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New Mexico BDR, and Adventure for sure

JQ1.0

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Feb 15, 2013
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Location
Graham, Texas
My son Justin and I had a great ride on the BDR. My oldest son McKinley was supposed to go with us, but some issues prevented his going. We had no plans other than to park in Albuquerque, ride south to San Antonio, NM, get on the BDR and ride it to completion in Antonito, Colorado. We had studied the Butler map and had a pretty good idea of where we could camp, but our main objective was just to ride. I'll also add that we do camp occasionally, but we are not campers. We were prepared to camp with tent, 20 deg sleeping bags, tent heater and fuel cans, Cliff bars, jerky, self heating meals and water, and actually planned to, but prefer a warm bed if we can find it. I'm glad to say we found a room every night.

Left Graham Saturday 5-14, got back in at 3 in the morning Friday 5-20. We parked at the PARK and RIDE for $3.50 day next to the airport Super 8 in Albuquerque Sat night.
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Sunday day1
Rode 80 miles south to San Antonio NM Sunday morning where we picked up the BDR, and rode half of section 2 to Truth or Consequences. 105 miles of mostly flat, straight, very dusty dirt road at about 5000 ft. Went into T or C for lunch and ate at Passion for Pie. The Croissant that held the Tuna Melt was excellent. I think it would be an excellent place for breakfast.

Elephant Butte Lake Dam was nice but the Lake looked extremely low.

We had planned to camp at Elephant Butte Lake State Park, but we were making pretty good time so decided to push on. Picked out a likely camping area close to Reserve off the Butler Map and continued on. Lot of elevation changes from T or C to Reserve. Elevations from ~ 4500 ft up to ~ 9600 ft and back down to 5800 in Reserve. Stopped in Winston for gas and a soda. Met a lady from Michigan riding solo on a bagged Harley. She had quit her job as an accountant March 16 and had been riding since. She had been riding the back roads in New Mexico for about a week and had covered a good bit of the state. Said she was going to ride until she needed to refill the bank account, and then would go back to work. Her next stop was Chloride, just down the road. Visited with her about 45 min, she left on the pavement and we left on the dirt. Saw her bike once more as we passed thru Chloride. Chloride Canyon was a hoot. Lots of elevation changes, beautiful landscapes and animals large and small. Rocky hill to climb and descend with lots and lots of rocks and switchbacks. One of the best parts of the BDR that we rode.

Again we were making good time so we rode all of section 3 to Reserve +-365 total miles the first day. We stayed at the Frisco Lodging Company. Talked to a lady from a phone on the wall of the office. She took our info and CC and gave us the combination to a safe containing the room keys. She also recommended a place to eat. Little Adobe Cafe where she was working. It was about 8 miles out of reserve on Hwy 180 south of hwy 12 and the food and service were excellent. The room was clean, had TV, cable, Internet and
lots of hot water for a shower. Started about 7 am and finished about 7 pm.

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Monday day 2
Section 4 Reserve to Fence Lake and section 5 to Grants +- 250 miles. Justin had 2 flats early which we repaired on the trail and I had one just as we pulled in to McDonalds in Grants. I'm sure the folks there got a kick out of seeing me unload the bike and pull the rear tire and break it down and patch it while Justin was off trying to find new tubes. The only tools I had were a 8" crescent and a pair pliers. Yes, it can be done. Tube was pinched and tire was punctured to the cords and into the sidewall. Justin went to NAPA and picked up a reinforced tire patch for the inside of the tire while I patched the tube. We still had +- 330 mile of the BDR to the end and another 170 or so back to Albuquerque from Antonito. Bernie's Cycle shop was next to NAPA but nobody there. While we were fixing the flat a guy and his wife pulled up to where we were and asked if he could help. He told us about Bernie's place. He even offered to take the 17” tire off his 650 BMW but he couldn't help with tube. A little over 12 hous today from start to motel with 3 flats.

Got a room at the Southwest Motel and walked to the El Cafecito restaurant a couple blocks away and had an excellent meal. The room is clean and has lots of hot water, cable TV, internet and is cheap. When we got back to the room a man walked over and we visited about riding. His name is Rod, he even spelled it for me. He is from New Zealand and comes over once a year to ride the US bitumen. He keeps a spotless KLR at a friends home in Wyoming and has a KLR at his home in New Zealand. He had ridden most of Route 66 through the years and this year his goal was to ride the entire route. He had ridden from Wyoming to Illinois where he picked up Route 66 and began his trip west. His destination is the Pacific Coast Highway. I didn't ask but I would guess he is about my age, late 60's to early 70's. He stays on the bitumen and if he has trouble he calls AAA. Neat guy
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Tuesday day 3
Bernie didn't open until 9 and he didn't have any tubes. He gave us the phone # and directions to George Trujillo, owner of ATV & DIRT BIKE PARTS 8 miles south of Grants in San Rafael. (505-290-6892) We called and left a msg. About 5 mins later he returned our call and in another 15 minutes he was opening the gate to his place. Charged me $31.86 for 2 new 17” tubes. Can't order and ship that cheap. I would have bought a tire to replace the cut one but he didn't have a 17. Thanks George. We got a very late start but with 3 patched rear tubes we really wanted to get some new tubes if possible.

Rode section 6 +- 150 miles (including the detour to get the tubes) to Cuba. Justin had flat # 3 about an hour into the ride. We dialed the speed back holding it to about 50 – 55 mph trying to be cautious with the rear on the DR. Nice ride and did run into some muddy spots and a couple places where the road was just completely washed away. Nothing difficult but a great ride. Short day after we finally got started. We left Grants about 10:45 and checked into the Cuban Lodge at 3 pm.

Very nice lady at the motel was full of information about the town and even offered to let us borrow her car to go to supper. We declined the offer of the car, and set off walking to town. We Went into El Bruno's to look around but decided not to eat there. Mistake. We went on down the street a ways and ate at a different location. The only bad meal I got on the whole trip. Got back to the motel early and to bed.
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Wednesday day 4
We got a very early start knowing we had bad weather coming in and possibly the hardest section # 7. Was misting rain and slick, but made it to Abiquiui fairly early. We planned to take the alternate difficult route ( expert section as noted on the Butler map) out of Abiquiui to El Rito from day one and didn't change our mind. The longer the day got the slicker muddier it got. We cleaned the difficult and expert sections with no problems the, rocks were actually a welcome change from the mud. And then we got into gumbo snot. About the last 50 miles was slipping, sliding, duck walking with stretches of good traction thrown in.
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You absolutely could not trust the traction anywhere because it would just go away with no warning. We were looking forward to the rocks and cattleguards because there was traction there. In the last 30 miles or so I went down 5 times and Justin went down 2. Just as we turned up the last long rocky muddy climb I got a pinch flat on the front. That makes 5 total. I was running RideOn and we just kept airing this one up and riding 5 minutes, stopping and airing it back up.
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There was just not a decent place to pull the wheel and swap in a new tube. Made it all the way to the north end of the BDR at Antonito Colorado after airing up +- 10 times. We washed the bikes took them back to the motel and then rode 2 up on the KLR to supper. The service wasn't very good but the food was excellent. We stayed at the Narrow Gauge Railroad Inn. Clean room with lots of hot water and cable.
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Thursday day 5
We replaced the tube and patched the pinched tube this morning before daylight. Fired the bikes up for the run back to Albuquerque, and blew the counter shaft seal on my DR. It was pouring oil. Justin left out at 7 am rode 185 miles one way to get the PU loaded his bike and drove back to pick me up. Later he told me he found a back road track with some good dirt on the way down there.
I walked into town and took in the sights. Pretty interesting little town. The booming business seems to be Recreation Pharmacy. I didn't know that was what it was called. I visited with thw hotel manager and he told me it had been raining for several days in the mountains we had just rode thru. I believe it.
We pulled out of Antonito at 4 pm Thursday and pulled into Graham at 3 am Friday. I rode +- 995 miles Justin rode +- 1200 miles.
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Great ride report, the flats and falls just add to the adventure!


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I met you guys at Ghost's Fire & Ice. Glad to see you made the NMBDR and even better reading your ride report. I'm leaving Burleson June 3rd with my middle son and a friend for the NMBDR, returning on June 10th. All of us ride KLR's and plan on camping two days, hotel the third, camp two and stay at my uncle's cabin near Chama on the 8th. The return trip will find us at Palo Duro Canyon SP. my son is the GoPro expert, so I'm hoping for good video of the trip. Thanks for the write up, JQ1.0.


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Took me almost as long to do this RR as it did to do the trip. The NM BDR is a great ride, thanks to all who put it together. We wanted to turn around and ride north to south after reaching Antonito, but the blown CS seal stopped that. Probably pushed that punctured rear tire as far as I should have also. Justin may chime in with some of his thoughts. We will do another BDR, and McKinley will be with us, just don't know which one or when yet. The stars have to align just right for the 3 of us to get out.
 
I met you guys at Ghost's Fire & Ice. Glad to see you made the NMBDR and even better reading your ride report. I'm leaving Burleson June 3rd with my middle son and a friend for the NMBDR, returning on June 10th. All of us ride KLR's and plan on camping two days, hotel the third, camp two and stay at my uncle's cabin near Chama on the 8th. The return trip will find us at Palo Duro Canyon SP. my son is the GoPro expert, so I'm hoping for good video of the trip. Thanks for the write up, JQ1.0.

Yes I remember visiting with you. You'll have a ball.
 
We definitely have our tire changing down to a science now. 3 of the flats were due to poor preparation on my part. My rear tire already had a patch on it, and I carry a spare, but I forgot that my spare already had multiple patches. So every one of my 3 flats was a tube ripping past the edge of a patch..

I also had a great time, but am back at work now, so probably won't dig through all my pictures any time soon (Dad has them all anyway). We did get some video, but as usual it will take some time to pick out any good sections. I really need to start taking my helmet cam - I have gone away from it because I end up with hours of crap video to look through to find 10 minutes of interesting footage.. But with the handheld I miss some of the best stuff because I can't ride one-handed through the snotty mud sections..

And the mud was ridiculous - we are both pretty good at riding in the slick stuff, but there was just no lateral traction at all. The only thing to do was to get in a rut and try to stay in it.
 
NM BDR is on my short list. Good to see your report. Hope it doesn't rain on me. I watched the BDR DVD and they had the same problem with rain.
 
NM BDR is on my short list. Good to see your report. Hope it doesn't rain on me. I watched the BDR DVD and they had the same problem with rain.

Same, plan to do it also this summer. But riding it on the big bike so if rains hit nasty like that I'll be stopping to drink beer or detouring onto pavement.

_
 
Yup same here would be doing it on the Strom. I saw nothing in the DVD that looked like it would be impassable on a big bike in the dry. If it rains I'll take a 2 day break lol.
 
:tab Wow... I like most anything but serious mud, especially the snot slick stuff :twitch:

:tab Last September I took my wife and kids up to Chama and we rode the bus over to Antonito. We then rode the narrow gauge train back to Chama. It was really cool. Along the way I noticed that there was a two track dirt trail that roughly paralleled the tracks through the mountains. According to the guy on the train that was explaining all the history of the trains and terrain to us, that road IS open to the public. When I say "roughly parallels" I mean that I could often see it in the distance. It was not right next to the tracks, but it went through many of the same valleys and passes. It could probably be ridden in a single day.
 
:tab Wow... I like most anything but serious mud, especially the snot slick stuff :twitch:


:tab Last September I took my wife and kids up to Chama and we rode the bus over to Antonito. We then rode the narrow gauge train back to Chama. It was really cool.

Had this been dry it would have been one of the best sections. Still a lot of fun even muddy, but I was really happy to see the bitumen.

Think the train would be great way to take in the scenery.
 
Great adventure. That must have been super slick if the two of you took multiple soil samples.
 
:tab Wow... I like most anything but serious mud, especially the snot slick stuff :twitch:

:tab Last September I took my wife and kids up to Chama and we rode the bus over to Antonito. We then rode the narrow gauge train back to Chama. It was really cool. Along the way I noticed that there was a two track dirt trail that roughly paralleled the tracks through the mountains. According to the guy on the train that was explaining all the history of the trains and terrain to us, that road IS open to the public. When I say "roughly parallels" I mean that I could often see it in the distance. It was not right next to the tracks, but it went through many of the same valleys and passes. It could probably be ridden in a single day.

http://www.google.com/url?url=http:...ggVMAA&usg=AFQjCNH_wq6emubidGIZI4jyHFvDWGcu5g

Wonderful train ride did it a few years back and really enjoyed it. The way Tourmeister discribed it is the best way to go. Bus first and then ride back. Very scenic and well worth the money. Make sure to bring sunglasses to keep soot out of your eyes from the train.
 
The flats you had were all attributed to 'worn' tires and not rocks, nails, etc along the trail?

The flats on Justin's KLR were what I would call compression rips past a previous patch on both tubes and all 3 flats. All of his were on the rear.

I had one flat on front and back. The rear tire was a pinch flat probably from a sharp rock or edge of cattle guard. It did puncture the sidewall but didn't go all the way through the casing. I patched that tube in Grants and finished the ride on it. The front was also a pinch. My tubes had about 11,000 miles on them but still in good condition with no patches.

Both of us were running Shinko 700's front and back and mine were brand new. Don't know what Justin aired up to but I was running 28 front and 25 rear. There are some rocky sections but nothing I would not expect to find on this kind of ride. Velocity was a definite factor in all the flats.

We didn't get any nails or thorns.
 
The flats on Justin's KLR were what I would call compression rips past a previous patch on both tubes and all 3 flats. All of his were on the rear.

I had one flat on front and back. The rear tire was a pinch flat probably from a sharp rock or edge of cattle guard. It did puncture the sidewall but didn't go all the way through the casing. I patched that tube in Grants and finished the ride on it. The front was also a pinch. My tubes had about 11,000 miles on them but still in good condition with no patches.

Both of us were running Shinko 700's front and back and mine were brand new. Don't know what Justin aired up to but I was running 28 front and 25 rear. There are some rocky sections but nothing I would not expect to find on this kind of ride. Velocity was a definite factor in all the flats.

We didn't get any nails or thorns.

Thanks for that info.
 
I also stayed at the Narrow Gage Railroad Inn on my recent visit to Colorado. Clean sheets, hot water in the shower and $54 for the night. My kind of hotel. Flats on the trail must be a pain. This is my 53rd year of riding and I haven't had a flat outside of town. Enjoyed your report.
 
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