TAT 2016-18 Post 15 25Jul2018

This will probably be my last post on this TAT 2018 blog, so I have several items I want to address. The original core four completed it from east coast to the west cost for a total of 5,653 miles. We did add a few additional riders for the different legs, but they now have to go ride what they missed.

TAT Summary:

As I stated several times before we started this adventure in the fall of 2015. The year before (2014) I had successfully completed my second attempt to ride a touring motorcycle from Arkansas to Alaska (plus Arctic Circle) and back. Details of my 1^st unsuccessful attempt and my 2nd successful attempt are in my other blogs if interested. I sold my big adventure bike (Yamaha Super Tenere) and was determined to never ride on interstate highways again on a motorcycle. When Steve mentioned that there was a trail across the USA that could be ridden on dirt bikes my interest again surfaced. I still loved riding motorcycles, but I was tired of having to deal with crazy car/truck drivers doing 70-80 mph.

I researched the Trans-America Trail (TAT) and was immediately hooked. During our Monday morning staff meeting at work, I threw on the table a USA road map with the TAT route and asked if anyone would like to join me in my next adventure. After some discussion, three of my co-workers said they were interested. Within 2 weeks all four of us had bought either a new our used dual sport and started the planning phase.

Since we all worked for the same company it would be impossible to leave for an extended time in one shot. We decided to break it down in sections we could accomplish in 1 or at most 2 weeks. It eventually became 4 legs:

Leg-1  Charleston, SC to Little Rock, AR – March 2016

Leg 2 Little Rock, AR to Lake City, CO – August 2016

Leg-3  Lake City, CO to Salt Lake City, UT (+ 3 days in Moab) – August 2017

Leg-4  Salt Lake City, UT to Port Orford, OR – July 2018

I’ve been asked “what is the hardest section of the TAT” and it is really hard to say but here are some of my thoughts:

·        Oklahoma mud in the pan handle is terrible and stands out as one of the worse

·        Ophir Pass in CO wasn’t much fun either. Lots of rocks and steep climbs/descents

·        During a day ride, we also had to do Stony Pass in attempt to take an easier ride back to Lake City due to mechanical problems, but it turned out to be much worse and longer than Cinnamon Pass, our original return route.

·        Ride through Appalachian Mountains only because we had some inexperienced riders and had several injuries as a result

·        Oregon Wilderness areas – lots of intersecting roads causing backtracking due to taking wrong road, fallen trees, mud slides with blocked roads, logging trucks, no fuel

That being said, these are what make it an adventure so I’m glad we made the ride for sure.

All the details for the previous 3 legs are in my other blogs so I will focus on Leg-4.

Leg-4

Our original plan was to make the 1410 miles form Ogden, UT to Port Orford, OR in 9 days. Since we were only using motels, this controlled our daily ride distance. We completed this leg in 9 days, but our actual miles ridden was 1663 miles; 250 more than planned. Most of these additional miles were caused by having to deviate from the TAT to get to the motel or as experienced on day 9, a lengthy back-track or detour caused by some issue on the trail. The chart below shows our destination for each day with the planned and actual miles ridden. BTW a 200-mile day on the TAT is long and tiring. I know lots of rider’s say they average 200 to even 300 miles a day but I really don’t know how they do it. We felt we rode at speeds that were safe (most of the time) but we also tried to finish each day before 5 or 6 pm. But we still had several 10 to 12-hour riding days. If you are camping and ride from dawn to sundown then camp, that may make the difference.

This section was not as tough as the Rocky Mountains for several reasons:

·        Peak elevation was 9,000+ but never above the timber line

·        Temperatures still got down to 30 degrees but quickly warmed up when the sun reached us

·        Trails were never as bad as some of the steep climbs/descents in the Rockies

·        It never rained on us and we only had one small water crossing

Leg-4 terrain:

·        Wide open rolling hills

·        Dusty roads (lots)

·        Winding dual-track through deep forest with huge trees right next to the road

·        Mountain climbs and descents right on the side of the mountain

·        Gravel (every verity and depth)

·        Deep Sand (some but not much) (BTW stay off Port Orford beach unless you want to push it back out. The sand next to the water is also soft)

·        Rutted roads that have hardened but covered with sand (terrible)

·        Wilderness many miles from civilization

Gear Review:

Maps/Tracks

This subject gets lots of comments both good and bad. There are basically 2 sources of TAT data:

·        Sam Correro TAT maps and GPS tracks ($) https://www.transamtrail.com/

·        GPSKevin GPS tracks (free) https://sites.google.com/site/gpskevin/adventurerides

I researched both when we started planning for our ride. I initially purchased only the eastern section maps from Sam with his GPS tracks, but I also downloaded the GPSKevin tracks. I did a pretty detailed comparison and they followed the same route in many areas, but they also deviated from each other in many other sections. GPSKevin did provide alternate routes for easy or harder riding while Sam’s did not. I finally settled on Sam’s route for several reasons even though they were a bit expensive.

·        Sam is the originator of the TAT

·        Sam’s effort to come up with the maps and GPS tracks, I felt should be recognized by paying for his products

·        Sam’s route was proven by many successful completions by TAT riders

·        Sam’s route appeared to be applicable to our type of riding; no radical trails or single track

Since I only reviewed GPSKevin’s GPS tracks on my computer, I can’t say much more about his route. I know many people use them, so they must be OK. It is up to everyone else to make up their mind which to use.

Our experience with Sam’s maps and GPS tracks for the whole TAT has been exceptionally good. He made a reroute on the eastern section that we used, and he sent me updated maps and GPS tracks for that section. We had no problem following his tracks and 99.9% of the time we had no problems. Occasionally we would come to a closed road or bridge but routing around it was not an issue.

We continued to use Sam’s GPS tracks out west. He rerouted the section that used to go through Nevada and made it go north to ID then west through OR. This is the route we used for Leg-4. He did not provide paper maps for this reroute but did provide GPS tracks. This section is the only area we had some difficulty following his GPS tracks; mostly while in the deep forest and mountains. There were so many different roads that came out of an intersection it was difficult sometimes to tell which one we were to take. We could usually tell within a mile or less, so we would backtrack and take another road.

If I were to do it all again, I would still use Sam’s maps and GPS tracks. Before I get jumped on, someone else can give a report of the GPSKevin tracks across the USA. I just rode 5600 miles of the TAT so that is on which I base my comments.

Bikes

Honda CRF250L - I did the eastern half of the USA on a 2015 Honda CRF250L dual sport with lots of modifications (see previous blogs). Woodrow also started and finished the TAT using his CRF. I sold mine to Woodrow who gave it to his son Matty to ride the western half of the TAT. This bike (with mods) did just fine on the TAT. We never carried real heavy loads through the mountains and it had enough power to get over all the passes. Both bikes eventually had leaking front forks so this s a weak area to watch. Perfect for lite riders or women but not so much for a heavyweight.

Yamaha WR250R – We had several of these on the TAT on various legs. Steve rode his WR the whole way. They are bullet-proof, and I would say it is the perfect bike for the TAT. My son is 240 lbs. and he carried massive side bags full of tools and gear and he did everything I did on a much lighter and powerful KTM. Only problem we had was on the front sprocket coming loose on one bike, but this was probably caused by whoever put the sprocket on and not a flaw of the bike.

Kawasaki KLR 650 – Two of our riders started with these for leg-1. Steve traded his for a WR250R before we started but Terry rode his for leg-1. Terry traded his for a KTM after leg-1. The problem is they are heavy compared to the CRF, WR or the KTM690 Terry replaced his with. I know lots of TAT riders swear by them and if you are camping with all the gear, this bike would probably be better than our lite bikes. Just be aware that lifting a heavy bike at 11,000 feet on a Rocky Mountain switch-back is not fun, even with the lite bikes.

KTM 350EXC-F – I replaced my CRF with this bike for the western half of the TAT. I wanted more power and a bike as lite as possible. I did shorten it by 2 ½” to make it fit me. This bike (with lots of mods) did everything I wanted. It has much more power than the CRF or the WR but is a bit more finicky with maintenance. It really is just a dirt bike with lights and not a rugged enduro bike like the KTM690; but it is lighter. It held up fine for my leg-3 and leg-4 sections which were much tougher terrain than leg-1 or leg-2.

KTM690 Enduro – Terry replaced his KLR after leg-1 with the KTM690, he loves it. This bike has mega power and can handle highway speeds with ease. It is way too tall for me, so I would have to shorten it several inches before I would want to ride it through the mountains, but Terry is tall enough to make it work. He did have some issues that are described in my Leg-4 posts, but he still says he would buy it again.

GPS

Of the 7 riders on leg-4, five of us had GPS units on our bikes. One had the Garmin 64ST and several of us had the Garmin Oregon. One had some other GPS but not sure what kind. We all used the SAM tracks on our GPS for navigation. The Oregon’s had a good 100K topo map that we used extensively to reroute and check our track. The not named GPS had 24K topo maps with much more detail. One thing to add here, we did not have paper maps with us that showed in detail the roads through the wilderness areas. Big mistake. The several times we had to reroute we had to do it with the GPS units and that is not ideal. Get paper topo maps to high definition and then you will be able to tell what type of road you are on and help with major reroutes if required. Lots of dead-end roads in the Oregon mountains.

Riding Gear

I won’t go into to name brand reviews, but I will say there was lots of “First Gear” and “Klin” riding gear. Everyone had some form of armor from imbedded in their jackets to dedicated armor with knee pads (me). Get good gear is my recommendation and wear armor, even when it’s hot. You can look at our pictures to get an idea of what everyone wore. Bring rain gear that is light. I used mine mostly for wind breaker and to help on the cold morning starts.

Temperature/Rain

We were lucky with no rain on leg-4 at all. There were many areas that we rode that I would hate to ride with it wet. We could see harden ruts on many roads that gave us an idea of what that experience would be like. Temperatures were ideal most of the time. Real early departures were cold from low 30’s but warmed up with the sun. Afternoon riding could get much warmer with 80’s to 90’s in some sections. I rode all leg-4 with summer air flow pants and shirt except for two real cold mornings. I would use my frog tog rain gear as an outer layer until it warmed up. I would recommend using multiple layers rather than a single heavy riding jacket. One thing I had that I really liked was a fleece vest that I would wear on cold mornings. If you are riding the complete TAT in one ride, then you must plan for both real cold and real hot riding which means carrying a lot more gear; sorry.

Safety Gear

I carried a SPOT and Satellite Phone on this leg. I like being prepared and this gave us a way to get help for broken bikes or people. Most I’m sure don’t include this in their gear, but you must consider how you will handle an emergency while in some remote locations. A SPOT is low cost insurance and we used it to provide a real-time track of our progress, so our family and friends could participate in our adventure.

I also carried a first-aid kit to include a trauma kit for excessive bleeding. Flashlights and batteries are also important gear to have with you. A 50’ rope or strap is necessary for many reasons such as a bike sliding off the trail. Tools and flat repair kit are mandatory.

Intercom

I highly recommend having intercom capability for multi-rider trips (even just 2 riders). It allowed us to navigate better and enjoy the ride sharing sightings of terrain and animals. We did legs 1 thru 3 using the Sena Bluetooth only intercom. They worked ok for 2 or 3 riders but not for more than that. On leg-4 we all used the Sena 30K intercom that was not Bluetooth (Mesh) and they worked fantastic. They still only have line-of-sight capability, but they reconnect automatically plus the battery life was acceptable. We found that if we stopped for lunch or a break we would hook the Sena’s up to external battery pack for 20 minutes and they would last several more hours. I would take a small battery back-up and just have a long cord to hook to the Sena from you tank bag. Several used this with good success.

Cost

We had 7 riders with motels and airline flights, 1 support truck with driver and a shuttle van with driver at the end. This is all explained in my previous blog but all of this for leg-4 cost each of the 7 riders around $1600. That’s a very reasonable cost for the quality of ride we had, and the amazing support provided.

I think that about does it for my TAT adventure. I had a wonderful time with some good friends and my son. Not sure what I will do next but I’m sure I’ll write a blog about it in the future.

Ride safe!

TAT 2016-18 Post 14 18Jul2018

Just completed mapping our TAT track from the East coast to the West coast; 5,653 miles.
Four core riders started this adventure in 2016 and all four finished it this month; Mike, Terry, Steve and Woody. We picked up a few extra riders in some of the sections including my son Jeff and Woody's son Matty. Now they want to go back and ride the sections they missed so maybe I'll get to do some of it over again.

TAT 2018 Post 13 07/09/18

Day 9 of 9, TAT completed!!

Departed Canyonville, OR at 7:30 am heading to Port Orford, OR 127 miles through heavy woods and mountains. We arrived in Port Orford around 6 pm, 11+ hours later. Why did it take so long to ride 127 miles? Because we actually ended up riding 210 miles; details to follow.

The weather was perfect with temperatures starting at 54 degrees. We departed later than usual because of the short day ahead (127 miles) and it was the last day on the TAT so we wanted to enjoy the experience. All 7 bikes had enough fuel to ride at least 150 miles plus there was no easy refuel spot on this section, so the support truck would go directly to Port Orford. We had planned to arrive at Port Orford somewhere around noon, take pictures on the beach then ride 30 miles north on Hwy 101 to our motel in Bandon, OR. We would load the bikes at the motel, have a short celebration then prepare for going home the next morning. My wife Liz would be waiting at the motel with a 7-passenger van to take most of the riders and the support truck driver to Portland to catch flights. Terry and Steve would head home in the truck for a 3-day drive to Little Rock. Great plan but it didn’t work at as planned.

Our starting point for the day at Canyonville was 10 miles north of the TAT and we had to use an interstate to get there and back. Not a lot of motels in this area therefore the selection of Canyonville for our day 8 motel. After riding on the interstate in heavy traffic for 10 miles we finally made it back to the TAT for our Day 9 finish. We were immediately on a gravel road that continued to climb a mountain for 2000’ feet. For the whole climb we are on switch backs and in deep forest until we broke out at the top in bright sunlight. The view was spectacular! We stopped at the top of the mountain in an area that had been clear cut by loggers. We were looking over a large area below that was covered in clouds with only mountain tops poking through. It was beautiful, and we took lots of pictures. One of these will be on my desk in the near future. I hate to see clear cutting of forest but if it had not been done here, we would have missed this view. We then started down the other side of the mountain and soon entered this cloud bank, visibility dropped to ¼ mile for some time until we got below the cloud layer. Amazing.

We continued descending until we got to a closed gate with several intersecting roads. It became evident that our track was on the other side of that big yellow gate. We all stopped to decide how we get pass this obstruction. There was not a closed gate on the other side of the mountain, so backtracking was one option. We have actually dragged our bikes under gates back in Arkansas, so this was another option although it would not be easy for 7 loaded bikes with full fuel. Jeff inspected the gate and found that although it had a pad lock in place, it was not locked! Solution found. He unlocked the gate and we all rode through the gate then put the pad lock back in place. We found lots of roads with this same type gate, but the TAT track kept us on roads that were not locked but you can never be sure this will be the case.

This is heavy logging country. I assume the many intersecting roads in these mountains are for logging operations and forest fire response. They can be very confusing, and it was not always easy to identify which road was the TAT so we had to try one and if it veered from the TAT go back and try another one. Uses fuel to do this. At one point we came to a saw mill in full operation with signs that said, “Private Property, No Trespassing”. We stopped to discuss what to do when a man came out of a shed and said the sawmill had bought the property and he gets lots of TAT riders trying to use the road. He gave us directions for a short detour around the sawmill and we went on our way.

By far a more dangerous situation occurred later while we were 7 in trail on a dusty logging road. Jason was in front, I was 2^nd about 25’ behind and the rest were close behind me. We were in a left hand blind turn when all of a sudden, a huge logging truck came high balling around the corner. All I remember seeing is a massive grill on the truck heading straight for Jason and I then everything disappeared in a tremendous dust cloud. All I could see was a dim red tail light on Jason’s bike come on, so I jammed on my brakes and called in the intercom that I was stopping. I hoped those behind cleared the truck and didn’t run into me. Somehow, we all made it through. Safety note: always expect a truck around blind corners in these mountains.

We saw lots of wildlife including turkeys but no people. The logging truck that almost ran us down was a rare exception so that’s way we were so surprised when it came around the corner.

Although we started out in one large group we soon broke back into our usual 3 and 4 groups. Somehow and I can’t really say how, the 3-group was in the lead by several miles. We were on track but found lots of downed trees on the road. The larger ones were cut to make a path, but many were smaller and just laying across the road requiring us to ride or jump over them.

The 3-group had been on a paved road many miles back but was currently on a long twisting downhill road heading straight for Port Orford. We rounded a corner only 13 miles from Port Orford and came upon a massive mud slide that had filled the road with trees, rocks and dirt. No way were we getting pass that mudslide. We rode back 7 miles uphill to the first intersection with another dirt road and stopped to decide what to do. We weren’t sure where the 4-group was but knew they had to be behind us somewhere. We dragged limbs and rocks to block the road to the mudslide and left a note saying it was blocked so they wouldn’t waste fuel going down that road. I had lost my map the day before when my backpack fell off my bike. It did not have enough detail anyway so no great loss. Our GPS topo maps showed several roads that may work but many were dead ends and there was no guarantee they would not be blocked also. All the mountain roads in this area had lots of downed trees. We decided to backtrack even further to the paved road and then try to get out of the mountains.

As we were heading to the paved road we came upon the 4-group. We had a long discussion at that time on our options. My main concern was fuel. The Hondas with the smallest tanks were already using gas from their rotopax. So was Jeff on his Yamaha. We figured they could go another 30-40 miles max. Some of the bikes with larger tanks could maybe go 60 miles. Jason had the biggest tank and could probably go 80 or more miles. We still had 2 rotopax with 1 gal each unused. Our Topo GPS units gave us several routes on the mountain roads, but our concern was they could also be blocked, and we would use precious fuel just to have to backtrack to where we were now. Final decision was to continue to backtrack another 18 miles to the paved road and follow it out of the mountains. This route was at least 69 miles to Port Orford, we were not going to make it on the fuel we had with us. It was also late in the afternoon and we wanted to get everyone off the mountain before dark.

At this point I pulled my SAT phone out and made a call to Marty in the support truck. I told him we had a significant fuel problem and gave him the route we would use to get out of the mountains. He was to fill up the two 5-gal fuel tanks on the trailer and wait somewhere with cell service for my next call. Once we got on the paved road and headed out we would continue as long as we had fuel using the two remaining rotopax until the Hondas or Jeff’s Yamaha ran out. I would then call him to give him our Lat/Long, so he could bring fuel to the bikes. We wanted to stay on a road that the support truck could use because many of the mountain roads were just too rough or narrow for the truck and trailer.

These mountains and woods are wilderness and you need to understand you are a long way from help. Fuel is a major concern and you should carry enough to backtack many times and still get out of the woods.

We reached the paved road and it turned back into gravel a mile down the road, great. It still looked like a main road, so we continued. We were getting pretty close to the range of the Hondas when we hit pavement again. Soon afterwards we rounded a turn and there is a fish camp, small store and two gas pumps! We filled up all the bikes and since we had cell service here, called Marty and said we would meet him on Hwy 101. Our new route followed the Rogue River to Hwy 101 then we had 30 miles of max speed riding north to Port Orford with highway traffic to contend with. When we reached Hwy 101 we stopped, and I called my wife Liz who was at Bandon 30 miles north of Port Orford. I asked her to bring the van down to Port Orford to meet us, so we would not have to ride another 30 miles on highway. Luckily, she was waiting in Bandon and immediately headed south.

We passed the support truck on Hwy 101 and he followed us to Port Orford where we also found Liz waiting. We rode in trail to the Port Orford Park where the TAT ends right next to the Pacific Ocean and a broad sandy beach.

Not sure who was in the lead, but the four core riders moved to the front as we headed to the beach and rode down the short sandy ramp to the beach. All 7 bikes rode out onto the beach and immediately determined the sand was not firm enough to ride on. Several of us made it to the wet sand next to the water thinking it would be more firm, wrong. I know Steve and I got so close that a wave hit us both and came up halfway to the seat. We quickly got the bikes away from the water, but everyone was now axel deep and stuck! I have no excuse, I’ve watched enough TAT videos to know this was a bad idea. I even announced it over the intercom before we went on the beach, but everyone was too excited to stop.

We eventually pushed all the bikes back off the beach and up to the parking lot, but it was hard work after a long day of riding. We took lots of pictures then got to work loading the bikes onto the trailer. One picture shows me bowing in front of my wife. She says it was showing who is really the boss but I was really just resting after getting my bike out of that sand.

We were still in our riding clothes, dirty and sandy and tired but piled into the van and truck for the 30-mile ride to Bandon and the motel. As we checked in a package had been sent to Terry form his brother Ernie and nephew Cutter that included several bottles of very expensive bourbon. Ernie and Cutter rode on Leg-2 and we really enjoyed having them on at least one leg of our TAT ride. We finished off one of the bottles at the motel!

One note: I was asked to include in my blog was that the only two riders NOT to drop their bikes on this trip were Terry and Jeff, big deal. They evidently didn’t ride as hard as the rest of us.

The trip back home for everyone was just tiring and in fact the truck and trailer doesn’t get back to Little Rock until late on 12 Jul.

We started this adventure the fall of 2015 when I asked several of my co-workers if they would like to have a real adventure and ride dirt bikes coast to coast rather than watch football on the TV. Three said yes and all four of us completed the TAT together! Thanks guys for a great time.

I’ll make several more post to give reviews on our gear and maybe some descriptions of problems we encountered and our solutions. I’ll state once again that our approach to the TAT worked great for us but it’s probably not for everyone. Those riding non-stop and camping are the real TAT riders, but we still feel our ride was a pretty good achievement, especially for a 70-year-old man.

Ride safe!

Maps: The blue line is our actual track and the pink line is the planned route. We had to make several re-routes and then the big re-route out of the mountains. You can use the Lat/Long in the maps for your planning.

TAT 2018 Post 12 07/08/18

Day 8 of 9 completed. Departed Crescent, OR at 5:40 am with temperature at 38 degrees heading to Canyonville, OR 198 miles through woods and mountains. Temperature dropped to 30 degrees quickly as we entered the mountains, and everyone was miserable for several hours until it gradually got warmer around 10 am. We expected this to be a long day therefore the early departure; we were definitely correct in this assumption. We arrived in Canyonville around 6:30 pm and if you do the math this was a ~12-hour day. Our two riding groups came in about an hour apart due to different events that will be discussed in this post.

Our actual miles covered today was 216 compared to the planned 198. The additional 18 miles were for detours and backtracks for one reason or another. It was very slow going due to the terrain, stops to study maps, rest at fuel stops, etc., so we averaged about 18 mph. At the end of the day we were all worn out and that’s why I didn’t do my daily Blog update. In fact, I’m writing Day 8 and Day 9 blogs in a hotel in Portland on 10 July. Even though day 8 was bad, day 9 was worse but you will read about that in my next post.

We did go through some very beautiful areas in the deep forest with lots of switch backs and trails through huge trees right next to the road. This is clearly Big Foot terrain and the tail end rider was always a little nervous that he might be snatched and not even be immediately missed by the rest of the group. I did lose my CamelBak back-pack with my water, maps, hat and a few other misc. items because I was tail end Charlie and had tied the pack on top of my GL bag but not tight enough I assume.

We eventually came upon a mud slide that covered all the trail except for a very narrow path on the edge of a steep drop off. Steve in the lead tried to sneak-by with his WR250R and barely made it because of his big bags on back. It was too close for comport so we put several safety guys on the drop off to help hold the bikes as they worked around the tree roots. See pictures.

In another stretch the two groups were about 10 minutes apart and I’m in the rear group. We came around a corner and see the front group stopped with Steve and his bike off the road on a very steep drop off. They were trying to hold the bike, so it wouldn’t slide any further down the slope. We made sure Steve was ok and started to try and get the bike back on the road. It took all of us (7), two on the slope pushing and lifting and the rest pulling a rope attached to the front fork to get it back up that slope. Neither Steve or the bike was damaged, so we asked what happed. Steve says he came around the corner too fast and hit some gravel and just slid off the road. He said he just rode it all the way over then just climbed off the bike; very lucky it didn’t tumble or flip at the edge. That’s when Jeff said that there was a strap jammed in his rear brake caliper. What actually happened was that a strap on Steve’s rear bags came loose and then jammed the rear wheel which locked up and that’s when he lost it on the gravel. Loose straps are killers so always beware.

We had to work around lots of downed trees with the larger ones already cut out of the way. Smaller ones required us to ride or jump over to continue. One huge tree crossed the road with enough clearance to get a bike under, but someone had cut a notch in the log right where a motorcycle helmet would pass; very convenient.

Some of the roads were just downright terrible because they were packed sand/gravel mix but sometime in the past they had been driven over with trucks while wet thus causing ruts in different directions. Now the road was dry and hard, but the ruts remained and continually tried to make the bike go in different directions. It was very tense riding and became exhausting quickly.  We were happy to get back on gravel again; never thought I would say that.

Sadly, to say the only bike problems were with the two KTMs; those damn Hondas and Yamahas just kept on chugging away.

My KTM 350EXC-F runs like a well oiled sewing machine and with the Rekluse clutch I can climb anything in 3^rd gear. The Scott steering dampener is a dream on gravel. My left hand rear brake works great in all conditions. The start switch is a POS and the bike is hard to start in cold temperatures. Not sure if the new Lithium battery is helping either. My start switch is very intermittent and is not reliable. Luckily it does have a kick starter and I had to use it several times. As for starting in cold weather it just won’t fire. We almost ran the battery down on both cold mornings but finally got it to come to life.

Terry’s KTM 690 Enduro has had Rekluse clutch problems from the beginning starting on our Leg-3 ride in Moab. It just keeps coming out of adjustment causing the clutch to slip on climbs. He had to adjust it several times on this trip. I know that’s not a KTM issue. I’ve had 0 problems with my Rekluse but the design is significantly different on these two bikes. Terry also started getting a F1 light error code (8 flashing lights = throttle sensor error). Didn’t seem to cause any difference in performance and after he jumped a log on one of the trails, the light went off and never came back on. Another time he started getting a flashing oil light but only while standing still at idle. While riding the light went off. We checked his oil level and it appeared normal. Being many miles from help he had no choice but to continue riding.

Note for all TAT riders using Sam’s tracks. I love Sam’s maps and tracks and highly recommend their use, but we had many, many instances in ID and OR where they just don’t match our GPS topo maps. The mountains in OR have many different roads that intersect, and we spent lots of times at intersections trying to figure out which track was the TAT. We had to backtrack numerous times because we took the wrong road.

My theory based on a very good understanding of GPS operation is that Sam’s tracks were made when the GPS system was degraded for civilian use. His tracks had a very poor accuracy as a result. Now with non-degraded GPS signals, the tracks don’t match the roads and can have significant off-set as a result. Plus, newer GPS units used on our bikes are much more accurate.

I saved the best for last.

As I stated before we usually rode in two groups with the group of 4 in front as much as several miles and the group of 3 in trail with the SAT phone and much of the tools and safety gear. Because of the many backtracks and detours our two groups got separated by several miles. We could not determine who was in front of who as a result. Our group of 3 (Mike, Terry, Jeff) was getting tired when we came on another of SAM’s side tracks off the main road. It looked very steep and rocky from the intersection. Jeff offered to ride up a way to see what it looked like past what could be seen from its entry. He didn’t get very far before he said, “don’t come up this road, I’m trying to turn around”. When he finally got back to us he said the road was terrible with lots of baby head and sharp rocks, ruts and steep drop-offs on both sides. He also said he could hear garbled communication on the intercom but couldn’t tell what was being said. We 3 decided we would bypass this section and work our way around to hook up with the TAT on the other side of this mountain. We had no idea where the 4 group was but assumed they were in front somewhere since they always rode faster than us.

The 3 group rode a long bypass but finally got back on the TAT close to the motel stop for the night at Canyonville. We were at the motel for over an hour with no word from the 4 group. We were of course concerned but we had received “OK” messages from the SPOT provided to Steve for his group of 4. Finally, Woodrow and Jason arrived at the motel, but they did not know where Steve and Matty were. Shortly afterwards, the last two arrived with everyone safe.

What happened?

The road that the 3-group by-passed was attempted by the 4-group; Steve in lead, then Matty, then Woodrow then Jason. Once Steve started up the trail he couldn’t stop or turn around without crashing due to the terrible terrain. Steve finally made it to the top. Matty continued up the trail by dropped his bike about 100 yards from the top. Woodrow and Jason both dropped their bikes further down the trail. Steve tried to warn everyone to not come up the road, but they were out of line-of-site so could not hear the intercom warning. Woodrow and Jason finally got their bikes up, turned around and back down to the bottom but they had no idea what happened to Steve and Matty. Steve had to walk down to Matty and they both pushed and shoved Matty’s bike up the rest of the trail and it took almost an hour and a half to make that 100 yards. Now the 4-gorup is two 2-groups with no communication between them. They both had to make tough decision at that point. Jason and Woodrow took the by-pass the 4-group had taken. Steve and Matty continued over the mountain and had an easy ride to the bottom. Steve said no way was he going to ride down that trail he had just came up.

Lots of lessons learned from today’s ride:

·         7 riders are too large a group to maintain close riding due to the dust and distances required. 4 is as large as I would do in the future

·         Don’t everyone ride a difficult section until it has been scouted by an experienced rider; know when to turn around safely

·         Ride to your weakest rider’s capability

·         Carry detailed topo maps for wilderness areas that show trails and road types

·         Carry a SAT phone (rent it) and SPOT (buy it) for every group (both our groups had a SPOT but only 3-group had a SAT phone)

·         Don’t ride every mile of the TAT, use common sense and by-pass the dangerous stuff

We had 7 riders but still got into a situation where we could not support each other.

We were lucky today no one got hurt or bikes broken but it did put the scare in all of us.

One more point for this post. Adventure riders usually understand the concept of conserving resources like fuel, water, etc. but they don’t consider daylight as a resource. My experience on doing many wilderness white water rafting trips is that you use every hour of daylight in the morning, so you have spare in the evening in case of troubles on the river. There was grumbling among our group of why we had to leave at daybreak in 38-degree weather when we could wait a few hours, have breakfast and leave when it was warmer. Today I think justified my view.

Just a few of the many pics we took today.

Ride Safe!

MAPS - The blue line is our actual track while the pink line is the SAM TAT track. I included several blow-ups to show the lat/long where these events happened. The last map is the Steve/Matty mountain map. One more point, that trail made a 1400 climb in about 3/4 of a mile!!