Black Motorbike

Heading from the Sonoran Desert to the White Mountains the Coronado Trail has a well deserved alias. It was originally route 666 up until the 80’s when superstitious drivers and a slew of stolen street signs caused for the re-designation of 191. No matter what the name is this is a White knuckled ride with a very high pucker factor. there are said to be about 500 separate curves in a 165 mile stretch and an elevation climb of 6,000 ft.

The road starts out in Clifton in the South. A perfect place to rest up and get a head start in the morning. Clifton is on of the old boom towns for miners. Today what remains are old firing kilns and and lots of vacant historical buildings. Seemed like a perfect quite spot to set up a study and disappear in a creative process. It is also a great place to cam you at the clean and Quiet RV park, have a fire and toss a frozen pizza on the grate.

Heading onto the Coronado Trail the twists real begin in Morenci. Still a Working mining town you zig-zag your way through and under the working massive routes for all kinds of earth moving equipment. This twists are closely connected and very tight as you climb and climb.

Out of the mining area and over the mountain the you dip into a greener wooded area. Still lots and lots of twists and turns before you reach the biggest climb. While making this climb the sheer drop off the road side seems to grow bigger and and the trees shorter. There is still small patches of snow up there.

About half way through the trail you can give your arm rest and head up rose peak. At the altittude of 8,700ft sits a fire tower. There was not much going on up there but the veiws were spectacular and the watchman Zane gave shared a some of the history and geography of the surrounding mountain ranges for hundreds of miles. Not to mention the windows were lined with beautiful sketches he created to familiarize himself the the mountains ranges.

It is a town well worth stopping if you enjoy traveling on the quieter roads.
Heading into town from the West you are greeted with the amazing folk art of Dave Snipes. He has been carving for over thirty years. he has been located in Mancos for about ten years although his collection and yard look like a lifetime of work. He lives there with two cats, Snake and Oj.

Basin Motorcycle Works is a definite stop riders or just those who enjoy quality work and a beautiful restoration. Harry and Norbert service a full line bikes from from BMW to Harley Davidson both new and old. And being the “Gateway to the American Outback” they are working on becoming a necessary resource for Southwest adventure riding. Stop by on your way. I am looking forward to the directions Harry Hill is moving his shop and creating a resource for all us riders.

Keep on going down the road and you have beautiful Historic Durango, a small college town tucked away in the hills. you seem to have it all here from narrow gauge railroad to whitewater kayaking. Oh, Southern Colorado I think you might have it all tucked away in these mountains.

The roommates help meditate for the upcoming ride.

And myself explaining something very ingenious like the correlation between Royal Enfields and Rocket Science!

Yes, it must be rocket science…

riding with Mark Ordway on his BMW Paris Dakar edition, Gaurav Jani and Nicolitta Pereira on a Bullet 500, and Me riding with Chrissy Zubieta taking the pictures.

my bike and tent…

their tent!

their bikes!

but i still have a kitchen!

if i had a GS…

The hardest part of getting anywhere is just getting out of town…

I hadent had much time for planning. This years overland expo took place less then one week after a complete engine rebuild on the Royal Enfiield motorcycle. In the meantime School and work kept me busy pulling 65+ hour work weeks. running on schedule like this one looses touch with their freedom and ambition and more or less abuses their their body and soul. All account for some sort of barrier that makes less caring and less in touch with those desires that make do the things that will rejuvenate us.

I planned to head south to Amado, AZ right after school on Friday. At about midnight Friday morning the bike was only half packed. A Valve adjustment, chain adjust, and running check were still on the to do list. By about two the bike was packed. After a few hours of sleep the mechanical work was complete and i was running off to school with breakfast and coffee in hand. Class couldnt have been slower working on BMW motorcycles wondering if the Royal Enfield named Pandora would make it.

When I got home from school the road only seemed rougher and as i questioned my Pandora’s recent engine rebuild more signs pointed to “no, don’t go”. some signs are best ignored even if you loose your keys six times, trip on the garage stairs, and realize there is a penny stuck in your clutch case as the toilet floods your bathroom with over an inch of water and it is heading for your pile of laundry on the floor.

heading out of town was not any easier… The bike only cruises about 50mph downwind and the highways are 65 in town. I managed to make to the South side of Phoenix without much mishap only paranoia at the noisy engine and vehicles approaching from the rear at 75mph. When i got to the city limits i missed my exit. it was just as i saw the speed limit switching to 75mph ahead that I also heard police sirens behind.

“Evening officer!”
“You realize how fast you were going on that thing?”
“ummm, I am not going to get speeding ticket am I?”
“Not likely, is that as fast as you can go?”
“Well… she will 70 but only for a few seconds to be safe! I seem to have missed the exit for the back road”, pointing at the map on my tank bag.
“you are going to have to exit there”, as he pointed at the overpass a mile back. I new it would be hard enough to get back on the highway but nearly swallowed my tongue when i realized i had to cross the highway drive down into the cactus infested median and maintain enough speed to hop into the northbound fast lane with oncoming traffic at 75mph.

I powered the bike through the median fishtailing through cacti and jumped the shoulder into the northbound lane. When Pandora hit the pavement she shook unimaginal speed wobble as went I wide open throttle as the traffic grew larger and larger in the rear view mirror. It didn’t take long to make it back to our exit in those conditions. When i got back off the high way i was excited to see a street with my last name ‘Price’ as a namesake. I quickly took this road in excitement. Speeding around the corner with momentum from my high way exit i hit gravel and quickly realized this road was a dead end under construction.

So Thursday night the motorcycle clutch was fixed. Friday afternoon the Royal Enfield’s rear tire was flat! I decided a simple flat was a good opportunity to test out my AAA for motorcycles. Worked awesome… Tim, a Harley Davidson man, of Hazard towing was there in under 20 minutes. It was also nice having a hydraulic lift rather then pushing the motorbike with a flat tire up into the bed of a pick-up. Before getting to the tire I have decided it is time to get to the chain and sprocket R&R. I have half the specialty tools I need and could not find a 32mm deep socket anywhere! So I purchased a primitive box end wrench and am ready to take on whatever troubles are in Pandora’s bike this time…

I am a firm believer that adventures are always right around the corner. However, for today’s adventure I did not even make it around the corner. It started at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMOCA). I spent some time wandering a collection of musical devices from LP’s and eight tracks to I pods with my friend Shari. It was amazing to see what new things are out there like digital bubble wrap and also reminisce about all the LP’s I have stashed away in closets at my mother’s house. Anyway the bike adventure started when I left the Museum.

Shari dropped me off at my motorbike and I threw on my jacket and kicked over the bike to her vintage musical groan. I hoped on the bike and took off down the street to the intersection. As I pulled up behind Shari she went left and I slipped the clutch to go right. As I slipped the clutch there a snap, thud, and then nothing… I found myself stalled in front of Scottsdale’s premier biker bar The Billet. I pulled in the clutch shifted to neutral and kicked her over quickly to realize the cable had snapped and she stalled going into first so pushed to the side to figure out what was next.

What does one do now? Never having lost control of the clutch before I was not sure. So what I did do was pull out the cable from the sheath and string it through the saddlebag. I wrapped it around my hand for some leverage thinking I could just pull it by hand. This attempt at bypassing the lever did not get me to far. At least I saved myself some embarrassment in front of the bar. The rest of the trip was spent slamming the bike through gears to get her home. Going into first from neutral was tricky and took a lot of gas often sending me sliding to the back of the seat. Leaving one stop I hit first gear so hard the Royal Enfield pulled a small wheelie. When the front tire returned to the ground there was enough force to see a small amount of oil pushing out of my upper most fork seals.

The motorcycle ride home was full of such small events. At one point it started to rain, not unusual for my type of luck. I just imagined myself trying to slam the bike into gear and sliding across the road. For a second I swore at the gods above and gave them a word or two. “If I Slide out and end up in blacked for a moment or two, I am going to personally come up there and tell what I think of you!” The rest of the ride home was spent trying to time each traffic light as the rain slowly dissipated.

Next step… fixing the clutch!

An update for all: To all those who did not already know I found a new passion about three years ago. This new passion was a big change but a long awaited one from my past hobbies of sea kayaking, woodworking and painting. A change from my secluded lifestyle of living on a wooded peninsula to hitting the pavement and seeing what this world has to offer.

I have always wanted to travel but cars and planes are expensive and walking is way to long when going beyond one’s own state. At 65 miles per gallon the answer was clear, Not to mention it was always my dream to have a classic motorbike. After learning to ride the bug bit me hard and I quickly adapted my first bike for camping and off we went. Even on a brand new bike it seemed every 300+ miles from home things went wrong and a lot of laborious pushing was involved. If I planned to see the world this way I had a lot to learn!

The first thing I needed to learn was how motorcycles work and more importantly how to keep them running. In December of 2008 I took a huge leap of faith and headed out from Coastal Maine to Phoenix, AZ to study motorcycle mechanics. With only a few months left of school to go, I am currently getting starting on that ultimate dream of getting out to see this world…

Big plans to come, stay tuned…