piratemonkey

We've only been lost a couple of times. The riding is great when it hasn't been raining. Really hoping the roads are rideable tomorrow. The rain was endless tonight.

Currently in Ely, Nevada hunkering down in the tent due to yet another storm. Had to detour from the TAT route due to really bad roads. Gonna try to pick it up again after we slab it to Lund. Will load more pics tonight.

Leaving Moab in the morning. Do those look like rain clouds? Maybe because they were! A patch of deep sand around a corner caught us out. I had scrubbed off most of my speed and thought I'd get around on the right side, but I ended up clipping the back of Wayne's downed bike. Simon came away from it fine. The bottom of the backpack has a hard plastic stool in it (inverted) so the lower part can't be crushed. One of the tracks we followed ended up going nowhere, or at least nowhere obvious. Simon's rain cover is good for protection but bad for the view. Sucks to be a dog with no input.

Wait till I load the pic of two DRZs down. They look like sleeping sows.

More photos, not in any particular order. It is impossible to resist the draw of a hole (make of that whatever you will). Just starting the Monticello portion of the TAT. Fail! Monument Valley in the rain. We didn't want to pitch camp in the mud so we ended up here. Shabby chic. Or maybe just shabby.

I do have a Spot, but I didn't sign up for the tracking feature. Although I am willing to post photos of my bike stuck in a bush, I don't want you all to know how long it really took for us to get it out of there.

Wayne carries Simon in the dirt since he doesn't fall like I do. Currently eating breakfast in Monticello before hitting the dirt. Been storming a lot so we're hoping there's no deep water.

The game is on AM 540 if anybody's desperate.

Deb, are you doomed to go from one injury to the next? We're going to have to chip in to buy you some high-tech force field to ride in!

The bikes have been twiddled and massaged into TAT form so we did a final test ride. Temps were expected to reach triple digits and while we didn't look forward to sweating our kidneys dry, it was a good opportunity to see how we'd do in outrageous heat. We left the house at around 8:30 and and headed east towards Ramona. Even though it was still early in the day, the sun was hammering away. Any remaining optimism for a tolerable day was quickly burned off. Here's Simon soaking in the morning sun -- he doesn't realize he's about to get those stabbing rays in spades. We topped off our tanks in Ramona and headed to Palomar Divide. The temperature wasn't bad as we climbed, but as soon as we started dropping back down towards Aguanga, it felt like we were getting the hot iron face punch. It didn't matter how fast or slow we went; wind chill factor was a fanciful concept. The forecast said there might be rain in the mountains so I decided to capture the clouds as they grew. One minute there was the standard fluffy stuff. A few minutes later it started getting more vertical. By the time we were off the mountain, the clouds had gotten a lot grayer and a lot more spread out. Even if it rained, it didn't matter. We were so hot -- Wayne's digital thermometer was reading 105 -- that we were actually excited at the idea of some refreshing rain. The sun and/or sand was hot enough that when I stepped out of the shade to take this picture, Simon followed but soon ran back to the bikes under the tree. To help Simon keep cool, I rubbed some water into his fur before he went back into the pack. I was pretty relieved that he didn't balk at returning to his little prison. As we headed into Anza, we could see lightning in the distance. A light rain started to fall, taking the edge off of the heat. Sweet! Now was a good time to grab some lunch and enjoy the cooler weather. We weren't sure how much Simon was stressed from the high temps so we used the traditional test to check if a dog is sick: Put food in his face. If he is rapt, he is not sick. As you can see below, the test returned a favorable result. Nary a sign of listlessness. There was only crisp, militaristic target fixation, which meant the dog was a-ok. After lunch we headed towards Lost Valley Road to make our way back home. By now the thunder was booming so loudly I could easily hear it through my helmet and music player. The overhead shade of grey was continuing to deepen. Still, I wasn't worried since I was delighted to no longer be drying up from the inside out. Unfortunately, the opportunity to not worry was fleeting. The lightning was becoming much more frequent and seemed uncomfortably close. If Wayne wasn't standing on his pegs, I sure wasn't standing on mine because I did not want to be the high point! I grabbed this still from a video I shot. Looks like Wayne is heading off to some Highlander-esque* destiny. This not-overly-dilapidated RV looked recently dumped (or perhaps a victim of very bad driving?). I would've loved to have stopped and taken a peek inside, but the weather said keep moving. Drops of rain began to fall. They were infrequent but notable for their size -- it was like getting hit with the occasional soft, fat insect. I dropped my faceshield. SPLAT, pause, SPLAT, pause, SPLAT. Minutes later it was SPLATSPLATSPLATSPLATSPLATSPLAT. The thunder and lightning was now all around us. The wind kicked up and the rain entered a lashing phase. We never stopped to put on our rain gear because we figured we'd be hot again as soon as we dropped off the mountain. This was a tactical error, as I will explain shortly. Hail was added to the weather mix. It felt like we were on the receiving end of a target practice using frozen peas. It hurt too much to leave the face shield up, but when it was down the trail was a smear. I alternated between taking fire and being blind -- I just switched whenever I couldn't take the current option any longer. There's a tipping point for motorcyclists when you're being rained on: You can feel that you're wet and unless it's cold it's not all that uncomfortable. You just have something wet laying on your skin. The tipping point comes when all the exposed parts are saturated and the only place left for water to go is down into to your Secret Garden. VIOLATION! It's like a levee breaking, but instead of it happening in the Mississippi Delta, it's happening in your pants. Beyond discourteous! We finally left the worst of the weather behind. It was still raining, but I could sense there was an end to the punishment. Then, the bike hiccups. Or did it? I goose the throttle and sure enough, it stumbles. The motor dies. There's a gentle grade so I drop my feet and start paddling to bump start the bike (which is an unpleasant task given the spongy load in my pants). The bike would catch but die immediately. I'm paddling away like Fred Flintstone, not sure how long I can keep it up. Finally, I hit a steep enough stretch where I can get some speed. When I dump the clutch the bike catches and thankfully continues to run. I catch up to Wayne and we get off the mountain without any more stops. We reach the 79 and it's all pavement from here. A few miles into it my bike stumbles again and dies. Wayne takes a look at it and after a bit of pondering he jams a stick up the gas tank vent hose to see if it's clogged. Bingo! Thankfully, he had experienced this before on his KTM and although that episode took a lot longer to resolve, the stored knowledge got us out of our situation in minutes. We made our final and traditional stop at Dudley's Bakery. Wayne took this opportunity to get some sun on his chili peppers. I was wearing padded cycling shorts so unless I also had a blowdryer, dropping my pants would've gained me nothing but unnecessary comments. I'm glad we got this beatdown. It's one thing to be heading home where you can throw everything into a dryer. It's another to be camping and hanging your junk from a tree hoping they'll dry by morning when you've got no choice but to put them on again. Lesson learned! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * If you are unfamiliar with the movie, here is your Highlander moment:

He only tries to get out when he's being lowered to the ground and knows he's about to get let out. I cut the windows so only his head can fit through. They're reinforced with two layers of hem strip so he can't rip them open no matter how hard he tries.

Four months and 25 more days of all-you-can-dish abuse. I'm keeping track!

I like a man with his priorities in order.

This begs the question: Will someone try this on a 900 someday? Perhaps physics -- of which I know nothing -- has already answered that.

Randy, thanks for the link. Love the laugh at the end. Since my TAT maps are from 2008 and the roads have probably changed a lot, we'll most likely follow Kkug's route. Just looking at Oregon in Garmin Mapsource makes me shake my head. Is "new hip" Chris out in Oregon right now doing a TAT section?

Emailed signed copies for Wayne and me.

Ditto. And thanks, Randy, for all your work.

There's a DRZ under all that stuff? Countdown: Five months, 30 days.

As a birthday gift, I will allow you to abuse me with impunity for another 6 months about my overloaded DRZ.

Irony: Going to a non-urban place like Idyllwild or Julian to get away from the noise but having to deal with the ultraloud bikes that make quaint towns a destination... or worse, a gathering place. On an unrelated note, I was taking Simon down a dirt path yesterday that leads to a dead-end overlooking a canyon. I hear a motorcycle right behind me and I'm thinking, "No way!" Sure enough, I turn around and a Harley is right behind me on the narrow dirt trail. The rider says, "My pit bull is on the loose." I reply, "I haven't seen it." He says, "I'm just telling you because you might need to pick up your dog. It ain't dog friendly." He proceeds down to the dead-end and sits at the edge of the canyon screaming the dog's name. We opted not to hang around.

I finally got around to my write-up on another TAT test trip we did last weekend. We got lucky since the weekends on Big Bear both before and after our camping trip/test didn't sound ideal. ---------------- We thought about trucking the bikes up to Big Bear to avoid the two-hour freeway ride, but then we slapped ourselves back into reality: The first day of our trip is going to be a six-hour pavement party to Phoenix. If two hours of droning up I-15 was going to be that mentally tiresome -- no sipping doppio lattes while in transit?! -- where were we going to find the Right Stuff to gut out an extra four across the desert? We decided to ride from San Diego, but with a compromise: We'd take the back roads so we could get in some twisties and then we'd camp the first night on Thomas Mountain, south of Big Bear. We hit the road late Friday afternoon after Wayne got off of work. I'm not sure if they exist elsewhere, but in the national forests of San Jacinto and San Bernadino there are "yellow post" campsites. Unlike the regular campgrounds, the yellow post sites are dispersed and offer no amenities, except for maybe a picnic table and/or fire ring. They're better than regular campgrounds because 1) you're not right next to some jackass with a boombox and 2) it's free. You mean we get to pay zero to NOT be near some dude with an alcohol-fueled voice modulation problem? Fucking SIGN ME UP. Thomas Mountain was quiet on this early Friday evening. The only vehicle we passed on the fire road was a Rhino-like ATV trundling down with a father/son-looking combo. We eventually came across a yellow post campsite and set up camp in the perfect windless evening. Wondering why "perfect" can't co-exist with "windless"? Here's a hint: bzzzzzzzzzzz...SLAP. Yes, mosquitoes. When it's windy, not only is your irresistible carbon dioxide and other fragrant whatnots dispersed, but the bastards' little wings aren't strong enough to allow them to pull up a chaise lounge and probe you silly. Between the gnats, flies and mosquitoes, there was a whole lot of slapping going on. I did pack insect repellent, but I figured I'd forego it for one night and just go with the interactive killing method. Huge mistake. A few days later as I type this, I am still scratching at the many bites. I blame my ignorance on being a coastal San Diegan. We have no insects here. No kidding -- they are turned away at our many Border Patrol checkpoints. The BP agents will even look under your car with a huge dental mirror to make sure no insects are clinging to the undercarriage. It's fabulous the lengths they go to to make San Diego a safe, insect-free place. Given my lack of transparency to insects, I'm going to buy one of these: Hold your sartorial jabs. I'm well aware that I will look like a suburban dork on safari, but sacrificing my pride is superior to scratching until I'm bloody. One important thing I brought that we didn't have on the last trip was an extra rainfly from a retired tent. Is it necessary? No. Is it awesome? Yes! It gave us a place to disgorge the contents of our bikes (we're not always going to have a fancy picnic table). I know camping is a dirty undertaking and I should just suck it up, but women (and possibly tranvestites) have special needs in that we can't stand sand in our lip gloss. It's as appealing as a crunchy jelly donut. Hence the need for just a modicum of domestic tidiness. Bonus: Before turning in for the night we could wrap up the stuff in the rainfly to keep the dew off of it. However, the one piece of gear I won't leave outside are the helmets -- one ant infestation episode many years ago taught me the intimate discomfort of Things With Mandibles Near One's Face. Never again. I made two key sleeping changes for this trip: 1) I left the wafer-like Thermarest at home and took the Big Agnes pad, and 2) I modified my mummy bag to have more leg room. The problem with the Big Agnes pad is that it takes a while to blow up. I figured I wouldn't have any problems if I took a break now and then. Well, after the first round of blowing I was lightheaded and had no desire to do any more so Wayne was gentleman enough to take over. As for the mummy bag, I sewed a stretch panel across the lower part of it so I can leave it unzipped but still keep air from freely moving in and out. When it gets really cold I still have the option of zipping it up. If it weren't for the fact that in the past year I've become an insomniac, I would've slept fabulously. Still, the hours I did sleep instead of tracking the moon's path was sound. Share with me my future on the TAT between the hours of 11pm and 2am: The next morning we headed down Thomas Mountain. A few of the other yellow post camp sites were occupied, but overall the place was surprisingly empty, given its proximity to LA and SD. Just as we passed a campsite, I looked in my rearview mirror and was gobsmacked -- Simon had fallen or jumped out of the backpack and was chasing after Wayne's bike. WTF?! Simon was hysterical, running and barking like the last train had left the station. But hold on...Simon was also staring down at the same scene I was taking in. Oh, that was a dog who had torn out from the campsite. It happened to be the same size and almost all white like Simon. An impressive stunt double it was, and feel like a maternal failure I did! After leaving that scene of horror behind, we headed over Idyllwild, through Beaumont, and then up to Big Bear. Along the way there was a nice stretch of road that went through the town of Oak Glen -- check it out if you ever find yourself in that area. The morning was awesome and not yet warm enough for Simon to go into panting mode: After months of trying to dial in the suspension, this trip was an important milestone. My DRZ has a lowering link and the extra 50 pounds over the ass end made the front way too light (spare gas, three liters of water, and a month's worth of dog food is nearly half the weight). At freeway speeds the front-end weave was simply dangerous. To address this issue, Wayne modified the forks by cutting down the springs and machining spacers. This critical change returned the DRZ to a level stance so my suspension now had a fighting chance. When we hit the rockier stretches the bike stayed planted -- epic, spine-tingling relief! I now had a machine that would work both on the freeway and in the dirt. Still a pig? Yeah, but nimble is not the primary goal -- not being murdered by every mile travelled is. To that end, the bikes were perfect. There was a good mixture of terrain where we could test our loaded bikes: Recovering burn area north of Holcomb Valley: Weird still life moment: I call it "Rover, Please Come Home." As late afternoon came, we started keeping our eyes open for an unoccupied yellow post campsite. Except for this one shadeless site in the burn area, all the ones we came across were occupied. We eventually came across a ranger and asked him if he thought the farther-flung yellow post campsites were occupied. He said they might be and asked if we planned to have a campfire. We said no. If that was the case, then we could camp anywhere as long as it was 200 feet from the road and water sources. That surprised me because I had perused the San Bernadino Forest Service web site many times and it was never clear that "dispersed camping" was different from yellow post camping. In fact, if you go to the Dispersed Camping page, it lists a bunch of yellow post sites; hence, my conclusion on why they were one in the same. The friendly ranger told us of a good camping spot nearby and also wrote us a permit to legally use our little Jetboil unit. Bless him and any ranger-tots he may have! Once again I got through a round of inflating before I had to hand the task off to Wayne. Since getting home, I've resolved this inflation issue, which I'll cover in a separate post. The next day we took the backroads back to San Diego. Here I am following what I will now call Rule #1: "Rest stops must be in shaded areas." Why? Because a woman with heat exhaustion is as pleasant to be around as a bear passing a whole pine cone. Maybe I speak for dudes, too. Or, maybe I speak only for myself. Whatever the case, the west side of Dudley's Bakery has one big tree, and it's a good friend to all who sweat. With another 500 miles of training under our belts, we're actually feeling like we may be ready for the TAT.

Thanks for the comments. Doing the write-ups gives me a way to remember all those funky little things that happen on a trip. I can always remember rides in broad strokes: the scenery was nice, the riding was fun, etc., but I always forget the little things like how that dog shocked the snot out of me. It was actually the last thing I added to the write-up because I had already forgotten about it. To answer a few questions: - I do plan to do a write-up at the end of each day but I don't know how often I'll be able to post them. I'll try to post daily, but I'm thinking it'll end up being every few days. - I thought about having Simon's food shipped to a mid point, but since the bike can deal with the weight, I'll just pack it all. I do need to research shops near the route since we'll want fresh tires along the way. - Simon would enjoy a fan club. Its existence will be all that much more poignant when he's dragged off by a bear in Utah; the club will become our therapy group. And for the record, he would want me to ease my pain by ditching the remaining dog food before continuing on the ride.

I saw the hip resurfacing specialist on Thursday and he recommended a total hip replacement. There's a higher rate of femoral neck fractures for people my size. The leg on the bad side is also one centimeter shorter than the other side so the discrepancy can be corrected with the full monty. Doc said the hip socket will be made of a cross-linked polymer...the same stuff used to make gas tanks? Robust!!

A possible scenario: We are taking a snack break and Wayne notices my wheel is gone. W: What happened to your front wheel? Z: OMG! I didn't even notice it was gone. W: How could you have been riding all this time without noticing? Z: I was messing with my MP3 player trying to change the playlist so I was occupied. GET OFF MY CASE ALREADY! Upshot: We need to find a new front wheel. It would be awesome if we could contact someone who would, in turn, get on the Internet and try to track down a new front wheel for us. You search for shops in our vicinity. You post up on the various dirt riding forums to see who might be in our area who could help us. You're our web-connected dirt liaison. We don't want to impose on anyone and feel sheepish as it is trolling for warm bodies. We have non-riding friends who would happily be our contact, but we feel that only another dualsporter could really understand what needs to be done and how it should get done. If you wouldn't mind taking on this role that will hopefully involve not a shred of work, please PM me. Thanks.

At the moment our plan is to leave the second week of September.