A week riding the COBDR... thanks to our sponsors Quick Steal and True Value

[medicjeff]

Discussion started last October / November between John, Patrick and me about doing the COBDR this summer. John and Patrick were pretty fresh off a CO mostly road ride where they met Mark and rode with him for a few hours one day. Mark is from San Diego but he and John kept in touch and it seems Mark got the itch for adventure motorcycle travel. Patrick is a co-worker of mine at EMS here in Austin and John is a lazy firefighter at station 6 where I work out of on my 12 hour shifts.
The chatter continued for a few more months and it seemed everyone was quite serious about making the trip. John was planning on riding his 1200 GS and Patrick on his 800 GS, although he had a new to him KTM 450 that he was considering riding as well. At the time I had my KTM 450, my Ural and the little TW 200. I didn’t think the ride would be as fun if there were a couple of guys on really fast and nimble dirt bikes while the other guys were on bigger bikes.
Fast forward to January, I bought a 2011 KTM 990 Adventure… my dream bike basically. Everything just lined up for me so I jumped on it. Here it is after a few mods and ready for the trip.

So now the playing field was mostly even (the big KTM is still like cheating). Mark had picked up a new 800 GS Adventure and was busy getting it kitted up nicely.
It looked like a ride was coming together. I bought the Butler Map and we talked and talked and talked about the trip. We watched the BDR website videos to no end. We had a general idea of the time frame but still hadn’t nailed down a departure date. We finally got everyone’s schedules together and decided Me, John and Patrick would leave Austin on July 22, meet up with Mark on the 24 and start the trail.
Again, fast forward to about 2 weeks before launch date and I was working with John when he asks my opinion on a 650 GS from a craigslist ad. He then proceeds to tell me that a good friend of his from Woodland Park CO, a firefighter / paramedic that he used to be roommates with and work with in Woodland Park was considering buying that bike and coming along on the trip. I asked a few questions but I’m about as easy going as they come and John assured me that Mike was a good guy that had dirt biking experience and would fit in fine with the group, and as a bonus would likely provide some entertainment along the way.
Well Mike jumped right in… he bought the bike then proceeded to spend loads of cash getting it and himself ready for the trip. When John told me he had picked up the bike and was now getting ready to roll with us I knew he had to be an alright dude.
Most everyone here that is from Central TX will understand our decision to trailer from Austin to Raton NM and bypass that 700 mile stretch of West TX. There were multiple reasons from saving new tires that were just put on the bikes for the trail to being able to save a day of travel on the way home due to being able to just swap drivers if needed and push through once in the truck. So it was set… July 22 depart Austin for Raton. John found a mini storage place that would let us park our truck / trailer there for $1 / day with a 30 day minimum. SOLD!!! We rolled into Raton late evening and met up with a lady that was running an auction at the storage place for the week. She told us where to park then John asked if it was cool if we pitched our tents for the night as well. She said sure so this was our first night of camping.

The plan was to spend the night in Raton then head to Durango and meet up with Mike along the way. Spend the night in Durango then head down to Cortez CO to meet up with Mark who was trailering his bike from San Diego to Cortez. The actual BDR starts at 4 corners but is 40 miles of street till the off road section starts. We opted to just start from Cortez rather than do 80 miles to just start at 4 corners.
All set to head out.

We took a bit of scenic route to Durango on 12 out of Trinidad since we had all day and it looked like Mike was running a bit late to get started to our meet up spot. Nice weather, scenery and roads.

Heres a few of Patrick helping John with his teletubby gopro mount.

End result…

He was set on getting it high enough so as not to get his helmet in pictures or video. I think he accomplished it all the while looking a bit foolish if you ask me. Not a fan of the gopro design.

So we pushed on now changing our meetup location with Mike to Del Norte. We still had some time so kill so we stopped and had a proper lunch at a brew pub in Alamoso CO, San Luis Valley Brewing Co. Had a really good salad and a couple pints of their porter. Hit the spot.

Met up with Mike at a gas station, topped off and we push onward.

Riding behind John and Patrick.

ME!!!!

We made into Durango in the early afternoon with clear skies and warm temperatures. We stopped off at the grocery store and picked up some steaks and a few cans of beans for dinner then headed up to Junction Creek Forest Service Campground. Really cool spot about 10 minutes outside Durango. I had really wanted to hit Steamworks for a pint of their chili pepper beer called Prescribed Burn. Its fantastic, but after getting camp set up and out of riding gear for a while we were happy to just hang out at camp.

And the group… Mike is sitting, I’m the long haired guy, John is next to me and Patrick is the tall dude in the back.

John grilled up the steaks to perfection and we had a fantastic dinner. We built up a nice fire and just relaxed with a few beers before bed. Tomorrow the ride officially starts. One more shot of John being himself…

Thursday July 24

We wake up excited to get started. We were all up around 0630 and had camp taken down and bikes packed by 0800. We had a short ride down to Cortez to meet up with our 5th rider, Mark.
Rode down to Cortez and hit walmart for some last minute supples.

Stopped off at the gas station next to walmart to top off and that’s where Mark met up with us. Everyone chatted a bit as we prepared to set off on a week of riding together.

And were off… I had the tracks loaded up on my 60CSX but hadn’t messed with it to make the track highlight itself. It was just a line of dots, but Mark had the BMW branded Montana that had a nice highlighted track for us to follow along. This ended up causing me to make wrong turns several times when in front but just a few feet down the wrong road was usually easily picked up when I would look at my position and the track.
When we first hit the offroad sections it took me a while to figure out the big KTM’s dirt manners. The one thing I didn’t address prior to the trip was the suspension. I knew this was going to be an issue with the stock set up but time and money were not in abundance due to a complete kitchen remodel I had started in May. I bottomed the bike out a handful of times the first day but slowly figured out how to hit the water breaks and such and still have fun and not bottom everything out. By the end of the day I was getting dialed into riding the big bike offroad. It was a blast. For the most part the riding wasn’t terribly difficult and everyone was managing the terrain without issue. I didn’t get too many pictures from day one for some reason but I think Mike had his gopro set to snap a photo every 5 seconds so he will be able to contribute loads more. Here are a few I got.

Yes I'm packing firewood left from the night before.

Mike

Posers…

The riding was going along great. We were on track to hit Telluride with plenty of time, so much so we actually talked about going over Ophir, which is the start of section two, then going into Ouray to set up camp for the night. It was a great plan, well until…

As I rolled up to the “scene” Mark made the international sing for “its dead” you know the one, the hand slicing across the neck??
A rock apparently shot off Patricks front tire and precisely made its way THROUGH his Touratech oil filter guard striking the oil filter right in the middle. The filter had a big crease in it and we initially thought the rock put a hole in the filter. After some close inspection it seems the rock spun the filter enough for Patrick’s bike to empty itself of that really important stuff. It was funny because he was pretty close behind me and I hit a couple of relatively straight areas and noticed he wasn’t popping up in my mirrors. I pulled off to wait a bit and after a few minutes thought he had been no more than 30 seconds behind me, I turned the bike around and headed back up the trail. No more than a minute up is where I found the mess.

Sad sad Patrick...

John said he had seen a pretty wide trail of oil and immediately started to pick up the pace to find the leaky bike. He said when he caught up to Patrick he was flailing his arms around and having a bit of a tantrum screaming "I'm done... I'm done". Of course we haven't let that go.

As these things go a plan quickly fell in place. As mentioned before we couldn't see any sign of compromise to the filter itself, but in the spirit of "just to be sure" we filled the crease with Quick Steel and let it set up for a half hour or so. Here is the crease in the filter.

And filled the Quick Steel.

Here's the work party getting it all done.

So what do you do to kill time while your waiting for that magic stuff to set up? Well we had a few beers left over from the night before so lets crack em open since were going to be here a while.

Forgot to mention that when the bike emptied itself and Patrick was riding his oil pressure light came on then he said it started clanking loudly so he immediately shut it off... then threw his tantrum Filter back on the bike.

Ok that was the easy part now who has oil?? Anyone?? Luckily John LOVES to overpack so he had a full quart, and this was Mikes first trip like this so he also had a quart... well nearly a full quart. That was it. We added all the oil we had on hand knowing that someone may had to ride into Telluride to get more. We werent too far out. 20 miles or so. Moment of truth.... started the bike and it sounded horrible. Patrick panicked and shut it down after a few seconds but just as he shut it off I noted a distinct change in the noise, for the better. He started it up again and it idled as if nothing ever happened, albeit with nothing showing on the dipstick. As we were discussing riding down into Telluride babying his bike a road grader came lumbering down the hill. We stopped him and asked him if he had any engine oil and he told us he did and it was in his truck that was just down the hill and we were welcome to use what we needed. Awesome... we geared up and followed him down to his truck and were we were handed this jug of oil.

It took quite a bit. So now he has synthetic 15/50 synthetic 15/40 and dino 10/30 in his engine. The bike seemed happy and motored our way into Telluride.

 

[dfwrider]

Hey Jeff...looking forward to reading about the whole trip.

I got home late last night after riding a lot of the route w 3 of my boys. We did about 1500 miles of mostly dirt roads on a GS 1200 ADV, GS 800, GS 650 and a KTM 1190 ADV.

We have been riding dirt bikes out of Silverton every year, but with all of my boys old enough for licenses, we decided to do a dual sport trip on bigger bikes. We loved the freedom of going where ever we wanted and hopping from town to town. We didn't follow the COBDR route, but we did hit a decent amount of it.

Btw, the oil filter location on my GS 800 scared me to death, so I also upgraded the skid plate to protect it. Never in my wildest imagination would I have thought that wouldn't be enough.

Ken


Divide Road from Montrose to Grand Junction


Start of Los Pinos trail


Obligatory Cinnamon Pass

Ken

 

[Vinny]

 

[kojack06]

You can't bring everything on these trips but this is one case where bringing oil really paid off!

 

[dfwrider]

Btw, there is a 99 cent app on itunes under COBDR that has a GPS track for the route. It's a 132mb file, but if downloaded, it can be used without a cell signal. Not essential, but handy on an ipad or something w a bigger screen than my GPS.

 

[Vinny]

Btw, there is a 99 cent app on itunes under COBDR that has a GPS track for the route. It's a 132mb file, but if downloaded, it can be used without a cell signal. Not essential, but handy on an ipad or something w a bigger screen than my GPS.

Good to know. Thanks.

 

[medicjeff]

Ok so were motoring on toward Telluride with a nice sense of accomplishment. Given the time of day we knew that we were going to be camping in Telluride for the night. Cool… its early enough to get camp set up and wander around town for a bit. Of course that is the perfect world scenario. We just so happen to be on a weeklong off-road motorcycle trip in the mountains of Colorado in late summer. Not the perfect world by any stretch… so here comes the rain. Ok no big deal right? It rains every afternoon in the mountains for a little while. By the time the rain had started we were on a wide two lane graded gravel road so no real issues with impassable mud. The rain continued and got a bit heavier as we left the gravel and onto the tarmac. Now goggles were not helping and face shields were getting foggy but we pressed on as we were near our destination. We hit a small gas station just west of town and pulled in for some shelter. The rain was coming down pretty heavily and the skies were dark in all directions. No worries we will just hang out in the shop and wait it out. So we waited…. and waited…. and waited. Even the store clerk said they hadn’t had rain like this all summer. Freaking great!!! We did have some conversations with people stopping in for drinks and such which is always fun. “So your riding to where? Wyoming? Your camping off the bikes?? How long is that going to take?” You know the conversations. Now, back to our accommodation dilemma for the night… Mike did make some calls to see if he could find us a room in town using his time share but no luck. After well over an hour the rain slowed to a drizzle so we decided it was time to make a move and find a spot to camp for the night. We had to ride 10 or so miles to the Sunshine forest campground down 145 so we set off. We rode into the campground and were welcomed with more heavy rain. The first camp site as we entered the campground was open but we decided to ride around the whole place to see what else was available. Nothing else was open. It was kind of weird as every site had a tent or a trailer on it we didn’t see a single person. I guess we were the only ones out having fun in the pouring rain.

We parked our bikes at the available site and had a little discussion. There was another site down the road, Matterhorn, and of course we wanted something better than we had so John and Mike decided to ride down and check it out while Patrick, Mark and myself kept our bikes on the site but we walked over to the small covered area in front of the vault toilet to get out of the rain. We hung out chatting while the rain continued to fall. Maybe 20 minutes had passed and we saw a bike coming toward us and when we could tell it was a 1200 GS we thought it was John so Mark started waving. The bike stopped on the road in front of the toilet and we saw it wasn’t John, it turned out to be a nice guy from Minneapolis who was just riding around Colorado. He sat on his bike for a few minutes and chatted until Mark urged him to come stand with us and get out of the rain. He shut down his bike and came to our dry little spot in front of the toilet. His name was Chad and he had ducked in here to find a spot to camp for the night. We told him that we had checked the whole place and the spot across from us where our bikes were sitting was the only available spot. We told him that John and Mike were scouting out the other campground down the road but we haven’t heard back from them yet. A few minutes later Patrick’s phone rang but the connection was pretty bad. It was John and he thought he heard “were coming back”. While we waited we continued to talk to Chad about his trip and he asked questions about ours. He was riding roads and seemed intrigued about the concept of riding off road. Sometime in the conversation we had told him he was welcome to pitch a tent with us to which he quickly accepted the offer. John and Mike returned and told us there were 3 available sites at the Matterhorn but they were all underwater and we wouldn’t even be able to ride our bikes up to the sites due to mud.

So this was it… we made a plan for a collective effort in getting tents and rain flies set up quickly as to keep sleeping bags etc dry. The rain had again slowed to a drizzle so we all claimed our little spot and in what seemed like 2 minutes 6 tents with rain flies were now occupying the site. The camp host came around shortly after and collected money, Chad ordered up 3 bundles of firewood and we dug into our bags for dinner, mountain house meals. I’m officially not a fan by the way. Its necessary calories I guess but I would have rather had some mixed nut or jerky. Patrick got busy building the fire, which got pretty big despite the rain and we all boiled up some water to make dinner.

We all stood around the raging fire holding steaming packets of assorted “meals” and told stories and laughed.

A few pics of the spot we stayed.

Mike standing by the fire.

Patrick and Chad talking while Patrick works on getting the fire going.

Heres the little dinner party we had around the fire. Note Marks fancy rain hat.

Another short break in the rain so we took advantage and tried to dry up some riding gear.

Is Mike checking laundering instructions on the label of his pants??

We carried on around the fire well into the night then slowly guys started falling off to their tents. It was after 2300 when I went to bed and it was STILL raining. I’m not too sure what time it finally stopped but I know I woke up after a few hours and rain was still popping along on my tent pretty steadily. I can’t really sleep when it’s not completely dark so I was up with the sun every morning at 0545-0600.

When I emerged from my tent I was greeted by partly cloudy blue skies. I got some water boiling to get me some coffee and one by one the group came out of their tents. We were able to get the fire going again so we could continue drying gear. Mike and I ended up cooking the fingers of our Klim gloves leaving them hanging on the fire ring unattended. No biggie for me as mine were near the end of their life but Mike had just bought his for the trip.

Everyone had their preferred quick breakfast and we started to pack up our wet tents.

We looked at a map with Chad and recommended some spots for him to see that he hadn’t yet been to. He was packed up pretty quick and ready to roll way before we were. Here goes our new friend from MinnesOOHHta… YA. Nice guy… I have his email so I need to shoot him the link to this report.

Safe travels….

We packed up and headed back to the gas station we had sought shelter in yesterday to top off with gas for the day (I know… we sat there for over an hour yesterday and no one thought to get gas) On the ride over to get gas I started to think about today’s ride. Section 2 is the shortest and supposedly the hardest due to all the passes. In 65 miles we were going to cross Ophir, Red Mountain, Corkscrew, Hurricane, California and finally Cinnamon. I was really excited because I had ridden all these in previous trips but on my 450. I also started to think about all the rain that fell yesterday and that Ophir was likely going to be soaked as the start of it was only down the road from where we camped. At the gas station I brought up the option of taking an alternate road route ( I know I know) and getting over to 550 and bypass Ophir. I merely threw it out an option knowing that we were on big bikes loaded down about to head up into the San Juan’s. Luckily the group was having none of it… let’s just go for it and if we have to turn around we have to turn around. I like it!!! Gassed up we took off to tackle section 2.

We turned off the tarmac onto the gravel road and noticed a Jeep and a DR650 heading toward us. I stopped the rider on the DR and asked him if he had come over Ophir and if so how it was? He said he had and there were some big puddles but otherwise he said it was fine. Fantastic… that’s what we wanted to hear. So we move forward.

I immediately was in “stupid grin on my face” mode. We rode up and up and up. The skies were blue and the trail was a blast. I grabbed a few pics on the way up and have some video as well. As a matter of fact, I have about 100 video clips that I have been sifting through. There were 3 more helmet cameras too so there will be no shortage of video. Mine are still unedited because I really don’t have the time right now. I’ll put up a few here and there if you’re interested in watching.

Ok back to the good stuff. Here’s the guys coming up.

The summit of Ophir.

More bikes on Ophir.

The last little push up to the summit is pretty rocky and loose. I loved it…. Mark on the other hand wasn’t too impressed. Mark is a solid rider and is really into vintage MX bikes. No, he’s REALLY into vintage MX bikes. I’ll let him chime in on that if he wants to. Ok that being said, he lives in San Diego and off road riding for him and his buddies back home is riding down to Baja through sand and whoops. Totally different that loose big rocks in the mountains. He was having fun but he had never ridden on anything like it. We pushed on to the next pass.

Riding up to Red Mountain Pass was pretty easy. Nice road that you could see CO 550 from. There were quite a few water puddles but the good stuff was right before the old mining ruins. A little switchback through a couple of mud holes then a steep ascent to the top. I happened to get that one on video. Oh…. The talking you hear is not me talking to myself. With the exception of Mark we all had Sena head sets in our helmets so we talked to each other a lot while riding. Heres the video going up….

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voI_oJkl47w"]Red Mountain mud hole - YouTube[/ame]

A couple pics at the top. There was a guy in a Jeep with his son that rides too and he offered to take the group picture of us.

After a little break we were off again. I got up ahead a bit and snapped some photos of the group coming down the trail.
Here comes John.

Mike…

Mark…

I can’t stop taking pictures of that thing.

Patrick enjoying the ride. This is as good a time as any to share our nickname for Patrick…. Schnabel. I think one of the firefighters at engine 6 put it together. That show gold rush is great for mindless TV watching while on shift sitting around the station in between calls. Parker Schnabel is a kid on the show whos grandfather was in the gold business now the kid is. They bear a striking resemblance.

At a turn off to start heading up toward Cinnamon we took a break. We met that couple on an 800 GS and talked to them for a bit. They were from New Mexico and headed to Creede.

Mark taking a breather.

Ok break over lets ride. We rode up some pretty run terrain and switchbacks heading up to Cinnamon. It was quite the party once we made it up.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPw_FT4wxOM"]Traffic going up cinnamon pass - YouTube[/ame]

Up top.

The guys coming up Cinnamon.

And everyone is up.

Now time to ride into Lake City for some lunch.

 

[Irishcoffee]

Keep it coming. Reminder that its been far too long since I've been up there.

 

[mr-roboto]

John does a great job with the big BMW GSA on those rough passes.



Nice pictures!

RB

 

[JasonJ]

loving it, hope there is more.

hoping to be doing that trip next year.

 

[bugg77]

loving it, hope there is more.

hoping to be doing that trip next year.

Not without me, and buy your bike already!

 

[medicjeff]

Oh there's more.... there's much more.


We had an easy ride into Lake City and pulled into the parking lot of the general store just after 1400. We discussed the plan for the evening and getting some food. The consensus was that a hotel for the night would be a good idea given the soggy night we had last night. As we discussed hotel options we noticed the Wagon Wheel Cabins right across the street from where we were. There was a “vacancy” sign up so Patrick crossed the street to have a look. He went into the office and a minute later came out and was shown a pretty good sized cabin and given the rate. He came back across the street and let us know what he found out. Basically a cabin with 2 king size beds, one full size bed and fold out couch with a full kitchen for about $25.00 per person. That’s a no brainer so we all crossed the street and parked in our spot and booked the cabin. The sun was out so we all took advantage and laid out all of our wet tents and clothes that needed drying. I had a bunch of cord so we fashioned a few clothes lines in the back. Here’s our cabin in Lake City.

Here’s the inside…

The drying operation…

Once all the wet stuff was hanging out to dry and everyone had a shower we crossed the street for dinner at Poker Alices. I had a bison burger and it really hit the spot. They do pizzas and calzones as well which is what John, Mike, and Mark had. The leftovers were boxed up and we exited to cross back over to our place. Outside on the patio I saw a couple of guys in riding gear looking over a Butler Map of Colorado and their bikes, 2013 1200 GSA’s. I went over to have a chat and within the minute our group was sat down around their table talking about our trips. They were a couple of characters from Ann Arbor Michigan. They were trying to ride as much of Colorado as hard as they possibly could. Their bikes showed it too. They had some good stories about Hagerman Pass which was good info as we would be crossing it on day 4. We hung talking while they had their dinner then left them to finish. We invited them across the street when they finished eating for a beer and more story telling.

As we walked back to the cabin 4 bikes pulled up to the office of the Wagon Wheel. 2 KTM 990’s and 2 KTM 690’ fitted with rally raid kits. Sick bikes…

The 2 guys on the 990’s ended up staying right across from our place. We talked a bit when they parked as they off loaded gear. They were two brothers riding with their father and uncle. They were from Oregon and rented a uhaul box truck and drove it with their bikes in the back to Oklahoma if I remember right. They got rid of the uhaul and now were riding the TAT back home to Oregon. They had suffered some side bike damage from Hagerman Pass as well. Im thinking Hagerman sounds like fun.

We all worked on getting our dried out gear re packed as the rain clouds were approaching. We got everything packed up in time but the rain was just a quick light shower. We hung out on the porch having some beers when one of the Michigan guys rode up, Andrew. He said he and Notaro (I think was his buddies name) decided to head up toward Cinnamon Pass to camp for the night and that Notaro was at the liquor store grabbing some beer. I offered him a cold Shiner Bock and we picked up the conversations from earlier. Mark asked him to stand next to his bike so that he could get a picture of him and his bike to which Andrew responded “sure but hang on a second” He then knocked his bike over on its side and struck a pose.

He called Notaro and told him where he was and shortly after he turned up. They hung out for a good half hour or so and continued to entertain us with their travel stories. I noticed Notaro had an iron butt bun burner license plate frame and asked him about it. He rode 1500 miles from Albuquerque to Detroit in 22 hours. In telling the story of his ride he told us his then girlfriend rode 2 up with him and she read books on her kindle the whole time, and every gas stop he filled his camel back with coffee and ice. They were both funny as **** to talk to and it sounds like push the limits when riding. Andrews story about killing his 950 was hilarious. They decided to head out so that they could find a camping spot before dark.

We moved our little party to the kitchen table where we reviewed videos from the day and just hung out talking. I had invited the other KTM riders over and Ian, one of the brothers stopped by to talk for a bit. He said the others were about done for the day but he stuck around for a while showing us maps of their route.

Beds started calling and one by one everyone turned in for the night.

I slept pretty good but was awake by 0700 due to all the sunlight coming through. We packed our bikes and geared up then hit Poker Alices for breakfast on our way out to section 3.

Good and full we rolled out of Lake City to get back on the trail. It was shaping up to be a gorgeous day. Heres a little bit of the road heading out of Lake City.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da23WMpoSE0"]Scenic ride out of lake city - YouTube[/ame]

The start of section 3 was wide fast graded roads. Its the longest section on the route… 144 miles according to the map. We rode at a pretty good pace but took time to stop for a few picture breaks.

Not sure what Patrick is up to right here.

Wide open fast roads.

On one of our stops I noticed one of my LED lights was dangling by the wiring. The bracket that holds the light to the crash bar bracket had broken. I did notice on advmonster where I bought the lights they sell an upgraded heavy duty bracket but didn’t think to order them. I will now. So John and I made quick work of it with some zip ties and gorilla tape for good measure.

It still looks just like this while sat in my garage.

A few more pictures from that spot.

The ride continued on these wide roads and then all of a sudden the GPS led us off the main graded road to a small rocky two track that seemed to wind its way through a wide open remote area. Mark and I double checked our GPS’s and yes we were on the right trail. This stuff was pretty fun. Well until it wasn’t….

It really wasn’t a big deal. I was riding along pretty close behind Mark who was leading when he kind of skipped out a bit. I thought I better back off a little to give him some room just in case. Well I’m back a bit farther now just riding along enjoying myself when I saw a big rock coming up right in my path so I made a little adjustment to clear it to the left. Well I didn’t adjust enough, I caught the left side of the rock that caused me to leave the trail and go on a little “side trip”. Pretty much as soon as I left the trail there was about 1 or so foot deep little wash that was about 2 feet wide that I proceeded to barrel right into. I got launched a little on my way out of it and landed on the bike with both feet on the ground and came to a stop. Unfortunately the bike was leaning a bit too much for me to muscle back up so instead of injuring myself trying to right the bike I just jumped off it and let it drop. Well here see for yourself. I had my camera running.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1Hc5l_qCn8"]Jeff down - YouTube[/ame]

I couldn’t get my footing good enough to lift the bike uphill so I needed some help getting it up. This turned out to be a really good thing. Mike and Patrick stopped and were putting their side stands down when John rode up and started yelling at Patrick that there was fluid coming out from the bottom to lay his bike over. Patrick panicked a little and tried to pull it over toward him, the side stand side then John jumped off his bike and pushed it over to the other side. Well that stupid flimsy piece of crap touratech filter guard FAILED AGAIN. This time a rock smacked the bash guard so hard it was pushed back into the oil heat exchanger. The impact pulled the metal bottom part away from the exchanger enough to let coolant spew out. It also broke nearly all the mounting bolts for the aluminum engine bash guard under the bike.

So here we are again, seriously in the middle of nowhere, with Patrick’s bike not feeling well.
We took the guards off and had a look see what we were dealing with. Yep it was confirmed what was compromised and a plan was discussed. It was really our only option and as it turned out was the best option. QUICK STEEL!!!! Coolant was still dribbling out so we raised the front of the bike and propped it up on some rocks while on its side and I dabbed at the coolant that was still seeping out. After about 10 minutes or so I came to the realization that it was not going to stop completely so I cut off a chunk of quick steel and got to work mixing it up in my palm. I started applying it in a small bead forcing it into the opening. I worked it in and had a long strip of it in there now and no sign of coolant. Now it was time to pile it on. Here is how it turned out.

You can see both the filter and the exchanger quick steel repairs. What are the odds??

So now we have some time to kill to let it set up. As usual we were carting some left over beers from last night and I had the left over pizza and calzone in a Tupperware container that I used as my plate while at camp. We had an impromptu pizza party on the trail.


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuZoVPXV-PQ"]Bike repair and pizza party - YouTube[/ame]

We gave it about 40 minutes to set up then stood the bike up. Bone dry great… now start it up. Started the bike and ran it for a minute or so and no sign of any leaks. Success!!! We topped off the radiator with water from a camel back and it didn’t take much then shut it down to put everything back together.

John “reshaping” the skid plate.

Patrick working on getting it all put back together.

So remember nearly all the bolts were sheared so we had to get the thing attached somehow. I pulled some wire from my repair kit and John got to work getting it strapped up and in place.

One last inspection and I think were good.

We geared up and set off up the trail. We got up to where Mark had been relaxing in his chair waiting for us and set off for Buena Vista.

Once we got off the two track we were on it was nothing but smooth graded roads until we hit the Taylor Park OHV area. The trail moved us along some relatively easy trails but we encountered water crossings and sand.

I only got a few videos from Taylor park. It was stupid fun.

**Language warning... in these videos we were all talking and there is generally profanity involved. I couldnt hear any in this video but it wouldnt surprise me if there is some.**

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfgbMhWsoRw"]OHV park fun trails - YouTube[/ame]

** Language warnning. There is definitely some profanity in this video.**

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKCAaTHCJos"]OHV park fun 2 - YouTube[/ame]


A few water crossings.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcgEx6da048"]Long water crossing - YouTube[/ame]


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3r49W2rVW4"]Jeff water crossing fail - YouTube[/ame]


As we were leaving Taylor Park I was riding along then I say a rider off the road but facing uphill toward the road. I thought to myself what is this idiot doing and how did he get there? As I slowed to help the guy I noticed the bike and helmet looked very familiar. It was Mike!! He is familiar with these trails and tried to take a pretty tough short cut up to get in front of us. He didnt quite make it.

We got back on fast smooth graded road until we hit tarmac heading into Buena Vista. Mike was familiar with a camp ground on our route so that was our destination.


We stopped off at a fairly large camp ground called Collegiate Peak I believe and had a ride around looking for a site. There was one vacant site but it had a piece of paper indicating it was reserved from yesterday till tomorrow. The camp ground was really big and really full. On our way out we went to talk to the camp host and then noticed the sign saying camp ground full. Mike talked to the host and asked him about the site that was reserved from yesterday but was empty. They guy told us we could have it if we wanted it so we jumped on it as it looked like rain was close and it was getting late. John and Mike went to claim the site and put up tents and me and Patrick head into town for dinner supplies… and beer of course. Mark was not too keen on camping tonight so he headed into town to find a hotel for the night.

We decided on something simple for dinner so we grabbed a few packages of brats and some tortillas, some beans and some chips and salsa. Packed up our groceries and headed back out to the camp ground.

We got camp set up and got our fire going and grilled up our dinner. Pretty chill night and not sure why I didn’t get any pictures. I’m pretty sure at least one of the others got a few.

 

[JasonJ]

hey Jim, make sure we put beer and pizza in with the tools!

 

[bugg77]

I love how you guys roll. I'll add pizza, beer, and some cooler to our packing list for our trip next year... Oh yeah, and lots of quicksteel.

 

[ThomasM]

Is Poker Alice's still for sale? I talked to the Waco couple that owns (owned?) it when I did the COBDR last year and they were trying to sell the business, real estate and all. I'm glad it's at least it's still open for now.

 

[medicjeff]

Is Poker Alice's still for sale? I talked to the Waco couple that owns (owned?) it when I did the COBDR last year and they were trying to sell the business, real estate and all. I'm glad it's at least it's still open for now.

I didnt see any indication that it was for sale. Both times we ate there it was very busy.

It may have sold and the new owners are running with it.

 

[The Bruce]

good times. Keep it coming.

 

[medicjeff]

We sat around in camp and the discussion turned to crossing Hagerman Pass tomorrow and Patrick’s fragile under carriage. Since we were now in Mikes backyard he said he could make a call or two and try to see if he could maybe find a welder to fab up something to protect Patrick’s bike better. Ok cool we would sort that in the morning,. We enjoyed our fire and a few beers. John had a been carrying a few nice cigars so he pulled those out and we enjoyed them by the fire. It was a good night. We’re having a great ride thus far despite a few mechanical issues. Honestly I don’t recall a ride I have ever done of any distance that was off road where something or somebody didn’t end up busted. It just kind of goes with it and that’s part of the fun and adventure. Coming together and solving a problem and riding on.

We all called it a night and hit the sleeping bags.

When I woke at sun up I felt great and was looking forward to another day riding with these guys. It was a slightly chilly morning so I was getting to my coffee making. We all were up and moving around when a guy from the camp site right next to us walked over. John greeted him and he asked us about checking in before we set up camp here. John told him that we had seen the reserved ticket but talked to the camp host since the check in date had past and the site was empty we were told we could have it. We paid for the site and set up. Well this guy had it reserved and we threw a huge monkey wrench in his weekend. He and his wife had brought his 15 year old daughter and their 15 year old niece camping. The two girls were a little apprehensive about sleeping by themselves in the tent all night so he and his wife stayed with them the first night to show them there was nothing to it. The plan was to then set up their tent on the adjoining site away from the kids on the next night. Yeah I know… we really felt bad. The guy was super cool about it though. He hung out and talked for quite a while. He even offered us some coffee. We apologized profusely but he assured us it was no big deal. He even brought over some lemon cake for us to have as he said they had way too much food and were leaving today also.

We broke camp relatively slow as we had been making good time every day up to now even with the hour and half repair delays. By the time the bikes were loaded up and we were rolling it was nearly 1000. We were just outside the entrance to the camp ground when Patrick and got off his bike to inspect his front tire… his flat front tire. Yep he had a freaking flat. We were out of cell phone range so we decided to send Mike ahead to call Mark and let him know what was up. He would also use the time to try to find a welder that would be able to make some sort of protection for Patrick’s bike.

We dug in and got the tube changed out in about 30 minutes. It looks like he must have had a small pinch flat that was leaking slowly. He had a huge ding in his rim that was new so the pinch flat made sense. Although, I have never seen a pinch flat leak that slowly. Oh well who cares its flat now and needed to be changed. Ok flat sorted… we ran into town and met up at the designated shell station where Mark was talking to a couple on a new Tiger. They were just in the process of gearing up to leave when we arrived so we didn’t get to hear about their trip.

By this time its about 1045 and Mike called and said he was on his way back to meet up with us. He had found a welder willing to work on the bike but he was in Leadville. The thinking was take the road to Leadville, about 30 minutes, have the welder figure something out and get it put on, then ride back to Buena Vista and get on the trail so that that we don’t miss anything. Well the math wasn’t really working out in our favor in the time category. We started talking about just fabbing up something ourselves. There is a True Value hardware store at the top of town so John called Mike and told him to meet us there. We had some ideas….

We moved down the road to find they didn’t open till 1100. We only had to wait a few minutes then an employee rode up on a cool old Honda CB and parked up on the curb. Mark caught him and told him what we were thinking. We had already come up with an idea / design plan. The guy said yeah they possibly had what we were looking for and they would open the doors shortly.

We were ushered in when they opened up and the guy on the Honda took us to where they had aluminum plate. We grabbed a sheet and thought this was perfect. We asked if they had some tools we could borrow to get our ghetto fabulous skid plate mounted up. He quickly went to a work bench and grabbed a cordless drill and had us gather the u bolts and other bolts we were going to use so he could get us the right sized bit. We moved the bike toward the back of the store where they had a door he left open for us to come into the store and grab what we needed and fit it to the bike. We kept a running tally of all the hardware we used.

Mike called the welder in Leadville and told him we were going to sort it out here so we wouldn’t be coming to his shop.

Here’s John marking where the holes needed to be for the u bolts to attach the plate to the crash bar brace across the front.











Holes drilled and upper mounts attached plate to the bike. Its coming together just as planned.






Now we have to drill the bottom and attach it to the existing plate.






While all this was going on John pointed out a puddle of what looked like fuel under my bike. Sure enough there was fuel running down the inside of my left gas tank. Well crap… I got to work pulling the crash bar then some of the upper faring plastic and found the source. Luckily it was just the fuel overflow vent. The hose that routes overflow fuel down and under had come apart so the fuel was just dribbling down the inside of the tank. Man what a relief I thought I had a big problem. I reattached the line and started reassembly.





While I addressed my problem the rest of the guys were making some great progress.

More bolts.





We also used a couple of large diameter hose clamps to reinforce the wire job we did to hold the original skid plate to the bike. This thing wasn’t going anywhere, and if it did we were going to have bigger problems because it was stout. Mike was put a few air holes in and we were ready to roll. Bring on Hagerman!!!





It took a little over an hour to get the plate done and cost $65.00. We left Buena Vista and got back to the route. We again found ourselves on relatively fast graded gravel roads. There were a few sections of riding tarmac as well so the miles moved along pretty quickly. We were again trying to stay in front of some rain. My picture taking tapered off considerably as the roads were easy and the scenery was pretty similar to the previous days.

Riding up to Weston Pass wasn’t anything too exciting other than the dark clouds closing in on us. This is where I kind of cracked a bit. I felt that we needed to be moving a faster so that we could finish off the section before dark due to our late start. I admit I got a little frustrated and after waiting for John and Mike at a fork in the road because they stopped to get rain gear on, we made it to the top of the pass and they stopped. I saw Mike get off his bike and start taking his helmet off so I decided I would just ride up ahead a bit as Patrick was already working his way down. I had no idea that Mike was getting a temperature light that he needed to trouble shoot.

I followed Patrick for a while then he slowed a bit so I passed him. I kind of just zoned out as the riding was a bit tougher with lots of rocks and the need to pick good lines. I was just concentrating on riding smooth picking my way through the rocks and then before I knew it I was on the tarmac again. I thought to myself they would catch up shortly so I pulled off at the highway intersection, took off my helmet and called my wife. I was missing her so the conversation did me a world of good. It was taking the guys a lot longer than I had expected so I was a minute or so from heading back to find them. Just as I’m thinking this I see them pop up on the horizon coming down the road. Cool… they rode up and I was told they thought I had crashed when they hadn’t caught up to me so they ended up back tracking looking on the sides of the trail for me. I really felt horrible and apologized later for being an inconsiderate ******* and just leaving. They were all cool and told me they were just glad I wasn’t crashed on the side of the trail.

We had a little more tarmac then the infamous ride up to Hagerman Pass. We encountered quite a few Jeeps, side by sides and ATV’s heading up toward Hagerman.

Then, all of a sudden, the riding stared to get real. We were on a very rocky uphill trail that required you undivided attention. I was thinking about the stories from the other guys trip over Hagerman and was wondering when it was going to get stupid tough. Well it really never did… I mean it was rough going but I LOVED it. I chased Patrick for a while getting some good video. Here you can get an idea of what it was like. Again, not ridiculously tough but tough enough and really really fun. I again found myself grinning like an idiot.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnjtQJ0tDhI"]Up Hagerman - YouTube[/ame]

On to the top.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObeGpSQZUJo"]Top of Hagerman pass - YouTube[/ame]
















Alright then, that was Hagerman Pass. It wasn’t as bad as it was in my mind. We came to the conclusion that the other riders that suffered bike damage on it were likely just riding the piss out of their bikes and got a bit crossed up.

As we descended down toward Gypsum the trail was actually easier. We came up the more difficult route, in my opinion.

The rest of the ride was pretty easy once off the pass. We managed to stay in front of the rain for the most part all day. As we headed into Gypsum it was definitely getting late and we were looking at getting caught setting up camp in the dark. We discussed the plan for the evening as we rode and decided to get into Gypsum and get gas and eat dinner. We were all pretty hungry and my gas guzzler we running pretty low. On the route toward Gypsum we passed what looked to be the perfect camp spot. It was well off the road, had a fire ring and a table and was situated right along a cool little stream. We were still about 15 miles from Gypsum though.

We hit the gas station and talked about that camp site. We decided not to decide anything until we ate. There was a little restaurant right around the corner so we stopped in there and grabbed a table out on the patio and ordered up some beers and food. I had the chicken fried steak…. It wasn’t like cfs here that’s for sure. First off it was served with brown gravy and they used too much salt and sage in the breading for my taste.

After dinner the discussion didn’t take too long for everyone to agree on a hotel for the night. We rode over to Eagle just down the road and grabbed rooms at a Comfort Inn and settled in for the night.

A hot shower and some fancy Bota Box red wine whilst watching some tv from a nice soft bed was fantastic.
Tomorrows route is supposed to be super easy with the exception of a water crossing called Beaver Pond south of Steamboat Springs.

Sleep time.

 

[bsheet2]

Nice ride, nice report!

 

[RacerJohn]

Hey Jeff and all,

Great ride rpt!
Love the details, the pics and the vid.
Amazing job fabricating the skid plate!

Looking forward to more!

 

[medicjeff]

I forgot to mention while we were at True Value making that skid plate a couple of the employees came out every now and then to have a look at our progress and most likely to just see what the **** we were actually trying to get done. They seemed pretty entertained by our little project.

We woke up nice and rested after spending the night in a very comfy bed. Breakfast was included with the room so we had a bite to eat then started getting the bikes loaded up.
We rode back to Gypsum and got back on course to get to Steamboat Springs.
We again were on fast graded roads that took the occasional detour to make the route more interesting. It was pretty scenery but not hard riding. I could feel the ride winding down as all the research I did spoke of the last 2 sections being easy and fast. I read conflicting reports on Beaver Pond, some said it could be really deep and to stay to the right and others said it was no big deal. From what I read it sounded like it was close to Steamboat so I was looking forward to that.

At one point I don’t recall the lake but as we came around and got the lake into view I thought the scenery was nice so I decided to grab a little video footage. You can see I changed the mounting location down to the crash bars. I experimented with the camera down there in NM a few months ago but at higher speeds the video “jelloed” a bit on the outsides. I was wondering if it would be any better at lower RPMs even on gravel roads. Anyhow… here is what happened while riding by the lake.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ifoZatnlXM"]Deer!! - YouTube[/ame]

For those of you who remember my incident 3 ½ years ago I’m not too fond of seeing deer in front of me while riding a motorcycle.

Luckily I saw him running alongside me on my right so I had both brakes covered and started to decelerate a bit. That’s about when he decided to cross the road in front of me. I tapped the back brake but didn’t require anything drastic. Thankfully.

We continued along riding smooth fast gravel then got off that on some Jeep roads then we came up on a water crossing. It wasn’t long or deep so after we crossed it I thought to myself Ok… the big crossing should be coming up. Well we rode and rode and rode then we were on tarmac, then we were in Steamboat. Well crap that was beaver pond. Oh well… I did get some video of it.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtHjrlUIPXw"]Beaver pond - YouTube[/ame]

We were in Steamboat pretty early afternoon… about 1400. This was the end of section 5 so we decided to find a place to have a proper sit down lunch. We ended up in The Tap House. I think we all had burgers and a few of us had a couple pints of some local beers. Here’s downtown Steamboat.

During lunch we discussed our next move and decided to go ahead and continue on to Steamboat Lake State Park and camp there for the night. It looked like we had about 40 miles or so to get there. We left the restaurant and topped off with fuel and hit the grocery store for a few camping supplies then set off.

The riding was again fast and smooth through very pretty country. Lots of farm land. We ended up riding nearly 50 miles when we made it to the State Park. We rode around trying to see if there was a store we could get fire wood from and a park ranger to clarify some camping questions we had about 5 bikes and day use fees posted. We accomplished both. The marina was closed but there was a guy that worked there still on site so I asked if we could take some bundles of wood and come back and pay in the morning. He said no problem so we grabbed 3 bundles and got them strapped down then set off to find our spot.

We didn’t have to go too far but it was surprisingly stable.

We rode around and finally found a nice relatively secluded spot and set up for the night. We had originally planned on grilling up some steaks but with the late lunch of ½ pound burgers we were pretty content to eat the dehydrated food we were carrying. I made my red beans and rice but really didn’t eat much of it. Like I said earlier, I’m not a big fan.

Here’s Patrick’s bike with his new skid plate at our site.

All the bikes.

We sat around the fire and talked and laughed. This was the last night the whole group would be together. The ride is really nearly over.

Good night sleep and wake up to a nice morning. Got some coffee made and we all started slowly getting camp packed up.

We rolled out of the Park and started our push to Wyoming. The rest of the ride was smooth gravel roads through farm land. We encountered the most traffic of the whole trip on the last section. We rode through 3 forks ranch and it was insane. The size of the main structure and the water fall along the driveway was unbelievable. Take a look here… http://www.threeforksranch.com/?gclid=CMfa88qjncACFQwEaQodm1sAzA
While we were on this last part of our ride I kept looking down at my GPS seeing we were right at the Colorado / Wyoming state line. Soon after I saw the BDR track just end…. It stopped at an intersection in nowhere Wyoming. We parked the bikes shared hugs and handshakes. We did it… despite all the curve balls we were thrown we pulled together and made the ride that we had been planning for months happen.
We arranged the bikes for some photos and noticed a bulletin board type thing at the intersection with a few stickers on it. There was a Touratech and a BDR sticker. Riders had initialed the board with dates as well.
Here’s the board.

Mark making his… uhh “mark”.

After everyone else made theirs.

Before we arranged the bikes.

Group shot of some bad *** dudes.

Yes, we are all grown ups.

We saved beers from the night before for a little toast.

More initials and dates.

There’s a little inside joke to these. Patrick is very often the butt of many jokes because he’s quite the character. When he starts to get piled on his answer is “D*** punches for everyone!!”

Mike and Mark.

John and Mark.

Patrick and Mark.

Me and Mark.

Here’s the last photo from the trip. It’s a real winner too.

We all said our goodbyes to Mark as he was going to head west then back south to Cortez to get to his truck and trailer. Once he set off we changed gears to “lets go home” mode. It was still before noon and our plan was to ride down to Woodland Park CO, where Mike lives and stay there for the night. The forecast again wasn’t too promising. We started back along the way we came but once we had the option of riding tarmac back to Steamboat we jumped on that and moved on.

We stopped off in Steamboat to top off with gas and met a group finishing up the BDR as well. They were from NM with the exception of one guy who was from Sweden. These guys had raised enough money to pay for the Swede to come over and ride with them. He flew into Dallas and someone there lent him their KLR and he rode it to NM to meet up with this group and ride the BDR. We chatted till they were ready to make their push to Wyoming.

We rode down through Breckenridge and made our way down to Woodland Park. Only got some light rain so that was nice.

We arrived at Mike’s house and his wife, son and daughter greeted everyone in the driveway.
Johns mother in law lives in Woodland Park as well and had offered to make us dinner. John took one of Mike’s cars to his MIL’s house to get cleaned up and we showered up at Mikes. John came back and picked up me and Patrick and we headed back to his MIL’s house.
Becky had made us green chile chicken enchiladas. They were fantastic as was the company. We sat and talked for a few hours and could have continued on but John had some former co workers waiting for us at a local bar to catch up.

We took off to meet up with Johns buddies and hung out for a few hours down there.

Patrick and I crashed at Mikes and John went back to his MIL’s for the night.

Morning came stupid early again and we started getting bikes ready for the last little push down to the truck. John turned up and we said our goodbyes to Mike and rode off… in the rain. As we rode down toward Colorado Springs the rain continued, not too heavy but it was definitely raining. Once we got to I25 the rain was really coming down. We jumped on the highway, put our heads down and ate up some miles. I was pretty dry except for my hands. My rain gloves were sitting in my garage back in Austin. Wouldn’t have been too big a deal but it was chilly and my fingers ended up cold and numb.

We made a quick little rest stop before Trinidad to grab a snack and warm up a bit then rode down into Raton. As soon as we got into Raton the rain stopped and the sun started to shine through the clouds.
There was a running joke about the truck and trailer being stolen while we were gone but luckily it was right were we left it.

We loaded up and stopped off at Subway for a quick lunch then we started the long boring drive home.

We got more rain along the way and sitting in the truck I was really happy we decided to trailer.

The drive was uneventful. We stopped off in Liberty Hill and off loaded Patricks bike so he could just ride it home from there. He lives in Georgetown. We got to my house just before midnight and I got my bike and gear off the trailer and John set off to Lago Vista where he lives.

Jane had fallen asleep on the sofa waiting for me so I woke her up to let her know I was home then she went off to bed. I showered then got a text from Patrick saying he made it home safe. John also sent a text saying he was also safe at home.

SUCCESS!!!

What a trip, what a ride. Can’t wait for the next one.

 

[JasonJ]

outstanding ride report! thanks for taking the time to write it up. cant wait to try this trip.

 

[bugg77]

So the big question is what would/will you do differently next time?

Different route at all or the same? Any advice for fellow Austin-ites looking to make the same trip?

 

[Vinny]

Great report. I can't wait till your next adventure.

 

[The Bruce]