Took A Quick Ride

[jtemple]

Went from eastern Nebraska through the Rocky Mountains in CO and back. 5 days, about 2000 miles, all on my TE630.

PICS

 

[ray_ray]

cool ... Nice pics ...

Is that the CO river inside that gorge? What's with the Cottonwood pass? For walking or horses only?

 

[oldskool63]

Awesome to do that ride on a TE! Enjoyed the pics.

.....And the Goldwing broke down, how ironic.

 

[jtemple]

cool ... Nice pics ...

Is that the CO river inside that gorge? What's with the Cottonwood pass? For walking or horses only?

The river inside the Royal Gorge is the Arkansas River.

Cottonwood pass goes over the continental divide of North America. One side of it is paved, winding mountain roads. The other side is dirt, and just as winding. Both times we rode it, it had just rained. That dirt road was a riot. The guys on the VTX and the Goldwing rode it down, but went around the mountain for the return trip. They didn't want a second helping of that dirt road. For myself and the guy on the KLR, that was the highlight of our trip!

The Goldwing/VTX trio are family. The father rides the Goldwing. The Goldwing passenger is his 40 year old son that has a pretty severe case of Down Syndrome. The VTX rider is the younger brother, who is about my age (37).

The father is retired and takes the older bother everywhere with him on his bike. He's so comfortable back there he'll fall asleep on the road.

The Goldwing ran something over in the road on the way to CO and got a flat, which led to a busted valve stem. Him and his son took a cab to the first hotel stop in Loveland, leaving his bike in a gas station parking lot about 20 miles away. The next morning, we went to his bike and pulled the wheel, taking it to a shop to get it fixed. We were half a day behind, but we still stuck to the original plan and made it to Colorado Springs just in time to crash in bed.

The third night's plan was to ride through Crested Butte, up and over the mountains, through Aspen and to Snowmass, where we had booked a non-refundable room. We got to Crested Butte around 7PM, only to hear that the road we were going to take was dirt and really only usable by ATVs and Jeeps. For us DS riders, no problem. For the street bikes, no dice. to go around the mountain meant another day's ride, most of which was on dirt. Again, the street guys weren't wanting to do that, and we need to find a place to stay the night. We ended up eating the cost of the Snowmass room and staying in Crested Butte instead, altering our return trip to Loveland the next day.

 

[jtemple]

Awesome to do that ride on a TE! Enjoyed the pics.

I kind of had my doubts about how well the TE would take such a long highway trip. It did it all with very minimal hassle. I even dropped it once.

I also learned how excellent these Pirelli MT21s handle the curvy roads. I rode them all the way to the edge of the tires. I have no chicken strips on them. That trip ate the rear tire for lunch, though. I put a brand new one on for the trip. It needs replaced.

 

[jtemple]

The only things I wish I had for the trip were a helmet cam and a Scala Rider comm unit. All the gear shopping I did this year really paid off.

 

[ray_ray]

Interesting story and quite a ride ... What speed did you cruise the TE at? If you go again, you'll know the roads and stopping points a little better ...
You put a different seat on the TE? Good idea! ... My TXC seat is so bad I think I have permanent butt rash from it ...

I'm from the great state of AR... I've fished in that river many a day in it the past for catfish ... Seems weird to have a river that crosses several states, named for the state it crosses right before it empties into the mighty Mississippi River .... Maybe this is due to the fact that the river was discovered east to west and already had a name before CO, OK were even discovered ...

 

[Muddy Waters]

Nice Pics JT, and this one made me laugh...

 

[jtemple]

Interesting story and quite a ride ... What speed did you cruise the TE at? If you go again, you'll know the roads and stopping points a little better ...
You put a different seat on the TE? Good idea! ... My TXC seat is so bad I think I have permanent butt rash from it ...

I'm from the great state of AR... I've fished in that river many a day in it the past for catfish ... Seems weird to have a river that crosses several states, named for the state it crosses right before it empties into the mighty Mississippi River .... Maybe this is due to the fact that the river was discovered east to west and already had a name before CO, OK were even discovered ...

The ride from NE to CO we rode around 70 mph and stuck to the 2-lane highways all the way out. The roads are all pretty much flat & straight no matter which ones you take, so we elected to say off of I-80 and avoid traffic.

From CO back to NE, I picked up the pace to 75 until it was requested that I slow down. The wind is pretty brutal on even the KLR at those speeds and it wears you down quickly.

It's the seat from Seat Concepts. One of my favorite upgrades!

 

[WHITEROCKET5.9]

sounds like quite a trip! not sure if the 450 would be up to that lol

 

[lankydoug]

I grew up in CO and spent a lot of time running around in the places you took the pics. BTW the best doughnuts anywhere are on the top of Pikes Peak, maybe the altitude makes them better who knows. Thanks for the pictures.

Doug

 

[Motosportz]

Timely post as a buddy is thinking about replacing his V-Strom with a 630 but did not know if it would handle a lot of road miles. Thanks.

 

[jtemple]

Timely post as a buddy is thinking about replacing his V-Strom with a 630 but did not know if it would handle a lot of road miles. Thanks.

It's funny you mention that. Back when I was DS shopping, it was either going to be the KTM 690 or the Husky TE630. I read a ride report over on ADVRider from a guy that spent 3-4 months touring Mexico on his used TE610. That story, coupled with a local KTM dealer's unwillingness to even attempt getting me a 690 was the final nail in the coffin for KTM.

I was leaning toward a KTM at first, since they are available locally. Huskies are not.

 

[WoodsChick]

Thanks for the trip report, jtemple! Beautiful machine and beautiful country

Who's the little tyke posing in front of the bike?

 

[jtemple]

Thanks for the trip report, jtemple! Beautiful machine and beautiful country

Who's the little tyke posing in front of the bike?

That's my 4 1/2 year old son. He loves getting his picture taken. He told me that was his Super Hero pose.

 

[jtemple]

Ok, the details...

The trip was 7/7/2011 - 7/11/2011. damonster (the guy w/the blue KLR) did most of the route planning. I booked the hotel rooms. We decided to crash in hotels rather than camp, and were glad we did that. Setting up camp after dark in the pouring rain (which would have happened to us on more than one night) would have sucked pretty badly.

We had the following riders:

myself - TE630
Damon - KLR
Dave & Bill (father & son w/Down Syndrome) - Goldwing
Josh (Bill's younger brother) - VTX

Here's where we had planned on staying each night:
7/7: Loveland
7/8: Colorado Springs
7/9: Snowmass
7/10: Loveland

We routed the ride between NE and CO on 2 lane highways, rather than grinding down I-80, battling wind and traffic. My Husky is only good for about 120 miles on a tank of fuel, tops. So, I packed a 1L fuel bottle and we mapped out fuel stops every 100 miles or so.

DAY 1:

My bike, cleaned and packed, ready to go:

The CO/NE border:

I don't remember exactly where it happened, but somewhere on the way to Loveland on the first day, someone noticed that the Goldwing's front tire was low. We pulled off and found a hole in his front tire. Dave said he thought he may have ran over a chunk of barbed wire in the road a while back.

Dave packs a compressor, so we filled the tire back up, hoping the leak was slow enough that he could get it to our first night's stop and get it fixed in the morning. He didn't want to plug the tire, even though he had plugs on hand.

A few miles down the road again, and Dave's tire is low. We plug the hole, ensure that the leak seals, fill the tire and are on our way. The next time we see it's low is in Sterling, CO. We stop and fill it back up again. The next time we stop when it's too low to ride is in Greeley CO, about 25 miles from our hotel in Loveland. We found out that his valve stem was dry rotted and that's where he was losing all of his air. Now his tire won't hold air at all. As soon as you touch the valve stem, all the air leaves the wheel.

Dave parks his bike and he and Bill take a $60 cab ride to our first hotel stop and meet us there. Dave has AAA, and is on the phone with them that night trying to arrange a tow for his bike. We're all thinking that he's going to lose a day getting it fixed and is going to have to either just go home, or take the fast route to Colorado Springs, missing our planned scenic ride for that day.

Greeley, where we discover that filling Dave's tire is a waste of time:

We ponder our options and decide that the quickest way to get Dave back on the road was for the 3 of us to go pull the front wheel off of his bike in Greeley and take it to a shop to get fixed, rather than waiting around for AAA to tow his bike. We could have his wheel at a shop by the time their doors open, and could be back on the road together as early as 11:00AM or so.

The first night, arriving in the rain:

Johnson's Corner, home of gigantic "World Famous" cinnamon rolls:

The food is actually pretty good, surprisingly. That's good news, because we're spending both our first & last nights of our trip there.

More to follow...

 

[Muddy Waters]

There you go!
A full report is SOOOOOOoooo much better then a link to some pics...
Thanks for indulging us JT, much appreciated

 

[WoodsChick]

My bike, cleaned and packed, ready to go:

More to follow...

Wow!! That is one beautiful set-up! This photo belongs on the GiantLoop website!

How did the tankbag work out for you? I'm borrowing a buddy's Wolfman tankbag for my upcoming 2-week ride/camp trip in the Sierra just to see if a tankbag is the way I want to go.
I really like the looks of the Fandango.

And your Super-Hero son is adorable!

 

[jtemple]

Wow!! That is one beautiful set-up! This photo belongs on the GiantLoop website!

How did the tankbag work out for you? I'm borrowing a buddy's Wolfman tankbag for my upcoming 2-week ride/camp trip in the Sierra just to see if a tankbag is the way I want to go.
I really like the looks of the Fandango.

And your Super-Hero son is adorable!

I sent the photos to Giant Loop and gave them permission to use them on their website.

The tank bag was great. I did get a little moisture inside of it when we got stuck in some downpours. I put all the sensitive stuff that was in there inside a plastic shopping bag. That was enough to keep the critical stuff dry.

It has a cutout for the fuel tank cap, but it's not large enough for the 630. I still had to loosen the top strap of the bag and pull the bag down onto my seat to fill up, but it only took a second.

Here's how I packed:

Fandango Tank Bag:
toiletries
wallet
phone
spare ear plugs
receipts from the trip
GPS (when not riding)

Coyote:
spare tubes (1 front, 1 rear) in deepest part of either side
clothing stuffed in side drawstring bags and pushed in behind the tubes
tool bag strapped down in the center
insulated pants liner and street shoes stuffed in wherever they fit
1L Primus fuel bottle strapped on top

I kept the fuel bottle filled the entire trip, but never needed it. We made plenty of fuel stops. I got sick of hiking my leg up and over it to get on and off the bike and my friend had lots of room on his KLR, so he carried the bottle. While it was on the KLR, it even flew off and survived a skid down the highway. It was full of fuel at the time and didn't leak a drop.

One thing I may do differently is split the tools up and put them down low in the sides of the bag. I'm not sure about that, though. I kind of liked having the tools easier to get to without unpacking my whole bag.

I also want to get a MoJavi for shorter rides.

My plastics are pretty beat up from the bags, mainly the rear fender and number plates. Oh well, it's a dirt bike, I suppose. It's supposed to be scuffed up. That's a big change from having to shine up a street bike every week.

I bought a TON of gear this year, in preparation for this trip. It was worth every cent. I would have been absolutely miserable if I buy all that stuff.