My New Adventures

What are Saturdays for other than getting outside? I know the movie is "On Any Sunday" but I'll take Saturdays too. A group was organized on ADVrider to make the loop to a site on the Verde that was at one point a resort. It burned down in 1962 but some of the pools are still standing. The meeting location was at Bloody Basin road, a chilly ride but my newly installed grip heaters helped! We all road the back way to Cordes Junction to gas up.

We had quite a crew. 2 XR650L's, 1 XR650R, 1 KTM950SE, 1 KTM990, 1 KTM 625SXC, 1 DRZ400 and me on my KTM 690.

We had a couple of mechanical difficulties. One bike that wouldn't start and one broken kickstand spring. Spencer here suffered the brunt of it though, we slid a good 5 feet down the trail and we found after the fact he broke some ribs in the process.

After that, life got rocky. The trail was litter with rocks. Embedded rocks. Loose rocks. Big ones, little ones, rocks rocks rocks. The rider on the KTM990 turned around here. He had a good sense of self/bike preservation that so many dirt bikers are missing.

You'd be surprised how many people I've ridden with that I have a hard time identifing without their helmet on. Or their bike present. "Oh! You ride the bike with the doohicky on it." That's how you identify people, their riding gear and their bike.

Smiling faces, it was a good day. And we were sitting at the top of "The Hill."

"The Hill" did not disappoint. I took off first to try to get a good spot to for pictures. This was a downhill boulder field.

There were no crashes for the camera but we all had to work hard through the rolling rocks.

We dropped three thousand ft in 8 miles. It wasn't the steepest descent but it was consistent. Consistently downhill and consistently rocky.

One thing you should know about riding in Arizona: You have a high probability of coming upon a view like this. It's happened to me in countless races. This day was just not Spencer's day. He caught some cactus on the side of the hill and didn't even crash. Better to bite the bullet, show off your tightie whities to the world than ride on with cactus spines working their way deeper.

This is a talented individual. I don't that I've seen anyone else to smoke through their helmet.

You can't get away from civilization. There's cell service everywhere! Calls I've made on the trail usually have some element of being lost or needing mechanical advice...

An awesome view of the Verde before we drop the last bit of elevation. And people say the desert isn't beautiful.

This was the path from the motorcycle parking lot. The guys wanted to walk instead of riding the bike for some reason. It was a 5 minute hike to the former resort location. The only information I've been able to find online claims that the resort burned down in the 60's. There was mention of possible arson and it being a popular location during prohibition for less than legal reasons. Next time I visit the library I'll have to do some more digging.

One of the rare pictures of me without a helmet.

The remenances of the resorts hot spring tubs. These people didn't hang around long. Yes, our group is that scary

After a soak (or a splashing of feet) we headed back towards Phoenix. Everything seemed smooth after the Dugas road but there were still quite a few rocks along the way.

There's signs of Georgia Tech everywhere I go.

I was at the end of well of energy. It wasn't pretty, I limped my way back to civilization and the closest food source, a Circle K.

After chowing down some carbs, caffine and protein I headed home my usual route through the reservation and Bush Hwy.

Todd and I decided to do a quick route close to home. There's a bridge over the Verde river that was constructed in the 1940s to safely get sheep from one bank to another.

The route out the bridge included riding up a wash from the Verde to Bartlett dam road and then on to the Seven Springs road. There's a T in the trail, left goes to Bloody Basin Road and right takes you straight to the bridge.

For most people their day will end at this bridge. It is however ideally suited to motorcycles. Who know that motorcycles and sheep had so much in common.

Proof that sheep would indeed cross the bridge, and in mass.

On the other side of the Verde there are quite a lot of trails but we just kept heading south.

The water was low enough that we could cross easily back across the Verde. Usually that option isn't available and so riders have to make their way across the dam. If you look below the lip there is a walkway intended for people but again oh so suited to skinny motorcycles.

Back down the wash and it was a short trip home through the reservation. It's amazing the trails that are in our backyard.

So Saturday night, with help I removed the axel nut from the 990 and got it installed on the 690 and was ready to go. We headed off for day two with a bigger group.

The route on this day stayed closer to Payson, below the Mogollon Rim. These two guys, Dallas and Dan joined us on Sunday and showed us all how it was done.

Kurt was another addition that I had ridden with before. He rides the wheels off his KLR.

Todd and I have done a lot of riding together lately. He's a great guy to have on a ride, good rider, good skills and very dependable.

We let Levi ride with us even if it's on an X-Challenge.

Life was going well until a section of about 3 miles of trail. It was a completely degraded trail that was more rock than dirt in most places. It really hit home with this guy. He managed to brake his clutch lever on his KLR right in the middle of a rocky uphill. But duct tape fixes everything thing and he got his ride going again.

Donna put us all to shame, muscling around her 800 through the rocks. She might have been a little tired at this point.

After that 3 miles we all were pretty tired, and I was really hungry so we headed back to town. After some food and some hanging out I headed back down the hill to town. Ready and not so willing to make it to work in the morning.

One of our local clubs have really gotten the dual sport bug. ATR has put on a hand full of fun events the last couple of years and they were on the AMA calendar over the weekend of October 24-25 for a two day ride out of Payson. I headed up on Friday to camp out at the Elks Lodge.

I really do love the ride up Bush hwy at dusk or dawn. The colors on the cliffs are beautiful. The ride up to Payson was just a quick jaunt up the Beeline. Thankfully quick and uneventful. A quick dinner at the Elks lodge (quite the happening place) and then it was off to bed in my cozy tent.

It makes life so much easier to be on time when you sleep at the ride meeting site. We all took off through town to start the ride. I sure hope the town had some warning because starting around 8am there were 200+ motorcycle riding through town.

There's not much that I can add so I'll let the pictures speak to themselves.

Life was going well until "The Hill." The Hill was a rocky hill with a left turn in the middle. It might have been an issue for few ridersif not for the bottleneck that developed. A rider crashed his bike across the trail just beyond the turn. Rider after rider got caught on the hill behind his bike. People turned around or were helped up the hill. Eventually a group gathered at the bottom of The Hill each waiting for their turn. Lets say it resulted in good bench racing later.

The rest of my day is unphotographed, I'm not very good about pictures when I'm flustered and frustrated. Why would I be flustered and frustrated? I was at lunch in Young when someone started talking about a KTM in the parking lot, well that's not very descriptive because a good percentage of the bikes were KTM. Of course it was my KTM though.

Turns out someone noticed that my rear axle was incorrectly positioned. That tends to happen when you're missing the axle nut and chain block. On the last ride to Crown King I had adjusted my chain tension and the axle nut didn't get torque properly. I got really lucky that the axle didn't back out further when I was riding, it could have been disastrous.

After some failed attempts to fix the problem I decided to get a ride back with one of the ATR club members. A short term solution could have been used but I prefer to take the safe solution to me and my bike when it makes sense. Better to save the bike and me to ride the following day. My 990 was sitting in the Elk parking lot with a for sale sign just waiting for the axle nut to be "borrowed."

A ride was organized on ADVrider to take a ride up to Young on the main route. There was quite a good group gather at the gas station that morning.

Right by my house is the Apache trail which heads up a beautiful canyon to Roosevelt lake.

Big groups don't move fast but the company is good.

The main road up to Young from Roosevelt Lake used to be all dirt but is gradually getting paved bit by bit.

Lunch was provided by The Antler in Young. One of the few establishments up there. I've been up there several times when AMRA had races up there. Let's just say that dirtbikers are not the best karaoke singers.

On the way back down we took a side trip to the Workman Creek Falls. A perfect road to see the changing colors.

All in all an easy going day with good people.