2818 miles on a Bonneville - Day 3

Day 3 was about 250 miles total.  We started the morning exploring the Arches National Park and then headed to Delta, Co. 


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After breakfast we headed north.  The entrance to the park is just outside of town.  I think it cost 10 dollars to get in.  This is a good picture as you can see highway 191 off to the left, the visitor's center/entrance to the park, and main road leading up.  I had to keep splitting my attention to the sights and then back to driving the bike.  Stopping quickly a couple of times because I was gawking at the massive stone cliffs and not watching what I was doing.

Had to throw this in to show the bikes.  Dr. Quinn's is up front, the Bonnie in the middle, and Vern's behind that.  Dr. Quinn's bike has over 125 thousand miles on it believe it or not.  There were supposed to be a few more people here.  But you know how it goes, as the actual event nears people back out.  Didn't bother me, the fewer the people, the more relaxed trip in my opinion.

 Looking south, back towards town.

 Who is that masked man??  What a sharp dresser.

We drove farther into the park and found an area with camp grounds and fire pits.  It must be amazing to camp here in the fall or spring.  The stars would be amazing!

My artistic photo of the day.  The sand comes from the surrounding sandstone cliffs.  I'm wearing my old hunting boots.  They're really comfortable on the bike and I didn't want to risk wearing brand new boots on a long trip.

View from the top.

And behind me was "Skyline Arch".  This is the view from behind it, hence the campgrounds and water tank etc.

We buzzed over to the vista point of "Delicate Arch".  There is a trail that will take you all the way to the arch, but the parking lot was full, plus it was starting to heat up, so we took a small hike to get the distant camera shot.  You can see the arch on the far left to give you perspective.

In the close up, you can see the tourists that hike out to it.  Looked to me like there was a line to the right where people were waiting to be by themselves in the center of the arch to get their picture taken.  If you want to see some really spectacular shots of this arch just search Google images.

Last stop before we left the park was "Balancing Rock".  This thing was amazing!

Dr. Quinn and Starr on the right.  Vern was taking the photo.

Pictures and words can't express how cool this place was.  You need to go there for yourself! 

Exiting the park we traveled south and east, over the La Sal mountain range.  I was so caught up with just enjoying the ride I took very few, ok.. maybe _none_, pictures on the rest of this leg.  Which is a shame since it was so beautiful.  We dropped down into the Unaweep Canyon and followed the Dalores river up through Gateway and east to I-50.  I found two pictures on the web that really show what I remembered seeing of the canyon.  I didn't take these so I'm linking where I found them. (Source)

We passed a pretty ritzy looking resort in Gateway.  I'm linking it here for anyone who really wants to get away from it all for a few days:) 

We caught some rain passing thimble rock point, but by the time I put my rain jacket on it has passed.  Coming into Delta we hit some strong winds.  The locals told me it seemed to be constantly windy lately.  Little did I know the winds in Texas would make the Colorado winds seem like soft breezes.

Tomorrow, the best part of the trip for me. Rocky Mountain national park!

2818 miles on a Bonneville - Day 2

Day two would end up being the longest leg of the trip at ~370 miles but I wasn't aware of the distance at the time.  I was to excited about being out on the open road on my own. 


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Before we left the hotel we fueled up on a small breakfast.  The odd looking item in front is a German pancake.  Sort of a cross between a pancake and a omelet.  I've found a recipe online if you want to try it yourself.  It was very good with syrup and powdered sugar.

 
My goal was to stay off the freeways as much as possible.  Instead of going up to Holbrook and over to US-191, my dad and I headed over to the town of St Johns.  Here we parted ways. I headed north and he continued south, back to Show Low.  I wish he could have come along but he had to get back to work and the dual sport doesn't make for a great touring bike.  He may correct that soon.

It was smooth going, and fun, to be out on the open road.  I fueled up in Sanders and made the short hop on the interstate over to 191 north.  I remember a few people taking long looks at me as they passed on their way to destinations unknown.  It was good to be on the bike and not looking out from the inside of a car for once.

I pulled over in Burnside, AZ to snap a few pictures.  It's a small crossroads in Apache County but the nearby hills caught my eye.

I placed my camera on a gas pump to snap the following picture.  Both the jacket and pants are mesh which kept me cool as I was going down the road.  I was wearing shorts under the pants.

Somewhere between Burnside and Chinle I passed a rather large semi-truck going the other direction on a small bridge.  As the truck came off the bridge it kicked up a very large rock that hit the face shield on my helmet.  It left a pretty big gash and some micro fractures, but overall the shield did it's job. Luckily the gash wasn't in my line of sight and I was able to still use it for the rest of the trip.  But I will have to get a replacement.

The area where I pulled over to check the shield was very pretty so I snapped a few pic's.

I stopped for gas and food in Chinle, AZ.  This town sits at the entrance of the Canyon de Chelly National Monument.  I wish I had been able to go explore, but I wanted to make Moab at a reasonable time and the temperature was starting to get hot.

I made my only wrong turn on the trip at Round Rock, AZ.  I went about five miles before I decided to check my maps and conclude that I needed to turn around.  I was stopped so I snapped a photo.

Once I got back on track I eventually hit the Utah border.  Seemed to take forever to leave Arizona.  There is a lot of country out there.  I look like a visiting space alien in this shot.

From here I made very few stops.  I was booking it for Moab.  I stopped once or twice for gas and I can tell you the areas around Blanding and Monticello UT are very green and pretty.

I rolled into Moab around 6 pm.  After finding my hotel I met up with my fellow riding club members and proceeded to have dinner.  Moab is nestled between rising sandstone canyon walls.  There's a very cool panoramic picture under Moab's Wikipedia page that gives justice to the canyon walls.  Check it out.

I stayed in the Ramada Inn as seen in this pic.

Dinner was had at a local chinese restaurant.

From here we made plans for the following day and strolled the main drag of Moab.  Tomorrow, Arches National Park!!

2818 miles on a Bonneville - Day 1

I finally got the chance to take a long road trip on the Bonneville.  This was part of the reason I haven't posted in awhile.  The plan was to ride up and connect up with some people in my riding club. They had headed up to Vegas earlier and a small subset was continuing on to Moab, UT where I was going to connect up with them.  This was the route on my first day.  I was going to stay overnight in Snowflake and make the final drive into Moab the following morning.


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The best time to beat the heat in southern Arizona is early morning, so I departed at 5am.  This is why my eyes are still closed.  Trying to get those last few seconds of sleep. The Speedpack bag looked like it was made for the bike and gave me plenty of room.

 4800 miles on the bike.  What will this read when I'm all done?

 Quick dramatic action shot and then I was off.

My dad wanted to ride up with me on his Honda dual sport, and I was happy to have company on my first leg of the journey.  We met up in town and continued on to Globe, AZ where we stopped at McDonald's for breakfast.  We spotted a BMW and Suzuki in the parking lot.

From Globe to Show low you have to pass through the Salt River canyon.  Lots of switch backs to lose and then gain elevation.  It other words..great motorcycle curves.

This is the bottom of the canyon where you cross the Salt River.  There used to be a rest stop here but the state closed it due to budget problems.  On the right is the closed old bridge, and on the left it's more modern replacement.

We stop at a pull-out on the other side of the canyon to take in the views.

Pretty country.

One last self shot before we head on to Show low and Snowflake.

We had a leisurely lunch in Show low and then took a 40 mile detour to the south east to see if we could see the smoke from the Arizona wild fires.  It's been a very bad fire season so far and no rain in site yet.  I forgot to snap a picture of the smoke.  We could see it way off in the distance, but had to turn around.


We arrived at our hotel in Snowflake safe and sound.  We probably traveled ~250 miles on this first leg.  Stay tuned I'll post more later and the pictures get much better!

 

The Bags-Connection Speedpack Bag

We're really shooting for low quality blogging tonight.  Bad pictures and an uninteresting topic! Before you start to ask yourself, "What am I doing with my life?" and "Maybe I should get back to balancing my checkbook." lets just throw a image on the screen to help distract you.

That didn't help did it?  Ok, if you have no interest in motorcycle luggage you're allowed to leave.  I promise I've got some good shots for my next post..check back soon.  For those of you who are easily entertained lets move on.  I've got my first large multi-state ride planned for next month.  I'll be meeting up with some of my fellow riding club members in Arches, Utah.  From there we'll head east through Colorado, south through Kansas and Texas, and back home through New Mexico.  I'm pretty excited!!!

Task number one was to find some good luggage to transport my gear. I didn't want anything permanent or with lots of ugly mounting hardware.  Quick on, quick off. I'd like to maintain the overall look of the bike when I'm not touring.

When in doubt turn to the web.  One of the first blogs I stumbled upon, and still my favorite, is MyBonnie.  If you click on his "gear" page you'll notice he uses the Speedpack from twistedthrottle.com.  It appeared to have everything I wanted and of course MyBonnie swears by it.  The only problem..it's only sold by one company, twistedthrottle.com, and it's super expensive.  It was a big gamble but what the hell, lets give it a shot.  I ordered online and a week later this little package arrived via UPS.

One of the main things I like about this bag is that it rests entirely on the rear portion of the Bonneville seat.  And lets face it there is a lot of real estate back there.  It's nice to be able to put it to good use.  A bonus that I didn't plan on was that the side bars of my Renntec rear rack help support the side bags.  So no saddlebag supports needed.

As far as I can tell the quality of the bag is quite good.  Heavy duty stitching and serious looking zippers.  The two side bags are connected via straps that lay across the seat.  You then place the larger bag over the seat straps and velcro all three bags bags together.  That may not sound secure, but I can tell you nothing is separating those bags unless you unzip them yourself.  You attach the bag to the passenger foot peg support bars, in the front, and to the license plate mounting bracket in the rear.

I don't have it strapped down in these pictures..but I found another post where you can see how the straps work.  When you're done it looks like you've pitched a tent on the back of your bike.  I think it looks pretty unique and I'm betting it will be a conversation starter every time I stop for gas.

Triumph Demo Day (aka the demo day I missed)

I was sent north, by the powers at large, to increase my knowledge of new things.  Translation: I was sent to Phoenix to do some cross training due to the fact that my job is being expanded again.  Luckily I planned ahead and uploaded a few pics from my PC at home.

Back in April my dad and I stopped by a vintage bike show.  Towards the end of our meandering we were buying a couple of Triumph t-shirts from a vendor when a fellow customer walked up and said "Hey did you hear about the Triumph demo day going on at Performance Cycle?"  After I finished collecting my eye balls from the ground and closing my jaw from the gaping open position, I asked him if he was sure and then told my dad we had to stop and take a look.  For those who don't know what a demo day is, typically you don't really get to test drive different bikes at a dealership.  Too many riders want to test drive all the bikes, and that racks up miles on show room models which lowers the overall sell price.  As a result, manufacturers will typically send large trucks around the country loaded with the latest models that people can sign up and take test rides on. 

I specifically signed up on the Triumph web site to be notified if a demo day was scheduled in my area.  Triumph must have lost my notification email in the vast ether between their computer and mine because I received no such notification.  And I hadn't been to my local dealer for a few months otherwise I would have seen the posters.  As a result we didn't get over to Performance Cycle until 3:30pm and they were closing up shop at 4pm.  Thus no chance to ride every bike that Triumph makes.   Curses!!

The last test ride of the day was out on the road..so I just snapped a few quick shots in between drooling all over the bright plastic and chrome.

Here's Triumph's retro cafe racer, the Thruxton.  Pretty similar to the Bonneville but with lowered handle bars and a little more sporty look. 

This is a new model from Triumph for 2011 called a Tiger 800.  It's a dual sport bike that feels at home on the pavement and dirt roads.  This version has more city styling while there is another model called the Tiger 800XC that has more off-road styling.

This is a good looking bike!  The new Thunderbird Storm.  Matte black paint with a 1699cc engine.  Did I mention I didn't get to ride any of the bikes?  Probably a good thing.  This one could have gotten me killed.

That same Thunderbird storm in front.  I believe that is a normal Thunderbird behind it.  Notice the single headlight and shiny black paint.  I'm pretty sure the red bike on the right is a 2011 Speedmaster.  And there are two of the new Tigers and a single Thruxton back left.

My dad next to a Sprint GT without the hard cases.  Horrible shot of the bike.  Should have gotten it from the other side.

Well that's it.  Sorry..I really should have taken more pictures.  I was to busy ogling all the bikes.   What really looked good..and of course I didn't take any pictures of it was the Tiger 1050.  Really nice! looking bike up close.  If I could have only test driven one of them the Tiger 1050 would have been my first choice.  This is because I'd like to get into sport touring eventually.

Well that was the Triumph Demo Day that I didn't get to demo at.  There's always next year....(sad face)

ABCD Entry

This is my entry for the ABCD - Will you take part?

My wife and I just got back from taking it.  I had forgotten today was May 1st.  Luckily I checked my blogs this afternoon and saw another blogger with their picture.  I yelled out "Honey, we have to go take a picture!"  After I explained the whole concept she was in and we hopped over the Tucson Mountains to find a nice deserted stretch of road.  This is McCain Loop Rd just west of Tucson, AZ.  It's light on cars and gives a nice back drop.  This is my usual destination when jumping on the bike and wanting to get away from it all.

UPDATE *****
Here's a link to all the pictures that were taken on May 1st.  LINK