(13) Grand Junction, CO to Cortez, CO
It’s been a few days since I wrote anything, although I did add some pictures and caught up captioning all of them yesterday.
We made it out of Grand Junction with new tires on the bikes about 12:30pm on the 22nd. The wheels come off the bikes easy and the shop was working on mounting the new tires by about 10:00 am. Getting the wheels back on the bikes turned out to be a bit more of a struggle for us. by 10:30 when we got them back from the dealer it was already in the mid 90s and we were trying to get them put back on the bikes in the parking lot. Getting everything to line up was not easy. Our main problem was getting the rear brake caliper to line up to the axle would slide through. After about a half an hour of messing with the first bike it finally just magically lined up and the axel slid into place. The only problem was that we had no idea what we had done differently to make it work. After a quick run around the parking lot to make sure it was all on properly and the rear brake worked it was time to start on the second bike.
Same issue here. Just couldn’t get the rear brake caliper to line up. After a bit of fiddling we finally found the magic of moving the wheel so the caliper would slide into place. Then it was off to do a quick pack and hit the road so we could be at the off road riding class. It was a nice day of riding to the class location and we were still on time until we hit road construction near Gunnison. That stopped us for a half an hour and caused us to be a half an hour late for the class orientation/meet and greet.
The company we used for the class is RawHyde Adventures. The run both training classes and tours through the western states. Thankfully the GPS lead us right to the camp. It was 10 miles down a series of dirt roads in the middle of nowhere at about 10,000 feet. The road in was in pretty good shape but the last pitch off the “main” dirt road was really rocky and I was happy we made it into camp without falling. Little did I know that we would be finding a lot harder stuff to practice on than that in the next two days.
I was wondering as I signed up for the class whether they could teach us enough to make the $1,500 per person price worth it. I have to give them credit. Every thing about the class and company was top shelf. The camp was totally off the grid with everything brought in including water. They had a huge truck and trailer rig that was half kitchen and half dorm for the staff. A big metal building served as dining room, common room and bar. The tents everyone was in were clean, dry and comfy. So no complaints at all with the facilities. I was amazed at how good the food was.
Saturday morning the 23rd we set off at 8:30 to begin the class. it was a half a day of cornering, braking and other drills on a square course to start off. All these drills were designed to get you used to moving around on the bike and be comfortable standing on the pegs rather than sitting on the seat. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the bicycle start where you put one foot on the pedal and then as the bike starts to move you kick the other leg over the bike and start to ride. The hardest drill for me was the reverse of this on the motorcycle. While moving down the course standing on the pegs you take one foot off the peg and bring it over the seat so you are now standing on only one peg but both legs are on the same side of the bike. Then put it back so you are standing on two feet again and do the same thing with the other leg. All while riding at about 10mph down a dirt road. Between the heat (mid to upper 70s), altitude and exertion of doing these drills I was beat by lunch time, but ready to go back for the afternoon session.
The afternoon was spent on a serpentine series of 180 degree turns. Each turn was slightly different. Some had rocks in the turn, others might have a rut in the middle, etc. We spent 20 hours going around these, either going up hill or switching around and doing them downhill. All of it done at very slow speeds where a slight mistake meant you were going to drop the bike and you’d be picking it up off the ground.
The last part of the day was adding turns that were even tighter plus being off camber (i.e. tilted). More repetition, more picking the bikes up when you fell over, but great practice. Dinner, drinks and conversation were well earned after the first day. Neil and I were both in bed by 9:00pm.
Day two of the class started off with a quick revisit of the things we did on day one. Then it was off to the interwoven figure 8s. There were about 15 people in the class and we were all started out into a series of figure 8s going down the side of a hill. You had to navigate all the corners as well as make sure you didn’t run into anyone each time the figure 8s made you cross paths with other riders. The afternoon consisted of hill climbs and hill descents. One of the first drills was starting from a dead stop on the dirt hill then getting enough momentum established to make it to the top then navigating the steep rocky descent and loop back again for another try.
We were about to start the last drill of the class when the thunder storms started up. There was a stretch of pretty heavy rain and lightning near by so we called it a day and headed back to camp. Unfortunately enough rain had fallen to turn the trails and roads we had to take back into mud that was extremely slick. Neil and I did pretty good on it since the new tires we got in Grand Junction were knobbies. All the folks in the class on bikes they rented from RawHyde were fitted with 50/50 tires (combination street and dirt tires). Those weren’t nearly as good as ours in the mud and most of the group fell at least once before we got back to camp.
In the end both Neil and I agreed that despite the cost the class was well worth it. We gained a lot of confidence on dirt and gravel that will make the rest of the trip more fun for us.
Last Monday (7/25) we left camp and headed down to Alamosa, CO to visit Great Sand Dunes National Park. The dunes are impressive, but after the day of riding, the heat and elevation neither of us, but especially me, had the energy to climb all the way to the top of the first dunes. We hiked up a ways and watched all the people sand boarding down the dunes before jumping back on the bikes and heading to our hotel. The ride back into town from the park was a wild one. We skirted a big thunder storm for most of the way. Luckily the road kept us on the edge of it but we still had to don the rain gear and could see lots of lightening strikes off in the distance. The ride back to town was also our first encounter with an idiot driver on the road. Someone passing a line of cars coming at us either didn’t see us (or the car behind us) or didn’t care. Neil and I were off on the shoulder in order to keep from getting hit. I didn’t see it in the rear view mirror, but Neil said the car behind us almost got hit head on since he didn’t have as much shoulder to work with as we did. Anyway, we are both fine and there was no damage, just a scary moment that turned out OK in the end.
Yesterday it was Alamosa to Cortez, CO. The plan for this leg was to stop into Mesa Verde National Park, but things change. Between Alamosa and Durango I saw a sign for Chimney Rock National Monument and we decided to go check it out. We could see the rock formation from the highway and I assumed it would be a quick stop with some info on the rock formation. It turns out that like Mesa Verde there are Indian ruins at the formations and a solar time tracking system, ala Stonehenge, had been constructed where at certain times the sun would rise and set between the to stone chimney columns. It was a fun ride up a two mile dirt road and a short hike to the ruins. I’m glad we made the detour.
By the time I knew what day we would be at Mesa Verde NP all the ranger lead tours to the cliff dwellings were booked. When we actually got to the park we were caught in another thunder storm so in the end we bypassed it. We will try it again after our rest stop in Bullhead City in a couple days.
Today we head to Page, AZ via Monument Valley and have a tour of lower Antelope Canyon scheduled for tomorrow morning. Then it will be a quick stop for pictures at Horseshoe Bend and on in to Bullhead. I’ll post more pictures and make another entry once we arrive.
