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SuperSport Touring Bros. - Cali Blast

Joined
Sep 11, 2006
Messages
2,531
Reaction score
93
Location
Houston, TX
First Name
Kory
Last Name
Burleson
Since this is going to be THE year for University of Houston football, we decided to make the trek to watch them take on UCLA at the Rose Bowl. It didn’t take me long to decide I wanted to take the bike. It would be a great excuse to fill in California on my “states ridden” map. I didn’t have to do much convincing to get my brother, Brett, to ride with me. He loves California and would be living there today if he could. My 7-month pregnant wife, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, and father-in-law would all be flying over for the game and a little sight-seeing.

Riding Day 1 – Thursday – 9/16/2010

Houston, TX to Gila National Forest

After work on Wednesday I dropped my wife and sister-in-law off at the airport and then went home to finish packing. I loaded up and headed over to my parent’s house to stay the night. Brett did the same. It would be easier for both of us to start from a central location. The 25 mile ride over to my parent’s house was the first time Connie has hit the road since Trippin' Connies - Take 2 & +1. I have her 95% back to normal, there are a couple of items scratched I’m in no hurry to fix.

I set my alarm for 4:15 am in hopes of being on the road by 5. A quick look at my clock once we hit the road revealed it was 5:05 am, so we left at what I would consider on-time. The first gas stop was just outside of Houston in Sealy, TX. Brett didn’t start with a full tank of gas, hence the early stop.

We hit the morning San Antonio traffic. While in traffic, Brett noticed something was wrong with his rear brake. It was very early in the trip and my mind was already wandering if it was about to come to an end.

We made our next stop in Comfort, TX. We filled up the bikes and as Brett was pulling up in front of the store there was a nice grinding noise coming from the rear of his bike. We started looking at it and noticed the inner brake pad was missing. Where in the world did it go and how did it fall out? I started looking around and then I noticed both of the pads were on one side of the rotor. Since there is apparently nothing to really hold the pad in place, when he installed the new rear tire both pads moved to the outside. Luckily it was caught now and not too much harm was done, just a little metal on metal action. He removed the bottom two bolts of the caliper and slid the one pad out and moved it to the other side. Problem fixed. We walked inside and grabbed some burritos at McDonalds. We probably ended up spending 45 minutes at this stop, but at least the FJR was back in business.
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Next stop was in Sonora, TX. After leaving here, and just a couple miles down the road, I opened my face shield to get some air. Not much later I got hit by a bug next to my right eye. The worst part was I could feel the bug then go into the ear pocket area of my helmet, and it was still very lively. After a bit of buzzing around and what felt like stings I had to pull over. Brett was leading and I tried waving to get his attention and then hit the shoulder. I got my helmet off as quickly as I could and then saw the bug fly away. Maybe I just imagined the stings because nothing ever came of it.

This is what it looked like:
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Fort Stockton, TX was the next gas stop, then Van Horn, TX. From here on we were skirting storms and got rained on a few times.

The ride through El Paso was just as it always seems to be, a downer. I generally try to avoid the town if at all possible, but with time restraints on this trip, it wasn’t. Dark clouds surrounded the town and we had some traffic here and there. The worst part was the wind was blowing sand everywhere. The littered road made Houston look clean. Trash was flying all around and I had to pick it out of my Baker Air Wings. I was almost taken out by a ferocious beach ball sized tumbleweed. Just when I thought we were free we hit construction on the West side of town. It went down to a stopped one lane. We lost quite a bit of time here and by the time we broke free of the construction we were in Las Cruces. Here we exited I-10 and headed North on I-25. All traffic is eventually diverted to a check-in station. I rode up to the officer and he said, “Ar joo a US cizytn.” I couldn’t hear him with my earplugs so I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.” He repeated, “Are you a US citizen” to which I replied, “yes sir!” A “have a good day” later and we were out of there.

Final gas stop for the day was just North of Las Cruces, NM. The wind was blowing hard here still and it was difficult not to get dust in our eyes. We parked on the side of the building for cover and took a little break. Brett scored 4 packs of Pop-Tarts for $1 in the clearance rack. I didn’t check the expiration, but they tasted great. I got a gallon of water and topped off both of our Camelbaks for the night ahead.
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We finally got off of the Interstate when we exited on NM152. The reason for this was two-fold: 1) I rode this last year and really enjoyed the road and 2) part of it runs through the Gila National Forest and we were hoping to find a place to camp. The first several miles are straight as you head towards the mountains. After that, the road livens up and gets twisty. As soon as we started getting to the good stuff, it started raining on us. This knocked our pace down considerably with the fresh rain on the road. As soon as we entered the National Forest, there was a small campground right off of the road. At the moment it wasn’t raining, so I pulled over and we discussed whether to stop or keep going forward to where I had planned. I had the day’s route stopping on where Google said there was a campground, 8 miles up the road. I convinced him to keep going and so we rode on. Almost immediately it started raining again, but the worst part was the road surface turned horrible. It was in the middle of a re-surface, some sections were all gravel while others were repaved but had loose rocks everywhere. It was bad news: raining, getting dark, tons of gravel, all on a tight and twisty mountain road. The 8 mile trip took us about 30 minutes, but we arrived at our campground. Sweet, except it wasn’t a campground! It was just a scenic overlook, which we contemplated camping at.
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As it continued to rain, we decide to chance it and just keep going West in hopes we would run across another actual campground instead of staying or heading 30 minutes backwards. Lady Luck (or the Man Upstairs) was on our side because as we were pulling out of the overlook area a local had pulled over to re-arrange something in their car. Brett asked him about facilities up the road and he said we would run across a couple of them. Woo-hoo! We rode on and came to this nice little primitive campground. It contained a restroom and a couple of camp spots with a picnic table and fire pit at each. We checked the place out and picked our favorite. It was still sprinkling as we quickly set up camp.
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By the time our tents were up, it was dark. Dinner time! Chef Brett cooked up some mean lasagna for me. Boil some water, pour it into the pouch and stir, then let it sit for 8 minutes or so, and BAM! Lasagna! He went the breakfast-for-dinner route and had another pop tart and some scrambled eggs. After seeing/smelling his scrambled eggs, I definitely got the better end of that deal.
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We pretty much ate and then hit the sack. I thought I’d have a hard time sleeping, but that wasn’t the case. I zonked out pretty quick. It was nice and peaceful, not another person for miles. Camping at 7200 ft… I could get used to this.
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About 900 miles tallied for Day 1.
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Looks like you guys are doing it right. Thanks for taking us along.
 
You guys Rock!
My Bro and I made similar trip
to NM and we took the road
to Roswell where he fell asleep
riding the bike and woke up in
the median (still upright no less)!
Needless to say, that was the
end of the first day...
 
Riding Day 2 – Friday – 9/17/2010

Gila National Forest to Glendale, CA

I set my alarm for 6:30 am (NM time) and felt refreshed when it went off. It was just beginning to lighten up outside.

Mornin’ sunshine…
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While packing up in the morning, we also walked around a bit to check out our surroundings. In between our campsite and NM152 there was a nice little bubbling stream.
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Looking one way from our site:
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And the other:
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The reason we’re out in the middle of nowhere:
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It didn’t rain during the night but it had rained enough before we got there to make everything wet in the morning. My borrowed tent was completely nasty on the bottom, but I just rolled it up and threw it on the bike (we would possibly be camping 1 night on the way back). We hit the road again at about 8 am.

The road continued to be bad, if not worse. This was huge bummer for me because it was such a fun road last year. We carried along at our slow pace as the construction took us all the way to Silver City. Here we turned West on US180. We filled up in Silver City, NM and headed onward. US 180 took us to the next road I was looking forward to, 78, which crosses over into Arizona and runs from US 180 to US 191. I thoroughly enjoyed this one last year and it was on our way, so I figured why not ride it. Thankfully there were no road surface problems here. After crossing into Arizona you come to a beautiful overlook where you can see for miles and the road winds down the mountain. Last year dad and I stopped a few turns back to take some pictures. Once we got going again this amazing overlook appears and I told myself if I ever came back I would get some pictures here. On a side note, it never fails that I stop to take pictures at what I think is a great place, and two turns later there is always a 10 times better spot.
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While stopped, Brett saw a big grasshopper in the road. Of course, I had to take a picture. What I later realized was there were grasshoppers on the road all the way down the mountain. I’m sad to report that quite a few of them turned into traction.
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As much as I would have loved to take US 191 North, we just didn’t have the time and took it South to US 70 and continued West. The second fill-up of the day came in Safford, AZ. This portion of US 70 is straight, but slow because of all the towns. Once we broke free of the congestion and slow speed limits we were able to make up some time on our way to Globe, AZ. This is my 3rd time to go through Globe, I think of it as a pretty neat town. US 70 joins together with US 60 in Globe and we would stay on it into Phoenix. There is a good section of US 60 just West of Miami, AZ. There are some nice sweepers and some neat rock formations. I didn’t get any pictures, but I’ll have to next time. I was leading through here and came out of one corner, about to whack the throttle open when I spotted a cop and laid off, no harm done. There were quite a few sportbike groups riding through this area.

Brett updating his Glimpse tracker on his cell phone somewhere along US 70:
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Once US 60 gets out of the Tonto National Forest, it gets really boring. It also got really hot in a hurry. The ride through Phoenix was pretty uneventful. We met back up with I-10 and continued West. After getting through Phoenix we stopped for gas in Buckeye, AZ. From Safford to Buckeye was a long ride in the saddle without stopping.

Brett suggested filling up again at the California border because there is a long stretch of nothing for a while after entering the state. At the border, everyone is diverted off the freeway and through a checkpoint. Cross another one off the list…
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Shortly thereafter, we stopped to fill up in Blythe, CA. Brett wasn’t kidding about it being a lot of nothing after that point. You ride along in a valley between mountains for what seems like forever. Before reaching our next gas stop in Banning, CA, we went through several areas where wind farms line I-10. Brett said the wind force was much worse in the past than it was for us this day. We filled up in Banning and kept on. From this point forward, there were cars everywhere. The metropolitan area of L.A. is never-ending. I always thought Houston and its suburban areas were big, but they have nothing on L.A. We hit every HOV lane we could and that helped quite a bit. We took I-10 to 57 North and then I-210 West again. We rode past our hotel in Glendale, CA, after taking 134 West, because we were going to make a run to the coast before dark.

The plan was to meet up with an “imaginary friend” of mine from zzrbikes.com. The meeting spot was at US 101 and Las Virgenes Rd. It was all going great and we were making good time until we exited 134 and got on The 101. It was 5 pm California time and we were smack in the middle of rush hour traffic. The FJR with extended mirrors and the Connie are not exactly lane-splitting material, but we gave it a shot anyway. It was one of the most nerve-racking experiences of my life! Most people were fine with it and actually gave you room, but there were those that didn’t give an inch. A couple of times other bikes would quickly run up behind us and we would either make way for them or they would quickly work their way around us. I had the sun in my eyes and 700 plus miles behind me for the day, so my control of the levers was not where it needed to be for this kind of stuff. Brett and I ended up getting separated because part of the time I thought it was him behind me, but it was a cruiser instead. The Connie’s mirrors are right at the average car mirror height, I don’t know how I didn’t make some contact. Brett on the other hand pulled his mirrors in, so he couldn’t see anything behind him. It was a wild experience I’ll never forget. Somehow we made it through.

We met up with Greg at the discussed intersection. We introduced ourselves, shook hands, and started riding. I told him to take us down some cool roads and get us to the coast for a picture. Off we went and just a few minutes later we were on Mulholland Hwy. Sweet road! Greg took us by the famous Rock Store.
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The sun was going down so we road onward. We stayed on Mulholland except for skipping one part. By the time we reached the Pacific Coast Highway, it was dark. Doh! If we hadn’t hit the traffic earlier, we may have made it. Oh well, I’ll see it again another day. We headed South on the PCH as Greg took us to Zuma Beach. If you look really hard, you can see the ocean behind us. LOL!
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We hadn’t eaten anything other than a snack at a gas station all day, so Greg took us to the beach-front restaurant, Paradise Cove Beach Café. The food was excellent and I feasted on the biggest shrimp I’ve ever seen in my life.
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Our fearless guide:
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After dinner, Greg took us back to The 101 while throwing in a little more of Mulholland. Riding the twisties at night was a different experience. If Greg wasn’t leading, I would have been crawling around the corners. It was actually pretty fun. We finally returned to The 101 and split off from Greg, heading back to our hotel in Glendale. It was a long day, but the cool, crisp night made it all worth it.

We rolled into the Hilton at 10:30 pm and were greated by my beautiful wife. Day 2 total was 812.8 according to the bike odometer, 800.4 according to the GPS (both when subtracting out the day 1 totals).
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You guys Rock!
My Bro and I made similar trip
to NM and we took the road
to Roswell where he fell asleep
riding the bike and woke up in
the median (still upright no less)!
Needless to say, that was the
end of the first day...

:eek2: Holy smokes! Glad he's still alive! That portion of our trip doesn't come until the ride back. :trust:
 
After reading your post I felt like
"I was along for the ride". I was
at the Rock Store in June and have
eaten at Paradise Cove as well. As
I have not been able to take any
Road Trips with my Bro lately due to
family responsibilities, it was great to
ride along with you guys. LA traffic is
nuts, the way they ride "in and out"
of their HOV lanes and "lane split" is
wild to watch and nerve rattling at best.
 
After reading your post I felt like
"I was along for the ride". I was
at the Rock Store in June and have
eaten at Paradise Cove as well. As
I have not been able to take any
Road Trips with my Bro lately due to
family responsibilities, it was great to
ride along with you guys. LA traffic is
nuts, the way they ride "in and out"
of their HOV lanes and "lane split" is
wild to watch and nerve rattling at best.


Too cool. :thumb: Greg told us the Rock Store is usually open Friday and Saturday nights until midnight, but that ended Labor Day weekend. :doh: Maybe next time I can catch Leno there.

I think I still have a little twitch from trying to ride through the L.A. traffic. :twitch: If I could have gotten to my finger nails at the time, they would have all been bitten off. :lol2:
 
Recession has really affected Rock Store.
I work for a Company in Calabases so I
always go down there when I am in town.
2 years ago on Saturday it always "rocked".
This last June on a Sat PM no one was there.
Leno used to be a regular there, every weekend.
 
Game Day – Saturday – 9/18/2010

Here’s the view from our hotel room. Not too shabby.
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Saturday morning Brett headed out to do a little riding. When we arrived at the hotel the night before, he told me he felt like something was wrong with his bike. He couldn’t get it to turn into the corners. That’s not a good thing when you’re riding the twisties at night! His initial thought was that his front tire pressure was low. Saturday morning he grabbed my tire gauge as he headed out for a ride. He called me later in the day and told me his front tire was fine, but his rear tire only had about 10 psi in it! He had a screw in his brand new Pilot Road 2. He was able to plug it at a gas station and fill it up. He kept an eye on it throughout the day and it seemed to hold up just fine.

While Brett was out riding, I did a little sight-seeing with my wife and her family. We checked out Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
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We spent the rest of the time before the game riding down the PCH from Santa Monica to Malibu. There was a thick haze around Santa Monica, but most of it cleared up by the time we got up to Malibu.
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We got to the game early and had some food with the UH Alumni Association.
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As we were walking to the stadium the sun was going down.
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Roses at the Rose Bowl.
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About to head in…
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From the outside, the stadium looks almost tiny. It isn’t until you get inside that the bowl is sunken into the ground. In fact, you can see trees over the top edge of it, something I never realized before.
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There was a good turnout for the Cougars, considering the game was 1,700 miles away. We would fill in the section more than the picture below shows. I overheard someone say there were just as many UH fans there as Stanford had the week before.
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The boys warming up. Oh how ironic this picture is.
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Woo-hoo, we’re on the board first!
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And it pretty much went downhill from there. For anyone who doesn’t follow college football, the UH season was drastically changed in this game. We lost our Heisman hopeful quarterback (and leader of the team) as well as our back-up quarterback. Terrance Broadway, our 3rd string QB and true freshman, was put into the game mid-way through the 3rd quarter. What a way to start your college career… in the hostile environment of the Rose Bowl stadium, all along thinking there’s no way you’d ever get into the game. When all was said and done, the Cougars looked timid the whole time and were dominated.


We headed back to the hotel. I went to sleep and Brett grabbed a few beers at a nearby bar to drown his sorrows.
 
Great pictures!! Keep that wife for
her understanding in letting you 2
take the bike trip to the Rose bowl!
 
Riding Day 3/4 – Sunday/Monday – 9/19/2010–9/20/2010

Glendale, CA to Humble, TX

There was a lot of uncertainty about the ride back. In my mind, there were two options: 1) ride straight back in one shot (yes, I’m nuts) or 2) ride until night, find a place to camp, and finish the ride the next day. With no alarm set, we woke up at 7 am (California time). We slowly started getting ready to make the long trek back.

The bros.
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We killed an hour and a half between waking up and getting the bikes loaded up. I said goodbye to my wife and she headed back up to the room. She wouldn’t be flying back until Monday. She and her family had tickets to the Dodgers game on Sunday. She snapped a few pictures of us as we rode away from the hotel. We took off at 10:30 am (Texas time). My mind was in Texas time for the remainder of the trip. We topped off the tanks at a station right by the hotel.
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The best part of the ride back would be the first 75 miles or so. I had our route taking us through the Angeles National Forest. After that point, it would all be boring, straight, time-making slab. I wanted to ride SR2 all the way through the forest, but part of it was closed from fires, so we had to take a detour around it. The route we took was 134 from the hotel to SR 2 to I-210 North. We exited Sunland Blvd and took a left on Oro Vista Ave, which turns into Big Tujunga Canyon Rd. We took this to Upper Big Tujunga Canyon Road were we headed South towards SR2. The two Tujunga roads were fun, but nothing to write home about. A good part of this area also suffered from the past fires. It was actually quite depressing riding through there. Once we turned onto SR2, we took a short break.
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The road surface turned excellent, although there was some debris here and there. The fun was just beginning. Just a couple miles down the road from here, two sportbikes coming the opposite direction gave us the “slow down” signal. I assumed it was because of the law man. A couple corners later we realized that wasn’t the case. A guy on a Yamaha had just crashed. There were a couple bikes in the area, but we went ahead and stopped. I made sure the guy was ok and had help on the way. He said he was fine and someone was coming to help him.
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Seeing his bike on the ground reminded me to not do anything stupid and ruin this trip. Here’s the view from where we stopped to check on the downed bike.
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Further down the road I passed a cool scenic overlook and we turned around to stop. Too bad we couldn’t get the bikes in the view as it was a small window between the trees, but well worth the stop.
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A couple of sportbikes ran up behind us, so I pulled over to let them by. Hey, there’s a tunnel… out comes the camera.
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We made one last stop on SR2 before leaving the forest. I was thoroughly impressed. None of these pictures do the real thing any justice.
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The section of SR2 we rode was about 40 miles of pure bliss. It makes my Top 10 list of roads I’ve ridden. Somewhere in the middle we passed Newcomb’s Ranch Bar and Restaurant. It was full of bikes. I would have loved to stop in, but we had no time. We ended up wasting a lot of time in the forest with all the stops. In my mind it was ok because it was the only fun part we would have on the way back, the rest would be superslab.

From here on out we were in autopilot mode. SR2 runs into 138 and we took that to I-15 and started North. I wanted to take a different route back instead of seeing the same sights we did on the way out. Our second stop was in Lenwood, CA.
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Shortly after this stop we took the I-140 exit and headed East. It was nice and warm as the interstate skirts the border of the Mojave National Preserve. Next stop was in Needles, CA. We were right on the border and I’m pretty sure the mountains in the distance were in Arizona. There was a DQ at the station where we stopped and both of us were starving so we got some food. Of course the girl taking the orders was new and somehow Brett got his order in perfectly but mine took forever. Also, it was as if they never have orders for food at this one, only desserts. I think they had to go out back and kill the chicken first for my chicken tender basket. It took a while, and of course I burned the inside of my mouth on the first bite. While we were inside the guy at the Shell Service, also a part of the station, came in and asked us to move our bikes. We were parked in a dangerous spot according to him and he’s seen cars come in and knock over bikes there. So we went out and moved our bikes from the shade into the blistering sun. All in all it was a long and interesting stop.
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Leaving here I could barely make out anything on my LCD display. The heat definitely messed with it. Thankfully it turned out to only be temporary and later it went back to normal. The next gas break was in Seligman, AZ, which claims to be the Birthplace of Route 66.
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It was tempting to try the cuisine out at this place:
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Before we left, Brett came up with his most genius idea ever. He was sick of wearing his Camelbak, so he decided to try to mount it to his massive Nelson Rigg tankbag. It worked and actually fit it perfectly. He was one happy dude and wondered why he didn’t think of it long before.
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As we road on the sun began to set in our mirrors while riding through Flagstaff, AZ.
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The Flagstaff area is beautiful, definitely a place I wouldn’t mind living. It was officially dark by the time we hit the next gas stop in Holbrook, AZ. Due to the late start, lots of stops in the Forest, and traveling backwards through time zones, we had only logged about 580 miles before the darkness set in. 580 miles when we were in need of 1700 to make it home.

Coming into this stop we could see lightning in the dark distance we were headed to. I talked to one guy at the station and he said the good thing is if we ran into a storm it would be moving quickly. Brett joked that we could just wait it out under an overpass… since the nearest one of those would probably be 50 miles. We talked and at the moment we were both fine to keep going on.
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The “Mot” next door was tempting.
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Leaving this gas stop the game changed. Brett had a headlight out, so I took over the lead. I had the bike’s windshield all the way up and my helmet’s faceshield closed as much as possible, while still being able to see. Somehow rain drops still found their way into my eyeballs. Thankfully we only got lightly rained on. Oh, and I forgot to mention, the temperature was dropping. I knocked our average traveling speed way down. I think the speed limit was 75, but I was happy to just follow a semi-truck traveling a consistent 60, indicated. When we were riding alone I couldn’t see anything, so following a truck helped out with vision tremendously. We made our next break in Grants, NM. Here the discussions began about how miserable it was getting.
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The following leg of the route took us through Albuquerque, NM. Before entering the city, I started to struggle with tiredness. The city lights help. We made quick work of the city, since most normal human beings were sleeping at the time. By the next stop in Moriarty, NM, I’m pretty sure Brett hated my guts. It was cold, we were tired, it was dark, and we were nowhere near home. The cold wind in my eyes had them burning right after leaving each stop. Honestly, most of the night riding was a blur to me. We somehow convinced ourselves to keep going. Camping wasn’t much of an option anymore. Every stop pushed back the estimated arrival time on Mr. Zumo. At this point it was telling us we would arrive late afternoon on Monday, and that’s if we didn’t stop.
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I started struggling to stay awake almost immediately this time. Just a few miles down the road we passed a rest stop. I was tempted to stop but there was a sign indicating the next one was another 50 miles. Ok, I can make that. Well, that was the longest 50 miles of my life. I pulled in there and told Brett I had to stop or I was going to fall asleep. The Rest Area was between Santa Rosa and Tucumcari, NM, just East of Newkirk. There were some covered picnic tables so we picked one to stop at. We pulled our sleeping bags off the bike and laid them out next to the table on the slab. We jumped into our bags in full riding gear sans helmet and gloves. It was 4:30 am (New Mexico time) and I set the alarm for 6:00 am. I congratulated Brett on his first (albeit unofficial) Iron Butt ride. We had turned just over 1,000 miles since leaving the hotel.
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I closed my eyes and before I knew it the alarm was going off. It took a minute to get my eyes open, but when I did I felt a bit refreshed. Brett said he never really fell asleep because of my snoring. Whoops!

With the sleeping bags strapped back to the bike, we were rolling again. I did feel much better. We got a little Monday morning sunshine after riding through Tucumcari, NM and then stopped for gas in San Jon, NM.
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Over this next leg we were riding directly into the sun. On one hand this helped keep me away, but on the other it really made me want to close my eyes. We finally crossed back into Texas and rode through Amarillo. On the outskirts of town I pointed the Cadillac Ranch out to Brett. He later said, “that’s it?” Yep, it’s just some cars buried in the ground in the middle of a field. On the East side of Amarillo we exited I-40 for good and headed Southeast on US 287. The next fill-up was at Clarendon.
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I snapped this pic in Clarendon. Subtracting the starting mileage leaving the hotel, we had now gone 1,188 miles in the last 24 hours.
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We kept rolling forward, but there isn’t much to talk about on this stretch of US 287. Having to slow down through each town hurt our time, but helped to wake us up. Iowa Park was the next gas stop.
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We stayed on US 287 all the way through Fort Worth. We hit some traffic after it joined with I-35W, on the North side of Fort Worth. When we were almost through town we made one wrong turn at a confusing intersection of highways. We looped back around and had to go through several lights but eventually made our way back to US 287. We pulled over for gas in Waxahachie. We were about 230 miles away from home, and I was wondering if I could make it without another stop for gas. Since the last stop I felt like my butt was in a torture device. Brett and I talked about how we would struggle in the middle of each leg between gas stops. We generally stopped about every 150 miles or so. The first 50 we would be fine, the middle 50 was a struggle to stay awake, and the last 50 we would be fine again, knowing a stop was on the horizon.
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Amazingly for the rest of the ride home I was wide awake. I guess the thought of finally making it home overrode my exhaustion. We finally made it to I-45 and headed South for the final stretch. As we were heading towards Houston we watched the sun go down. Since we took off from the hotel we had seen the sun rise in California, set in Arizona, rise in New Mexico, and set once again in Texas… all in while in the saddle and on an hour and a half of sleep.

Gas mileage was nowhere near what it needed to be for me to make it all the way home, so once the display started flash at me we pulled over. This landed us in The Woodlands. Brett was in a much better mood now. We were on the cusp of completing a massive ride. Were we crazy? Heck yes! But, the way everything went, if we had stopped and camped somewhere Sunday night, I would have probably had to ride straight to work Tuesday morning.
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We saluted each other and split off at I-45 and Beltway 8. We both made it home safely. When all was said and done, we rode 1,742.4 miles according to my odometer (1,712.6 according to my GPS) in 34 hours. I’m exhausted just thinking about it again.
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I averaged 43.8 MGP for this trip. Connie now has over 27,000 smiles.
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Connie performed flawlessly. I think she has finally forgiven me from my little mishap in Tennessee.
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Thanks for following along.
 
You guys are amazing! I am exhausted just reading this!!
CA is so beautiful and disturbing all at the same time. Can
you imagine crossing over the mountains east to west into
the LA area when all that was there was Orange fruit orchids!!
That was not that long ago, less than 100 years, like 1930's!
Anyway, the fires really miss things up. I remember riding thru
Yosemite in the late 1980's after they had a fire up there. It
was just crazy how it "jumped the road" in places!! Glad you
had a safe trip. And thanks for sharing, it brought back great
memories of past rides. 1.7K miles with 90 minutes sleep, WOW!
Thats more than IRON BUTT, that's more like IRON BROW!!
 
You guys are amazing! I am exhausted just reading this!!
CA is so beautiful and disturbing all at the same time. Can
you imagine crossing over the mountains east to west into
the LA area when all that was there was Orange fruit orchids!!
That was not that long ago, less than 100 years, like 1930's!
Anyway, the fires really miss things up. I remember riding thru
Yosemite in the late 1980's after they had a fire up there. It
was just crazy how it "jumped the road" in places!! Glad you
had a safe trip. And thanks for sharing, it brought back great
memories of past rides. 1.7K miles with 90 minutes sleep, WOW!
Thats more than IRON BUTT, that's more like IRON BROW!!

:lol2:

Thanks for the comments. I'm glad you enjoyed me taking you along for the ride.
 
I forgot to add the google link to the last day's post. It's added at the top now to show the route back.
 
Man thats a ride that will stick with yall forever. Great report, felt almost like i was riding with yall.
 
I told Brett that you posted your trip and he said he wished he would have known because he had some pictures and videos he would have liked to add to it. Maybe he can just add them on to the end of it. Yea right!
 
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