San Francisco!

It's been exactly five weeks, 14 states and more than 6000 miles. I left Vegas on Sunday with my new 17 tooth sprocket installed and cruised up route 15 the 6 odd hours to Park City. The big sprocket makes a big difference. At cruising speed RPMs dropped by about 500, making it less noisy and more fuel efficient. The installation was a bit more complicated than I expected. Because the sprocket is so much larger than the original, I had to remove quite a bit of material from the inside of the plastic sprocket cover to make it fit without rubbing. The file on my pocket knife was the best tool available so it took a very long time. Then I needed an extra large washer to compensate for the missing shoulder on the aftermarket sprocket. I had to go to five different auto parts and hardware stores before finding a big enough washer. The aggravation paid off as the bike is now much more comfortable to drive on the highway. I arrived at Kenny's house in Park City a little before dinner time. He was quite amused by my road worn appearance, commenting that my beard made me look like a murderer and my bike something out of Mad Max. We grilled up a delicious steak and caught the first episode of the new season of Mad Men. In the morning we headed down to the fly fishing shop to get our licenses and meet up with Trevor, our local guide. The fishing in the morning was slow with a few nibbles but no catches. After a delicious lunch a local Mexican restaurant, we headed out again in the afternoon and had much better luck. We caught a bunch of fish, brown trout, rainbow trout and white fish. I was really starting to get into it, cast, mend, hook, repeat. Surprisingly, standing around in a river all day fishing is really tiring. Standing in the river, bracing against a strong current really takes a toll. The current was so strong that in some places the three of us had to lock arms in order to cross. When we got back, Kenny had to do some work so I took his Harley Fat Boy for a little test ride through the mountains. It was a very nice ride but for this trip I think I still prefer my bike, set up just how I like it, especially at almost 1/3 the price! I hit the road early the next morning for the last leg of the trip to San Francisco. I set across Route 6 through Utah and switched over to Route 50 in Ely to cross Nevada. Route 50 is actually labeled in my atlas as "The Loneliest Road," and it did not disappoint. I drove all day through mountains and desert with the occasional gas station every 100 miles or so to spoil the view. With the sun just touching the horizon I stopped at a campground outside of Carson City for the night. In the morning I hit the road early again, hoping to get to SF by lunch time. Route 50 took me into the mountains around Lake Tahoe and across the border into California. Going through one of the twisty mountain passes I passed another rider who, instead of giving the traditional wave, patted the top of his helmet, signaling that there was a speed trap ahead. At the speed trap, around the next bend, there was a highway patrol officer sitting aside a nicely kitted out BMW police bike. As I passed him going 5-10 mph over the speed limit we exchanged waves. Riding down out of the mountains I had my last bit of fun on the nice roads before grinding it out on the freeway for the last 80 or so miles to SF. As I approached the Oakland Bay Bridge I realized that I had almost no cash left on me. I got off the highway on the last ramp before the toll to stop and make sure I had enough money for the toll. The ramp turned out to be for buses only and led right past the tolls and onto the bridge. Not wanting to begin my stay in SF on a sour note by skipping the toll, I pulled out of the bus lane, across two Fast-Lane lanes and stopped on the shoulder just in front of the cash only booth, right beside the long line of cars waiting to go through. I was stilling on the shoulder, getting out my wallet to see if I could afford to enter San Francisco. Two women in the car next to me asked if THEY could borrow a dollar to get through. I said that if I had enough money for myself then I would give them some, as long as they let me cut the line in front of them. I had just enough money to pay for myself and to lend them a dollar. As I went though the process of taking out my wallet, giving the ladies a dollar, putting back my wallet and putting my gloves back on, the line in front of us had cleared and a symphony of horns erupted behind us. I entered San Francisco in dramatic fashion, two dollars left in my pocket and a medley of angry car horns ushering me into town. Stay tuned in the nex week or so for day and overnight trips around San Francisco. There will be a two week pause at the beginning of September for my sisters wedding, then it's SF to NYC!

Back in Las Vegas

From The Motorcycle Trip: Album 2

I'm back in Vegas now recuperating after a particularly dirty and eyeball searingly bright week of camping on the Bonneville Salt Flats. On Wednesday we headed out to the course early with a clear idea of how to enjoy the day's racing. We bought a program at the gates then parked the car about an 1/8 mile down the track from the starting line. With the radio tuned to the course announcer on 88.7, we spent the morning in the air conditioned comfort of the car, using the program to look up the specs and record attempted by each car as it went by. Before lunch I headed back to the starting line and snapped a few more pictures of racers as they took off. After lunch we parked at around the three mile mark and sat outside in camp chairs to watch the cars go by at speed. We saw a number of dramatic high speed spins and aborted runs but no serious accidents. As a bonus we were also sitting right by the return road, so we got to see nearly every car pass slowly by, getting towed to the pits. When we could stand the baking heat no longer, we headed back to camp for dinner. Thursday morning we left early for the long drive back to Vegas. Yesterday (Friday), I went for a ride outside of Vegas into Red Rock Canyon. After, Jeremy took me and his girlfriend, Franny, to the shooting range. Jeremy is a competitive shooter and participates in speed and accuracy competitions for pistols nearly every weekend. He put us through some of his training regimen using his specially modified competition Glock. I learned a new stance that improved my accuracy and made it much easier to shoot on the move. last night we went to a going away party for one of Franny's Air Force co-workers who was getting transferred to another base. They are a Predator drone maintenance unit, so I had a great time talking to some of the officers who are very serious gearheads. Today I am installing a new front sprocket that I had overnighted from MN. The new 17 tooth sprocket will give the bike longer legs on the highway by sacrificing some acceleration. Tomorrow I'm headed back up to Park City, Utah to stay with a friend there who is going to teach me how to fly fish. After Park City the plan is to pick up my Westerly course once again and head to San Francisco. In the meantime, new pictures are up! I started a new album because I hit the 500 picture limit on the first one. Both albums are linked on the top right of this page.

Bonneville, Day 2

From The Motorcycle Trip: NYC to SF and back

When I left off last night Jeremy and I had just set up camp and were eating dinner. Soon after sunset a pickup truck began driving circles and zigzags in the huge expanse of desert that surrounds our campsite on all sides. After about an hour during which the truck's headlights frequently swept across our campsite, it came close enough for me to shout at the driver, asking him what he was looking for. "I lost my tent, man" he shouted back. He got out of his truck and asked us if we had seen his little blue tent in the middle of nowhere. We hadn't seen it but we go talking and ended up learning a lo from him. He was a veteran crew member on a 32 Ford roadster that makes 800hp, going after a class record around 240mph. The Ford broke an axle so they were twiddling their thumbs waiting for a new one to arrive. He also told us about a driver who had died the day before we got here making a 300+mph attempt. The course, we learned, is actually three separate courses the longest being 8 miles. The race cars, which are geared incredibly high can't get going under their own power (think trying to start you bicycle in the hardest gear). They need a push to about 70 or so where they can finally take off in first gear. Even then it takes a while to get up to speed. Most cars don't reach top speed until at least the 3rd or 4th mile. After talking for a while, our new friend jumped back in his truck to continue looking for his tent. After an hour he found it not too far away from where we were camped. This morning we got up a little late and cooked bacon and coffee for breakfast. Then we headed to the track. After buying our weeks pass at the gate we headed out onto the salt. There were no signs and we were free to drive in any direction we choose, off towards nothing, into the pits or to the staring line. We parked near the staring line and were surprised to find that we could walk anywhere we pleased. We stood on the staring line, next to the loudest cars I have ever heard as they were shoved off for their 300mph runs. After the sonic assault of the starting line we headed half way down the track to the pit area where again we found there was no place we couldn't walk. In fact, the only thing that kept us off the course itself and out of the way of speeding race cars was a line of cones. Instead of getting run over by a supercharged streamliner, we decided to check out some of the cars and bikes as they were getting prepared for their runs. We saw some wild stuff, some of the best have been documented in pictures which I hope to upload tomorrow. At the moment we are back at camp sitting by a fire drinking beer after a delicious meal of charcoal grilled sausages. Before it got dark I drew a line in the ground with my boot, pointing to a little blue tent, just in case our new friend comes around looking for it again.

Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah

After a breathtaking ride from the bottom of Nevada to the top, Jeremy and I arrived here and picked out our campsite just before sunset. Picking the campsite entailed driving off the road in any direction and stopping when we found a place that looked good. Now we're sitting here eating steaks, drinking beer and listening to music with nobody else around. Our camp set up is is way more luxurious than I have been used to, due to the fact that Jeremy brought his car along. Tomorrow we'll head over to the race course and hopefully see some speed records set. At the very least I expect to come away with some amazing pictures of some great vehicles. More tomorrow...

Las Vegas, NV

I've been here in Vegas staying with my friend Jeremy since Friday. It's been a real treat to live in civilized style for a few days. I'm on my computer now so I'll backtrack a bit and fill in some of the details since Sturgis that the audience has been begging for (new pics are up, btw. Take a look, they probably tell the story better than I can). The first thing people should know about Sturgis is that the average rally go-er is probably around 45, wears shinny new leather chaps and jacket, and rides a big gleaming Harley. As a young man travelling by myself wearing a full face helmet, an armoured, synthetic, reflector clad jacket, riding the Frankenstein of dirtbikes, I felt a little out of place. Fortunately, there are enough hardcore riders scattered among the packs of dentists and accountants to give the event plenty of credibility. The best part for me was seeing all the bikes. My favorites were the bikes that at first glance might get dismissed as beat up junkers but upon further examination reveal themselves to be lovingly personalized and expertly maintained. The partying kicked off around 8 with folks parading wild bikes and skimpy outfits up and down motorcycle packed Main Street (see pictures). As things heated up I stopped by some of the famous downtown saloons and witnessed more debauchery in the form of wet t-shirt contests and burnout competitions. Sometime earlier in the afternoon I had decided that one day and one night in Sturgis was enough for me. After seeing some great bikes and catching a glimpse of the wild Stturgis nightlife, I headed back to my tent relatively early in order to get an early start out of town the next morning. Before I left town in the morning, on a whim I stopped by the Alaska Leather tent to look into getting a sheepskin saddle cover. I struck up a conversation with one of the company reps. He turned out to be from New Zealand and had just spent the past two years riding around the dirt roads of North and South America on the Suzuki equivalent of my bike. All in all he racked up 48,ooo miles before he finished up in Alaska where he hooked up with the Alaska Leather guys. His trip made mine look like a short luxury cruise in comparison! I ended up buying a saddle cover from them at his recommendation and so far it has been great. From Sturgis I headed south through the Black Hills and then west through the Big Horn mountains. That afternoon I crossed a pass at 9600 feet where the bike nearly ran out of breath. I found a campsite on the other side of the pass that was at 8500 feet. The altitude started to get to me and I felt a little giddy as I set up camp. By the time I was done it was still pretty early so I headed down out of the mountains and into Tensleep so I could send in a quick update. While I was in town I met a couple guys from Long Island and a couple from West Virginia. They had all also left Sturgis that morning and we had a great time comparing notes about our experiences. That night, back up at the campsite, I nearly froze to death from the high altitude chill. Even wearing every scrap of clothing I had and with my sleeping bag completely over my head, it was by far the most unpleasant night of the trip. That cold made it really easy to wake up in the morning but getting up and going was another matter. After a few false starts I got my gear packed up and headed back into Tensleep for breakfast. It was there that I met the guys from Toronto and the couple from Illinois I mentioned in a previous post. This day has already been covered in detail in an earlier post so I'll skip ahead to the next morning waking up in a hotel in Jackson, Wyoming. Determined to use every last minute in the hotel room I had bought myself, I left late and headed south out of Jackson, towards Utah. In the morning, the road wound along the snake river and the riding was excellent, so good that I got mad whenever I caught up to a slow car that disturbed my rhythm. In the afternoon I experienced some of the worst riding conditions I have ever seen. A combination of course altering wind, a nasty dust storm and Salt Lake City rush hour traffic convinced me that the Mormon promised land was motorcycling hell. When I finally reached my campsite on the shore of the lake just outside of Provo the dust had permeated everything and I started cooking dinner immediately hoping to get the taste of dust out of my mouth as soon as possible. As I was setting up, Rodger, the resident VIP (Volunteer In Park) stopped by and struck up a conversation about bikes. It turns out he is yet another fellow ADVer and native New Yorker who owns an impressively modified BMW GS that is currently in the shop getting fitted with a sidecar for his wife. He was great to talk to because he really knew his stuff and we chatted about everything from tires to off road driving lights. Later when I was coming back from the bathroom, I noticed that Rodger's truck was at my campsite. As I approached he drove up and rolled down his window. "I interrupted your dinner before," he said "so there's a Wendy's double burger, fries and a soda on your table. From one New Yorker to another and one rider to another, enjoy." Thanks Rodger! Meeting friendly riders like Phillip, Mark and Rodger has been one of the unexpected bonuses of this trip. As usual, I broke camp early the next morning and jumped on I15 South for a rare blast on the interstate to get the Jeremy's house in Vegas. The ride was pretty brutal as there was nothing to break up the long monotonous high speed drone of the arrow straight highway through the desert. At one point I nearly ran out of gas when I hit my reserve supply about 50 miles sooner than expected. The bike conked out while I was doing around 75. It took me a few panicked seconds to realize that I only need to switch over to my reserve and than nothing more serious was going wrong. The high RPM highway cruising had given me dismal gas mileage, 40MPG compared to the usual 50-60 I have been getting so far. Reducing my speed to 60, I limped along to the next station on my reserve. I had no idea how far it would be. Luckily I made it. When I filled up the tank took 7 gallons, the most gas I have ever put into the bike at one time. I made it to Jeremy's completely exhausted. After a great weekend of regular showers and big meals I feel like the grime of the road is almost completely gone. I got to do some much need maintenance on the bike in Jeremy's spacious garage and we managed to take in a UFC title fight as well. Tonight we're packing up the bike and the car to head up to Bonneville where we'll camp out for a few days and watching some land speed racing. Stay tuned for Bonneville. In the meantime there are lots of new pictures to check out. All the shots from the end of Oshkosh to Vegas are up. Just click the photo on the top right corner of this page to see them all.

Downtown Jackson

Here's a shot of my bike parked on the square.

Jackson, WY

Yesterday was a long day. I left my campsite in the Big Horn National Forest early in the morning and headed into Tensleep for breakfast at the cafe. Breakfast was good but pricy, since they are the only game in town. But it gave me the oppertunity to meet two Sturgis veterans on bikes from Toronto as well as a couple Oshkosh veterans from Ill. After breakfast, I headed north and west along the Chief Joseph highway and wound up crossing the border into Montana where I got caught in a very cold rain. Cooke, Montana turned out to be a convenient place to wait out the rain. When it was over I headed south again into Yellowstone. Yellowstone turned out to be a mixed bag. On the plus side the register at the gate was broken so entrance was free, the scenery was stunning and wildlife was everywhere. The down side was that the crowds were absolutely maddening. The park was packed with RVs and and tourists who didn't think twice about stopping in the middle of the road to take a picture. To make things worse, anytime one vehicle stopped everyone one else on the road would slow down and stop to see what the first car was looking at. While taking a rest I had a nice chat with a guy from Sacramento on a KTM 950 who also happened to be another ADVer. By this time it was getting late and I was looking for a place to camp. Every campsite in the park was full. I decided to push on the last 100 miles to Jackson and treat myself to a hotel in honor of the fact that yesterday marked the end of my third week on the road. After a great rest at the hotel last night (no Internet so pictures are going to have to wait a little longer), today I am heading south into Utah toward Bonneville for the start of Speed Week on Monday.

Tensleep, Wyoming

I'm here in Tensleep, pop 304, borrowing some wifi since my phone doesn't get service. Last night and today were a blast. Crazy times last night and amazing riding today. Among other things I saw my first buffalo of the trip and rode through a swarm of grasshoppers at 80 mph, which felt like getting shot with hundreds of paintballs. I'm staying outside of town tonight in the national forest. The site is at around 8500 feet so the bike feels pretty sluggish up there but the view is amazing. Hopefully I'll have pics of this site as well as a whole backlog of others up in the next few days. In the meantime enjoy this shot of the landscape just outside Tensleep. Stay tuned.

Sturgis, SD

I left MN yesterday morning and drove halfway across SD to a campground 40 min south of Pierre, which the locals pronounce as pier. It was the end of the weekend so everybody had left and I got a great spot right on the edge of the Misouri River. The ride across MN was one of my favorite of the trip so far but I wasn't prepared for the size and desolation of SD. The though that I had rebuilt nearly every piece of this motorcycle became sobering as I drove fo hours without seeing 20 people or buildings. At every cross-roads the pavement ended at the horizon in all four directions. I left for Sturgis this morning better prepared for the emptiness. I decided that riding across the prarie was like being out on the open ocean and that seeing a car or a house was like passing another boat. With that in mind I thoroughly enjoyed the four hour ride to Sturgis. I set up camp just north of town and walked in to check out the scene. The town is overflowing with bikes, bikers and scantilly clad biker ladies, all of which look as if they have seen quite a few miles. I am anticipating some crazy partying tonight. I'll let you know how it goes.

Jackson County, Minnesota

I have set up camp here in Jackson County which is, according to my atlas, just a short drive away from Hawkeye Point, the highest point in Iowa at 1670 feet. This also happens to be my favorite campsite of the trip so far. I left Oshkosh this morning sick to death of the campground city. When I came here, I expected to find it filled with bikes on th way to Sturgis. Instead, I discovered it was clean, had great facilities, beautiful views and was nearly empty. Perfect. On another note, I passed two important milestones today. I finished the first 2000 miles of the trip and finally crossed the Mississippi River. Stay tuned for Sturgis!