda and fuel

4:00 Stop for a soda and fuel

6:00 Dinner and Fuel

8:00 – 9:00 stop and set up camp

I also want to take the time to mention that while riding a motorcycle I usually don’t listen to music generally preferring the solitude of just riding and taking in the view. This opens up the mind and eyes to thinking and seeing a lot of random things. I will fill in some of the randomness that I remember. Don’t assume insanity, it’s just the tedium of the road that does it to me.

We stopped in some small town, I can’t even find it on a map, to have breakfast at Micky D’s, I remember being surprised to hear and Alela Diane song on the radio. I happened to see Alela Diane open for Blitzen Trapper a few months ago and really enjoyed her music. Since she is pretty unknown I was both surprised and happy to hear her on the radio.

From here we continued down Highway 50, known as the “Lonlienst Highway in American.” It’s a pretty accurate description. I chose Hwy 50 because you have two choices for driving across NV, the other is I-80. Since I don’t like to take freeways on motorcycle trips that made 50 the default, and we would later take I-80 on the way home. Heed my advise, do not take Hwy 50 as an optional scenic route across NV, just take I-80 and be done with it as fast as you can.. There are only a couple of towns along that entire section of roadway, Eureka and Austin. We rode through Eureka and stopped in Austin for a break from the heat and for a soda/fuel stop. While sitting in the nicely cooled, but poorly soda stocked store, we chatted with the girl running the cashier about the local community and the long expanse that is Hwy 50. We got our “Austin” stamp in the Hwy 50 passport guide book. Apparently NV doesn’t have much to tout so they’ve tried to make Hwy 50 some sort of endurance destination.

Along the way we had seen a few cyclists, usually towing trailers. I always wonder about these people, who they are where they’ve come from, what makes them want to cycle through the desert. As luck would have it we happened upon one such gentleman and as I needed something to break the monotony of the billions of sagebrush that were mocking me by the sheer number of them on that great expanse, I slowed way down and rode along side him. He seemed quite happy to take off his headphones for a bit of a chat. So he pedaled along while I putted along on the motorcycle. John was riding behind me on his motorcycle and was probably wondering what in the world I was doing. I leaned from this guy that he had ridden from New York and he was quite exited because he was only 5 days from the CA coast. I wished him luck and congratulations on making it this far and rode off.

Highway 50 really doesn’t have much in the way of scenery. We did take one off-shoot through a little mountainous area and some sort of dry lake, or maybe it was filled. I’m honestly still not sure if it was a mirage or not. It looked a bit like the salt flats. Once we were back on 50 it was just long strait roads and 100f temps. Along the sides of the road in the desert people had taken some of the black rocks and written names, or messages. This helped to stave off the monotony but only a little. John, happily cruising along with his mp3 player didn’t notice any of this at all and wondered why I was looking from side to side the whole time. We arrived in Fallon NV totally hot and dried out from the hot wind. Most of the time the wind helps keep cool under the leather jacket but once the temps reach 100f, the relief just isn’t there. It feels like you’re just riding in a hot furnace. We had a long lunch at Quiznos then got back on the bikes.

After cruising through Carson City, we began climbing the Sierra-Nevada’s toward Lake Tahoe. The road was fantastic, both the actual construction as it brand new, as well as the view and the cool temps. We stopped at one of the lookout points to take it in. John informs me that Tahoe looks much like Loch Lomond in Scotland. I hope to see that for myself someday. After a brief respite at the lake we road through the town(s) along the lake’s edge toward Truckee. We camped at the Donner Memorial State Park which was a pretty good little state park. I was glad that neither the bears nor John decided to get hungry enough to make a meal of me.

Getting back on the horse

No, I'm not changing up the direction of this blog, I'm talking about both my recent 2 wheeled adventures as well as my attempt to get current on this blog. It's going to take some time so I'll post bits as I have them.

Crash #2

I haven’t updated the blog in a while due to a lot of riding and then some déjà vu. In anticipation of the next Sundance Super D race I’ve been riding at Sundance a lot, usually doing one or two runs at race pace. A couple of Saturdays ago I was riding along at a little slower pace but was on a trail that I have now ridden several dozen times. I let my mind wander a big and then SLAM right into the ground. As far as I can remember I realized I was carrying a bit too much speed and probably hit the front brake just as my tire hit a rock thus throwing me right over the bars and slamming my left shoulder (again) right into some well planted rocks. The bright side of this is that my injuries are not nearly as bad as last time. I wasn’t going nearly as fast and landed where there were only a few rocks. I had some minor scrapes to go along with my VERY sore shoulder. It’s been about two weeks and I can now touch my head without searing pain. Sadly the Super D is this weekend and I don’t think I’ll be in any shape to race. A few good jars to my shoulder and I’d be out so I’ll save the entry fee and take it easy on the trails in a week or so.

1st Place at the Super D - Sundance

Yesterday I competed in my first athletic competition outside of church basketball. I raced the Super D mountain bike race at Sundance. If you're not familiar with the Super D race it's as if they thought up a race that Ryan would like and put it together. Yesterday's course was 90% downhill with about 10% climbing. The entire course took me 11:55 to complete so it was a good fast race without much climbing. Although there wasn't much climbing I did still have to pedal pretty hard to keep the speed going through most of the course. The best part of the race is that I took 1st place in the Sport 30-39 category. I should mention I was the only person in that category but Jen assures me that a 1st place is a 1st place. There were only 9 people total in the race and I came in mid pack among them. There will be another race on August 16th so hopefully there will be a lot more people there.

Sundance Has Been Redeemed

To celebrate my independence I went mountain biking at Sundance and was very happy to find it had been liberated from the caterpillars. My downhill skills have improved quite a bit over last year, Jen has even stopped making jokes about me calling her from the ER. I'm going faster than ever and with much more control, especially through the turns. Some of this is probably due to the fact that I've been mountain biking in Provo Canyone several times a week. The Bonneville Shorline Trail (BST) is a beast to ride uphill but you're rewarded greatly on the downhill. A lot of great corners with just enough back tire sliding to keep things interesting. Mucho Funno! I'm going to hit Sundance a couple of times this week to prepare for the Super D race that's coming up. Sundance just needs to figure out if they're having it on the 12th or the 19th, if at all. I may just end up racing at Deer Valley, we'll see.

Later in the evening we celebrated the 4th by doing what Americans do best, we ate a big hamburger dinner(actually it was a bison burger, mmmm) then set a bunch of fireworks on fire on the street. There's nothing that Americans like better than getting fat and blowing stuff up. Here's to beating down the old enemy.

Me vs. Tent Caterpillars

It was a beautiful day today so instead of getting important things done I went mountain biking at Sundance. As much as I enjoy riding the various trails around here there is something nice about having a chair lift take you to the top of the mountain and though there are a few uphill climbs, they are very short and I never had to drop to my small ring up front.

So there I was at the summit point of the lift and I drop down to where the trails diverge and I decide to try a different trail than I have in the past and it turns out to be a winner. A little way down I hit a patch of spider webs and realize there were a bunch of caterpillars caught in them. After I clean the spider webs off of every surface of me and my bike I get going again. I soon realize after getting pummeled again and again by hanging caterpillars that these little guys are spinning their own webs and apparently have adapted to getting moved about by latching onto mountain bikers, very coy little caterpillars, very coy.

After about 15 min. I started getting really annoyed at the large number of webs and caterpillars that kept getting lodged all over me, including my beard. It's somewhat odd to feel a caterpillar crawling through my goatee. At one point I was headed through a little canopy of trees and came to a skidding halt when I saw the mother load of silk webs and caterpillars. It looked like something out of Indiana Jones, there was a wall of silk and probably 10,000 caterpillars all over in, on and hanging from the trees. I couldn't find another way through so I just had to duck and avoid as many of them as I could. There was an older guy that came through right after me so we knocked caterpillars off of each other for a minute while he told me about swimming in the pond next to us when he was a kid. We probably looked like monkeys standing there picking bugs off of each other.

Lucky for me the caterpillars were only on the aspens so once I made it to the pines I was able to ride properly again. It's awfully hard to hold a line, dodge rocks and roots and corner at speed while getting hit in the face by big juicy caterpillars. I decided to take other trails after that and didn't have nearly the trouble since most of those trails were in the pines.

I'm quite happy to report that not only did I come home without injury I also managed to stay on my bike the whole 3 hours I spend riding; something I hadn't managed to do on previous visits to Sundance.

Memorial Day Weekend Motorcycle Trip

My brother Kirk and I set out on Saturday morning for a 3 day trip through southern Utah and a smidgen of Arizona. We did our best to avoid freeways so as to maximize the motorcycle riding enjoyment.

Day 1, Destination: Boulder Utah. We started out on I-15, I know I said avoid freeways but we had to do this section, got off in Nephi and took Hwy 28 down to Hwy 89 and Dixie Nat'l Forest. At one point 89 disappeared, it literally disintegrated into a dirt road and disappeared and we had to get on I-70 to find 89 again, we took I-70 a little further into Fish lake Nat'l Forest than we anticipated. We made a U-turn and got off in Sevier and back on 89. We cruised through some nice mountainous country and saw Big Rock Candy Mountain. An odd yellow section of the mountain devoid of trees. It did sort of look like candy. We continued on to Marysvale where we got some lunch at the only place in town, The Prospector Cafe, at least I think that's the name of the place. The outside of the building advertised that they had the best burgers on Hwy. 89 so I figured that would be a good lunch. If those are the best burgers on 89 then I have pity for the poor folks along that 150 mile stretch of road. Lunch = terrible. Kirk and I were also pretty chilly at this point and found the cafe to be even colder than it was outside. We bundled up and rode on to Panguich where we decided that the dark clouds over Dixie Nat'l Forest looked like a bit much to deal with when we were already pretty cold, so we turned toward Bryce Canyon Nat'l Forest. Kirk had never been here before and we didn't have a lot of time to check out everything so we went to Inspiration Point and snapped some pictures, well Kirk did anyway, the batteries in my camera had died, good work on the pre-ride check on things Ryan. After we had a good look around at Bryce Canyon, which has some excellent motorcycle roads, we headed to Boulder for dinner and hotel. The Burr Trail lodge provided some tasty steaks which really hit the spot after a long day of riding and a less than adequate lunch. We stayed the night at Pole's Place Motel. Decent room though we only got 4 channels on the TV. So we had our choice between some Hallmark Channel type movie, a flickering NBA playoff game(the flickering made me nauseas), a soccer game, or some boring talk show.

Day 2, Destination: Kayenta Arizona. We started the day with some tasty breakfast and a waitress that had her eye on Kirk. We suited up in our rain gear when we saw the dark clouds over Boulder Mountain. Good thing too as we hit rain pretty quick and eventually got some snow, though it was pretty minimal. Despite the wet and cold conditions Boulder Mountain lived up to my memory of being one of the best stretches of motorcycle roads in Utah, maybe the country. We stopped in Torrey at the bottom of the mountain to warm up and had some company with a lot of other motorcyclists. While standing around I heard air suddenly escape from somewhere and was rather dismayed to look at my rear tire and see it go flat in a matter of seconds. For the non-motorcyclists you should understand that I can't carry a spare tire with me so this was a rather big deal, especially since my tires have tubes and it's a little more complicated than putting a plug in the tire or fixing the tube on a bicycle tire. We checked the tire for nails and didn't see anything so we rolled it over to the air hose and filled it up. It held air so we sat and had a snack to make sure it was going to keep holding air. After about 20 min. it looked good so we set off hoping for the best. We rode for a couple of hours to Hanksville where we had some lunch. This time lunch = great. We got back out to the bikes and my tire was still full of air so we gassed up and went on to what would be the best stretch of road on the trip, Glen Canyon and White Canyon, the former a little more than the latter. We got about 50 miles from Mexican Hat, the next real town we would hit and nature called so we stopped by the side of the road to take care of business. When I walked back to the bike and checked the tire it was clear that it was losing air quickly and within a minute it was totally flat. This was a little more distressing than the first time it happened because this time we were literally 50 miles from any sort of town and on a little traveled road. We flagged down about a dozen cars until we found one that had an air compressor. Again the tire held air so we high-tailed it to Blanding instead of Mexican Hat, figuring that we'd have a better chance of buying an air compressor and possible getting my tire fixed. We found the only store in town that was open over the weekend and bought their last air compressor along with some electrical connectors to rig it up to work from my battery since I don't have a power source. While standing in line I saw an older guy that looked like he may ride a motorcycle or atv. I asked him if there was a motorcycle shop in town and he laughed and said the closest one was in Moab about an hour and a half away. Then he told me he had a little auto shop at his house and he'd be happy to see if he could fix it. I was a little skeptical at first until we pulled up to his garage and I saw that he had made a Bonneville salt flats streamliner by hand. We got to work figuring out how to remove the rear wheel and after about 2 hours we had the tube patched and found the tiny nail that caused the problem. He declined any sort of payment so I wished him some good karma and headed down the road for some dinner. After a Subway sandwich Kirk and I headed out of town trying to take advantage of the last bit of sunlight as we hurried to Kayenta. We rode through Monument Valley and the Navajo reservation in the dark. This was a little dangerous because the reservation is all open range so the possibility of running into a cow is a real possibility. I like my steak tender, I just don't want to personally tenderize it with my head. We got to our hotel in Kayenta at about 10 o'clock. Rested quite well and got up early so we could have plenty of time to make it home on our third day.

Day 3, Destination: Home. We altered our day 3 plan a bit. We originally planned to go to 4 corners an head home from there. Since we rode through Monument Valley in the dark we decided to come back the way we came and check out the cool rock formations in the valley. We stopped a few times for pictures but the wind was pretty cold so we didn't hang around too long. We had to head back toward Hanksville but decided to take a different road that was marked as scenic on the map. The road headed right for a giant mesa and I figured there must be a road around or through a canyon. We soon found ourselves on a dirt road riding switchbacks on the edge of the mesa. At one point I stopped and had a look over the edge and we were a good thousand feet up. We ended up on top of the mesa and road through some nice juniper forest as we headed down to the valley floor on the other side, this time on a paved road. We went back through White Canyon and Glen Canyon for some awesome riding then had lunch in Hanksville again. From Hanksville we had to take some fairly strait highways and a little freeway to get to Price so I loaded up my iPod with some Led Zeppelin and set out down the road. We had a nice tailwind so we ate up a lot of miles pretty quickly an without much effort. We stopped in to Price, gassed up and had a snack while we got the feeling back in our backsides. By the time we got back on our bikes it had started to rain so we geared up and headed for the canyon and our last leg of the ride. The rain started coming down pretty hard so we took it easy. As we went up in altitude the temperature dropped and the rain started turning into small snow flakes. No big deal, I thought. Then it really started to snow and I was having a hard time keeping my helmet's face shield clear of snow. Just when I was really getting worried I spotted an OLD gas station, I tried to get Kirk's attention but his loud exhaust pipes drowned out my horn. I turned off because I didn't want to speed up to chase him down and I figured he'd see I wasn't behind him and turn around. I was pulling some gear out of my bag when he came back up the road, I still need to ask him how he managed to make a u-turn in that mess. The old guy in the gas station seemed happy to have some company. I doubt he sees more than one or two people a week during the winter. While we waited out the storm he told us all about the area. The building we were in was built in 1880 and was the last remaining building of the town of Colton UT. Apparently there had been a hotel, houses and some stores at one point. I'm not sure what happened to the other buildings, perhaps the highway that now went in front of the gas station took them all out. He showed us pictures of his grandpa with the Sundance Kid, they had a ranch in Circleville UT. He also had a picture of another grandpa with Jack Dempsey the heavyweight boxer. We watched the storm outside go from bad to worse and just as I was contemplating calling Jen to come and get us the storm started to mellow. After about an hour the storm passed and we headed out so we at least make it to a lower elevation so we didn't hit snow again. We got back to Orem where I found Jen happy to have me back and Bryn and Keira quite mad at me for being gone. It took some persuading to get a hug and a kiss out of them, but they came around. All in all we had a great time and it was a lot of fun going on this adventure with Kirk, our first real adventure together since we were kids.

I have pictures of all of this that I'll post later. I suspect Kirk and I will go on some more motorcycle adventures, we'll probably just do it in July when we don't have to worry about freezing to death in a snowstorm again.

Bummer and a Surprise

I was stoked all last week to do some downhill mountain biking at Sundance. They were scheduled to run the lifts on Saturday. When I got there I found the bike shop closed and the lift standing still. Major Bummer!

Since I didn't want to go back home I drove down the canyon to one of the parks and unloaded my bike. I found the Bonneville Shorline Trailhead for Provo canyon and started up. Since I was planning on doing some downhill riding I just had my platform pedals and no my clipless. It really made the rock uphill riding pretty hard. I was able to make it up most of the hills but between my wheel spinning out and my feet slipping off the pedals I had to hike-a-bike a few times up the hills.

The surprise came on the way back down. It was a lot of up and down, but mostly down, fun corners, kinda loosey goosey type stuff.

Spring Motorcycling

Despite being rather windy, today was a nice day to do a little riding on my motorcycle. I left work and headed up Provo canyon to see about getting my cornering skills back up to speed. I got a little past Sundance and then turned around because of the road construction. It's a little disconcerting cruising around blind corners not knowing if there will be gravel or construction debris in the road.

Memorial Day weekend will soon be upon us and that means one thing: Motorcycle Trip! I usually go with a co-worker or two from work but they're tied up with other obligations this year. My brother Kirk got himself a nice Harley springer softail last year so he'll be joining me on this years trip. It will be a 3 day trip through southern Utah and a little of Arizona. I believe we'll be heading down to Cedar City, up through Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park. Then up over Boulder Mountain, one of my favorite motorcycle roads. We'll wind through Capital Reef then take the ferry at Bullfrog across Glen Canyon. We'll finish off the 2nd day riding through Monument Valley. I think anyone that owns a motorcycle needs to ride through Monument Valley at least once, this will be my first visit. The 3rd day of riding will be a long one as we head over to 4 corners, then up through Blanding and north to Orem. I am really looking forward to hitting the open road, my head needs a little break.

Spring is finally here

...or at least I think spring is finally here. I think last week was the first week we did not get snow. Since the trails have had a couple of days to dry out I figured I'd hit them today. I rode along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail between Orem and Pleasant Grove, but not nearly as far as I hoped I would get. It seems that my time off the bike has left me without any of the base fitness level that I had built up. It didn't help that 50 yards into the trail I had a pretty big climb that ultimately had me doing a hike-a-bike. I didn't do too badly after that, especially once I got warmed up. It's been a while since I have ridden my bike and it was nice to get back on it. I am still getting used to the clipless pedals on the trail, I've only used them on the road until today. it makes the faster downhills a little more interesting knowing that I may get stuck in the pedals if I take a bad corner.

Sundance is opening for mountain biking on Saturday. I think I'll treat myself to a summer lift pass and head up there a few times a week. I just need to make myself slow down and re-learn everything. I've found that I keep crashing while trying to keep up with the memory of how well I used to ride.

Tomorrow is motorcycle training. It's been almost a year since I have done much riding on my motorcycle and it seems as though some of my skills have waned a bit. I'll be heading up Provo Canyon tomorrow afternoon to get used to carving up the corners properly.