Dallas to Colorado w/ 6 nights camping

[ziege]

Hey everyone... new to the forum so I hope I'm not violating local etiquette...

Next week I'm leaving on a 7 day road trip from the Dallas area to Colorado and back. Actually, to Montrose for a V-strom gathering there.

Here's my general route plan:
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I'm leaving Wednesday for Palo Duro Canyon state park in Texas. 385mi planned.

Next day I'm stopping at the Great Sand Dunes Nat'l park but probably won't camp there; from what I've read they fill up quick. Another 385mi planned, plus up to another 100 to get to a place to camp.

Friday morning I'm rolling into Montrose. About 130-200mi depending on where I stop Thursday.

I'll spend the next two nights around the Montrose area. I plan to camp in the Uncompahgre nat'l forest though I may vary the location.

Sunday I was going to ride down 550 to the San Juan nat'l forest, cutting my Monday ride by about 100mi.

Monday night will be Lincoln Nat'l forest at a shade over 400mi.

Tuesday the longest, but least time sensitive, leg at 580mi to find myself home in my own bed.

Total distance should be about 2100 miles not counting side trips.

In a car I just start driving, get breakfast and lunch on the road, stop off and get some ingredients before I reach my camp site, and try to get to the campsite fairly early. Cook, relax, maybe a hike, a nice campfire if possible, then start again 1st thing the next day. I've honed my technique to the point where I can usually be on the road in time to enjoy the sunrise from a scenic overlook or the like on down the road.

I expect the bike to add a bit of extra time to that.

Current gear plan is to bring my little 1qt dutch oven, my jetboil for water, the usual mix of camp widgets, hammock, lots of clothing layers and all the countless things checklists are for, and see how it goes... adjust my car camping habits as needed.

Any tips for the motocamping/Colorado/New Mexico noob?

:D

[Mr. Guy]

Looks like a great ride.

Guy

[Mellow]

This is what I'd do...

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[ziege]

This is what I'd do...


I can see why. :)

Looking at the terrain view, that's a sweet re-route. P^

Even better: Turns out I can leave half a day early. I'll pull into Palo Duro Canyon Tuesday evening, giving me an extra day to play in Colorado! Longer, twistier, and an extra night somewhere! :D

[Mellow]

Also, if you are going west out of Gunnison... past the Blue Mesa Res. You MUST take 92... That is just a great road...

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[Mellow]

Hwy 12 out of Trinidad Lake State park is the Highway of Legends Scenic Byway..

http://mellow.smugmug.com/2008/June-20-29-WeSTOC-Trip/IMG0973/322316049_FqrNC-M-1.jpg

http://mellow.smugmug.com/2008/June-20-29-WeSTOC-Trip/IMG0966/322315533_uFcV7-M-1.jpg

[Mellow]

92 From the Blue Mesa Res...

http://mellow.smugmug.com/2008/June-20-29-WeSTOC-Trip/IMG0790/322301812_w8VL6-M-1.jpg

http://mellow.smugmug.com/2008/June-20-29-WeSTOC-Trip/IMG0788/322301686_NQBXS-M-1.jpg

[gdawg]

looks like your gonna go down the "million dollar highway" be careful on that thing... i saw it on tv....not sure if it's as bad as they say it is or not.

[Mellow]

looks like your gonna go down the "million dollar highway" be careful on that thing... i saw it on tv....not sure if it's as bad as they say it is or not.

No, it's not that bad... they made it out to be like one of those dirt roads on the side of a mtn in South America.

It's a nice road. You should still be careful but heck, you can have an issue on a perfectly straight road so that goes without saying.. well, but I did say it.. oh well..

http://mellow.smugmug.com/2005/Sept-10-17-Yellowstone/Picture-024/58265005_7SSgp-M.jpg

http://mellow.smugmug.com/2005/Sept-10-17-Yellowstone/Picture-025/58265006_z8d5q-M.jpg

http://mellow.smugmug.com/2005/Sept-10-17-Yellowstone/Picture-026/58265009_AxkBV-M.jpg

http://mellow.smugmug.com/2005/Sept-10-17-Yellowstone/Picture-040/58265019_dnnLs-M.jpg

Another cool road is 141 south of Gateway. Lots of great views.

http://mellow.smugmug.com/2005/Sept-10-17-Yellowstone/Picture-053/58265033_k77Tw-M.jpg

http://mellow.smugmug.com/2005/Sept-10-17-Yellowstone/Picture-056/58265037_AU6pa-M.jpg

http://mellow.smugmug.com/2005/Sept-10-17-Yellowstone/Picture-058/58265040_ApA2G-M.jpg

[ziege]

92 was on my "looping around montrose" list.. Sounds great.

My "extra" day is going to go *fast*. :D

I don't see how I could miss 550... from what I've seen it looks like a beautiful ride in itself.

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Hmm... the map isn't showing up correctly...hopefully it's something with my machine/internet connection.

[gdawg]

No, it's not that bad... they made it out to be like one of those dirt roads on the side of a mtn in South America.

It's a nice road. You should still be careful but heck, you can have an issue on a perfectly straight road so that goes without saying.. well, but I did say it.. oh well..


figures, all the tv showed was steep drop offs with no guard rails....

[Mellow]

figures, all the tv showed was steep drop offs with no guard rails....

There are spots that are worse than others but for the most part none of it is terrible in my opinion.. I haven't been on it in a couple years so maybe a Coloradoan can chime in but it's not any different than any other scenic byway... some wide roads some narrow some tunnels some drop offs, etc.. all great stuff.

[STCPO]

I just got back from a week of riding/camping in Colorado. We based most of our days out of Gunnison, CO and did some long loops each day.

Here is a map of our route

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4287004/Colorado.JPG

We had snow up on Independence pass, but other than that, the weather was perfect the whole time.

Cheers,
Pete

[ziege]

Just a follow-up...

I had in almost every way a great ride. I was able to take most of the suggested side roads. 12, 92, 50, 141... 141 was very cool by the way. I camped in Palo Duro Canyon, in the Uncompahgre Nat'l forest, and in in the Cibola Nat'l forest on the way home. I didn't put quite as many riding miles in as I planned, but I had a blast and am already making plans to return to Colorado to see some of what I missed and do some more camping.

The "almost" in that previous paragraph: on the Uncompahgre plateau southwest of Montrose, on Divide Road headed towards 141, I failed to arrest a tankslapper while crossing a spot of freshly laid gravel. Bike went down with a bit of tumble. I was not seriously hurt. After reattaching a pannier and doing some other basic "bike parts are litter too" clean-up, I was able to ride the rest of the way back to Montrose via 141. All told I think it was about 250 miles of riding that day and about half of it was on a munched up bike. I was lucky enough to get into a hotel room for the next couple of nights. On Saturday (day after the tumble) I rode over to Wal-mart to pick up some ibuprophen, then went on to the local suzuki dealership.

The apparent damage was cosmetic and/or peripheral (front signals busted, luggage frames bent, throttle assembly and bars bent, windshield and one rear view mirror off) but the suspension was straight, engine was fine, and I seriously considered riding it back to Dallas. However, I didn't really want to turn the vacation into a get home expedition so I broke down and rented a car. I loaded all my gear into the trunk and on Sunday I drove down 550 (which is a nice road and no where near as bad as people make out... if you think 550 is bad stay away from some of the back mountain roads of California) and into New Mexico. I did some camping there, then went to Carlsbad Caverns and wandered around the cave for a few hours. I finally made it home Tuesday and slept like a log pretty much all day Wednesday.

I had a lot of fun. Seriously. Even with my ribs still popping every once in a while it was great. The scenery was beautiful, nobody got hurt, and I was able to change plans and keep having fun even after the original goals were no longer attainable.

The shop estimated about $500 in repairs to get the bike safe to ride again, and stopped counting at $9500 for their insurance repair estimate. Which is to say that the bike was totaled. I stopped by my neighborhood Suzuki dealer last Friday and they are prepping another bike for me - another 2009 orange v-strom 650, I am stubborn - hopefully I'll be able to pick it up this week. I also bought the old bike back from the insurance co. ($1500) and am going to have the shop in Colorado do some fixes so I can drive back and (with a chase car) finish my ride. At the moment I'm planning to keep the beater bike for back country (dirt) and camping use but we'll see how that plays out. People have a way of glomming onto my stuff when I've had a chance to customize it a bit so it may end up with a family member. :)

[Trailace]

Sorry to hear about your get off sounds like you made the best of the situation. Glad you're okay it could have been a lot worse I'm sure.
You know a few pictures would make this a lot better post. Did you get any pictures of the bike after the incident? A pictures is worth 1000 words. LOL!

[ziege]

Pictures....

2991
Camping in Palo Duro Canyon

2992
View from Uncompahgre Plateau

2993
Camping on the Uncompahgre Nat'l Forest

2994
Happy Bike

2995
Sad Bike.

2997
Camping in NM on the way home...

2998
Back in Tejas.

[Trailace]

Ouch
http://www.motocampers.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2995&d=1278959294

[ziege]

Yeah, a loss of prettiness event for sure.

The seat was off so I could get to my tools to re-attach the right pannier, which I had just done when that pic was taken. The pannier fit back on after some boot stomping but I had to be careful because it could contact the swingarm. The pannier frames were all bent.

But I'm not complaining...
2999

[Mr. Guy]

The fact that you were able to ride it back into town says something about how tough the Stroms are.

Well, and how tough you are too. LOL

Guy

[ziege]

The strom was tough. Especially considering that the only "hardening" it had was the luggage and that touratech skid plate (which may or may not have done anything, though I think the oil cooler relocation probably played a big part). Everyone recommends tank/engine guards but I'm convinced that the bike would've been totaled (from an insurance perspective) either way. The rear subframe, muffler, front subframe (headlight bracket), etc all got bent up during the tumble, while the side plastic and tank (the parts most protected by the guards) received mainly cosmetic scratches. I'm sort of ambivalent about engine guards but the main reason I didn't have any was that I couldn't get any delivered before the trip.

I was lucky. I managed a soft landing with my arms tucked but could easily have tumbled my way into a broken collar bone, messed up shoulder, broken arm(s), or worse. Or I could've lowsided and been pinned or broken a leg. As it was the launch tossed me clear of the bike, the landing gave me a bruised arm and messed up ribs but no structural damage, and the slide wore small holes in my riding pants and jacket but left me intact. My "road rash" was a single scrape, about 1/2" long and 1/8" wide, on my left arm where the point of a rock managed to press through my jacket and draw blood as I was sliding along watching gravel pass before my nose. The tumble or impact actually broke the elbow pads in the jacket -- one was in four pieces, the other, three. I was hurting on the way back to town but thoughts of what could've happened kept me in good spirits. Jacket and pants were both Joe Rocket.

[ziege]

No kidding.

It's amazing how hard it is to convince people that protective gear is good. A coworker is getting a new bike this weekend (after a 5-year hiatus from riding) so of course I asked what gear he was getting. Answer: A half-helmet, work gloves, and boots. Using some of my fresh props (helmet with the shell, chin bar, and face shield covered in gravel scratches, jacket/pants with holes worn in, etc) I was able to convince him... to add a jacket, purpose build riding gloves, and go to a 3/4 helmet with a full face visor. :dizzy1:

I just wish it were easier to get the right gear. I went to two shops yesterday (a fairly large dealership and an accessory-specific shop) to try on helmets and, I kid you not, between them they didn't have a single helmet that fit me. Especially the higher end helmets just don't seem to fit at all. My head isn't THAT big, I wear an XL helmet ... it shouldn't be that hard to find something that fits. I'm thinking one of those neon Scorpion EXO-700s with thinner cheek pads might work out.

[Mellow]

Glad you got out of that one... They do call it adventure touring?

[Ironheadziggy76]

ziege, glad to hear you're okay! The Stroms are pretty tough little bikes. I keep thinking I'll trade mine for something a little more dirt worthy, but every time I take it for a ride I keep putting off trading.

If you don't mind reliving part of it, could you tell us a bit more about what you think caused the tank slapper? I noticed mine do this one time on the trip to AK, although it wasn't as severe as yours was. Mine was just more of a quick wallow of the bars after going through a large dip in the road with the bike heavily loaded.

I'm sure the other Strom owners would appreciate any info on it if you don't mind sharing.

[ziege]

I was on a well maintained dirt road that crosses the Uncompahgre Plateau between the dirt portion of CO90 and (paved) CO141. Conditions were great and I was having a lot of fun tossing the bike around -- it's a different feeling, doing that stuff on a loaded (I had my camping gear and everything aboard) and fairly heavy bike. About 75 miles in I saw a patch of different looking gravel ahead on a straightaway. From the looks of it, a dumptruck had recently unloaded coarse gravel, spreading it completely across the road for about 100 yards. I didn't see any choice but to slow down and cross. Frankly it didn't look that bad... but within the first 50 yards a wallowing tankslapper was starting.

Failure to apply sufficient throttle for conditions would be a fair analysis -- I should've shifted back on the bike, hit the gas, and willed the front wheel to ride over instead of plowing through the gravel. I was trying but I obviously not well enough.

I think, and this is only an educated guess, that the real drama came because I made it through the gravel before I had things under control. Had the entire road been gravel I would've either lowsided or recovered. Instead I was still wobbling when the bike found better traction on the packed dirt, and that's a recipe for what happened: highside and tumble.

Not sure how to generalize that into advice for other riders though. Don't do it? :D

Keep in mind... it happened quick, I don't have a video to replay, and humans are notoriously bad about accurately recounting things as they actually happened. I'm trying to, but I've also thought through what happened and in the process may have convinced myself of a scenario. Based on the speeds I was traveling I had about 15 seconds from seeing the gravel to riding in it, and at the speed I had slowed to for the gravel, crossing (assuming about 100 yards of gravel) would take around 5 seconds. Figure a second or two for the slapper to start and we're looking at 3 seconds (+/- 1) between knowing I had a problem and knowing I was on the ground. That's not a lot of time to memorize details as things are happening.

[Ironheadziggy76]

Thanks ziege, sounds like an excellent explanation to me. I've heard a few different possibilities on other sites, most pointing to the Tourance front tire. When mine happened I think it was just a condition of the front end being lightened by the dip after bottoming out on the center stand. With all the stuff I had strapped on the back of my bike it was light in the front end to start with.

Thanks again for the information!

[ziege]

As I understand it, weight distribution can leave a bike prone to headshaking fun. It throws the suspension geometry off and makes the bike more prone to oscillation while simultaneously reducing the contact pressure and therefore friction of the innate "rubber meets road" steering damper. It's possible you were on that edge and road conditions took up your safety margin. In that case the right corrective measure would be to apply brakes and load up the front wheel a bit more.

I think what I experienced was more an interaction between the bike and a road surface that was actively changing based on what the bike did. So if the bike turned one way it created a channel in the gravel that caused the bike to turn the other way. In that case, lightening the front wheel to reduce the channel formation and let the inertia of the bike carry me ahead was more called for.

In any case, when it starts you don't have a lot of time to react.

My next wee (picking it up today) will have a steering damper before too long. :lol

[Ironheadziggy76]

Be sure and get us some pics of the new ride!

[Whosoever]

If you haven't found your new helmet check out www.webbikeworld.com this is an excellent sight for product evaluation. I recall reading several that discussed in detail how different brands seem to favor different shaped "heads". Happy to hear you are ok both physically and mentally. Nothing like a "get off" to sharpen your riding skills and re-evaluate your equipment. What most don't realize is that soon or later..."your gonna go down on a bike"...not so much as "if" but really "when".

[ziege]

Webbikeworld is awesome. I've been checking their evals, especially on helmets, since about 2005. And yeah, that body-meets-road reality check sure makes you want to be a better rider. It happens, it will happen again, but I'm sure motivated to stretch the interval if I can.

As for pictures, the funny part is that the new bike looks exactly like the old bike did back in May. Same color and everything. Well, it's cleaner. :D

Where the pictures will come in is when I have the old bike back in hand and start trying to make it more dirt worthy. :D

[jacksonson]

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