While making plans for this dream trip I found that a group of sport touring friends had planned a memorial weekend trip to Colorado, which just happens to be the weekend before Canyon lands. Great plan I’ll just ride over with friends and then tour my way around Colorado and end up at Moab just in time for the rally. One catch, I really wanted to finish up a project and get the stock front wheel set up on my USD fork swap. So I headed over to the Bills house. He is a good friend and the ride leader on the trip to Colorado. He just happens to have a machine shop and I just happen to need a custom axle and brake caliper mount. Good match It’ll just take half a day, or so I thought, it took over twelve hours to do. Good friends like Bill are hard to come by. It's finished and it's time for some shut eye, for tomorrow we ride.
A shot of bill on the ride out.
Its not the easiest thing for a Klr to keep up with big touring and sport touring rigs, but it is fun trying. It would have been a bit easier if the bike was jetted right. Mine is still not done as I haven’t really had time to work with it. She runs out of steam in the upper rpms which is where I need to run strongest. The Klr does fine as long as the ground is flat and the head winds down. Our destination for tonight is Raton, NM via Johnson mesa.
We travel some of the best roads in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado ending up in a little town of Crested Butte. We have seen great scenery and ridden some of the best tarmac around with elevation changes and curves of every flavor imaginable. From HWY 60 to CO114
I have been to Colorado many times and ridden in some remote places, but never really seen any wild life. Strange as that maybe this year it changed and I saw moose, bear, mountain gaots, prong horns, and a few elk. Just my kind of thing.
We woke up to 28 degree weather and a dead battery. It has been giving me problems since I left. Just seemed to be weak and would trun the motor over slowly. So this morning Bill gave me a jump. I was so excited about it starting I forgot to turn the gass on. Yep you got it, the bike died and I had to get Bill back over to my bike for one more jump and a promise that I’d not kill the bike again. The group was going to eat in Gunnision this morning. Since Bill helped me out we were both a little behind the rest of the crew so we’ll just catch’em, or so we thought. Just a few miles out we seen bright flashing blue lights. So Bill pulled over and I just couldn’t leave him so I pulled over beside him. The large tall Officer unfolded out of his truck and walked over to us. Then asked why we disliked his town so much that we’re in such a hurry to leave it. Bill and I just looked at each other and then he chuckled and said, he wasn’t sure which of us he had locked onto so he wasn’t giving us a ticket. Wheew, what a relief a friendly officer, after a few more jokes he told us to have a good day and drove off. Sometimes it pays to be loyal to your friends.
Today I leave the group and go to a friend’s house in Gunnison. He’ll help me get the battery sorted and do some maintenance on the bike. Turns out the two year old battery had a short. I call the company that sold it to me (Happy-trail.com) and they shipped me out a new one to Moab. Good thing I do business with a company that takes care of me. It takes the day to get the bike sorted and the evening to plan out a ride for tomorrow. Brad knows this area like the back of his hand. He is a great guide through the mining roads and trails; Fun day without any pictures taken.
I checked up on the forums to see how people were doing as they headed toward Moab. One group was heading out from Moab and happened to stay the night in lake city, good deal, I’ll try to catch them tomorrow. I send them info via Klrworld.com. Morning came and I wish my friends good bye as I head off to try and catch up with the Mobil riders. I figure they’ll be out by 8:00am and I am just on the road by then myself so I’m a good 60 miles behind. I rush off and try to catch them. I slowly roll through lake city, looking at the cafes for a set of Klrs. No sign of them. Maybe I can make up time in the dirt, after all I have a highly modified klr that should be able to out run a klr with just a shock and fork mods, I mean my bike is made to haul when the going get ruff. So I head for Cinnamon pass on the way to Silverton like the pony express I stop for nothing and slow down for no one I am on a mission. Arriving at Silverton by 10:00am I drive slowly scaning for the bikes. No dice, now I know something is not right. Some of the puddles I crossed was froze over and I broke through them. Yep I was the first one over the pass today. So how did I miss them? Did I pass them? No way I was on the lookout. O well, I’ll park where they can see me and have a cup of java while I wait, they can’t be far behind.
I wait for a hour and a half no sign of them and I'm bored. I’m not much on sitting still so I gear up to ride back to find them. They could have had bike troubles. I blast off to see where they maybe; Just riding along enjoying the scenery and the terrain. This road sure looks different going the other direction. Seems steeper at places than I remember, I don’t see my tracks either. O boy, I missed the road, well lets see where this goes, I bet I have missed them by now anyway. I head up to the top and find out I am on Engineer. If it wasn’t for the east side being snowed in I’d just take it back to Lake City and take Cinnamon back.
I turn around and head back to the turn I missed. Upon coming to a muddy spot I stop to check for tracks. Nothing here but the one I made this morning so they have to still be on their way. Hope they’re ok. I travel about a mile when I see a couple of bikes, could this be them? I ask and sure enough it is. They got a late start and had heard me come through Lake City when they were getting on the bikes to head out. I lead them over to Silverton for some lunch and local talk about open roads.
During our short stay we learned that corkscrew was open. That was good info as it would put us over to the million dollar highway and go over red mountain pass. All of which is a must do for the first time traveler through Colorado. Good dirt and then good tar, perfect. The snow had just been plowed so we had some cool riding in walls of snow.
We came across a nice little creek crossing, fun stuff it is and flowing strong with all of the snow melting away, great time for me to stop and see how my new friends are doing. So far so good, until they get to the creek, one guy dropped his bike, good thing he had fairing guards. Although so things are not all their “cracked” up to be
After leaving here I take them on a ride down to Durango where ther is a side road that has a few cool views and little traffic. When we roll into Durango it is about 5pm, so I call a friend in Aztec, NM and see what’s up. He invites me to drop down and spend the night with him, sounds good to me home cooked supper and a nice free place to stay with a shop. Perfect.
I get on the forum again and see that a group of friends from South Carolina are in Durango, so I call them up and we plan on meeting for breakfast. I take them on the same route as the Mobil guys but we run it backwards, stopping for gas in Lake City
The two bikes that they were riding are a xr650l and a V-Strom 650. Two bikes that are each on the other end of the Adv scale with the KLR sitting right in the middle, well at least one that has just the basic modifications.
They can be reengineered to be more capable on both ends; As you can read in the Bike tech section. The roads are easy dirt, any reasonable ADV bike can handle it. As it goes with some guys it wasn’t long till the chase was on. It wasn’t the singles fault either we were just riding letting the V-Strom lead when all of a sudden he poured on the throttle and we just decided to follow suit. I was in the rear watching the lines of the two in front and wondering how long this would last before one of us decided to come around and gain the lead. Then it happened the V-Strom started drifting the rear tire around a sandy curve, with the XR right up by his side, V-Strom rider’s head looked up and point fixation took over and into the bank he went taking the front wheel out from under Ron’s bike.
My buddy Ron
I lock up the rear and slide hard lining up the bike to shoot past them and just in time too as I was about 5ft from them when the bike straightened up. Both guys got up laughing so I knew all was well. This crash goes down into the book of friendly competition that shouldn’t have been. Yea I know public lands, we know better, and we do, but it’s doing better that gets us sometimes. So we sorted the pile and road off back at our sane speed we have spent most of the day at. Stopping for gas at Lake City we hear of a cut of dirt road that saves us time. So we decide to tack it as it cuts 30 miles off and we’re running a little behind schedule.
Several miles into this route I pull over and wait on the crew. After a few minutes Darrel pulls up on the V-Strom, we wait on Ron for about 5mins and he never shows. I pull out to go back and check on him. It’s not like Ron to be behind as he is a good rider. I dive back a few miles to see him stopped on a bridge beating what looks like a snake. As I pull up to stop it’s a chain. Not good. Neither of us has a chain break and everything we try fails to break the chain; Mental note, buy a chain break dummy. I decide its best to just tow his bike behind my KLR and try to get into a town to have the chain replaced. If you haven’t towed a bike with yours it is a good thing to practice before you have to do it. I have practiced it several times and even with that it was not the most comfortable experience.
How to tow a bike might be a good article to add to bike tech. We end up towing his bike for 15 miles before pavement. At the pavement I have about 25 lbs in the tire and decide that should be enough to safely pull a light weight XR. We agree on a 50 mph speed limit and off we go. When we come to a passing zone I pull into the slow lane. Then all of a sudden things go wrong. My bike is sideways in the road. At first I blame it on Ron, checking my review mirrors to see what he was doing. I saw him kick the top strap off his bike and mine straightened up. Then it clicked, I had a flat. So I pulled to the side of the road to fix the flat and decided to call Brad up as he was about 30 miles out with tools.
I repaired the flat by replacing the tube, and brad brought a new chain for Ron, off we go again heading to supper at a Chinese food buffet. We are going to be midnight getting into Moab so Its time for more fuel for the bodies. 50 miles down the road it is dark and I have another flat. I patch it while the wheel is still on the bike and off we go again.
50 miles down the road another flat, I patch it again different spot. It is now midnight and we still have a few more hrs before we’d be there. Time to call it quits, motel here I come. In the morning the tire is flat again, so Darrel goes for a tube and I tear the tire off to see what’s up. I find it, the tire is coming apart from the inside. The carcass is cracking and pinching the tire. I tape up the bad spots and put a new tube in hoping to make it to Moab. When I get there I run into Tim B of Happy-trail.com and tell him my sad story. He just happens to have a spare T-63 rear tire and tubes. Good deal for me. The mefo tire has now cracked all the way around and had almost pinched the tube again. Never again will this brand tire go back on my bike.
Next day I get the chance to do two things that most people in the sport should do at least once in their life time. One is ride the white rim trail and the other is to go on a ride with Tim Bernard. I’m looking forward to the ride and it is not a letdown. First thing I noticed was how well the T-63 hooks up in the soft stuff and how nice my home brew KLR is handling this type of terrain. At times I fell as if I’m in baja. It’s awesome to me as I have never ridden sand before and it is a new experience for sure. That rear tire makes it easier than what I was expecting and climbed the hill with predictable traction. The USD forks soaked up the terrain and the custom rear shock put the power to the ground. What a blast. At one point in the ride I got the chance to ride the H-T project bike.
It was a comfort able bike to ride along at a relaxed pace, a bike you could stand on all day. Once we got up to Murphy’s Hog Back, I had a chance to help out Mr. H-T as he was showing us how to ride a wheelie up obstacles’ that put fear in mere men.
As we were kneeling at the base of the awesome bumble bee (Tim’s Bike) we hear a couple of bikes coming up. I run over to get some pics of them coming up and low and behold it’s the Mobil boys.
They gave me a chance to test ride their bikes over Murphy’s. What a group of guys, let a perfect stranger test ride bikes that they have put a lot of time and money in. Each of their bikes were set up similarly but one was running race tech emulators and a Moab shock and the other set up with Ricor parts. I have it on video and you can really tell the difference, but that’s for another article on how your suspension should work.
So moving right along the party is at Arrow heads tonight and that is the perfect time for me to get that chain breaker. Being a first timer to this event it’s cool to see Eric and Tim cooking food for us and giving away cool prizes, not just t-shirt and hats either, stuff you can use like tools and bags, awesome !
Tomorrow I hook up with Ron and we run Kane creek, that that is a hoot of a ride that is best done fresh. After 125 miles of standing in the heat of White rim, my legs are jelly and strength is waning. It is more of a challenge then it should be, but this getting older takes a little time to get use to. Not a lot to say about that day but I dropped the bike 3 times, had a good time and was challenged. All in all a great day; see the vid for details.
Amazing evening at Arrowheads, Not sure the total money in give a ways, but one from H-T was worth 1,000 dollars in panniers. They also gave a complete PD Nerf set up away. It's great to see the industry supporting the people that support the industry; I try to not buy from those that don’t. Enough said about that. CMA must have had 18 plus people there and they done what they do best and that is help out and pray for those that want it, even had a bike blessing, making this rally complete in my book. The return trip home see’s me at Brad again and facing 100 degree plus heat and high winds across the Oklahoma panhandle. This event goes down in the books as a trip will done.
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