SlowDown

Here are a few more pictures of our ride.

Four of us (Slowdown, Hurryup, TSRDave and Patrick) left Temecula and San Diego early on Saturday the 14th headed for Kanab Utah. Yes, that's three bikes in the bed and one all alone in the trailer with our bags and gear. We spent the night at Aiken's Lodge. They have a nice three bedroom hotel room and a large parking lot out back from which to stage rides. DAY ONE The next morning we were all business getting ready to hit the trail on a planned 550 mile route through Utah and Arizona including Johnson Canyon/Dear Springs Road, Bryce Canyon National Park, Cottonwood Canyon Road, Kodachrome State Park, Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (Wahweap - Lake Powell), House Rock Road, the Vermilion Cliffs, Burma Road/NFS 213, DeMotte Campground, Kaibab National Forest, North Rim Grand Canyon National Park, and the following Overlooks: Point Sublime, Crazy Jug and Toroweap. We all had GPSs and Radios which was really nice that we all knew where we were going and were in constant voice contact. Two of us had SPOTs. We were loaded down with our own camping gear, food and supplies to stay out of hotels -- and most restaurants. This was my fourth attempt at this ride. The past three attempts were shortened or scrubbed by breakdown/injury, the San Diego fires, and my father's passing. I hoped this time was finally going to be it. My steed all loaded up for an adventure. Let's Ride! On Johnson's Canyon Road we passed by the set from the popular Bonanza TV show. When we turned onto Deer Springs Road, we hit dirt. Equipment adjustment along Deer Springs Road heading to Bryce Canyon NP. A little bit further down Deer Springs road we came across some interesting water carved rock formations near Willis Creek Trailhead. Including a waterfall. Wild flowers. And a water carved ravine. Father and son photo op. Yes we bleed ORANGE too. (Slowdown & Hurryup) TSRDave and Patrick. Brothers in Law. But wait, there were more awesome sights along the way: We made it to Bryce Canyon just fine pulling in around 2pm. We stayed at Ruby's Campground in Tipi #10 which is situated in a very nice location surrounded by water on 180 degrees.. We bought firewood and beer for the night's stay. Instead of going into Bryce Canyon NP though, we spent several hours working on my son's KTM 450 XC carburetor. It had been running rough and had a hard time finding the right idle and fuel mixture combination. We would up removing the jets that were accessible through the float nut at the bottom of the carb and cleaned them out with wire and a dental brush. We got it running as best we could which turned out to be fine for the rest of the trip. The beer was pretty cold throughout this repair activity so noone was complaining. If you do stay in that area be sure to checkout Ruby's Restaurant's All You Care To Eat Dinner buffet. You will not be disappointed. For completeness, here are a few pictures of Bryce Canyon NP from last year's trip just in case you need to see what it is all about. DAY TWO The next day we saddled up again to head toward Wahweap and Lake Powell via Kodachrome State Park and Cottonwood Canyon Road. We first stopped off at a roadside scenic area to see what was up. This is what we saw: And this waterfall. This waterway was carved by settlers to the town of Tropic in the early 1900s to bring water from Tropic Lake to the town of Tropic. On the way out we were hit with rain and sleet. The storms were building throughout that area. We stopped at a Ranger station in Cannonville to check out the day's expected weather. The Ranger discouraged us from attempting Cottonwood Canyon Road due to the rain and the fact that it is "impassable when wet". We decided to venture on and inquire about the status of the road at the nearby Kodachrome State Park. When we arrived we saw cars coming up Cottonwood Canyon Road that were covered in mud, I asked them about their experience and they said it was very muddy and slippery. They had slipped sideways down a steep hill. This news concerned us as the alternative was a whole lot of slab. We went onto the Ranger station at Kodachrome and got more discouragement from those Rangers as well. But they did hold out hope that if we got as far south as the Grosvenor Arch, we should be fine. Jon laid down the challenge to man up and let's go. So we did. And we did not regret it at all. There was a stretch of about half a mile of wet and mud, but noone slipped enough to go down. We easily made it to the Grosvenor Arch. We proceeded down Cottonwood Canyon Road dealing with dust clouds instead of mud...and loving all of the beautiful sights. But weather was still all around us. We made it fine to the end of Cottonwood Canyon Road and onto Highway 89 toward Lake Powell and Wahweap Campground in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. These pictures were taken from our campsite at the Wahweap Campground. Nice view huh? Sorry taking pictures of my ORANGE steed never gets old for me. Here was our campsite at Wahweap Campground. DAY THREE On the morning of Day Three we had to retrace our steps back along Highway 89 to the beginning of House Rock Road. This time even the signage screamed out "dirt bikes only"! House Rock Road was full of free range cattle. We had to stop or slow down 20-25 times to avoid collisions or angry bulls... There were many opportunities for some great pictures. The end of House Rock Road is the start of the Vermilion Cliffs. These were spectacular. We took lots of pictures. Next we turned left off of 89A onto Burma Road. This stretch was very sweet ride! Here's Patrick making a statement that life does not suck today. Is that a smile? We spent the night at DeMotte Campground. We bought food for grilling at the North Rim Country Store. Patrick cooked us up a storm. It rained for hours, but the food was great! The way you know a good cook is when he brings along a zippered bag full of his own smoked peppers and other spices...! DAY FOUR We saddled up again and took back roads to Point Sublime. What an awesome sight! These pictures do it an injustice. Sorry Dave, this is the best one I had for you. I was moving my bike... We must have spent a lot of time taking pictures and snacking because it got late. We mounted up and headed to the North Rim overlook. Along the way we came upon a car that had become stranded by trying to go around a large road pond without 4WD. The French tourists seemed clueless, so we tried to help. You ask how I determined that they were clueless. Why just one look at the two strands of twine holding the front bumper onto the car and voila! Clueless. They were eventually pulled to safety by this Tacoma driver, his wife and their infant daughter. The kid was driving. We wanted to get to Crazy Jug to set up camp by 6 pm and it was already 4:30, so we skipped going to the North Rim overlook. Ouch. We quickly slabbed it up 67 to the North Rim Country Store and bought more fresh provisions for dinner at Crazy Jug. We made it in fine time to Crazy Jug but the shadows were getting long. Upon arrival we met another solo rider Ralph who drove his heavy laden KTM 690 out from Santa Barbara. We invited him to the fire that night and traded stories of our adventure. Here are the pictures I took at Crazy Jug. We set up camp and started a nice fire. There was no rain in sight. Dinner that night was again prepared by Chef Patrick. Awesome flavor and heat. Ron's Campsite: Jon's Campsite among the trees! Patrick's Campsite: Dave's campsite. We decided that night by the fire to end our adventure a day early and head home. Three of us had already seen Toroweap and frankly, after seeing Point Sublime and Crazy Jug, it may never compare. This and the fact that fires are not allowed there, we passed on one more night. We gave the reservation to Ralph so at least the Back Country Permit did not go to waste. I since learned that he arrived there to a group displaced by the lack of a permit but funds were taken. He shared the site and was deemed a hero. DAY FIVE The next morning we woke up to this: Our ride out through the forest was great fun. The dirt roads were in great condition. Some stretches were at 55 mph+. We quickly hit pavement south of Fredonia and then back to our waiting truck at Kanab. The trip home was long but we had lots of stories to tell. Next year this trip will look further North toward more of the National Parks and Monuments that Utah has to offer. THE END

Thanks for the install Ben! That was me... You carry a lot of good off-road equipment in your store. I'll be back!

Looks like the 2014 plastics fit much better and it was KTM who made that triangular area to open up. Thanks Paul.

I just bought a new KTM 500 EXC from AAKTM but am having some custom stuff added before I take her home. One of these items is an Acerbis 4.1 Gal tank. AAKTM reports that one of his normally calm customers became alarmed with apparent "fitment issues" with the new tank. So much so that the customer called Acerbis only to hear, "if you don't like it we will refund your money." The fitment issue results in, "The lines haven't matched up in the past and it can be a bit difficult to pull off the airbox cover, but it functioned just fine." I found this article online but it does not mention any fit issues. Rather it sates the fit was good. http://dirtbiketest.com/product-tests/acerbis-4-1-gallon-large-capacity-gas-tank/ My question is this. Has anyone else had any issues with this tank?

This was a really awesome time. I know when I have an extra great time when I get flashbacks of the views and sights of the trip when I close my eyes. Thanks to Dave for being the trail boss and grill master. Thanks to Chris for being a mule for the ice & beer. The beer was very cold even till the morning! We splurged and had steak & potatoes ans chocolate cup cakes for desert. The views from this remote yellow stake campsite were awesome. I think we will be back. The only thing that could make this trip better would be an extra day or riding and camping and a few more stories and story tellers around the fire. You know who you are...

Good times!

I'm not sure of the sequence of events, but my son-in-law in Vegas was at his job at Zappos releasing front end web updates when he got the "help" message. He went into action and actually was talking to the Mohave County sheriffs when we hit the SOS. They seemed to be in contact all around. They called my wife first but she did not answer. Chase, my son-in-law was #2 on the list. The Sheriff's first wanted to send a tow truck but Chase argued for a bigger response. They decided to send a helo before the SOS was communicated by SPOT. It appeared that SPOT was spot on with comms. I even had a VM from the IERCC when I had cell service again.

Hi guys! I'm writing from my daughter's place in Vegas. Jon had been towing my for almost 20 miles. We were successful in traversing many of those rocky dry stream crossings. We were killing it. We met up with CR-103 and decided to skip Bar10 and just head to St. George for repairs. We were only about a mile or so down 103 when it happened. Of course it happened very fast. I recall seeing Jon skid to a stop. I had to swerve to keep from hitting him. I recovered from the swerve but headed toward the side of the dirt road. What cam next is blurry but it looks like I slid the back end of the bike around planting myself on the ground on my left side. I'm not sure if it was from the tow rope or breaking too hard. My left shoulder hit first. We were using Strega's tow setup which works great. The trick is to try to stay in the same line as the tow bike so you don't add a torque to the rear of the tow bike. At that point we were likely going about 20-25. CR103 is a lot like Cr5 in that it was a nice flat & wide dirt road. The issue was that somehow part of the tow strap at Jon's bike came loose and made its way into his rear wheel. The wheel locked up but not before pulling the strap down pulling the rear fender down into the tire and breaking the luggage rack holding his two rotopacks. The tow strap was attached to Jon's luggage rack. This seemed like a good hardpoint away from the chain and likely would have been fine except that we attached the strap with about 20 feet between bikes. There was extra strap that was tied off further down the strap toward the self repeller. Somehow this came loose and fouled in his rear wheel. Yes. There is GoPro video of this event in my possession only... My son Jon, Dave and Paul were troopers. Jon took off my helmet and did first aid, checking for broken bones and dislocated shoulder. I sat up slowly maybe 5 minutes later. I knew my left side was in a lot of pain. Paul supported my back from behind with his knees. Jon was talking to me as the lights dimmed and my vision narrowed. I spoke to them and said, "I think I'm going to black out now..." I blacked out for 20 seconds. I awoke with Jon's face screaming something to me. They told me later that they almost hit the SOS button on the SPOT while I was out. I was more alert now. Jon kept giving me water and Dave had fruit roll-up candy to get sugar into my system. I took one of Dave's 600mg Ibuprofens. We discussed options and decided to hit the "help" button on the SPOT at 3:52pm. Soon we all realized that there was no way that I could ride again let alone be towed. We hit the SOS button at 3:56pm. Shortly after 5pm the black helicopter showed up... They found us and circled around and set down on CR103 about 80 yards from us. Two Sheriff Deputies jumped out, one from AZ the other from UT. Dave, Paul and Jon met them. They asked a bunch of questions, took pictures of my and Jon's licenses and wrote it up as a traffic accident. I got a helicopter ride to St George. Pilot, two Deputies and me. We landed at a Fire Station where the EMTs checked me over and asked a bunch of questions. They put a neck brace on me in case there was a spinal injury. I didn't care that it was CYA. Because of my blackout, and risk for broken bones they suggested I get checked out at the hospital. They called an ambulance. The ambulance arrived with two more guys who asked a lot more questions. I got up to get into the gurney and had a massive cramp in my left leg. They gave me an IV on the way to the hospital. At the hospital, I had x-rays and a CT scan all within about 20 minutes. They were not busy and Obama care did not seem to have taken hold yet. Besides I had insurance and they were going to ride it as far as they could. Thankfully. No broken bones, no concussion, possible hairline fracture. I was discharged around 9:45pm. The three amigos showed up at the hospital about 10 pm. They had to ride out mostly in the dark from the crash site to St. George. They left my bike in "time out" at the scene hidden from site in some bushes. We checked in at a nearby Marriott Townplace Suites. I'm doing much better. Now I just need to get my wife off of the ceiling so I can plan the next ride on my new KTM 500 EXC....

Make that at least a factor of 5. Ouchy. Ron

Glad to see you drank deeply from the orange coolaid!

I can't wait!

I'm in. See you at 1130. Ron

Don't be calling me "kind".....I have a (bad) reputation to live down to...... Hey, I'm not sure who the "New Meat" is that you're inviting but FYI, the campground is "sold out" that weekend.....so I hope you have room in your R.V. Yes. He'd stay with me. Just not sure how to get his bike there. I only have a single JoeHauler...

I'm "in". Chris was kind enough to reserve me a campsite. I'm looking to invite one other guy who just took the DS plunge.