TAT III b

[TOE JAM]

Ever since we finished the eastern half of the TAT last year Arlo and I have been thinking about completing the last section from north of Oklahoma City to Monticello UT. It looked like Trailace would be able to join us, but he ended up having to work at the last minute and it was too late for the rest of us to change our days off. Arlo had been talking to an old Air Force buddy of ours about joining us for this trip. The three of us departed from different places and planned to meet in Arkansas City, Kansas about twenty miles from where we would join up with the TAT. Jeff (Mush) left Pittsburg pulling his XR-600 behind his Subaru. I think he pulled a Trailace and drove straight through with only a few hours sleep in a roadside rest area. Arlo left north Texas pulling his XR behind his jeep, and I left New Mexico for a 500 mile ride on my KTM Super Enduro. We met at Cherokee Strip campground south of town. I got there just before dark. Arlo and Mush were waiting for me with a cold beer. We got our tents set up and jumped in Jeff's four wheeled thingy and drove into town for dinner. We got a good nights sleep ( I think Mush had some issues with a barking dog or something) and got up excited about the adventure ahead. Mush brewed some good coffee to get our motors running! I was actually first to get packed and loaded( a 1st for me) so I rode into town to top off my tank while Arlo and Mush finished packing. Arlo had a new gps and was in charge of navigation. He was still learning how to use it, so I wasn't sure where we would end up. Jeff was in charge of fuel planning and campground recon. Well we all made it home and nobody ran out of gas (almost) so it must have been a good plan. Day one and some pictures to follow. It's past my bed time.

[Trailace]

:Popcorn

[lytle1gw]

Waiting on pins and needles.:couch1:

[Ironheadziggy76]

:Popcorn

[TOE JAM]

DAY ONE I will do my best to recall the facts. If I miss something I'm sure somebody will chime in. We started off on day one excited about the trip but knowing it would be a long day. We wanted to get through as much of the flat lands of OK as we could so we could get on to the fun stuff. Jeff had planned out plenty of fuel stops at about 100 mile intervals and had even called ahead to make sure they would be open. We stopped in Alva and Buffalo and even found some ethenol free gas which yielded about 10 percent better milage. We continued to crisscross the OK/KS border to our next fuel stop in Liberal. There was only one pump in town and there was a note on the door "closed from 11:30 to 12:30 for lunch". It was 11:25 and nobody was home. Arlo had talked to a local who said the times that the station was open weren't exactly hard and fast! We turned south and headed down past the TAT to Hooker OK where we gassed up the bikes and then ourselves at the local bowling alley. We rejoined the trail and continued on to our stop for the night, Wild Bills RV Park in Boise City OK. We did a little over 400 miles on dirt roads today and the silt and sand on some of them was pretty deep. The bikes would tend to wallow a bit at 60 or 70 mph but it never got too bad. As I was riding along these long straight roads it occurred to me I had never been over 100mph in the dirt, and what better bike to give it a go than a 950 dirt bike! Amazingly fast it was at 110 and accelerating hard when I decided that was probably fast enough for today.:D The campground was next to the main highway through town in Boise City and trucks were going by all night about 50 feet from our tents. Ear plugs didn't help much. Jeff said he was so tired he didn't have any trouble sleeping.
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[Jeff_M_PA]

Phil, aka Beemer or more recently Toe Jam, is a little off on his navigation. And I thought Arlo was bad! The small town with the single pump closed 11:30-12:30 was Hardtner, KS. The only way we'd have made Liberal at 11:25 am would have been in a helicopter. Our first fuel stop was planned for Alva OK, off TAT, but we tried Hardtner becuase it was closer. We had lunch in Alva at the Bowling Alley. Liberal is a pretty big town with lots of options. We never set foot nor tire in Hooker, OK.

Jeff, aka Mush

[TOE JAM]

DAY 2

We got up and packed and rode the few blocks to main street in Boise City and had a nice breakfast before heading out. We made quick work of the 40 or so miles left in Oklahoma and the change of scenery was very nice almost immediately after crossing into New Mexico. As we worked our way toward Colorado it became clear that fuel was going to be an issue on this leg. We considered heading over to Raton on the blacktop but decided to continue toward Trinidad and hope to find some gas in Branson CO. No such luck! I was actually getting better milage on the 950 than the XRs, but had the smallest tank. Arlo had the worst range, I was slightly better and Mush was the best with the largest tank. We slowed down to help the range and Arlo made about 110 miles before switching to reserve and then just short of Trinidad ran out. However, he was able to use the old trick of running the front wheel up the side of a hill and lean the bike over to get the last bit of fuel and it was enough to get us to Trinidad at about 155 miles. So much for no more than 100 miles between fuel stops. When we gassed up we determined that Arlo might have about three miles of range left and I had about 12. We stopped and had a nice lunch. Our waitress was a very nice black haired brown eyed girl from Mexico named, get this, Heidi. As we got into the mountains we were really racing a little too fast on the curvy gravel roads. I hadn't lowered the tire pressures after the highway ride on the first day. I went into a corner too hot and both ends were sliding. It was obvious I wasn't going to make it. So at the last second I stood it up and just gassed it off the side down about a twenty foot bluff and across a creek before I got it stopped!:eek: Lucky for me there was no fence and no big boulders. I turned around crossed the creek and rode back up the bluff. My pack wasn't even disturbed. Have I ever said how much I love the suspension on this bike. It really saved me. We decided to find a camping spot somewhere in the national forest a little further down the trail. We looked around a bit and found a nice meadow at about 9000 feet with an incredible view in all directions. About 280 miles today.
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[TOE JAM]

Phil, aka Beemer or more recently Toe Jam, is a little off on his navigation. And I thought Arlo was bad! The small town with the single pump closed 11:30-12:30 was Hardtner, KS. The only way we'd have made Liberal at 11:25 am would have been in a helicopter. Our first fuel stop was planned for Alva OK, off TAT, but we tried Hardtner becuase it was closer. We had lunch in Alva at the Bowling Alley. Liberal is a pretty big town with lots of options. We never set foot nor tire in Hooker, OK.

Jeff, aka Mush
I told you it was all running together. I can't even remember what I had for breakfast this morning. I thought Liberal was bigger but I was just looking on Google maps trying to look for some towns in about the right relative position to the border. Thanks for keeping me straight.

[TOE JAM]

DAY 3

We woke up to a beautiful morning in the mountains and had some coffee. In spite of Arlo's pharmacy my allergies were giving me a hard time. The riding was magnificent all day. Had any of us bothered to read Trailace's ride report from 2008 we would have saved ourselves about 30 minutes riding in circles around Black Bear Rd trying to find the trail. We stopped in Westcliff (I think) for gas and pressed on toward Salida via Cotapaxi. We got gas and some supplies at Wal-Mart in Salida. Jeff had a place he could't wait to get to for the night. Mt. Princton Hot Springs Resort. This is where we fell off the Moto-Campers wagon and became The Moto-hotsprings resorters. Forgive us Father Trailace for we have sinned. :o I tried to talk them out of it. Really I did! Anyway it was a beautiful place. We soaked in the hot springs of Chalk Creek, had a wonderful dinner/beers and hot showers/comfy beds.
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[Jeff_M_PA]

Nice job, Phil! Keep up the good work.

[Black and Blue]

Hey, how hard did you try to talk them out of that place?:D Nice pics.P^..:couch1:..
Ernie

[lytle1gw]

Bet he wasn't riding over a hundred to get away.:D

[TOE JAM]

DAY 4

Today was the most challenging and the most spectacular of the trip. We crossed multiple passes over 12,000 ft., none of them paved. We started right off with the most difficult of the day, Hancock Pass. It was of course a beautiful ride all the way up, but the last couple of miles to the top were very rocky and technical. Lots of big rocks and step-up ledges and almost to the top it got pretty steep and mother nature threw in a spring seeping out of the mountain to add a little wetness to the rocks. The big KTM did a great job here as well as did the XRs of course. I was really happy with the way it just motored over everything. I made it all the way up without having to put a foot down. Good thing, because if I had dabbed I probably wouldn't have been able to hold the big beast up, much less picked it up off the ground. We had planned on going about 60 miles round trip out of the way to get gas in Gunnison to get gas but found some in Pitkin just a couple of miles off the trail and topped off again just a little way down the road at Sargent. I think Cinnimon Pass was next. It was not as technical but had a lot of 180 degree uphill swithbacks and it had started to rain so it was a bit slick but not bad. We got rained on pretty good all the way to Lake city where we stopped again for gas and some hot coffee/pizza. It was also pretty cold as you can imagine at these altitudes. The rain eased up and we pressed on to California Pass at over 12,900 feet. The views here were amazing! We then headed down and over Corkscrew pass and past Red Mountain. When we got to the bottom we hit the blacktop north for a few miles to Ouray for the night. We found another motel with a nice hot tub to warm up our cold wet bodies(actually my First Gear gear kept me dry the whole trip). We jumped on the bikes and went to the local brewery for some tasty brew and excellent chow. We covered about 200 miles today.
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[George]

I've done Cinnamon Pass on a Honda ST1100. Don't recommend it but it can be done. One other, I don't recall the name.

Need to plan such a trip. It was on my short list 'til my Suzuki DRZ disappeared. :(

[970mike]

Looks and sounds like a great ride! :D

[TOE JAM]

DAY 5

We got up and enjoyed a nice continental breakfast at the Victorian Inn and headed south out of Ouray to pick up the trail. The whole area is really incredibly beautiful. We only had Ophir Pass to cross today as we made our way to Utah. It was the easiest pass of the trip. We passed a couple of jeeps on the way down as we had on other days, and I always wonder what they think when they are barely picking their way down the trail just trying not to go over the edge and we come blowing by. Aren't motorcycles fun!:D After we made it through Ophir the rain started. It would be cold and wet the rest of the day, again. As we worked our way west Sam took us through The Willow Divide OHV Trail. Normally it would have gone pretty quickly. Did I mention It was cold and raining. The whole trail was very slick and rutted with some deep mud holes. Then we started downhill and it got very very very slick! There were several types of clay and dirt as we went down the mountain that all had there own coefficient of friction. The best was like greased ice. The mere thought of touching either brake would have just caused the bike to accelerate followed very quickly by a crash. Somehow we managed to ease our way to the bottom with both ends sliding most of the time. After that it was some fun high speed gravel roads to Dove Creek. Arlo was having a good time flat tracking as he did any chance he got. The XR really is a blast stepping the rear end out with the throttle. The KTM is not nearly as predictable. Once you give it enough throttle to break the rear tire loose, it breaks loose in a big way! It feels like the rear is going to pass the front immediately. I think it was a combination of the pack on the back and the road surface. It normally slides pretty good, but still not like the XR. By the time we made it to Dove Creek Ron and Jeff were mighty wet and cold. I brought some scuba gloves for days like this and thought they weren't doing a very good job until Arlo pulled off his gloves and we saw his blue fingers. We gassed up the bikes and went to the local cafe for a nice lunch and to warm up for a while. After lunch it was a short ride to Utah where we ended the TAT. Then we put our heads down and headed for Pagosa Springs. WE ended up at the Oak Ridge Lodge right across the street from the hot springs. They were very motorcycle friendly and even had a place to wash the bikes! The hot springs there are awsome! I think there are 18 pools with different temperatures ranging from 93 to 111 or more.:eek: I think we tried them all and had a very fun relaxing evening.

[G wizz]

Hey Phil,
In the picture of your bike at Hancock pass ... What is the stick tied on the top of your pack for?

G

[TOE JAM]

Hey Phil,
In the picture of your bike at Hancock pass ... What is the stick tied on the top of your pack for?

G

I brought that along to prop the rear wheel up to lube the chain but it was marginal at best. How are things in MI?

[TOE JAM]

THE TRIP HOME

We got up on day six and it was time to part ways. I had about 400 miles to Cloudcroft and I don't think Arlo and Mush new exactly what there plans were. I headed south to Chama for gas and then on to Santa FE. As I was riding through Santa Fe I felt my rear brake pedal pulsing a little. When I pulled in for gas and a snack, I looked and the rear brake pads were totally gone from riding in the mud for two days. So, I didn't use my rear brake for the rest of the trip. As I looked southeast out of Santa Fe, there was a huge dark thunderstorm right where I needed to go. So I sat down and enjoyed a gas station hot dog while I waited for it to move a little. When I got to where the line of thunderstorms were my timing was perfect and I split two very heavy showers with lots of lightning just a couple of hundred yards either side of the road. This is how it would be all afternoon. I must have dodged more than a dozen heavy showers on the way home. It's easier than it sounds when you can see them from 50+ miles away across the open desert. I stopped one last time in Carrizozo for gas and was going to turn east and then south through the mountains, but there was a big storm to the south headed east. So I decided to stay in the valley and go around the back side of the storm and then head straight up the mountain to the cabin from the west. I got in one last nice stretch of off-road up Karr Canyon which comes out a 1/4 mile from home. It's a pretty steep curvy uphill with water bars the whole way. It cuts off a lot of miles on the highway and is a blast on a dirtbike. In a truck or jeep you can do about 10mph, on the KTM it was a fun ride up at 50 to 60 jumping the water bars all the way. A very nice way to end the trip.
Below I have posted Jeff's account of their ride home. Sounds like it was pretty exciting.

Addendum, Back home: On Thursday, we woke to find the weather was iffy with lots of rainshowers running around. Phil wisely decided to beat feet the 400 miles straight home and try not to get wet. Ron wanted to find some better gloves and some waterproof spray. We hit the "Bow and Ski Rack" in Pagosa, and found both.

We rode Hwy 84 to Chama and 64 to Taos for lunch, which was beautiful, but we got caught in two different rainstorms and got hailed on twice. Thankfully it was small hail, about pea-sized, but it hurt, especially the knuckles. We then continued Hwy 64 to Cimarron (great ride) and Raton NM, dodging storms successfully but by Raton, we were cold and decided to call it a day. Holiday Inn had a Hot Tub.

On Friday, the weather was dry but cool, and we decided to push for the cars in Arkansas City, KS, 450 miles away. We started with the scenic route (only added 5 miles) going out of Raton on Hwy 72 to Folsom (basically a ghost-town), then 456/326 to Boise City, OK. The 72 leg winds up onto Johnson Mesa, and we saw deer, antelope, elk, turkey, and lots of other wildlife. It was spectacular. There was 18 miles of dirt road and we finished along Black Mesa. Then we put our heads down and did some miles on Hwy 64 with nothing to see. By the fuel stop in Buffalo, OK it was already 4:00 and a late lunch, but we decided we had to get in some more fun. We reversed a section of the TAT from east of Buffalo to Hardtner KS, which was our final 60 miles of dirt roads and had great curves. We went at that with a vengeance, sliding the bikes hard through the bends and corners feeling like flat-trackers. The XR is so forgiving.

We fueled in Kiowas KS, and knew were not going to make it in daylight; our headlights are a cruel joke. But, decided the hell with it. Ron put "shortest route" into the GPS and off we went. The route included a few dirt county roads, but it was dark and cold, and it started to drizzle. We almost hit some cows, Ron actually did get grazed by a buzzard, and I almost hit a skunk. We were both riding with the throttle pretty much pinned and navigating by sense of smell, but we made the campground by around 9:00, with adrenaline pumping.

Ron's half-crazy brother Brian says "for adventure to occur, the outcome must be uncertain." By that definition, and any other, this was a great adventure. Ron was generally a good leader. We've been dirt riding together off and on for 30 years, and he's a far better rider than I am, though even a GPS can't make him into a competent navigator. I am amazed that Phil rode this route on his KTM 950R Super Enduro, and mostly made it look easy. I could see he was working hard on the more technical sections, especially the steeper wet downhills, but only a really skilled rider could have pulled that off. I'd do this same trip again in a heartbeat, but I'd damn sure park in western Oklahoma or New Mexico and skip the first 400 miles of featureless prairie.

[G wizz]

How are things in MI?


We're having "indian summer"up here right now, it's in the 80's, and is suppost to stay that way for for the next couple of weeks.
Leaf colors are starting to bloom.
Other than that, things are winding down now that it's near the end of the year.

G

[TOE JAM]

FINAL THOUGHTS

It was great to get together with old friends for a nice ride, and I can't wait for the next one. The KTM performed flawlessly the whole trip. I always expect that the XRs won't let us down, and I was happy that the KTM didn't either. It is obviously a large heavy bike, but that size also makes the cockpit very roomy and comfortable for piling on the miles. It is very smooth on the highway and also amazingly competent in the sand, mud and rocks. I was going to put on a new rear tire before the trip but when I compared it to the Dunlop 908 RR that was on it (which had at least 1000 miles) the new tire didn't really have much more tread. So I just left the Dunlop on thinking it would be totally slick before I got home, but it still has tread left with around 4000 miles of wear. Very happy with it but they are expensive. I guess not so bad if you think of replacing two or three cheaper tires over the same milage. I was also very happy with the new Big Agnes sleeping bag and the Exped mat. Maybe I'll get some more use out of them on the next ride with Trailace.:rolleyes: My custom luggage rack also held up for the whole trip. I was quiet surprised. Now it's time for Arlo and Mush to chime in and fill in some blanks.
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