Monday - March 2, 2015
We didn't exactly get a great start to the day. After some tries and getting nowhere, Dave decided to go to Las Vegas with the forks to get them professionally repaired. The rest of us were headed to Titus Canyon for the first ride. I spent too much time with Dave and had to hurry up to make the ride with the guys. It's about 25 miles back the way we came on highway 374. The Titus Canyon road is a one way, but it was a great ride. The initial five miles was a very straight rough dirt road.
This was my first experience riding the Vstrom on a rough road. It was lightly raining so there was no dust and that first five miles had no mud to speak of. Looking back, it was a very easy ride, but that first day it felt a bit iffy to me. The Vstrom is a heavy bike for dirt, tipping the scales at about 480 pounds.
That first day I felt a bit disconcerted at the front wheel's moving around while riding. Once we started heading up into the hills, the mud started making a more visible impact on the road. But my tires did great. I never really felt like I was losing traction, though I was nervous at first.
I've discovered that the Vstrom has a decently low first gear which combined with an engine that doesn't mind idling in gear made this ride in the mud a walk in the park.
The canyon itself is really narrow - one of the coolest places down there. It's really only the last five miles or so that the canyon really exists. We had two guys with Urals riding with us. Dave Hooker ("Mr. Cob" from ADVrider.com) and a guy with him named Don, who could really ride those bikes with sidecars. This was also our first crash as Greg had a spill and hurt his right leg and arm and bruised his ribs.
This would hamper him a bit through the week. We stopped several times for pictures. When you're in the canyon itself you can get a bit of an echo going when the walls are close.
We got back late in the afternoon and after hanging around camp for a bit decided there was enough time for another ride. But it would need to be close by. We decided to head to Skidoo, which we knew to be an abandoned mining town. The turn off to the dirt road is 18.5 miles from camp. It's a 7 mile dirt road ride and about 5 miles in we stopped at a nice overlook for some pictures. As I'm walking toward the rise with the view my phone beeped with an email and I mentioned to the others that we had cell coverage. Out comes everyone's cell phones and we're all calling home.
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
