TwoWheelsGood

I'm in, pre-running some of the '12 course tomorrow and maybe going to the BBTR monthly meeting next weekend to ride more of it.

You should hook up that fancy switch to play this instead, see attached Sanford And Son.mp3

I run with a stock tank (~95mi range) + Wolfman tank panniers where I can carry an additional ~2.4-6 gallons of fuel in MSR bladders. I think our biggest stretch between gas the first couple days was about 170-80 miles? For everything else I was fine with about 120-130mi range. Chris and Dave had monster tanks on the 350's and were getting over 50mph, I think. In the future I'll probably not bring the bladders and just steal gas from them every night with a siphon. They won't even notice it.

On my topo (Garmin Southwest) it's called Missing Canyon. Awesome, by any name.

Once we got past the LOTR-type terrain out of Big Water, our ride up to Hwy 12 was pretty cool: * Colton(?) road up to the Staircase * Dropping into Missing Canyon(?) and taking that to Hole in the Rock Road. Totally wasn't expecting this, VERY cool canyon that I'll be visiting again. * I blasted ahead on the pavement on the 12 to get to Boulder and square away our dinner reservations. Turns out it wasn't a problem and they had space to sit us away from the hippy doode playing acoustic and singing poorly in the restaurant. In summary, the day included an ~8am start from Toroweap, a bad crash that could have been MUCH worse, a quick and efficient UHaul box truck extraction, and about 200mi of great riding that ended with an awesome meal and good beer

"Rich did a responsible job of staying connected visually and with the radios. Radios make group travel a good deal faster, i.e. fewer stops. as well as more social." Thanks! Radios rock! As a former Marine Forward Observer my head is hardwired to look at the terrain around me from the perspective of maintaining good radio comms: get radio checks before popping over a ridge, slow down when transmissions behind become weak, and call out informal checkpoints (cattleguards, very distinctive turns or terrain features) that are repeated through the group, so the group gets a quick sense of how spread out everyone is. Looking forward to your pics and story because I only took about 6 pictures the whole trip

ADV Berg at Toroweap Very cool canyon we found on our way to Escalante Long Canyon on the Burr Trail, near the beginning of a long day: Burr Trail, Wolverine Loop, out and back and some ad hoc exploring in Moody Canyon, back on the Burr to Boulder to pick up our bags (staged at Boulder Mtn Lodge) and a very late lunch. Then Hell's Backbone to Escalante

Ken, What's the required gas range for this shindig? Cool to park a truck at your place? I would be driving down from LA.

I've always wanted to take one of these for a spin

Jim, Thanks for the link. See my comment about not seeing that summary data for an active route: distance of the route, ETA, etc. Am I just stoopid or something? I absolutely need to spend more time with it. Basically took it out of the box, loaded up the tracks and maps for Chris' ride, slapped it on the mount and rode.

This weekend was my first ride with it. I like it, though the differences between it and the 60 take some getting used to -- navigating around the menus to configure stuff, etc. It might help to look at the manual vs just banging on it but I'm getting there . Things I'm working through a bit: Touchscreen: after riding with the 60 for so long I just know where all of the buttons are, almost don't even have to look at it to zoom in, out, page, etc. I just know where those buttons are. I find I have to look at the screen a bit more on the Montana, for now, to zoom in, out, etc but that will change with familiarity I'm sure. Tracks: on the 60 the colored shading on a track is wider than the color of a road, etc. On the Montana it's a finer line. Think fat marker vs sharpie = I was confused sometime as to whether I was looking at a road or an actual track. Selecting colors for tracks seems to be pretty important on the Montana. Routing: I gotta think this is a bug or something I'm missing but when I search for something, calc a route to it, and then display the turn by turn as the active route, it gives me the distance between each segment of the route but doesn't give me the total route distance or estimated time. IOW, is the gas station I just calc'd a route to 10 miles away or 30 miles away? Do I seriously have to do the math on those turn by turns as I'm riding? I gotta think I'm missing something somewhere, like a firmware update....anyone know? Power mount: very slick, with the powered contacts integrated into the mount, and more secure than the 60 mount + power cord. Overall, the ride was very much a reminder that the 60 is ~'06 technology vs >'11 technology with the Montana. Time for upgrade.

I've done motorcycle support for several triathlons, riding with an official or photographer on the back. It's a lot of fun and something very different if you just dig anything on two wheels. You'll need to be very comfortable riding in close proximity to other motorcycles and especially cyclists. It helps to be cyclist yourself, especially group/road cycling or racing, as you'll be able to anticipate where a cyclist is about to go based on the terrain, dynamics of the group, etc. Bottomline, if you're looking to do something fun and different on your bike, supporting a bike race is a blast.

Rich Strauss from Monrovia, CA, just east of Pasadena on the north side of LA. I ride a Husky TE450, DL1000 and XT225 wife bike. VStrom and XT will be sold soon to fund a more long distance capable DS (I have much street riding experience but little interest these days). Crawdaddy's WR250R writeups have me interested. Looking to expand my riding opportunities by networking with other riders. I have a very flexible schedule and am interested in multiday DS trips. Doing LABV this year, a 7 day trip down the length of Baja in January, want to put something together for Utah in early May, etc. Thanks for the welcome! Rich