Wow. Full day.
Started off mid morning with temps still in the 30s. Didn’t take long for it to warm up though and the dry cold is so much different and more tolerable than cold at home. Didn’t take long to find my first dead end. Moving on and the next fork has both routes marked on my map so I take the worst looking one. So glad I did. It was rough, through a canyon that looks to only get hunting traffic.
Where it ends, the road it Ts into shows through passage both directions per NM State maps. Decisions… Take the worst looking path. Sensing a theme yet? A couple miles in is a chained up gate. This one was rough. I only made into 2nd gear a few times along there and time to turn around and backtrack. That’s ok. New roads are really two new roads when backtracking. Continue on. Still good. Hit the end and back on maintained dirt but loose. The only other people I can think of that likes it this loose is
@KsTeveM.
Cruising along and hey, I have that FSR marked but it looks sketchy. I’m on it. Until I’m not. Another chained up gate. Press the repeat button again and start the backtrack, hit the main road and continue.
I had a dead end dispersed camping road up next. Didn’t want a known dead end as I wasn’t camping but there was a FS Trail that split off and looped back to the main road. Ok, I’ve got to try. Until I couldn’t any more. One has to know the limitations of sketchiness when solo. Backtrack repeat. This is where I started thinking about the saying “don’t go down what you aren’t willing to go back up.” But in reality someone should be saying “don’t go up what you don’t want to go down.” That was my reality. I was going down though. Gravity has a way about that. It was up to me to make sure the bike stayed upright. Pray, point, pray some more. Done.
At this point I may as well head into Timberon and see if anything is open. Connie’s was and time for some grub. Good food or I was just really hungry. I think reality lies in between.
Moving on. You know the drill now at this point. Pick the worst option. Go until you can’t. Backtrack. Repeat. If you can get through, big win. And so the afternoon goes.
Somewhere in here the wind kicks up, temps drop, I’m getting tired and I need to make a plan for petrol. Petrol is the hard resource out here. Much easier to find people fuel than moto juice. Plan roughed out. Just need to work all the way to the east side of Lincoln now.
Bike juiced. Layers added but no fuel for me except the same of what I’ve been defaulting to from my pack. So fuel, just no variety but that’s on me. It’s a hard life out here for businesses and a number of places that were open a few years ago look abandoned these days.
Time to work back home for the night and it did not disappoint. Sufficiently rough to keep you paying attention but also relaxing after the day’s shenanigans.
At some point I might learn that big bikes are not enduros! But that’s a schooling for the future.
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