Date: Monday, August 30, 2010
Start: 0930 (0730 wake-up)
Finish: 1800
Travel Time: 8.5 hrs
Distance: 147 miles
Total Distance: 3648 miles
OK - Goda here to kick us off --- It was a rainy night, but we still managed some quality shut-eye in Yobo's Nemo Losi 3P tent. I'll diverge a bit and talk about our shelter. The tent was similar in weight and packed-size to many 2P tents, but with the extra comfort being one of the larger 3P tents money can buy. It was ideal for two giant Pollocks to move around and store gear, and with the luxury of two entrances, we didn't need to crawl over each other to get in and out. If you've never heard of Nemo, check em out and learn about many of the innovative features they are adding to their gear.--- The start of the morning was a bit drizzly, but nothing some oatmeal and hot tea couldn't fix. We dried the tent as best possible before rolling it up in the sack.
We were off knowing that the wet northern NM clay that our buddy, ‘Catastrophic Failure’, warned of was out there waiting for us. Our start was only a few miles above the border, so it wasn't too long until we entered NM. We spent some time climbing up through the low-laying cloud cover while on-road, then turned off onto the dirt through some cow pastures. The dirt roads were filled with potholes everywhere, but not too muddy despite the overnight rain, so we began thinking that the mud situation might not be so unmanageable. Then, the trail started going uphill, and getting twistier, rockier, muddier, and more precarious. We stopped at a Y in the road and double-checked our GPS. It looked like our hopes would be dashed right about now, as our GPSs were telling us to veer to the left, and up a slippery looking hill. We headed off with me in the lead and Yobo following.
All of a sudden the NM clay-mud took things to another level and the bike might as well been riding in quick-sand jell-o. I couldn't hold a straight line with my front tire and have no idea how I made it up the next rocky-muddy section because I think my eyes might have been closed the entire way. I stopped for a bit and then heard Yobo across the com system saying he was down. I ran down to check him out when he described the situation. He was riding the top ridge of the trail but began sliding down to the left and directly into a large puddle/dirt-death pond. So, he did what any young rider would do and nailed the gas, popped up on the pegs, relaxed his legs and rode it out. He made it up and out of the puddle unscathed, only to set his engine block down on a large, protruding rock on the other side. This teetered his bike forward, sending him over the bars and into some more rocks and mud. He clocked his noggin, but managed to roll through it and make it out a bit shaken up, but OK. He uprighted his bike, and navigated further up to where my bike was stopped.
We recovered for a few minutes and attempted the next section. Again, I was having one Hell of a time trying to go straight. I tried to avoid the water because it was too difficult to gauge the depth of puddles and ruts, and if you got stuck in a rut...good luck steering out. I got the bike swinging all over the place and found myself headed straight off the trail and stopping in the middle of a pine tree. I just started laughing because this was so ridiculous. Yobo had a few smaller dumps as he made his way up to me. I backed out of the tree and proceeded forward like a glutton for punishment only to find myself face down in one of the larger puddles. Naturally, I got caught in a rut I tried so hard to avoid. The water managed to fill up my boots and run down my pants and made for one soggy bottom. Yobo, luckily captured this on film and zoomed in on our rear TKC80 tires, which at this point, might as well have been racing slicks with all of the clay-mud that was caked on.
We reluctantly pressed on trying alternate routes off the side of the trail without luck. After progressing less than 3 miles in an hour or so, we decided to have a chat. We probably had a hundred miles ahead of us and at this rate we could end up stuck in the middle of nowhere. The sky ahead looked as if it was ready to unleash on us and the clay didn't appear to magically be getting grippy any time soon. Yobo mentioned in yesterday's summary how much I hated turning back. Well here we are, and once again, I wasn't 100% convinced we should retrace our steps and avoid what lay ahead. One of the things I was looking forward to most on this trip was making it through one of those epic days that threw everything at us. I enjoy those mindless zombie slogs and this would have been one for the ages. But, given how many times we had put a foot down, dumped the bike, flew over the bars, and ended up otherwise off trail, in trees, or simply sideways, it was a good bet we could get injured, or run into some major trouble. We decided to head back to the road and follow the trail in parallel. Once we got back to the road though, I noticed my bike's suspension wasn't reacting quite right. It was slow to rebound and felt dead when I hit any bumps. I tightened up the suspension and hoped that we'd soon be welcomed by the comfort of a motorcycle shop. As we were working on my shock, we heard a massive whistle blow. We ran to the edge of the plateau we were parked on just in time to see an old-timey train complete with passengers glaring out the window steam by. It was the Santa Fe railway, still in operation after all these years. Pretty cool. -----
So here we were, out of the mud, back on tarmac, several crashes the wiser, and one rear suspension down. The nearest town was a small road-side stop that had a gas station but no-one who could work on motos… A helpful dude there told us to head further down the road to the next town, where there may be a bike shop.
We did so only to find that the shop was closed on Mondays. Of course, the owner was probably out riding. However this was not a typical Monday, it was raining, grey, kinda cold and miserable. No biggie, the suspension issue was certainly worrying, but it seemed fine on the road, in fact, the only time we would really have to worry about a non-rebounding suspension is off road, when your tire needs to be springy and remain in contact with your riding surface. Roots, rocks, washboarded roads and the like are the enemy of suspension; without it, you tend to get all squirrelly on those types of surfaces. Roads, were smooth and even, and so we were probably OK with the stability, but what about the rear wheel popping off? Expert opinion would still be an advantage. Only we couldn’t get any. Strike one for us.
Oh well, its still lunch time and if there’s anything we know about small towns in the middle of nowhere, its that they have the best dang food you’ll ever find. We stopped off at the local watering hole, which looked to be straight out of a western. This establishment was made of all-wood construction right up to the old-fashioned swinging doors and all. I’m not kidding, there were even some cowboys there grabbing some lunch. Remember in an earlier post when we talked about feeling out of place in the fancy town restaurant at Carmel by the Sea? Well you can feel that same way in a dive bar in the desert. Only it’s the other way around. We were dressed like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and everyone else was wearing blue jeans, cowboy shirts, and hats, and even lassos… OH, and the bartender had his six shooter strapped on and everything. OK well that’s a bit of an understatement, because this was hardly a six shooter… In fact, it was a 15 shooter. Or 16 if you keep one in the pipe. Our friendly neighborhood bartender was sporting a Beretta 92fs tucked casually into the back of his jeans...
Anyway – our bartender happened to know the moto shop owner. He said he does great work, but he’s closed on Monday, and he’s not a very friendly fellow. He offered to call him anyway, and interrupt him on his day off, to see if he might be interested. Given our unique situation, we agreed and secretly planned to buy the shop owners favor with good ol’ fashioned U.S. Dollars.
The call was made and the shop owner agreed to swing by in a few. Goda happened to get a call from work which kinda brought him back to reality for a few minutes. We sat at the bar and ordered some sandwiches to pass the time and just before we headed out, the bartender wished us luck and gave us some ridiculously good peaches that one of the locals had left to share. You don’t get that kind of treatment in the big city, lemme tell ya.
We got to the shop and the owner and one of his custom workers said hello and asked us what the heck we were doing. We told them about the trip and etc, and before long we were as chummy as moto riders can be. They threw the bike up in the stand and went to work.
The long and short of it is that the pivot in the swingarm was wearing funny and a little off-centered, affecting the response. It wasn’t too springy, but it wasn’t too squishy either. If we stayed out of the ruts and rocks it’d be fine. If we were in a turn and it got rutted, rooted, or rocky, there was the chance that the rear would loose traction and slip out a little, or a lot. Speed would be most important if / when we hit any more off-road sections.
That said, there was no repair that could be done with the parts they have on-hand but he didn't think it was a huge issue. We spotted our buds for their trouble and headed back to the road. We figured we’d make it as far south as we could and it so happened there was a town near the next intersection with the trail. Cuba, NM was our new destination. We hit the road and enjoyed some of the most amazing views in the trip. All the while, about 20-30 miles to the left of us, there was a series of dark storm clouds. We knew that had this morning gone differently, we’d have been in the middle of that and that meant more mud... We'd either having the best time of our lives or possibly the not so best time of our lives… For better or worse we weren’t there, we were here, and the road was with us, and so was the sun and scenery. We pushed on.
Cuba was a pretty uneventful town. A few gas stations a few restaurants and about 2 motels. One of which had no vacancy. The other of which had a TV with a “Who’s the Boss” marathon on it. We kicked back, cleaned up, an enjoyed the nostalgic “will they, won’t they” of a classic sitcom from our childhood.
Before long it was dinner time. A local tipped us off that just down the road there was a great Mexican food joint. We walked, and walked, and walked, 'till we found this little gem hidden just off the road. The exterior was nondescript. Once you passed through the doors, however, you were transported directly to Mexico. We took a seat out on the rear patio and in no time we had our food ordered. It was just short of totally awesome. That last bit to push it over the edge came with dessert. The sopapillas were out of this world. We enjoyed some chit chat with a local couple who had just gotten married and moved back to Cuba from Albuquerque to renovate the husband's childhood ranch home. They were in love with the country side there, but missed some of the comforts of the big city. That warned us of further muddy conditions, and that the rain we were experiencing was unseasonably early. On top of that, the early rainy season had been here for going on a month already… Things weren’t sounding too good for us, but he also mentioned that when the rain lets up and the sun comes out, the mud dries up nice and quick. This info was indeed welcome, but basically as helpful as a coin toss. In other words, "We might be stuck in the middle of nowhere going nowhere, or we might not"…. Ugh.
We went back to the room and low and behold we saw a familiar black and green KLR in the parking lot. We knew right away it was our Canadian buddy Kyle. We left a note in what we thought was his room and went off to the next-door gas station to wash down our bikes because they were a bloody mess. When we got back, Yobo put his KLR up on the center stand. It wasn't quite right and all of a sudden we watched it crash to the ground in slow-motion. Turns out that little fall caused him the most damage to the bike on this trip. His rack was all wonky and the case was a smidge bent. Yobo wasn't the happiest camper but used his Macgyver-like skills to get everything back straight. We touched base with Kyle and he mentioned that he had hit our first section of trail the night before when it was dry. Meanwhile - today he passed through rainy and sunny sections and had indeed encountered some of the infamous mud we had become so familiar with this morning. He also mentioned he had several flats through that section and went down a few times. It was a trying day.
We made plans to meet up for breakfast and headed in for the night. It was at this point that we had to make some decision. We knew that soon we’d be unconscious, and soon after that it was go-time. Rather than procrastinating, we started chatting about what was up. The trail was anybody guess. Based on the data we had, it could be a 1-mile-an-hour-crash-fest, or decent enough to enjoy some of the famed NM backcountry… Goda favored the trail but was down for either, Yobo favored roads but didn’t want to give up on the trail. In the end it was the devil, or rather the devil’s highway, that made the decision for us.
If you recall our buddy in Salida was singing the praises of this particular stretch of treacherous pavement, and we were already debating sidetracking a bit to hit it on the way back. It’d be a logistical issue, though, to hit this road and stay on schedule, and here we were a mere 2.5 hrs drive away… It seemed like the best compromise. We’d bail on what would be the last section of the trail for the chance to ride one of the united states most famous, or perhaps infamous, stretches of road. A real motorcyclist’s gem. Historic Route 666, 'the devil’s highway'.
With that, we regained our focus, got packed and prepped and hit the hay for the last time on the trail. It’d be roads from here to Mexico and back again. Our adventure had taken another unforeseen turn and we, once again, drifted off wondering what was next. We were playing motorcycle jazz and the trip was our concert. So far, it was a crowd-pleaser, but we’d have to see what was next…. Yet again.
/s/ Goda & Yobo
No comments:
Post a Comment