Utah and beyond

With the bikes serviced, laundry done and the riders rested, we leave Moab at 6.30am to try and beat the heat.

The road leads us directly in to the desert, this is where navigating via GPS comes on to its own as the track disappears in to rock and shale , without our blue arrow showing us the way, we would waste valuable time checking maps and trying to follow the myriad of trails that zigzag the desert floor.

The trail leads us from rock to sand and then in to a dry river bed that is like riding along a beach with deep sand and rock slowing our progress. After about two hours , with the sun gaining strength we enter Black Dragon Wash, a canyon that has been carved in the red rock by thousands of years of wind and water erosion.

This section turns in to the hardest challenge of the entire trip, as we fight with the bikes to get them through the rock strewn river canyon floor. Rocks and sand have been thrown all around by the flash floods that happen during the heavy down popes that happen in this part of the world.

It takes us an hour and a half to find our way out and climb to the canyon rim, but there is no let up in the technical riding for the next two hours. At this point the sky's start to darken as a storm is building. You don't want to be in a canyon when it's raining, you are in danger from both flooding and lightning.

We find some high ground and watch the direction of the storm, fortunately is moving away from our direction of travel, however we do a few miles on the tar to avoid any bogging issues, these track turn to glue in the rain.

We arrive in the town of Emery at 3pm, fuel the bikes and take on some water. Simon decided to skip the next section and meet us at our scheduled stop. We are told by the locals that the road will be easy on a bike, ummm I've heard that before! It takes Brenton and I 4 hours to get to the motel, by which time we are both totally shattered after a near 14 hour riding day.

Our accent in to the mountains starts well , the road is rocky but we hold a good pace . Our problems start as the GPS route takes us away from the main track and on to a tiny goat track that climbs straight up for a quarter mile. The soil looks like it should have grip, but recient rain has made the surface like grease and it clogs both front and rear tyres.

As we crest the top we feel like we have seen the worst of it, but as we enter the woods, we find that things have only just started as we face a bog of ruts and mud. We skate around in first and second gear, struggling with the physical excursion of wrestling the bikes at 10,500 ft. 

Finally we find the main path again and are greeted to a fantastic alpine vista, not what I expected in Utah. With a clear road in front of us we make good progress as we wind out of the mountains on a fast dirt road. We finally make it to our rendezvous with Simon at 8.15 pm, that has without doubt been one of the hardest, but best days on s bike ! 

Moab, Utah

Sometimes it's best to let the photos do the talking.........

Colorado

We have in the past two days ridden over two of the most stunning mountain passes that perhaps exist in this world, Engineer and Imogene Pass.

We rode out of Lake City , Colorado on Wednesday 8th July with the thought of riding 130 miles and covering 3 passes in a day. Fat chance! It took us 4 hours to cover 35 miles from Lake City to Ouray and over Engineer at 12,800 ft.

It was an electrifying ride up and a challenging to say the least, ride down in the rain. It's was rocky, wet and muddy, but one of the best rides I have had in my life and a real hoot !

We arrived in to Ouray fatigued from the exertion and altitude and alarmed at the lack progress we had made, so we took the tactical dessiccion to cancel the remainder to the section and spend the afternoon in Ouray, which is a cute old school piece of Americana.

We find ourselves in the Ouray brewery taking in the stunning amphitheater of mountains that surround the town and strike up a conversation with a guy called Dave who turns out to be Ralph Lauren's personal  pilot , then we are joined by a women who is in town for some hiking, who is a pilot for United flying 767. It was a surreal evening and a good laugh.

However though we only had 4 drinks, the day's exertion and the altitude took its toll and we all woke with terriable hangovers.

We leave Ouray at 10am and make our way slowly up towards Imogene Pass. It's a beautiful clear day and the ground has absorbed the previous day's rain. 

We summit Imogene pass at 13,114 ft after a rock strewn a chilly ride , we stop for a quick photo opp, but quickly get our skated on due to the threat of snow, it's already blowing in the air and apparently the pass only opened for the first time a week prior.

We arrive in to Telluride and due to the exertions of the day and slight hangovers, decide to call it a day a spend the night here.

4 States in a day

It's not easy to go claim that title, however we woke in Kansas, breakfasted  in Oklahoma, spent 2 hours in New Mexico and finally came to rest in Colorado! All in a very eventful 200 miles that saw the first off of the trip, with me loosing the front end in mud and ending in the corn field. That was not the end of it and there was another get off for me again in mud, so only a bruised ego and some very mucky clothes.

Simon suffered a similar misfortune but also managed to get stuck in one horrible section and shile we tried of avoid another bad patch, got caught up in some fence wire . 

No harm was done and we continued on in to New Mexico and reached an altitude of 6200 feet. We reach the Colorado town of Trinidad around 3.30pm, as we have gained an hour crossing in to mountain time zone. We are all relived to be taking a break, we have covered 1700 miles, which on dirt bikes is a long haul. We pull up to the Days Inn to find the best motel we have stayed in, raised up on a hill, with a clear view of the snow capped Rockies in the distance.

We dump off our dusty and muddy gear with great pleasure, take a quick shower and head out to a bar for some much needed cd beer and some food. Trinidad is a sleep small town , with not much going on, but with nice chilled atmosphere, perhaps this has something to do with the free and legal availability of marihuana?!

Sunday 5th July - today is laundry and bike maintenance, we also give them a blast with s jet wash to get rid of the mud and dust. Simons CCM is a constant worry, it's only had relatively minor issues, however I'm always concerned about the "what if " as there is no dealer back up or knowledge of this bike in the U.S. The fact that is has a flat battery after so many days of constant use only hi lights this worry. We get it going with jump leads, but the question of why it's flat remains.

During our maintenance the sky blackens and a Thurber storm erupts with tropical like down pour and eventually hail a centimetre across.

With blue skies back again and the bikes all finished, except Simons which he is still working on, we have some large JDs and come around the pool 😎

Oklahoma

Thursday 2nd July - we have a long day in the saddle, 275 miles of long long straight roads on what must be one of the flatest places on earth .

However to break to monotony, we also have a few detours due to flooding . We have been very fortunate with the weather, only a couple of weeks ago there were heavy rains that have left rivers and lakes at bursting point.

This minor inconvenience is however far better than being caught on these roads when it's raining, it would simy be a big and a tourture to ride. I'll take the hot weather and dust over mud and rain.

The conversations with the locals is always a fascinating insight to the mid west mind set, which being from a nation that has no guns, is alarming. Yesterday we had a conversation with three teenage girls in a burger joint , who all own multiple guns. When we said we that we didn't own any, and we aren't allowed, their response was "how do you hunt" and "how do you defend yourself"!

The obsession of gun ownership and their right to bear is to my mind is freighting and mind boggerling . Today we meet a guy in a gas station who was happy to admit to owner 18 guns. Mainly for hunting , but the rest are for personal defence, what ever that means!   

I'll comeback to a subject that is need of discussion later and that is the American fixation with their short history and their insecurity of belonging. For now I am too tiered to continue, it's been a long day.

Tenessee & Arkansas

Monday 29th we leave Batesville Tenessee in the chill morning air at 7am. The flow of cool air through our outer shirts and body armour beneath will be a distance forgotten memory in far to shorter a time. The weather here is stiflingly hot and humid. The TAT thus far has to be honest been a little disappointing, in so much as there has been a predominant amount of tar road. Yet it's billed as a coast to Coast dirt ride, which will all change when we get out west, but it's a fuck of a long way to get there

On the plus side of that we have managed to get a quick bit of touristing done at the Jack Daniels factory in Lynchburg, which as was a welcome break from the heat and the road. I was really struck by how old the factory was, nowadays you expect gleaming stainless steel at such places and there was quite a bit, however you felt like a lot of the plant was as it had been from around 1950.

The roads at last become dirt and we can start to use the bike for what they are designed. There is always a compromise with any motorcycle and my bike is not made for roads. The highways have been an absolute ball arch and even on the back roads  I'm finding the gearing too low. But on the dirt she is a lou lou! Fast agile and sure footed, it's more bike than I am rider, but it's such fun😎

The next two days are in a simalar vain, a mix of around 40% dirt the rest tar, some of the dirt is pretty challenging but mainly as I'm trying to ride it fast and the bikes getting a bit squirrelly. But most of the times it's pretty straight forward riding.

A great highlight is the many strange and interesting folks you meet along the way and as I have discovered on my other joyrides in America, everyone is interested in fact that you have "come all the way from England" to ride across their country. Never more so than than in these remote parts of the South, where most people have never been out of their state, let slone their country.

We are averaging 250 miles a day which on slow back roads and in 96 degree heat, makes for long days in the saddle. The first few hours in the morning are perfect, so early starts are our pattern, with a break at the first two to three hours and then about every hour and a half. You need to just get of the thing, grab a cold drink and stretch a little.

We are now in Oklahoma, having dashed through Arkansas, where two of us needed to get new rear tyres and we rode through the Ozark national forest, which offered great riding and our first impassable object in a land slide across the trail. With the magic of GPS we cod easily re route around it and after a long day in the saddle come to yet another dry county! Honestly, in a state where you don't have to wear a helmet and everyone seems to have a gun, you can't buy a frigin beer. On the other hand may be it's not such a bad idea....   

The first of the dirt

Marc leaves us on Wednesday 24th June and we prepare for the first day of dirt tracks. However this proves to be somewhat of an anticlimax as the only dirt section is an 8 miles track, which though fun, feels way too short for what we had hoped.However this leads us on to the end of the Tail of the Dragon, a legendary road that has 311 bends in just eleven miles. It's a great way to end the day and we pull in to a tiny town at its base called Robinsville. A sleepy little town with a few gas stations, the obligatory huge drug store and a supermarket. We you are living on diner food on the go, the opportunity for some fresh food can't be over looked.

As it happens we are sharing our motel with 7 crazy Canadians, who insist we share a few beers from their cooler, which in light of it being a dry town is indeed a welcome gift after a long and extremely hot day. It has been pushing 100 degrees every day, with humidity to match. Not ideal biking weather.

The Canadians who not only ply us with beers, but insist we join them for a bbq (they are traveling well equipped)  6 Harley's and a back up vehicle with said bbq and cooler plus 26 crates of beer (there are many dry towns in this part of the world). We are also appointed honorary members of the Screamin Chicken Motorcycle Club, we are now the British chapter 😎  

We make an early start the next day, it's misty and cool as we get our first taste of real dirt road and some water action. The trail lead through the Tennesee hills and forests, it's a blissful start to the day as we find our feet on the dirt.

Later in the day we bump in to another TAT rider , Brenton from NZ, who it turns out is a bit of an off road legend, having competed in the International Six Day Enduro several times for his country. We have another long hot day in the saddle and the three of us eventually arrive at a nondescript row of gas stations, motels and face food outlets, that pass for a town that I can't remember the name of. We eat a mound of buffet bbq and salad and digest some very cold beer. The next day we all ride together to Lynchburg, it's on our way and of course happens to be the site of the Jack Daniels distillery! We do the guided tour, which is very informative and I'm impressed with how traditional the methods and machinery are. Ironically Lynchburg is a dry county, so though JD is made there, you can't drink the stuff. Surely only in America ?!

Saturday 27th June is our designated off day, five days on, one day off is the rule. Time for bike maintenance, laundry and rest. Simons CCM has some minor issues that have to be overcome and we do a good job at fixing the issues, it shod get him through the journey.  Weather still hot but the edge is taken off by some storms and a good down pour.

Sunday 28th - our best day riding yet, we cover 253 miles of tiny back road and dirt in very rural Tennessee and Mississippi. We pass mobile homes with semi tractor units outside, the size and decal of these monsters dwarfs the owners living accommodation . Food and fuel are starting to thin out as we get further away from habitation and the highways.