The days are winding down now, with today being our last real day of this Broventure (tomorrow we make the long arduous trek from Las Vegas back to Santa Barbara). Our agenda is simple: go see the Grand Canyon and stop at the Hoover Dam.
It’s raining this morning, naturally, and a weather front is coming in behind us. This wouldn’t be much of an issue, except we have to back-track our way from Flagstaff to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It would seem that we cannot escape the rain.
The trails and trials of Moab are behind us now, and all that remains is the long ride home, back to California. For as much “what if” planning that went into our preparation for this trip, we are surprisingly unscathed by our off-roading and touring adventures thus far.
I mean, Tim probably has a hairline fracture or severely torn ligament in his right wrist — a reward for an epic bike-before-body save on the Super Ténéré — but he continues to get punches on his Man Card by soldiering on with little complaint. Overall, our spirits are good.
Getting some greatly deserved slumber, we awoke to see that the rain has not left us from the previous day. It is coming down in waves, and making the process of getting out of our sleeping bags and tents a very undesirable prospect.
We have roughly 500 miles of riding planned for the day, as we plan to back-track out of Moab to get onto SR-95 South — our last great riding route of the trip. The excursion is a bit out of our way home, but all reports suggest it to be another epic ride, and for bonus points it will bring us close to the Grand Canyon, another sight Tim and I were hoping to see on this Broventure.
But before we can do that, we must first say goodbye to Moab, with its pantheon of geological wonder, and the trails and road that we navigated to see them.
Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” finishes with the iconic lines that “two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” This phrase has become the embodiment of the idea that the road less-often taken brings us greater reward, and in many ways that is the impetus behind trips like ours to Moab — we are searching for something, adventure maybe, beyond where the roadway ends.
With those words in mind, we strapped our boots on in the morning, geared up for a full day of riding on the trails that lead down the Colorado River and into Canyonlands National Park. Tim and I were a combination of excited and nervous for the day’s ride — after all, we had just ridden 1,000+ miles for this very day. Our first order of business was to take Kane Creek Road, to Hurrah Pass, and onto the Chicken Corners Trail.
Tim and I are sportbikers through and through, having cut our riding teeth on the canyon roads that are just inland of Santa Barbara, CA. So while the main goal for this trip is to get our feet dirty on the off-road trails of Moab, we both have been looking forward to today’s stretch of our route.
Our course promises not only to have corner-after-corner of fast and clean sweepers, but also some epic views as we summit and decend the mountains, and cut our way through the rock desert. Utah did not disappoint in this regard as we left Bryce Canyon National Park and headed to Moab, Utah along SR-12, SR-24, and SR-191. The fourth day of our eight day trip, it was hard to believe that by the end of the day we would have halfway completed our trip.
Waking up at the campsite in Zion is like waking up in any national park, really. If you rise early enough, you are treated to warm colors laying like patchwork along the scenic terrain. But, you have to savor the spectacle quickly, as it will soon be ruined by the hum of generators firing up, headlights on high-beam casting shadows across your tent, and the booming voices of other tourists who were born without courtesy.
Camping, well…let’s be honest, car-camping in a national park is really an exercise in enjoying nature at its lowest common denominator, and such was our stay in Zion. Immensely gorgeous, but Tim and I have no illusions to the fact that we are short on “adventure” on this adventure-touring trip, as we break-down our tents in our pre-assigned and marked campsite, clean our dishes with the running tap water, and take care of pre-ride business with the established restroom facilities. The park itself though? Gorgeous in the morning light.
It is a good thing that Tim has roughly a decade of experience in what can be only described as my “lucid understanding regarding the passage of time.” Or to put it another way, when on Thursday morning I said, “I want to be on the road by 8am,” what I really meant was 11am…ehh, maybe 11:19am. So much for our early start out of Las Vegas, and any hope of avoiding the brain frying heat, but our spirits were high, and ultimately, our timetable is self-imposed.
Getting on the road, the miles went by considerably fast…as least as fast as they can when it is again 104 degrees outside. Despite this though, we just couldn’t overcome the setbacks created by our late departure. Instead of the 270 miles to Bryce Canyon, we had to settle for a much shorter 180 mile trip to Zion — not that we are complaining though.
Day One is in the bag, and as expected it was a long and brutal ride. Tim and I knew that the first leg of our journey was going to be one of our toughest — since both of us were keen to get into the motorcycling playground, that is also known as Utah, as quickly as possible.
We had hoped to leave Santa Barbara as early as possible, which meant 10am, as Tim had one last conference call with his work before he was officially on vacation. As we finished tying up all the loose ends though, 10am rapidly became noon, and we were already sweating under the cool coastal sunshine — this of course meant that it was already well into the 100’s further inland.
Though it wasn’t originally a part of our plan, Tim and I figured that we should begin this 2,000 mile quest with a proper commencement, and thus we elected to start this great journey on our old Sunday morning riding route: HWY 150 to Ojai, and then HWY 33 to Lockwood Valley. The ride was epic, as usual, though it put us even further behind in our schedule, and that meant even more time in the blistering sun.
It’s closing in on 1am on Wednesday, the actual date of our departure for our 2,000 mile round-trip ride to Moab, Utah and back…and needless to say, I should be in bed asleep (like Tim is now), instead of writing a damn blog post — it’s been a busy day though, so like the good blogger I am, getting a post out before bed is the last “to do” item on my list.
However, it’s hard to imagine that in nine hours or so we will finally be on our bikes (2013 Yamaha Super Ténéré and 2013 BMW R1200GS) and headed to our first waypoint in Las Vegas.
But then again, considering the 200 miles or so we did in my car toady alone, picking up the Yamaha, getting Tim fitted with Dainese riding gear and an AGV helmet, not to mention spending countless dollars at REI and other venues for last-minute items, I guess it is reasonable to foresee this trip-of-many-miles getting underway shortly.
Moab, even the name sounds as foreign as its landscapes are to a city slicker like me. You see, there comes a point where you can only pound so much payment on your daily two-wheeled commute before you have to get away from it all…and with San Francisco currently undergoing its Bridgepocalypse, the timing seems right for Asphalt & Rubber to get a little dirt on its riding boots.
The truth is that I have wanted to go the parks that flank the Moab, Utah region since my early Boy Scout days. Once I got a car, it went on the short-list for road trip destinations; when I got a 4×4 it became the target for a four-wheeling adventure; and of course when I got a motorcycle…well, you get the idea. I have never made the trip happen though, but all that is going to change next week.
Just as Scott and David get back from Silverstone, covering what should be a very entertaining British GP, I will be embarking on a eight-day, 2,000+ mile, Santa Barbara to Moab and back, motorcycle trip. Like most of my foolish travel adventures, my college roommate Tim, a long-time riding buddy and occasional A&R helper, will make the adventure with me on two trusty steeds: a BMW R1200GS and Yamaha Super Ténéré.
Rumors have long been around that Honda was looking to bring back the Africa Twin model to its line-up; and with a quick scrolling through Honda America’s “Adventure” category, one can see that the less-than-inspiring odd-couple that are the Honda NC700X and Honda CB500X, while fine machines they might be (though we’ve heard the word “soulless” used more than once to describe them), proper adventure-bikes they surely are not.
With the tuning-fork brand putting out the stout Yamaha Super Ténéré, and Suzuki teasing the 2014 Suzuki V-Strom 1000, Honda and Kawasaki have been late to the Great American Adventure Bike party — though at least Team Green fanatics can pretend like the Versys is a viable option for this category.
With Europeans having a variety of adventure motorcycles to chose from in the Honda brand, bikes like the Honda Transalp, Honda Crossrunner, Honda Varadero, and Honda Crosstourer, us Americans have been left out in the cold.
Well, that might be set to change, as our stroll yesterday though the USPTO’s online database (check-out our find on upcoming Ducati Scrambler) has revealed that Honda Motor Co. has registered “Africa Twin” for use in the American market. Could a proper adventure-tourer from Honda be headed our way?
It’s Thursday afternoon, and you are probably sitting in a cube filing TPS reports when you should be out riding. Might we suggest a stroll around the Himalayas?
If the bossman overlords won’t let you out, then here is the next best thing, as Adam Riemann and his father documented their 4,500 km (2,600 mile), 21-day, multi-national trek across some of the world’s most treacherous, and beautiful, mountain roads.
The narration and story are a bit tough, but the sights are worth the price of admission alone. From the crowded streets of India to the empty solitude of the mountain passes, the Riemann boys seem to have hit every extreme.
We imagine there many more stories that the film doesn’t capture in its roughly six-minute format. To hear those though, you probably will have to undertake the trip yourself. Bring your Pops along too, if you go.