Out West Ride Report

[keeponriding]

Well, Ollie and I mounted up our STs for the ride , "out west"..the intent was to ride the CDR, though both of us had solo plans as well....partially indicative of time schedules (I had to meet my wife in Denver for family reasons) and partially because we're both loners who like being alone.

Ollie will have to contribute his own narrative;

I set off on Thursday June 28 from Louisville at 4 am....plan was to make St Jo, MO...stretch goal, Grand Island, NE. By the time I made KC, MO, it was 110 degrees! Still made it to Grand Island NE, 830 miles. St Jo, was also the start of the Oregon Trail, which I followed for two days and which we crossed again in WY.

Most important was visiting the grave of the American Mozart, Charlie Parker, buried in KC, MO;

Pic?

Up to Grand Island, I80 was pretty darn boring....after Grand Island, things livened up a bit. I set off 6 am Friday for Ogallal, where I was leaving the interstate for 2 lane, still following the Oregon Trail to Chimney Rock, then heading north to Alliance NE, following into the south end of the MT Rushmore Area. Hot, hot hot....but very neat scenery. People say the plains are boring...I don't agree....especially on 2 lane highways. Subtle, yes.....and as you ride, you see plateaus and other features that make you go; "Now, where did that come from?" Stopped outside Alliance NE at Carhenge.

Heading into south end of park (Custer Park, I believe) there is much wildlife, like the buffalo herd crossing the road.

After leaving Custer National Park, I paid $10 and followed the Needles highway. High Altitude (9,500 feet) roadway through incredible mountain vistas and tall rock spires (and vans with Iowa plates).

I joined Ollie in Deadwood. We spent two days there...letting our butts recuperate and riding the Spearfish valley loop..beautiful road; high cliffs surround, with nice twistys...get out there early or get stuck behind the Iowa vans again. Waterfall was from roughneck falls....you could spend weeks riding around this area and not follow the same great road twice. We spent one day riding the Devil's Tower loop .....seemed like 60% of the folks in the Deadwood area were Harley riders..or at least wore the clothes, scarves, neckerchiefs, t-shirts, shorts, hats, underwear. What's up with that?

On Sunday morning, we saddled up and rode across WY to Dubois; 70 miles SE of Jackson to get on the CDR. Great riding across the Bighorn mountains, at one point stopped by a family moving their herd of cattle to higher pastures.....mom, dad, the kids...and grandpa watching from the sidelines.

In Dubois, lots of smoke in the air from the Teton fires, and the next day. we woke to clear skies. We met these four guys from Rapid City...been riding together since '75...one on an ST! Monday, Ollie and I rode 250 miles across the high pass of the Gros Ventre Wilderness. From there, 10 miles of pavement before crossing the high desert bolw of central WY on dirt....120 miles of nothing....30 miles before the end we finally saw a mtn biker fixing his tire, a rancher and...a UPS truck! Yup...they deliver the world.

We made it to Rawlins, spent the night resting, before taking off again on dirt south into CO...we got stopped by a closed road, tried bushwacking (bad idea!!!!) ended up back in Rawlins and rode pavement to Steamboat Springs CO. Followed more dirt out of Steamboat and by the time we got to I70, it was raining...I kind of wanted on emnore night of camping in the high mtns..but it was not to be. I took off for Denver to meet my wife and stay in a luxury hotel...Ollie went West and continued his adventures.

Saturday morning, I was on the bike by 6am and off home...though taking 2 lanes through KS (110 degress by 10 am!)...home by 5 Sunday....all in all, 4,000 miles...and a lot of fun.

 

[mbabc]

Neat ride Anthony. Thanks for the report!

 

[eemsreno]

::012::Love to see good rides. ::012::

 

[Ollie]

Ok, I'll take a whack at it and add some of my photos and an occasional musing. Keeponriding (Anthony) summed it up well in his first post and I'll try to flesh it out, hopefully without boring anyone.

First off, my odo said 2500mi before I left and now says 7040mi. Not too shabby for the first four months of ownership. ::003:: I was out for two weeks and hit eleven different states. Prairie, to alpine mountain, to high desert and it was all beautiful by its own right. The bikes got us home well, despite long hot, high speeds runs and some shenanigans in the mountains of southern Wyoming.

On to the photos.....

I got cowboys...

Bikes in remote places....

and lots of these...

Click on the bar above the photos and you'll get a MUCH bigger version of the pics.

Cheers

 

[Ollie]

Day one through day four. I left a day earlier than Anthony and took a northern route. I split the first three days into 400mi days, while Anthony did 830mi the first day and 500mi the next. The plan was to meet in Deadwood and go on from there. Once in SD the scenery got a lot better, but the heat didn't. Superslab all three days, with a few stops here and there.

First time for everything.....lunch in a train.

Obligatory stop at Wall Drug.....

Anthony came into town late afternoon. We got dinner and crashed. The next morning, with the midwest behind us, the trip really began. Excellent riding all around the Deadwood. First Spearfish canyon and onward to Devil's tower.

Spearfish falls...

Artsy shot...

Approaching Devil's Tower from afar...

and finally right under it....

Riding away from it, heading back toward town, I looked back at it a few times and its profile change dramatically. Its iconic cone shape changed into something that looked like a large shark fin protruding from the surface of the earth.

In Belle Fourche Anthony stumbled onto a really old school western wear store called Pete's Clothing. Floor to ceiling boots, hats, belt buckles....the whole nine yards. Top notch treatment from the owner and staff....you seldom get that kind of one on one treatment anymore. Complete antithesis to the modern big box store. I snapped a couple of photos while the ladies worked Anthony over and into a shirt.

 

[keeponriding]

WRT last picture....Pete's clothing is where all the Super Tenere's in Belle Fourche park...as you can see

 

[GrahamD]

Nice photo's Ollie. ::008::

And very nice scenery. Being hearing reports of more record breaking heat up in the US of A. Sounds a bit warm!!

Except Alaska that is.

 

[Ollie]

Nice photo's Ollie. ::008::

And very nice scenery. Being hearing reports of more record breaking heat up in the US of A. Sounds a bit warm!!

Except Alaska that is.

Thanks GrahamD. Yeah, several days of 100+ days. Not unheard of in the summer, but for June it's a bit odd.

 

[hANNAbONE]

...looks like a cool ride, Anthony.

good on ya.

 

[Ollie]

Day 5 and 6.

Concerns over all the fires in Colorado had us changing routes a bit. We decided to give Wyoming a little more time and keep an eye on the Forest Service's efforts to contain or eliminate the fires. Heading out of Deadwood on 90W was sort of apocalyptic. Add high winds, high speeds and smoke to the already desolate landscape of eastern Wyoming and you've got a recipe for surrealism. Once into the Bighorn National Forest, though, it all changed.

First of all it meant MOUNTAINS! I know, it's just dirt sticking up in the air, but I love 'em. Anthony once said to me, "you ride to mountains and I ride to sandwhiches." Well, we all have our motivations. As Anthony described earlier, we came upon a family of ranchers moving a herd of cattle to summer pastures. The traffic trickled around them, and as I approached, an errant calf decided to cut me off and head to the other side of the road. The Border Collie was on him in an instant and hustled him back into the herd. Very cool to watch that family doing what they do everyday. The rest of the day was mountain and canyon twisties, as we worked our way toward Dubois.

Foibles and Follies......or, Zen and the Art of How Not to Park a Motorcycle.

Toward the end of the day, rather uncharacteristically (he no likey to stop), Anthony pulled into a scenic rest stop to take some pics. I parked on a bad angle, and just as we were about mount up, a gust of wind came at just the right angle to my bike. Bam!.....Yard Sale! Bye, bye pretty bike. In retrospect, I should have recognized it as foreshadowing, cause Wyoming had more surprises for us.

Campsite in Dubois, with the Gros Ventre wilderness in the background and trout stream in my back yard...

From the campsite we could see more smoke coming from the Gros Ventre.....the place we meant to enter onto the CDR the next morning. You can see the ash in this photo and in the morning everything had a light dusting of ash on it.

Day 6....CDR

In Dubois the CDR began as a gravel road, with lot of switchbacks, steadily climbing up to high mountain meadows. The views were outstanding and I struggled focus on the road and take it all in at the same time. The best views never made their way into my camera, though, because often times there's just nowhere to pull over. Time was always a factor as well because you never knew how long each section would take. Wast time taking photos and die in the wilderness later? Ok, enough of my babbling....

Hardened ADV rider?.....hardly, it was my first ride on dirt...

Day 6, part two.....TBC.....

 

[mbabc]

Great report Ollie! Looked like a great time. How'd yer tires do?

 

[Ollie]

Great report Ollie! Looked like a great time. How'd yer tires do?

Thanks Mark...need to finish, but a couple of projects just fell onto my plate. The tires we're the only thing that I thought I might have needed change before the trip, but they worked out great. Luckily we never hit any mud or it might have been a different story. They took a lot of abuse and are pretty much shot at this point. Not sure what I'll replace them with.

 

[Ollie]

Ok, so we finished the first dirt section out of Dubois and headed south to catch the next one. The next section was much longer and cut through the Great Divide Basin. It was mostly high speed gravel runs and an occasional patch of sand, just to keep it interesting. Huge vistas of rolling plains, mesas and gulches. If I hadn't known better I might have thought I'd made a wrong turn and ended up on the steps of Mongolia. Incredibly beautiful and hostile environment.

Made it out of there on fumes...

We got a hotel in Rawlins....ate and crashed.

The next morning we set off to pick up the trail out of Rawlins and head into Colorado. It started very similar to the previous day, but as we got closer to CO we got back into alpine environments. About 50 miles into the trail we hit a road closure. Arrhhg! So, we could either reroute around the road closure or turn back to Rawlins. Turning back seemed counter productive, besides the GPS said we could just easily follow another route and pick up the trail ahead. ::025:: What the GPS doesn't know is how to tell you wether your current means of transport is appropriate for what it's about to serve up to you. So we head down the new path and it's a little rough but not bad and we come across a downed tree. Luckily, or not, someone had cut loops around the deadfall because it happened about five more times. Once out of the trees the road, or whatever you call it, took a turn for the worse. Ruts the size of bathtubs and whoops that I thought for sure were gonna wipe out someone's skid plate, but never did. The best part.....it ended in a private locked gate, so we had to do it all over again! Anthony muttered something about having to go through the trees again and the only positive thing I could think so say was, "at least it will be cooler." ::025::

We got down the road and camped outside of Steamboat Springs. That night a bear raided trash a can about 10 feet from Anthony's tent.

The next day we picked up the trail and rode south until Anthony had to start heading to Denver to meet with family. I headed west toward Glenwood Springs and then south to Basalt. The next day I headed through Aspen, Independence Pass, Salida and got shut down by lightning and rain in Gunnison.

Met Hayduke at his store Fat Tees, in Salida, and I bought a tee-shirt....

Got a bowl of really good Pho. Sat down in the grass of the city park, watched the kids bob up and down through the river on tubes, while listening to this guy....

 

[Ollie]

Day 10, or so.....can't be bothered to figure it out.

Got chased into Gunnison by some nasty storms around 3 PM and pulled up under the awning of an old gas station to wait it out. A few minutes later a guy on an older Concourse, from PA, pulled up next to me to do the same. We got to talking and he pulled out a small packet of photos from all his trips over the last 25 years. I thumbed through the photos.....from trips to AK, the Chandelier Tree, Nova Scotia, to a photo with the original Trade Towers in the New York skyline. We parted ways and it occurred to me that there are a lot of us "loners" out on the roads of the world. Maybe we should all get to together sometime....oh, wait.....never mind.

My bed for the night. Look at the sign....they were waiting for me.

The next day I headed toward Montrose, with the goal of hitting the Yamaha shop that Hayduke told me about. My forks were misaligned from a couple of unplanned offs in WY and, aside from driving me nuts whenever I looked down at the handlebar, it was causing my upper back to hurt. I pulled into Davis Motorsports (awesome place with lots of cool bikes) and the mechanic fixed me up in about five minutes, without charge. Hmm, goodwill....figured I'd have to do something nice for someone else that day. ::001::

Coming out of Gunnison...

Out of Montrose I headed south to Durango, through Ouray and over Molas Pass.

Ouray...

Molas Pass.....

Set up camp here.....

Ate a whole side of ribs and met this guy, who was preparing to ride a century the next day, all on dirt. He said he'd probably finish the race around midnight! ???

 

[Ollie]

"I didn't want to stay until I had used up all the enjoyment because that's too long to stay anywhere."

Darrell Royal



Ok, let me finish this yarn.

I headed out of Durango with the Dunes National Park in my sights and one more chance to cross the divide. I came into a little town and immediately smelled sulphur. It caught my attention, so I though I'd stop and check it out.

Pagosa Springs....

Ate lunch in Alamosa and headed toward the park. I'd been getting rained on for the last four days, but the worst was coming out of the dunes. Vicious lightning strikes and storms that blotted out the sky. One in particular pelted me with pea sized hail and rain for about 10 miles.

Stayed that night in Trinidad and headed out in the morning, through the Comanche National Grassland. Leaving the mountains was like descending a long, hot set of stairs. Home now...doing an oil change and thinking about the next trip.

Comanche National Grassland...

Cheers