Hello again, hope you all enjoyed Day 1 of my Ride Report,  so I’ll continue on!

On the morning of day 2 of my trip, I woke up to a planned “short” day of 492 miles. The morning brought cool, crisp temperatures at 7200 feet, so I put on 2 layers under the Gerbings, and set off into the morning sunrise, which was already creating a light show on the hills around me.

Heading East on Utah SR-24, I headed towards the Dixie National Forest again, and was once again greeted by high canyon walls, this time in the form of Meeks Mesa

I had to stop and gawk for a minute, before continuing East towards Hanksville, passing through terrain features that if you told me I was on the moon, I would have believed you.

I stopped for a quick fill up of gas, and branched off the road heading southeast on Utah SR-95, towards Glen Canyon and Lake Powell. As soon as the road approached Glen Canyon, I was once again amazed by the topography, and saw deep gorges right next to the side of the road, cut away by flowing water. It was all such amazing stuff to see.

Since making my turnoff at Hanksville, I had seen a couple of trucks pulling boats, which seemed odd to me, being in the middle of the desert, but everything became clear once I started seeing signs for Lake Powell, which finally revealed itself off in the distance.

It was AMAZING, to say the least. High cliff walls, topaz water, and that was way off in the distance. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and couldn’t  pass up the chance to divert off the road onto a vista point. The view that followed was absolutely mind-blowing.

The whole vista just seemed to be made all the better by the low ceiling of clouds overhead. The sky being closed in made the massive scale of everything in front of me just a little bit more comprehensible. Just a little bit. And Glen Canyon had no shortage of stunning sights, and the road just flowed like poetry through the landscape.

While stopping to take a few pictures, save for the ones on the move, I noticed I had passed the same big rig hauling a crane about a half dozen times. I wondered if I was more annoying or amusing to the guy.

The road slowly led out of the deep canyons through smaller rolling hills, surrounded by coniferous trees, in stark contrast to the landscape that was just nearby. Turning off on SR-261, the rolling hills eased, and a sign appeared that the pavement ended in half a mile, and there were narrow roads and tight turns ahead. I figured it was just more road construction, but I had no idea I had been riding on top of a massive butte for the past hour, and had abruptly come to the edge of it.

The road continued visibly below, and the only way down was a section of tight switchbacks that dropped you to the valley below in a short section. Good thing I was prepared with Road 2′s on the RSV, because I remember reading something about them being dual-sport, or something.

The road finally met up with the pavement again, and I was off, headed towards the southern tip of Utah, and Monument Valley. Stopping for gas in Mexican Hat (which is actually just a rock chimney on top of a small butte, surrounded by construction trucks, apparently) I rode past a toasted redneck doing his best Peter Fonda, with American flag bandana and ape hangers on his Harley. With the amount of insects on my shield, I imagined he was sporting a winning smile under his mullet.

A few miles further down the road, Monument Valley began to appear. Now, maybe it’s because I had just come through the magnitude of Glen Canyon, and I’d been seeing buttes of many, many scales all over souther Utah, but Monument Valley didn’t blow my mind the way Glen Canyon did. It seemed to me that Monument Valley just had the largest, most glaring examples of how wind and water erode the rock, but have left some of the highest standing islands of stone in the desert.

The road turnoff into Monument Valley finally appeared, next to a cheezy casino/kitsch shop, and I turned onto the Indian reservation, where the signs said it was $5 to enter. I slowed down to 30 to rummage through my tank bag and check to see if I even had any cash on me (because in this age of plastic and the debit card, who actually CARRIES cash?) and luckily I had a whopping $7 in my pocket.

Turns out, Monument Valley is really small-ish parking lot with a restaurant/gift shop that was under construction at the time, filled with many a worker shouting profanities in Spanish. It made me chuckle, as I stared out at the vista, and noticed a dog lying on the ground at the edge of the parking lot. I didn’t know if it was dead or injured, but it let me know when I got closer as it growled and scampered off, that it had been just in fact, taking a nap.
Just below the parking lot, at Monument Valley, there’s a dirt “road” that leads into the valley itself, where tourists can traverse foxhole sized craters and random rocks the size of basketballs jutting out of the dirt, in order to get a closer look at the vistas. I had already done some packed ground, so I figured I’d ride down to take a closer look.

I made it down as far as a small clearing where there were some card tables set up to sell foolish tourists garbage and jewelry that they don’t really need (I’m sure it’s finely crafted and all, but I’m a cynical bastard.) The path down there was filled with Volvos and rented RV’s going 5mph as all the occupants bounced around inside with the uneven road surface. I hit a downhill section of deep sand, and feathered the rear brake only, deciding that packed gravel was fine, but traversing sand on the Michelins was just shitty, and I wasn’t about to go much further.

Thankfully the view where I stopped was worth it.

On my way back up towards tarmac, the downhill section of sand had an RV starting to go up, and I could tell the driver was hesitant to get up it, and I didn’t want to get myself buried having to stop behind him, so I went around the RV which was creeping forward at a glacial pace, made it 3/4 of the way up, tried to avoid a huge dome of sand, and went right into a hole as deep as that pile was tall. The front wheel made it through, but I felt the bike lose momentum and dropped my feet as soon as I felt the rear sink into the hole and stop. I feathered out the clutch and felt the rear spin, so I hopped off the bike, rocked it back and forth at a 45 degree angle to the incline of the road to get the bike out of the hole, and walked the last 50 feet next to the bike giving it a touch of gas and clutch to help me move it up through the sand. As I climbed back on, I looked behind me and saw the RV shooting a huge rooster tail of sand as the back corner of it sank even deeper into the road. Poor guy was probably going to be there awhile…

Back on US-163 I headed down a half mile to the Arizona border, and as I snapped the picture of the Welcome sign, I realized I was “close” to the four corners, and I may as well be a touristy dumbass and go there as well.

Stopping for gas and a disgusting lunch of fried chicken strips in Arizona, I punched the location of Four Corners into the GPS, and realized I was actually 70 miles from where it was, which was a little further than I had anticipated. I figured I may as well, and set off on US-160 heading East. It was boring, flat, and dull with little to look at. Why was I going to the Four Corners again?

Finally, about an hour later, I crossed into the tip of New Mexico, and headed up the road leading to Four Corners.

Finally arriving at Four Corners, it turned out to be another section of Reservation, wanting another $5 for an entry fee. It took me about half a second to decide that for another $5 in cash I didn’t have, I didn’t really give a shít about seeing a metal plaque on the ground marking a political boundary, with other people milling about holding hands in four different states.
I motored on into Colorado.

Now the sign says “colorful Colorado” but the southwest corner of Colorado greets you with these small, grey domes of rock that make it look more like a pit mine than a scenic state. I soon stopped for gas again, filled up my camelbak as the weather was in the low 90′s now, and continued up US/SR-491 back into Utah, into a little town called Monticello. Now the only thing that town and the mansion Jefferson built for himself share is that they both have f’d up streets, wet from rain, and torn up by bulldozers. (Thomas Jefferson had bulldozers, look it up.)

US-191 heading north out of Monticello was pretty scenic still, with buttes off in the distance, and some close to the road. There was even another natural arch right off the road, with a housing tract behind it (an extravagant $130K buys you a home here!

This rock formation on US-191 looked like a giant, fat, stone woman

I crossed back into Colorado, through a nice flowing road that lead into La Sal National Forest, and was a welcome change from the 200-something miles I’d just done of straight highway roads. A quick detour south led me to the nearest gas station the GPS was able to find, where again I topped over 4.2 gallons, well past the safe point of the “reserve” in the tank.

After refueling I headed north again where the road branched off north to Colorado SR-141, and was easily the best road of the day, certainly ranking amongst the best of the trip. The road leads you from slow rolling forests, right along a river, right into another massive canyon, where the river widens, and the road flows right alongside it. You soon find yourself surrounded by 100 foot vertical cliffs, riding amongst giant stone monoliths, ancient and silent. I truly felt humbled by the scale and beauty of the surroundings. It’s hard to show in pictures, but there were about 30 miles of riding alongside the river that had carved out these canyon walls. I’d go back and ride it again in a heartbeat.

SR-141 eventually wound down, as it neared Grand Junction, Colorado, where everybody drives 40mph, despite the posted limit is 50, and the cop that was taking a nap 5 seconds ago won’t hesitate to pull into the street and follow that “rice rocket” with the bags on it that just rolled by him (still below the speed limit)

After stopping at a motel in a quiet suburb of Grand Junction and asking Agnes (she was old and crabby, I assumed she had a name like that) how much the single was (85+ tax, and they’re ALL smoking rooms) I decided to head back west on I-70 towards the airport at Grand Junction where I knew there were motels and stuff available.

Settled on the Motel 6, which sported a cool 44.95 price on the sign, got checked in, somehow got bumped up to 50-something with bullshít fees, AND had to pay $3 for 24 hours of internet.Awesome. One star fleabags offer free internet and the cocks at Motel 6 still charge you for internet like it’s 2002 and wireless is something new and cutting edge? See if I ever stay at your crap locations again. In fact, I urge everyone to avoid staying there if at all possible.

I unpacked my stuff, checked the odometer and somehow ended up with 631 miles in 11 hours. The Four Corners had been more or less a needless detour that resulted in nothing more than the amusement of tagging the New Mexico welcome sign.
Had dinner at Cocos (finest quality meal I’d had thus far) went to Home Depot to get some WD-40 to lube my chain, and went to bed. Decided to ruin a towel from the motel cleaning my chain for charging me for wifi. Bastards.

In late 2001 I was just coming off of a CBR-destroying crash that left me a little mangled. A sand covered corner at 70 mph or so sent my f4i flying through the air sideways while I went sliding ass-first into a tall curb. 1 inch and things might’ve been different, the docs said. I was lucky. The bike survived and I made it out with no broken bones. Sure, 1 leg was slightly longer than the other and I spent the better part of a year in therapy trying to get my back and hips back in line – but I was ok.

I repaired the bike but it was never quite right. I’m not sure if it was the demons in my head or the shock of it smashing into the curb tweaking the front end, but I lost all confidence in that machine. I’d gone on a fall ride with my friend Yen and some lunatics in Connecticut and I knew that I’d never believe in that bike anymore. I couldn’t get in sync with it, and it was time to find a suitable replacement. During the spring of 2002 I was on a mission to re-steed myself.

It’s probably no shock that I like odd, obscure or “special” motorcycles. I’ve never looked at any of the Gixxer family of sportbikes with that “I WANT ONE OF THOSE” feeling. Maybe because you see a billion of them out there? Or maybe they lack the character I tend to like? Or maybe I have no taste? That’s all-together possible.

My initial gut desire was to pick up a twin. I was reading up a ton on the 2000.5/2001 Aprilia RSV. I really liked the bike. It was obscure enough to be different, I was sure that they weren’t flying off the shelves, and I thought that might put me in a better buying position so I went to a dealer and sat on one. Sitting next to it in the showroom was a yellow 2001 Falco.

Yes, I know it’s ugly.

I had a friend and an acquaintance who each owned one. (Later on I’d become much better friends with this acquaintance, one Catfish ). Compared to the RSV the Falco had the same great motor but slightly more relaxed ergos. I really liked how odd it looked. I was sure I’d only be the 3rd guy on LI to own one.

I faxed around an email to all the local Aprilia dealers in the NY tri-state area telling them I was ready to move that day and that the best price would win my sale. Within 20 min I had calls and emails back, and I’d made the deal the next day. Maximum Motorsports out in Riverhead was the winner. I am pretty sure they knew I was the only sucker in 300 miles who even wanted that ugly duckling. I got a great deal and the bike was mine. I knew I loved the twin power delivery the day I brought it home. I really thought it was a great decision.

The day I went to pick it up, a new rider with no experience picked up his 2002 1000cc GSXR and promptly highsided pulling out of the dealership. With the synchronized moves of a seasoned pit crew the dealership team rushed out, cleaned up the carcass and handed him the bill for the repairs. I, on the other hand successfully exited the lot and headed home.

When I arrived at my house, I noticed the paint on the seat cowl (which was new, in the protective wrap in my backpack) didn’t quite match. In fact, it looked like it’d been base-coated and left with a single coat of paint on top. I called the dealer immediately and asked them to warranty a new cowl as the one I received was shite. This process, from the moment I called until the day I received the replacement, was about 1 year in length. Eventually the owner of Maximum got so sick of me asking for it that while at a dealer conference – he took the floor model seat cowl and gave it to me. Aprilia USA had yet to be sold, and man, their parts delivery was horrible. (As I write this, somewhere in California Novos is shaking).

Queue William Shatner singing “In love” – play it in the background as you read

This is where I say “30 years later and we’re still together”. Alas, it was not meant to be. Under her ugly exterior she was, well, ugly.

The good part of the bike? Great motor.

The bad part? Well, just about everything else.

It handled like a wet sock. No changes or adjustments really helped. I found a slightly used RSV Sachs shock with comp and rebound adjustments. Still didn’t help. The guys I knew online who had them started dumping more and more money into suspension. I realized I wasn’t willing to make the commitment to making that bike better than it was. I missed the delivery and flickability of an inline 600. I missed what a great handling bike felt like. I’d jumped into a rebound relationship and woke up one day next to a chick I didn’t even really like.

Spring of 2003 rolled around. While at the bike show in NYC I met the object of my next relationship, one that continues on to this day – the 2003 636. It might be the best handling bike I ever purchased. We saw each other from across the room and I knew I was in trouble. She had me at radial brakes.

The next day I cleaned up the Falco and put her up for sale on eBay. The auction ended with no sale – no one wanted that bike. Not even me. A day later a guy contact me offline and we made a deal. He took the Falco off my hands for $7k (unheard of) and picked it up the next weekend.

Sometimes I look at old pictures of her and wonder where she is, what she is doing, and if her current owner hates how she handles too.

Greetings, everyone! Imagine my surprise when I was asked to talk about my recent road trip by the Fuzzmops and post it up here… quite an honor I must say!

To give you a little bit of background about myself: I was born to a poverty stricken family of chicken handlers in rural Mexico, where we made our money by hucking eggs at trucks and taking the goods when they flipped over. This worked fine, and life was good, until one of those trucks spilled out one of those victorian bicycles with the 6 foot tall front wheel, and I was instantly hooked on being on 2-wheels. The very next day, I decided to go on this trip.

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Originally planning for the usual 3-4 days being gone, I figured I could actually squeeze in a whole week of riding, which in turn led to “how far COULD I go in one week?”

Simple route layout began to lay out the route, and I picked the end of my summer break before school started again as my departure date, because it would ensure that it would not be sweltering hot, and from prior knowledge of my friends the Fuzzmops, knew that the Beartooth Highway in Wyoming could still be closed for snow as late as late May/ early June. Thus, the general time window was laid out, and the closer I got to the departure date, the more I fine tuned the route I would be taking. More or less “guessing” on how far I’d be going every day I gave myself specific checkpoints to at least reach every night, trying to keep the mileage to around mid-500 miles per day.

So as my departure date finally approached, I’d already picked out the finest accommodations I could find in the towns I planned to stop at for the night: One star motels priced more or less around $50/night. Pretty much all of them were found with Google maps, just typing “motel” into the map search zoomed into the little town. Some were actually just found getting into town, asking how much for a single room, and deciding to stay or not.

Finally, August 11 came, the day before my departure. Work absolutely dragged on forever. I couldn’t wait to leave; and since I would be gone on the date of my mom’s birthday, I took her out for an early celebration dinner that night, and had the best sushi imaginable. Went home, already knew the anticipation wouldn’t let me sleep much anyway, and set my alarm for 3:45 AM, just enough time to stumble out of bed, get geared up and head on my way, in order to traverse the I-15 through Vegas and Nevada, before the sun was fully up and ready to kick my ass.

Woke up several hours later, walked to the garage, where the bike was already packed and loaded up, put on my Gerbings liner to offset the morning chill through the mesh jacket, and was on my way.

3.5 hours later, I was in Vegas, with the thermometer greeting me with 97 degrees at 7:50 AM. Motored on, fighting off boredom and drowsiness, knowing I had 400 miles of slab to cover before I got to anything resembling interesting. I would have to say the whole bottom tip of Nevada smells like tar, rubber, and foul chemical stench that I can’t quite describe.

By 10:00 AM I was greeted by a small canyon pass following a river as the I-15 crossed a small corner of Arizona, giving me a chance to pass some of the cars that had just been blowing by me at 95, who were now going 50, due to the complex task of having to make a turn.

About 20 minutes later, I was finally into Utah.

A short while later, I was in La Verkin, Utah, which was my jumpoff point off the I-15 (finally) and the route that would lead me into Zion, National Park. The clouds that had been brooding in the distance were now the clouds I was riding into, and it began to spatter soft, sporadic drizzle on me, although the air temperature remained in the high 80′s.

Stopped for a quick breakfast, where I ran into a quartet of riders, who had their Harleys with trailers outside, and chit chat led to them proudly show their patches they had EARNED that said “I rode mine to Sturgis.” They let me know there was rain up ahead in Zion, where they had just come from, and thanked them, though I had already pulled out my rain gear and staged it somewhere quickly accessible.

Heading down the road, I soon found myself surrounded by iron-rich rocks glowing a fiery red. Quite the change from all the dull browns you grow accustomed to in Southern California.

Finally reaching Zion, I purchased a multi-agency annual pass from the Parks Service for $80 that gets up to 3 motorcycles into a national park for 1 year from purchase, or up to 4 people in a car, I believe. I would be going through several National Parks, so it made sense to buy it, as only a few parks would put me over the price tag of the annual pass.

The road leading into Zion, Utah State Highway 9, goes from relative flatlands to a deep canyon in a very short time. It’s quite an amazing change from the 400-something miles of flat boredom you’ve just endured to get there.

Zion, while being an incredibly small section of road on SR-9, takes you from the deep canyon walls, through a half-mile long tunnel cut straight into the rock, and up into smaller rolling hills, with the rocks changing into something resembling a flaky pastry crust. (I know, good thing I’m not a geologist.)

As the bike complained about the 30mph speeds I was stuck at, following the endless parade of cages in front of me, Zion slowly but surely ended, leaving you wanting for more scenery and amazing geological formations.

But the road soon opened up, and the hordes of tourists vanished, leaving only an open road between Zion and Bryce Canyon National Park, and the Dixie National Forest, as the road branched into US-89 heading north.

Arriving in Bryce Canyon, NP, the clouds began to darken some, which made me stop and put my rain pants on, in addition to the rain jacket I was already wearing. Going into the park (which had all the road torn up into compacted gravel) the clouds opened up some, and let a light, but steady rain fall, as I headed towards the end of the road. The minor inconvenience of road and weather would totally be worth the vistas once the end of the road was reached.

Reeling from the spectacular views, and amazing weathering and erosion of the rocks, I headed back out through the rain back to Utah SR-12 which was my route north.

I hit an wide open section of sweepers, but began to struggle with drowsiness, my eyelids getting heavy anytime a short section of straightaway showed up, making me realize I’d only had about 3 hours of sleep, and how utterly stupid it was to ride if I was this tired. I checked the Zumo for my gas mileage and noticed I was due to stop soon, and tried to wake myself up to at least get to the gas station, where I’d down a redbull, and some sugary snack to at least wake me up temporarily. By now, the skies had let up with the rain, and it was just warm, but not too humid. Overcast skies must have been helping to keep the temperature down.

Stopping for gas, and something to wake myself up, my odometer read something in the high 400′s for mileage, and realized I still had quite a ways to go before I was at my stop for the night. Time-wise, I was doing fine for arriving with daylight left, so I figured I’d press on.

The open sweeping road finally became a tighter section of road, as it dropped in elevation suddenly, through another steep canyon of red.

This canyon eventually led back up into elevation, where it actually followed the very crest of a ridge for about 5 miles, giving you dropoff vistas on both sides of the road. After the road flattened out again, it began to lead into the Capitol Reef National Park, which culminated in the road turning something very much akin to the Cherohala Skyway, if you’ve ever been on it. 50-ish miles of sweepers, with an occasional left or right kink thrown in. Great rhythm, and as I climbed up in elevation again, the temperature began to drop from high to mid 80′s down into the 60′s. I stopped to put the Gerbings back on and snap a picture.

The road finally brought me to a fork where I had to head northwest for 10 miles, into a small little town called Bicknell, where I had chosen to stop for the night. Tired and frazzled, I pulled into the parking lot, relieved to finally be able to relax. Checked the odometer and it let me know I’d just done 682 miles in 14 hours, on 3 hours of sleep. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

Had dinner at the diner that was attached to the motel, where I was looked at with ridicule by the patrons since I was wearing shorts and my moto boots. I stood in the doorway with everyone staring at me and just said out loud “I know. I don’t have any other shoes…” and just sat down. I took a shower, set my alarm for 6AM the next morning, and fell asleep with absolutely no trouble, by 9PM local time.

Next up: Falling in love with Utah, and riding into Colorado