Since I didn't have any takers, with rideable bikes any ways, I decided to do the St Elmo loop by myself since I was already mentally committed. The loop can be entered from 3 or 4 different locations, St Elmo, TinCup, Pitkin or even from Monarch Pass via the Tomichi pass route (I think). I had watched several videos of bikes and jeeps going over both Hancock Pass and Tin Cup Pass to see if it was doable on the Tenere. Both passes are marked by 4x4 advised signs. It looked like going counter clockwise from St Elmo would be the best way to go. It appeared that I would be going down most the bad rocky sections as opposed to going up them. I don't have any pictures of the first 5 or so miles after leaving St Elmo heading towards Tin Cup because most of the road was in the deep shade. The lower part wasn't too bad, typical 4x4 road, it was really rocky and steep in some sections. I had to pay attention and pick a good line and hoped that it would work while keeping the momentum going forward. I'm glad I have a real good skidplate because of some of the hits I had taken.
This is the boom town of St Elmo. during the summer time it is usually packed to gills with off roaders of all types.
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This is the rest stop where I started peeling layers off. You can see the summit in the saddle. This is where I found that I had to really work to get the kickstand down because of the collapsing flex point on the skidplate.
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Within 100=200 yards of the top, I got bounced off a rock which threw my line way off and down I went. The crash bars did their thing and saved any damage to the bike. Thankfully this was the only fall for the day. If I couldn't get it picked up, I knew there were some 4x4s coming up the same way I did. I had to move some of the rocks and it kind of came right up in one try. This is almost 12000 ft. Big blue sky and vistas, but not much air.
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I reached the top and there was a sidexside already there who came up from the Tin cup side. What a relief to make it. You can see the saddle bag is a bit dusty from the fall but not damaged.
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Looking southish from the top back towards St Elmo.
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Looking northish towards Tin Cup and Taylor Park. The trail drops pretty quickly from here. It is 7 miles from here to Tin Cup. One video I watched was of 3 BMW riders that took 3 hrs to come up those 7 miles. This ought to be interesting...
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