Ride Report: CANNONBALL RUN

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robtaylor
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Ride Report: CANNONBALL RUN

Post by robtaylor »

Day zero

I won't bore you with the details of my many plane rides to get from Tulsa to San Francisco, I had no real problems with any flight or getting my bags. I grabbed a cab right outside of the baggage claim and asked him to take me to the Beach Motel. The cab driver had never heard of the place, so I gave him the address and we were off. My cab driver was originally from Brazil and grew up riding Lambrettas, he had loads of questions about the ride and if there would be any Lambrettas making the ride. I told him that one vintage Lambretta would be making the ride, when we pulled into the hotel parking lot he looked all around and when he didn't see the Lammy he took off.

Checking into the Beach Motel was like most other motels except you had to talk to the front desk throught two inches of security glass. Travel tip: when the "lobby" of your motel is more secure than your bank you may want to think twice about checking in. While in the lobby I was greeted by Joel Hamilton (one of the riders). With him was his father Dan who was driving a support truck for the entire ride with his old college buddy Bob. Bob and Dan turned out to be invaluable to several riders who broke down along the way, plus they ended up carrying supplies, parts and clothing for most of the riders. They told me about the "meet and greet" that was to be held later that evening at the San Francisco Motorcycle Club.



After checking in I went to check out my room, which turned out to be the worst of the entire ride. There was a hole in my wall where i could see outside to Judah Street below. My window wouldn't shut and there was a fire escape ladder that led right up to it so I had to think twice about leaving anything of value in the room. The rooms were odd shaped as though they had changed the original configuration, I had a fireplace in my room which was sealed up by a piece of plywood screwed into brick. I decided not to hang out in the room and walk down to the starting point (less than a mile from the motel) to check it out. I wasn't expecting my scooter to arrive until the next morning so i had planned to walk or take a cab anywhere I went that night. Walking to the starting point I saw the sign for Ocean Beach


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The ride goes from Ocean Beach in San Francisco to Ocean Beach in Ocean City, MD. Across the street was a restaurant call the Beach Chalet, where I ended up having a burger and a porter that was brewed right there in the Chalet. While I was scarfing down the first food I had had all day I recieved a call from Steve Hess, telling me he had arrived early and my scooter was in his truck at the motel. I quickly finished my meal and headed back for the motel to meet my buddy.

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Joel, who was in the parking lot greeting some of the new arrivals snapped a couple of pics of the bikes in the truck. Steve had used some knot tying voodoo to "strap" the bikes down very securely.

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We unloaded the bikes and I was able to drive myself to the meet and greet that evening, had I not been following Joel I may have never found the motorcycle club. A few of us rode over together and I saw more scooters between the motel and the motorcycle club than I have ever seen in Tulsa. San Francisco is definately a scooter town.

We arrived at the clubhouse to find we were the first ones there, which gave us some time to talk and snap some pictures of the club...

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Inside the clubhouse was kind of like the setting of a small bar, but on fursther inspection all of the decorations were club or at least motorcycle related. The most obvious were two bikes hanging from the ceiling. Along one wall were banners from the AMA (american motorcycle assoc.) dating back to the 1930's. We found out the the club was letting the local scooter club use their facilities for our party. We met some of the local guys, and it wasn't long until the riders started slowly trickling in. I met John Smith (or Jrsjr on the forums) who had been helping with lots of advice and answers to stupid questions that i had been emailing him before the ride. John was planning on riding at the tail everyday for support on his new silverwing. As more cannonballers showed up I got a phone call from Dave M from sctrcst.com. I had sugested that he call us a few times during the ride so he could do a podcast of the ride. (go to sctrcst.com for a couple of podcasts about the ride) Dave interviewed Patrick, Bobo, and me for a pre-ride take on the cannonball. If you've never checked out sctrcst before I would encourage you to take a look.

The night before the cannonball is very similar to the night before Christmas for a kid, I don't know if I slept more than an hour at a time. I was fairly nervous about the ride and extra nervous about the wake-up call that I had ordered from the front desk of the motel.

unfortunatley I never got my obligatory shot of the buddy in front of the golden gate bridge, but we can all imagine what that would have looked like.
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Post by robtaylor »

Day one part one

We metat ocean beach at 6:30 this morning. I think everyone who stayed at the beach motel was up by 5 or 5:30, I woke up before my wake-up call happened. A few of us went to a coffee shop at the end of the street to get some breakfast, then we gassed up at a filling station around the corner. It was still dark when we arrived at the parking lot and I was surpirsed to see how many scooters showed up from the local clubs to see us off.


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The locals rode with us on the first leg to alice's restaurant. This leg was un-timed so points didn't matter but most everyone was moving pretty fast out of town. Joel, Merk and I were (I think) the first ones out of the parking lot; but I had to slow down a bit just to take in the coastal scenery. We rode for more than 30-45 minutes before the sun really started to make it self known, but the good old San Francisco fog tried it's best to keep the sun from really shining. At first it was kind of neat to be riding through the fog in san francisco but after a few miles enough was enough. The fog thickened for a while to the consistency of skim milk, it was all I could do to see the taillight of Mark's GT200 making the curves at pretty impressive speeds. It became clear to me the Joel and Mark were going to keep better pace than the buddy could handle, and I was too busy wiping condensation off of my helmet's faceshield to try and keep up. So I fell back to a more comfortable pace and rode up through the fog with a small group of local riders, a couple other buddys were in the pack. We arrived at the first checkpoint much sooner than I had anticipated.

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I ran into the restroom and back out about 45 seconds later, shed one layer of my jacket and took off again. I was the first one to take off and I have no idea when people left behind me. From Alice's we went through some amazing woods of what I think were cedar trees. The roads were nice and twisty for a good long while, until we hit the outskirts of San Jose. At which point I ran into another rider and followed him throught the urban sprawl, he was local and knew which way to go. So did I until I lost him and found myself relying on my GPS for the first time. It led me through a neighborhood to a dead end and a couple u-turns were involved. I could see the Mt. Hamilton where I knew the Lick Observatory (check point number 2) to be. Bumbling my way through the next five or ten miles I found the road up the mountain. I knew that the buddy would struggle on the hills or mountains, but if I was patient I would get up the hills eventually. Getting up Mt. Hamilton didn't slow Buddy or I down too much until we hit the twists and turns about half way up the mountain. I was doubting that I was on the right road when OZ came passing by me on his GT200, I was glad to see another riderjust to insure that I was on the right path. OZ was taking turns at probably twice the speed I was, which couldn't have been all that fast given the sharpness of the turns but it seem like lightning speed to me. I gave it a little more throttle through the turns up the hill, but when we hit switchbacks I had to back off again. We hit maybe six or seven switchbacks in a row, If we weren't going up hill I might not have known what direction I was going.


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Finally I arrived at the sign that said Lick Observatory, I could have just logged my time at the sign probably but I wanted to look at the telescopes. The buildings were all locked when I got up there so I snapped a few pics and got the heck out.

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Heading down the mountain was much more fun, we seemed to go downhill further than we had traveled up hill and Buddy was cruising at an indicated 65mph. This went on for what seemed like an hour or so, and I didn't see another car or person save for one young woman who had her pant legs rolled up and was walking downstream through the middle of a creek. I made it to the edge of a town and stopped at a gas station/subway. It was hot by that point and i need some water so I decided to stop for a quick sandwhich as well. As I sat in the yellow booth eating my roastbeef and provolone I saw a couple of bikes and the yellow ryder truck being driven by Joel's dad come into the station for a fill-up. Everybody paid at the pump except Rich who also came in for a quick bite, he looked a bit frazzled when he sat down next to me. He told me of his day so far, he'd been riding a small piagio skipper with a big Vespa GTS250 engine in it. He had put the bike together with Rolf and hadn't had enough time to try it out that much before it had to be on the road. When ridden at highways speeds the handlebars would shimmy severely, causing the bike to ride in a constant and violent wobble. He'd decided to slow down and hang back with the smaller bikes until he could figure out how to better handle this frankenstein bike. About the time Rich and I had wolfed down our sandwhiches, Pete arrived to gas up. I recognized Pete as he was on one of the three bikes in my class a SYM 200. We decided to ride together onto the freeway to take a quick shortcut. We were cruising down the highway and since my bike was the smallest they had me lead. We cut back onto course and were heading towards Yosemite. As we started up hill the other tow bikes waved and took off up the hills leaving me and the buddy to struggle up the hills.

When we enter the Sierra national forest I knew we were getting close to Yosemite and the scenery was changing all around me. Rocks seem to jut out of the earth with the forrest growing all around and sometimes on top of them like they weren't even there. I didn't really realize how slowly I was traveling just taking in the wonders around me but I did have a few more riders pass me. Just before entering Yosemite we approached a big climb but later in the day approached a huge climb, over ten thousand feet above sea level. Breathing in the mountain air I could tell it was thin and Buddy was struggling for air. I know these pictures can't do it justice but here they are.

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Riding through Yosemite was a monumental experience, I roide through the whole park and around each turn I would say out loud something like "oh my god!" "whoa!" and so on. I would love to come back when I am not trying to just get through before sun down. Such a big climb in the late part of the day meant two things: one it was going to be late before getting to the hotel that night. two one big down hill was coming up. The mother of all down hill roads lay before me begging me to open the throttle as wide as I possibly could. The road was a huge sweeping arc around the mountain, I could hear the buddy tires humming loudly as the speedometer hit seventy-five then seventy-seven and close to eighty when the curve got more severe and I had to slow down. Later on down the same hill I pegged the speedometer where it could go no higher, I tucked into a racing posture and get it everything that it had. The rest of the trip was downhill, i pulled into the gas station at Lee Vining, CA to find Jess and OZ who told me they had been in for a few hours before I came in. That news sort of let the wind out of my sails, even though I wasn't trying to compete it felt bad to have come in so much later than everyone else. It made me wonder how late I would come in the next night when we had 417 miles to ride. before I went for a bite in a local diner type restaurant with a few other riders, I ran into Ed (biohazard) he was supposed to be my roomate for the first half of the ride to cut down on exspenses. We didn't always stay at the nicest places but we were always able to get two beds.

Ed had been delayed in riding his honda ruckus from North Carolina to San Francisco for the start of the ride.



a few more pics on my website
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Post by Eazy »

MOAR!
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Post by alienmeatsack »

You have done something amazing dood. Something that many of us only dream of. So we can just read and be part of it thru you.

Your description of Yosemite is what I think I'd also do... enjoy the scenery and be overwhelmed.

Congrats on the ride. We want more info, how you felt, what you saw, your thoughts etc.

Living vicariously through you.
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Post by Howardr »

Awesome man. I have now added the scooter cannonball to my long range list of things I want to do. Please keep the story coming. We want to hear all the gory details! :nerd:
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Post by newslinky »

Yes more please! The pics from Yosemite are awesome btw. I am very jealous and am thinking maybe I can do a run in a couple years.
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Post by ageekgirl »

Thanks for the ride report and the pics! As someone with bout 370 miles ridden total, I'm wayyy impressed with what you accomplished.
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Post by jrsjr »

ageekgirl wrote:Thanks for the ride report and the pics! As someone with bout 370 miles ridden total, I'm wayyy impressed with what you accomplished.
I think maybe you misunderstood. That's not the ride report. That's just the day before the ride plus the first day's report. There are nine more ride reports to go. Plus Rob survived an encounter with ScooterDave! :shock: And the ride up to Lick Observatory was harder than it looked. That road had the tightest and steepest switchback turns I've ever seen and I've ridden in the Alps.
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Post by olhogrider »

jrsjr wrote:That road had the tightest and steepest switchback turns I've ever seen and I've ridden in the Alps.
It has always been one of my favorites!

Keep the story coming. :D
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Post by ageekgirl »

jrsjr wrote:
ageekgirl wrote:Thanks for the ride report and the pics! As someone with bout 370 miles ridden total, I'm wayyy impressed with what you accomplished.
I think maybe you misunderstood. That's not the ride report. That's just the day before the ride plus the first day's report. There are nine more ride reports to go. Plus Rob survived an encounter with ScooterDave! :shock: And the ride up to Lick Observatory was harder than it looked. That road had the tightest and steepest switchback turns I've ever seen and I've ridden in the Alps.
I do understand that its only the beginning of the ride report. I was referring to the ride itself being over, but obviously I didn't get it written as clearly as I'd like. :( I should have also said that I'm also looking forward to hearing more about the rest of the ride. :oops:

I don't have much of a reference for ScooterDave yet. :shock: I'm sure that will change.

The road to the observatory sounded and looked like it was killer. If you've got riding experience in the Alps, then you know about it. I hope to one day get out west and see it for myself! Not to mention head to Europe and visit the Alps and other places, too.
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Post by jrsjr »

ageekgirl wrote:I hope to one day get out west and see it for myself! Not to mention head to Europe and visit the Alps and other places, too.
You won't be disappointed. You could just print out the route for the first three days of Cannonball 2008, do that in a week, and have the best ride of your life. Be sure to take a friend to enjoy it with!

-John

P.S. No worries about my earlier post. I was just using your post to make the point that Rob's thread is going to be epic before it's done. :wink:
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Post by ageekgirl »

jrsjr wrote:
ageekgirl wrote:I hope to one day get out west and see it for myself! Not to mention head to Europe and visit the Alps and other places, too.
You won't be disappointed. You could just print out the route for the first three days of Cannonball 2008, do that in a week, and have the best ride of your life. Be sure to take a friend to enjoy it with!
Sounds good! Though right now, I'd be doing good to finish the first day of Cannonball 2008 in a week. :D
jrsjr wrote:P.S. No worries about my earlier post. I was just using your post to make the point that Rob's thread is going to be epic before it's done. :wink:


No problems here! :lol: I have no doubt that this thread is going to be epic!
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Post by jperkins »

was at the scooter shop today----saw Rob's bike. All I can say is R.I.P

You could actually smell burnt oil if you got close enough.
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Post by robtaylor »

jperkins wrote:You could actually smell burnt oil if you got close enough.
are you sure about that? i had fresh synthetic oil in the day before.
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Post by robtaylor »

Day 2

Lee Vining, CA to Cedar City, UT

This is the day that we drove all the way through Nevada, by the end of the day I wanted out of Nevada so badly I could scream. Day two was my most miserable day of riding. I know it was more but it felt like we only made three turns all day long. Let me back up and start from the morning. Ed and I were both startled awake by the bells inside the old Best Western hotel phone ringing between us. 5:50a.m. came way too early; one thing I hadn't really thought about before the ride was that we'd be in a different time zone every two or three days. To make it easier on myself I should have just stuck with Central time and adjusted accordingly, instead i let my cell phone automaticly update for every time zone change which caused some confusion on a couple of legs. I usually don't eat breakfast so I was just going to buy a bottle of water from the hotel vending machine and take off as soon as the 6:45 riders meeting was over (each morning we'd all meet in the parking lot of the hotel and go over the route and any hazzards or any changes they usually were less than five minutes) but the machine was sold out of water. So after Patrick briefed us on the route today, something like "There are a lot of turns today and you have to make everyone of them." I was off to the gas station, I bought a big bottle of water and a granola bar and I was off down the road. Leaving California the scenery was still quite amazing, with the view of Mono Lake to my left and the sun rising in front of me I rode for a mile or two before turning off to the first highway, everywhere were sign reading "open range" we had been warned about livestock meandering into the middle of the road and the obvious hazzard that could present. I had my eyes peeled for cattle which I saw none of but I did cross several cattle guards which can be jarring to your body if taken to slowly (or quickly)

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The landscape changed rather quickly from California forrest to Arizona desert the road that went around the lake was curvy and make some 90 and 180 degree turns along the way.

The First checkpoint is just ahead and I am feeling good that no one has passed me in the first 58 miles of the day, but that was a short leg and we had many miles to go before the day was over. You could see the road in front of you for miles and miles, much like driving through kansas but with dirt on either side of you instead of wheat or hay. Several lizzards could be spotted crossing the rode, and little white tailed chipmunks would try to race the scooter and then dart back into the sand and brush when you got too close.


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I don't think there was much down hill all day long. Going barely uphill the whole time, the 125 struggled from the steeper grades and yesterday's change in altitude. The whole day was slow going, I stopped and put in my helmet speakers and listened to music on my mp3 player for most of the day.

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When I pulled up to check point one to take a picture, I turned to see Patrick right behind me. He was taking his helmet off when I was pulling away, I wished him a good ride and kept going. Thirty seconds later he passed me going up a hill and I didn't see him until the hotel that night. After that I has people passing me every 15-30 minutes for the next couple of hours. Then I felt like I was the only person around for miles, and quite possibly I was. There were two main things that were covered in todays rider meeting. That we were riding with no possibility of getting gas for 117 miles or something like that, everyone had their spare tanks and gas cans full that morning. We were also driving on the extraterrestrial highway which is very close to the famous "area 51" and supposedly has been visited by aliens more than any other spot. If this is true then the aliens may think that cows are the main inhabitant of the planet, I think there are 5 times as many cattle as people. By the end of the days I saw tons of open range cattle and I must have crossed 20 cattle guards. I had just about mastered the cattle guard crossing, when the design changed and you had to figure out the best route all over again.

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This was the most boring day of the ride and possibly my life, I'm exaggerating of course but I think because of the slow slow travel of the buddy I was starting to go crazy in the desert. It was aganizing to look down to see the speedometer at 34 miles per hour with the throttle wide open. I started doubting the scooter and my ability to ride this little bike for ten or more hours a day just to get back up and do it again the next day. Finally, in the middle of nowhere is the tiny town of Rachel Nevada. Small town big sense of humor I guess.

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After that little bit of excitment it was back to the grindstone for what felt like 200 miles or so before reaching the next dinky little town. I don't remember the name but apparently some of the riders do because they met the sheriff. I think two speeding tickets were given out and a couple of warnings were mentioned as well.

Though the scenery didn't change much I finally passed the Utah border and had only 60 miles left in the day.

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The last sixty miles were uphill with a steeper grade than most of the day, and again the buddy struggled under those conditions. On the outskirts of Cedar City was a stockyards which I could smell before I could see. I got into the hotel and again the 250cc bikes had been in for 3 or 4 hours before I came rolling in over 11 hours after I started. I knew going into the ride that the buddy would be the smallest bike, and I'd end up going slower but actually going through it made it worse. If the buddy was struggling at 6 and 8 thousand feet imagine what will happen when we hit the rockies at 11,300 feet. will I end up rolling backwards down those hills? We ended up eating at a steak restaurant that was basically in the parking lot of the feed lot, I don't think meat gets much fresher than that.

a few more pics on my website
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Post by jperkins »

pretty sure, Brad had the engine pulled a part and we both smelled burnt oil
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Post by Howardr »

Quote: "It was aganizing to look down to see the speedometer at 34 miles per hour with the throttle wide open. I started doubting the scooter and my ability to ride this little bike for ten or more hours a day just to get back up and do it again the next day."

Why was the buddy going so slow? I thought you said that the ride was mostly straight and flat.
Not to get too personal, but how much do you think this cost you? I would really love to give this a try in 2 years, but need to started planning the $$ early.
Thanks, I can't wait to see the rest of the saga.

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Post by robtaylor »

My biggest costs were:
hotels- i had a roommate every night except day 0. the rooms probably averaged $75 x12 nights (10 for the ride 2 more for the drive home) cut that in half if you've got a roommate.

airline ticket- i luckily only had to buy a one way ticket to california $250 as my father met me in Kansas and followed with a truck the rest of the way.

Shipping the bike was going to be the most expensive item $600 each way. I was again fortunate that my father would be shipping me and the scooter back home. I was also fortunate that someone from my local area was going on the ride as well. He and his wife were gracious enough to take my bike out to california for no charge, they wouldn't even let me help them out with gas on the way out. I owe these two big time.

gear i bought a couple of items like my auxiliary tank, riding pants, and boots that i probably wouldn't have purchased otherwise. I was sponsored for my mechanic prep, the set up of the tank, new tires,rear rack, etc. by Tulsa Scooters so that saved a few hundred dollars at least.

gas gas for the scoot was not that big of a deal and for the most part i was running the highest octane i could. the one time i cheaped out john smith and i ended up buying bad gas in Ft Scott, KS. The thing that was expensive was paying for gas in the truck, if you are going to have any sort of support vehicle (which i would highly recommend) you'll at the very least have to chip in for gas. for some this also included truck rental.

food you've always gotta eat so you can figure this one out 10-14 days of eating at restaurants for as many meals as you eat. I think most of us got into the same eating habits if there was a free breakfast at the hotel then breakfast was quickly consumed, if not then it was skipped and then we ate a big dinner.

incidentals you never know what is coming down the road you may have to buy a new tire, get towed somwhere (get AAA+) have to pay for repairs, buy a new bike, etc. if you have a support truck try to carry the obvious rubber with you spare belt, spare tire or two
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Post by robtaylor »

Day three

Cedar City, UT to Blanding, UT

I woke up this morning with a plan hatched in my head to put the buddy on the truck for the next two days in the high altitude, then ride the rest of the way missing two days of the ride. I was the only one really excited about this idea.

"That's too bad," is how Patrick responded when I told him about my idea "because today is probably the most scenic of the ride so far." More scenic that what we've already seen? I started doubting my plan. Maybe I could ride today and see how the bike does and then if I need to I can always put it on the truck tomorrow. Before I knew it I was geared up and ready to face what ever the day brought and hey it was almost 100 miles shorter than the day before it couldn't be that bad. At this point in the week I'm still naively thinking my GPS knows the route and it taking me on it, it is instead trying to lead me to the nearest interstate highway. So after a few miles of detouring I decided to use my time log for directions and just forget about the gps unless i am totally lost, this actualy worked out a lot better for me. This way I just counted the miles, from one turn to another or from one check point to another, on the odometer. Leaving town we almost was quite cold (low to mid thirties i found out later on) I stopped to put my jacket liner in and noticed ahead of me on our route these bright red rock walls that we sort of eneter into. I got on my bike and sped up, for the desert that was a fair amount of moisture in the air andeven with the jacket liner on I still managed to feel the cold air.

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During the riders meeting we found out that there was supposed to be 42 miles of "hard packed gravel" "with a few washboards". The dirt road was a part of a 70+ mile turn out that was going to save us three hours or something like that. A few people opted to go around from the beginning and add the three hours onto their score. I must have gotten a later start than usual today because the bigger bikes caught up to me really quickly. Patrick and Pete are the other two riders in my class and are both riding SYM 200s which is a 172cc bike. I learned that there is a huge difference between the 172 and the 125, but this morning they were kind of goofing off. They were taking pictures while they were riding which slowed them down a bit, so I tagged along with them as long as I could. They can take corners faster, while they are taking a picture, than I can with both hands on the bars.

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We had entered canyon country, as far as the eye could see it was one canyone after another in every direction.


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After Patrick and Pete left me in the dust, I decided to goof around and take pictures while riding like they were doing.

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Image but i wasn't very good at it.
so I decided I'd only take pics when the bike was stopped. I was wishing for some way for my helmet to take pictures of what ever I was looking at.


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About a mile before this picture was the next check point, the Anasazi indian village. I couldn't find it and luckily ran back into Pete and Patrick who couldn't find it either. They let me know where the turn off was for the dirt road, then they went looking for the indian village. I wanted to see it but wanted to make the 1:00 ferry even more. If I didn't make the 1:00 ferry across lake powell I would have to wait until 3:00 for the next one. I made the turn for the dirt road and saw no dirt, just chip asphault. I hoped I was on the right road but Patrick had pointed me this way and I was pretty sure he wasn't making a lot of wrong turns. I continued on remembering that the shortcut was 70 some miles but the gravel part was only like 40. I continued on waiting to see the gravel at any point, because we were bascially riding through the middle of a canyon.

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When I finally got to the dirt road I knew it in a hurry as it introduced itself while we were going down hill in the middle of a switchback.

Image
I'm going to let Rocket give you a breif desciption of the dirt road that followed. I will take a quote from his blog that I think descibes it as perfectly as anyone could.

"so were driving along when roy said we had to make a right turn, ok no big deal just another non descriptive road, but this road led to some of the most breathtaking scenery i have ever seen in my life, it started out pretty dramatic utah rock type geography that took your breath away, but then after about 20 miles it turned to gravel, with signs like impassable to rv’s, use extreme caution, well understatement of the century, once we had been on this gravel road for a mile or two we found ourselves at the top of a massive cliff with a very very narrow gravel road taking major switch backs, if you put the back brake on the vespa it locked up almost instantly it was so steep, if you put on any less it , took like 45 feet to stop, finally coming to a halt after a few seconds of a total feeling of lack of control, it took all your will power not to grab a hand full of front brake, because you simply werent stopping and go carreening over[and im serious] more than a 1000 foot of cliff bouncing off of boulders as you went, so roy and i perceeded down, really slowly, at the bottom i was sweating like crazy, from the sheer concentration of trying to stay alive, remain in control and take in as much of it as i could, but looking away for even a brief second was more than enough on this trail.it was so amazing i have to bring the people i care about here, i was in awe, really.

once we got to the bottom it leveled out but was still gravel, and still had significant enough drop offs to kill you, so we were piling along, if you wernt carefull your tyer would get stuck, or get channeled in to one of the many dirt bike ruts and steering out was not an option, but fallinig over from trying was.

if that wasnt enough the wash boarding on the gravel can only be described as driving over aload of 2 x 4s at about 30mph, the whole machine vibrating so badly that control was lost in an instant, this is where i crashed, my front tyer got stuck in a rut, and started bouncing violently, and as my throttle has been modified [by me] to not close on its own’[hey works really well every where else] as my grip was loosened the throttle open to half way and after that crashing was in inevitable, i got in involutarily routed off the trail and into the desert sand where the front wheel dug in , i did an endo half went over the handle bars, breaking the windsheild hurting my shoulder and smashing my front mud gaurd, well dr marten helped me put the mudgaurd back into shape, the windsheild was glued later that day, but my pride and shoulder were a little worse for wear."

Other than the falling part that is basically how I would describe it as well. It went on so long that I thoughtsurely someone would pass me. I was going 12mph with everything on the bike rattling, I was surpirsed I didn't break anything. Surely that's not where I later bent my cam shaft? That road was torture to the little scoots, 6 people in all fell in the sand and or gravel. I was lucky to have passed it without falling myself. I think my top speed for the of the greavel and sand was 30mph. I knew my gas was getting low so I stopped to open up the auxiliary tank when I notice gas all over the back of the bike, the bags, my exhaust pipe. I imagined the bike bursting into flames right there. I got up the nerve to check the tank and i barley had anything in it. I was low on gas, out of water and late for the 1:00 ferry. I opened the tank and got what I could from it and kept rattling down the dirt road. Then all of the sudden I thought it was a mirage, blacktop emerged out of the dust like the best road I've ever seen they may as well have been paved in gold if they were paved at all. I hit the gas when I hit the pavement and tried to make up for lost time on the gravel. Just as quickly as the blacktop came it went again and I had to brake hard to hit the gravel at 40mph. This went on for 20 or 30 miles gravel then blacktop then gravel then we hit a dry creek bed that we had to cross. I harkened back to river crossings in my jeep and coasted up to the bottom of the creek and right before I hit the deep mud I gave it some gas and didn't let off until I was across.

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Coasting in on fumes I see the sign for the ferry and head in that direction. At this point I can see that the lake is several miles from me and I know at any point I'm going to run out of gas. Only one person passed me on the dirt road, OZ, so I was hoping someone would show up with extra gas in hand. It turned out I didn't need it and bypassed the ferry entrance for the gas station about a mile down the road. I checked my phone and it said 12:40. It was actually 1:40 and I had missed the 1:00 ferry. I paid for my gas and hurried to see who else was waiting for the ferry, I came across Ed waiting by himself, he told me we had missed the last ferry by just a few minutes. It turned out one of the riders JimT had fallen in the dirt and hurt himself pretty badly, they turned the ferry around when the crew found out and took him to the Lake Powell medical clinic.

to be continued
Last edited by robtaylor on Mon Sep 29, 2008 10:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by jrsjr »

...meanwhile, I have taken a northerly loop to avoid the gravel roads and my rear tire has self-destructed. So I'm stranded on a mountaintop 200 miles to the north of our destination by myself with no cell service. Sigh... :roll:
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Post by JNV »

jrsjr wrote:...meanwhile, I have taken a northerly loop to avoid the gravel roads and my rear tire has self-destructed. So I'm stranded on a mountaintop 200 miles to the north of our destination by myself with no cell service. Sigh... :roll:

If you would not have put diesel in the tank you would not have had those problems.
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Post by jess »

Rob - I am ultra-impressed at your accomplishment on Cannonball. It sucks that it died so close to the finish line, but please know that we were all rooting for you and were all awed by the amount of saddle-time you were putting in every day.
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Post by Howardr »

Speaking of saddle time, how did your posterior handle the ride? How did you like that sheep skin cover? What would you do differently?

I can hardly wait for the next installment. This is great! :lol:
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Post by robtaylor »

day three

continued


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While we were waiting for the next ferry Patrick was accompanying Jim to the clinic, where they told him it looked like he sustained some broken ribs and collar bone and a dis-located shoulder. They offer to take him by helicopter to a near-by hospital. That would have left him alone in Utah while the ride went on without him, Jim being the crazy and tough-as-nails S.O.B. that he is refused their offer and decided to ride on through the day. This meant that he refused the clinic's pain medication as well.

Jim and Patrick were dropped off in a truck at the ferry, just about the same time four or five other riders showed up Roy and Rocket cruised up and The two honda 250's were shortly behind them. Ed wondered where O.Z. was because he had showed up before I did, he came riding up just as we were paying the ferry guy. We had all parked our bikes together and were trying to find out more about JimT's condition. Patrick was calling Rolph, hoping that he would be waiting with Jess' truck when the ferry took us across.

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We were taking a count of everyone we had seen that day, and we were pretty sure Kdog on the vintage lambretta was behind everyone else. He would have to wait until the 5:00 ferry before he could start out on the last 91 miles of the trip. The lambretta was behind everyday, even when he started out before sunrise he wouldn't make it in until late in the afternoon.

When the ferry was about 150 yards from the dock, we see the lambretta come rolling down to the dock. Patrick convinces the captain to turn the boat around for Kdog and we all start cheering for him as the ferry engines start moving the boat backwards.

Imageyou can see kdog on the right side of the dock and the little grey lambretta on the left side.

When we got to the other side of the ferry we still had roughly one hundred miles to go to the hotel. The first thing everyone noticed is that the truck wasn't there for JimT, he was going to have to ride the scooter the rest of the way. Ed and I started out first to try and let someone know at the hotel that he was riding back, By the time we got there I guess someone had already talk to the by phone. The ride back was fast until we hit a large uphill and I never saw Ed again, I was passed up quickly by the two handa 250's. I rolled into the hotel parking lot and found Jess sitting on his bed with an ice pack on his knee. We started to take a toll of the carnage for the day. I think seven scoots went down that day, six in the dirt and one before the dirt. One rider was injured enough to stop riding and so was one bike.


Imagekdog pulls into the hotel parking lot

and we know everyone is in for the evening. Everyone that is except for John Smith, he was taking the long route, but he should have been in long ago. He showed up hours later and had had a rough day himself, a piece of his tire fell off. It still held air but a patch the size of your fist or bigger just blistered up and fell off. His silverwing was in the back of a truck, apparently some local guy had given him a ride to hotel.

ImageJoel secures his GTS in the truck after it was laid down early in the day.

ImageSome parking lot maintenence must be done after such a long day. Someone just found out that this is a dry county, could the day get worse? We headed for the restaurant in the parking lot of the hotel and then back to the parking lot for more wrenching, and someone got smart and showed up with some beer. Roy and I bought a couple of the bottles off of him.
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Post by robtaylor »

Day four

Blanding, UT to Salida, CO



This morning started when I then phone rang for the wake-up call, I wanted to sleep for about four more hours. Instead in a half-sleep stupor I put on my gear like it was second nature to me, It was like my body was on autopilot after I laced up my boots and cleaned the faceshield of my helmet.

I went to check out the free breakfast in the lobby area, and on the way I loaded the two bags i've been using as a make-shift backrest onto the back of Buddy's seat. As the two yellow and black wet bags sit against the gas tank on back I didn't feel comfortable putting too much pressure on them. The top bag was too far back to lean against anyway until I discovered that if I'd stick a water bottle behind the bag it was the perfect fit. The free breakfast could be described as bad at best, I grabbed a glass of oj and headed for the riders meeting. Same old stuff "there's a lot of turns, and you gotta make everyone of them", until we got to the elevation part. We would be going over two passes today Lizzard Head Pass and Monarch Pass, the first was just over 10,000 feet and the second just over 11,000. With Buddy jetted for sea level it was going to be another long day.

Last night my roommate Ed had suggested that when I get to each pass that I consider removing the air filter and then putting it back on when I reached the top. I wasn't too keen on taking the air filter off after spending all day yesterday in the desert, but any idea of getting more oxygen into the carb sounded good to me. I did some internet searching, with my phone, on www.modernbuddy.com and actually found a post from a guy who had taken a piece offof the air box lid. I took my air box lid off to see what he was talking about and there in fact was a baffle that was mounted to the inside. I took it out hoping to get any airflow i could, when i put it back together and started it up Ed and I both thought we could tell a difference in the sound of the bike.

It was cold when I got on the bike and got going but I knew after today it was down hill for like two of three days, plus today was a shorter day at 332 miles. But you never know how things will go traveling on route 666.

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Actually we weren't on it that long until we hit the Colorado stateline.

ImageCheckpoint 1

The cold air and/or the removal of the air box baffle made the buddy perform very well in the morning. We were going up and down some mountains, mostly up and everything was going great. The road turned a corner and the sun that had risen not an hour before, had now disappeared behind the mountains behind me. The cold air that was bareable a few seconds ago felt like it was cutting right through five layers of shirts and jacket and jacket liners and right down to my skin. The worst were my hands, the only gloves I brought are mechanic's gloves that I bought at home depot. I just went on for quite a while making too good a time to stop and warm up, still my fingers were getting colder and colder. I finally after twenty miles or so, stopped at a little convenience store in the mountains. Of course as I took off my helmet and kickstanded the bike I saw two or three cannonballers pass me. I went in hoping they'd have some leather work gloves or something that I could wear over my other gloves. All they had were cotton stretchy gloves, so i tried one on making sure it would fit under my mechanic's glove. After paying and explaining to the attendant why so many scooters were driving by, I was out of there and on my way to Lizzard Head pass.

Imagecheckpoint 2

Getting up Lizzard Head pass was really not a big deal, the bike performed better than I was expecting. When I got to the top some guys on mountain bikes were cheering me on from the side of the road, I'm not sure why they were doing it but it made me laugh nonetheless. Downhill for a while, but first a picture or two.

Imagehere are the mountain bikers that cheered me on

ImageHere is a highpoint where you could see four or five of the 14,000 foot peaks I don't remember which these are but we were near the collegiate peaks. Around this time we passed by Telluride and saw lots of big expensive mountain homes. We rolled into a town called Montrose and It was the biggest town we had seen in days, they even had a target.

The next 170 miles or so was fairly uneventful, then we started making the climb for monarch pass. We passed a fairly large lake on the way and saw lots of boaters and people enjoying the sunny day. I had shedded my second gloves by this point as well as a layer of my jacket.

There were several signs warning of Elk and I was really hoping to see one, I never did. I did come across a family of sheep that were coming back from the lake. They crossed the road 100 yards or so in front of me and when they heard me coming they started up the mountain. I pulled over and killed the engine, they froze and stared at me wondering what I was doing or planning to do. I took aim and shot three or four pictures of them. There were many times on the trip where I've wished I would have taken a picture of this or that. I'm glad I took the time to stop and take a few pics.

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The cars and trucks that were on the road up Monarch Pass were not too happy with me. As we'd go uphill they'd all want to pass me but then we start going downhill I'd start to speed up and they wouldn't be able to pass me. This went on several times with a few different cars, until we hit nothing but uphill at a very steep incline. Then I was being passed every ten seconds or so by a different car. When I finally after 30 or 45 minutes made it up Monarch Pass, It was downhill for 12 miles.

Imagecheckpoint 3

The ride down was not as fun as it could have been with all of the trucks pulling boats and rental RV's you could hardly ever find a chance to pass anyone and when you finally did you came across another boat pulling a trailer or rental RV.
Riding into the Travelodge I knew I'd made good time because very few people passed me today, there were only a few scooters in the parking lot and I was pretty proud of myself. Patrick (SYM200) and Mark(GT200) both recieved tickets today, I believe OZ(GT200) may have as well but I'm not sure if that was in UT or CO. Patrick's ticket was for putting his head over the yellow line, his bike was in his lane but on a turn his head crossed over into the on-coming lane. Mark was pulled over, pressumably by the same cop, because someone had called the police saying that a scooter that couldn't keep up with traffic passed her on a double yellow line, slowed down and gave her the finger. Mark had no idea what he was talking about, he tried to explain it to the cop and the cop bascially said " she said it was a scooter; and you are on a scoooter aren't you?" and wrote him up for it all.

As we hung out in the parking lot of the hotel we had a couple of scooter visitors, one guy came by on a Vino 50 and asked what we were doing in town. The other in a pick-up truck that said he owned an MP3 and asked the mp3 guys about their ride. When they rode up they asked, "is there a rally in town?"

We went to dinner that night a few doors down from the hotel at a place called the Kountry Kitchen (I think) and it seemed like nearly everyone of us was there. Rocket and Roy come into the restaurant and pull up a table with us and Rocket proceeds to tell us in his thick british accent how some lady in a rental RV cut he and roy off and nearly hit them. Rocket proceeds to tell the story and the look on Mark's face was hilarious,as Rocket told about passing the lady on a double yellow line going up hill and and hitting his breaks as he'd passed her. We all started laughing except for Mark who explained to Rocket that he'd recieved a ticket for doing the exact same thing. Everyone had a great laugh about that one, it was one of the more priceless moments on the trip.

Later that night Mark enlisted most everyone to help him diagnose the godawful noise that his GT200 was making, and everyone had their own opinion on the matter. As people dicussed possible solutions for the gt200 I snuck away to the hot tub that I had spied earlier that evening. Pete was doing the same thing, I think we were both hoping to get the hot tub alone. But it was cool we talked for a while before Keiran(Kdog) joined us and Patrick follwed shortly after, we talked for quite a while then it's off to bed.
Last edited by robtaylor on Fri Oct 03, 2008 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by jrsjr »

Another epic report! Thanks.
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Post by djelliott »

ageekgirl wrote: I don't have much of a reference for ScooterDave yet. :shock: I'm sure that will change.

It's about time you meet him. Ladies and gentlemen, scooterdave!



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Post by ageekgirl »

djelliott wrote:
ageekgirl wrote: I don't have much of a reference for ScooterDave yet. :shock: I'm sure that will change.

It's about time you meet him. Ladies and gentlemen, scooterdave!



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:shock: I think I'm terrified. :lol:
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Post by jrsjr »

ageekgirl wrote:I think I'm terrified.
Don't be skeered. ScooterDave is actually pretty non-threatening in real life. :wink:
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Post by robtaylor »

scooter dave wasn't supposed to make an appearance until day #8
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Post by ScooterDave »

jrsjr wrote:
ageekgirl wrote:I think I'm terrified.
Don't be skeered. ScooterDave is actually pretty non-threatening in real life. :wink:
Be careful, you are going to blow my bad boy scooterist street reputation with the ladies.

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Post by UXO »

Nose plugs work too.
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Post by robtaylor »

Day 5

Salida, CO to Garden City, KS

324 miles

start-7:40 end-16:56

This day was quite literally all down hill. The first 96 miles of the day was the best scenery we would see all day, not that it was better than anything we'd seen so far but it was better than what was to follow. Typical Colorado landscape some large hills ups and downs lot of pine trees, you get the picture. After that things began to flatten out. If you've never driven/ridden through East Colorado or Western Kansas, you haven't missed much. First, the green started to go away. Fewer trees, less green grass. The only green you'd see was a field of hay that may have been freshly cut for the last harvest of the year. Man that green hay stinks, when trucks of that stuff would pass you going one way or another you'd get a big whiff of it and it was bad. After a while the scenery has changed enough that you can tell we aren't in the desert anymore, we definately aren't in the mountains anymore. Buddy can breath so well at this altitude I've got the throttle locked wide open and I'm cruising. Each leg of the journey is laid out in our log book, so we can keep track of our times. It also served as my navigation system for most of the ride. I was so glad to have written instructions how to get to each checkpoint from the last checkpoint. The instructions for today's first leg were the same for 93 of the 96 miles "head east on US-50". Simple enough but not too exciting, I'll warn you now that there will not be as many pictures from here on out.

I made it to the first checkpoint in two and a half hours. I don't really remember Peublo, CO but it was checkpoint 1.

Shortly after checkpoint 1 we had the option of taking a detour and crossing the worlds highest suspension bridge over Royal Gorge. The detour would take us eight miles out of our way, it turns out only Patrick and I took the detour. It was four miles to the entrance of the park so I figured it might be easier to cross and come back the same way I came, rather than risk getting lost. I had to pay $16 for the privilege of driving across a bridge that couldn't have been more than 150 yards.

Leading up to the Royal Gorge park were all kinds of Old West tourist traps that were shut down for the season. Like fake little ghost towns whose brightly painted signs competed for your attention.

Imagethis one was my favorite "gunfights and hangings daily" sounds like entertainment the whole family could enjoy.

Up a windy side road led me into Royal Gorge park and fifty yards later was a parks person taking money for entry. The inside of the park was not without it's fair share of commercialism from ye old pretzels and ice cream to black and white photos of yourself dressed like a sheriff or saloon girl. I was a little dissapointed in the whole detour, I get my money's worth taking pictures and then get the heck out of there.

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After leaving Royal Gorge and heading for checkpoint 2 I got back onto highway 50 and as soon as I did I came across a prairie dog village. I would venture to guess that I saw no less than 1000 prairie dogs. They were right next to the shoulder of the road in a narrow patch of land that was miles long. I should have stopped for some photos but I kept on.

Checkpoint 2 was Bent's Old Fort, I was afraid that I'd gone too far and stopped at a local fruit stand's parking lot to figure out where I was. I was starting up the GPS and it was taking forever to aquire a signal so I decided I'd ask someone. There was a lot of local traffic at this place, I asked a man if he knew how to get to Bent's Old Fort. "Old Bent Fort? Yeah I think I know where that is, you're gonna wanna take a left outta here and go till you see a sign..." I had just come from the left and I was worried how far I was off course when a lady came up to see what we were talking about. She sounded much more confident that she knew where Ben't Old Fort was and the other man just left her to explain. She told me I hadn't gone far enough and explianed how to get there, when I got back to the scooter the GPS still hadn't found a signal.

As a teenager I always thought there couldn't be a more boring place than Oklahoma, then I went to Kansas. Two years ago Kansas was voted most boring state in America, but to be honest Kansas gets a bad rap. I've just been there enough times that it was nothing new to me. To me the border is arbitrary, Eastern Colorado may as well be part of Kansas.

Following the lady's instructions from the fruit stand I made my way to La Junta, Co. After a mile or two I saw a sign for the Fort. It was supposed to be about eight miles down highway 194, I went eight miles, ten miles, twelve miles and didn't see the Fort. I guess I drove right past it or something, I finally saw signs that led me back to highway 50. Not much further down the road the instructions said to turn off of highway 50 for 11.4 miles just to get back on 50 again, as I was stopped trying to figure out the point of the detour I saw Keiran (Kdog) on his old Lambretta. He was slightly lost as well, I followed him to a gas station and filled up then started following him on the route. We started going the way I thought we should and the way the GPS said to go but soon we were riding on gravel roads. We stopped to check the GPS at an intersection and it told us to turn left, turn right, and go straight. We eventually stopped a farm truck, the man inside told us the quickest way to get to highway 50. When we hit pavement again I was tempted to open up the throttle and take off, but I decided to ride along with Keiran for a while I figured I'd ride with him to the state line. Man, I thought my bike was slow, keiran's top speed must be 50mph. I was going crazy, I knew the buddy wouldn't be going that much faster but every mph counted in these long days.

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Garden City isn't that far into Kansas, it is known for it's stock yards. There are thousands and thousands of cows in Garden City, you can smell that for miles before you actually make it into town. As we got closer more and more semitrucks from Colorado and other States were passing me with trailers full of cattle. And I thought the green hay smelled badly, getting passed by a semi full of cattle on a hot day has got to rank up there as one of the worst smells. There's no escaping it.

The last miles really seemed to drag on today. I was glad to see that I came into the parking lot in pretty good position today. My time wasn't as good as it was yesterday but I still did pretty well. Wayne, one of the MP3 riders, and I went for an early dinner. We both were under the impression that we'd go to bed early that night, but neither of us really did. When we got back I ran over to the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine and Ed and Wayne and I shared some. At the liquor store there were some funny signs that I came across.


Image

Image
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Post by polianarchy »

This is remarkable, Rob. More, more, more! :clap:
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Post by robtaylor »

Day six

Garden city, KS to Ft. Scott, KS

364 miles

start-7:16 end-2:45

Today we rode in Kansas all day long, it was flat and uneventful for the most part. We started out the day leaving Garden city so the first 20 miles or so it stunk like cow poop.

Imagethis feed lot went on for probably a mile beyond this picture.

There isn't much that is exciting about the ride or the checkpoints for today, the one highlight for me was that I knew my father would be meeting me at the hotel tonight with a pick-up truck and fresh laundry. I had packed my laundry for six days then packed a bag for my dad to bring with him with the rest of my clothes. A couple of guys actually packed for just a day or two, then they mailed clothes to the hotels we would be staying at. Inside the package of clothing they had included an addressed envelope so they could send their dirty laundry home each day. Others just wore the same dirty clothes over and over.

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The first checkpoint of the day was greensburg and I happened upon a couple other rides (Steve and Mike) at the town square where we were supposed to mark our time. They were on the side of the road shooting the bull when I pulled up. I stuck around long enough to log my time and make sure they were alright, then it was back on that long straight flat road.

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Wichita was our next checkpoint. I went to college about 40 miles south of Wichita so I was familiar with the area, I still have friends living there but they were working anyway so I didn't stop and see them. We basically stayed on highway 54 all day long, coming into Wichita the drivers were not keen on being passed by a scooter. I had many people riding a few feet from my back wheel. And one old lady just glared at me as she passed like I had ruined her day being out on the road. It was funny because I was going the speed limit so when she passed me she had to speed, she'd get going and I'd give it a little gas then she'd give it more gas, then she'd realize how fast she was going so she'd slow down. When she slowed down enough to be next to me again she'd get that mean look on her face again and speed up. This happened three or four times, before she decided she didn't care how fast she was going.

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The next checkpoint was Eureka and on my way their a semi truck came rolling up behind me so close he could probably read my speedometer. I pointed as we happened to be riding by a sign that said passing zone 1/2 mile. He slowed down a bit and I thought for a second that he had the patience to wait for the half mile to pass me, but when I look in my mirror again I see that he has decided to pass me on the shoulder doing 70mph. I didn't realize until he was overtaking me that this was one of those semis pulling two trailers, as he pulled left to get back into his lane his second trailer would have hit me had I not slowed down and gotten into the other lane. Luckily there was no oncoming traffic. I don't even remember Eureka.

The last checkpoint of the day was the Ft. Scott Inn, when I pulled up to the hotel I could tell from the scooters that had already arrived that I was in the middle of the pack and had made pretty good time for the day. When we had our rider meeting that morning Patrick had warned us that the people of Ft. Scott knew we were coming into town and were under the impression that we were all motorcycle racers or something. From that we didn't know what to expect, we figured we should slow down outside of town because they may be clocking us as we came into town. We found the complete opposite the people of Ft. Scott were the most welcoming so far. When we check into the hotel we recieved a "welcome packet" that included a bunch of brochures for local businesses and a letter from the Ft. Scott chamber of commerce.

The letter thanked us for choosing Ft. Scott as a stop on the ride and invited us to a get together down town.

After checking in we were all hanging out in the parking lot waiting for other riders to make it in, when a lady came up to us and told us that she was from the Ft. Scott newspaper. She asked us several questions and had apparently been reading some of our blogs and websites. here is the story she wrote. http://www.fstribune.com/story/1461909.html

Shortly after that my dad arrived into town and he and I got some pizza and caught up on what was going on in each others lives the last week or so. He decided not to go to the get together downtown so I went off on my own searching for the other riders when I noticed how low on gas I was. I went towards a gas station that I'd seen earlier and gassed up. I started up the bike and left the gas station, when I pulled up to the next stop sign my scooter died. When I pulled up to the next one the same thing happened. I caught up with the guys at a hotel where the get together was, I walked into the lobby where three older gentleman were playing bluegrass music. Only a few people from town were there, the whole thing was coming to an end as I came in. I was only there 10 or 15 minutes then everyone was headed back to the hotel, where we tried to figure out what was wrong with my bike. About that time John Smith pulled up and said he'd been having the same problem since he had gotten gas from the same station. We figured that we had both gotten bad gas.

A few of us went up to the hotel bar which was closing and got them to stay open a little longer.
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jrsjr
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Post by jrsjr »

robonz23 wrote:...so I went off on my own searching for the other riders when I noticed how low on gas I was. I went towards a gas station that I'd seen earlier and gassed up. I started up the bike and left the gas station, when I pulled up to the next stop sign my scooter died. When I pulled up to the next one the same thing happened.
When they make the movie of this story, the directions here should read, "Cue the goom and doom music." For what it's worth, I went to the same darned gas station, pumped the same grade gas into my scooter and had the same lousy results, my scooter stalled over and over the whole way home. There was something wonky in that gas. Groan...
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