TAT-2016 Post 38 - Saturday 28 May 2016

I’m making this post a couple of days later but it covers the Memorial Day TAT ride on 28-29 May. It is extremely “wordy” in order to capture all the events of the ride so be warned. I will focus on the TAT trail details first so those making a TAT ride through AR can get the important details. I’ll save the ride pictures and events for the last of the post.

Sena SMH10 Intercom 2^nd Update

During my last post I provided a checklist for pairing four rides at the same time. IT WORKED! It is cumbersome to get it all done the first time but over the 2 day ride we were all connected most of the time. Occasionally there would be a connection lost but all it took was pushing the joggle button once and connection would be made again. Even on the 2^nd day that was all required to re-establish 4 way intercom. I retract my previous bad statements about Sena except their user manual is crap.

Once again the YouTube video link provided by Sena is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbQLizSRyiM

Ride details

Four riders:

1.    Mike – Heavily upgraded 2015 Honda CRF250L. I was also heavily loaded carrying all my TAT gear, 1 gal RotoPax plus some clothes and shoes belonging to Terry since his new KTM didn’t have any racks.

2.    Woodrow – 2015 Honda CRF250L. He was about half loaded with a bag and 1 Gal RotoPax but did not carry his TAT GL bag.

3.    Jeff – 2008 Yamaha WR250R. He was heavily loaded with 1 gal RotoPax plus full Wolfman saddle bags several top bags and a small tank bag. This was Jeff’s first time ever to do this type of ride so had brought everything in his garage. I did get him to leave behind some items I was already carrying but his bike was heavy.

4.    Terry – 2016 KTM590 with 1 mile on the odometer. He carried no gear, extra fuel or even his change of clothes, I had them in my GL bag. Much more on this later.

TAT Section

We picked up the TAT just north of Dover, AR and rode to the OK border; 186 miles. We left Dover at 8 am and arrived at the OK border ad 5 pm; 9 hrs @ 21 mph average. Map below:

Return Ride

We then rode back to Fayetteville, AR to spend the night, which was another 45 min ride and arrived at the Motel around 6 pm ready for a shower and cold beer. The next morning we took an easy ride back to our trucks at Dover, AR on 2-lane paved roads but through some great scenery. Total return ride was 144 miles but 29 of that was done getting to Fayetteville the day before. See map below:

Weather

PERFECT! We had been watching the Wx for the last week and it looked like we would have heavy T-Storms during both Sat/Sun but on Sat morning it was cloudy for a while then sunny the rest of the trip. Temps cool at the start but lower 80’s after 10 am. NO RAIN the whole trip. Roads were mostly dry except where described below.

TAT Trail Details – in no specific order

The TAT from our start to almost to the intersection of I-49 at Mountainburg was mostly gravel roads with some single lane gravel interspersed with some 2-lane paved roads between gravel roads; gravel was never very deep or a problem. Past Mountainburg more gravel roads but not deep gravel so travel was good. We only had one water crossing, shown on map later, but crossed lots of creeks and streams that had bridges. During heavy rain some of these bridges and the water crossing could be flooded.

Problem #1 – We came to a sign that said “Road Closed .6 miles ahead”. We of course rode down to make sure they weren’t in error. The sign was correct with a fence across the road. We could have worked around the fence but decided to look for a by-pass. This is were I highly recommend having a GPS with Topo Maps loaded. I use a Garmin 64ST for following the TAT tracks but it also comes loaded with Topo Maps. I could see several logging roads that ran parallel to the TAT so we took one of those and reconnected with the TAT several miles later. See pictures below for maps, Lat/Long and pictures. The red line is our track and the blue line is the TAT track.

Problem #2 – We came to another sign on the TAT track that said “Dead End”. We thought that very strange because the TAT track clearly went down that road. Both my Garmin 64ST and Garmin 660LM GPS said there was a through road to Mountainburg. Although we could see a by-pass route on our GPS we decided to go down to see why it was marked as a dead end. The track took us several miles on decent gravel roads through widely spaced houses until at one point it started down a long slope descending from the top of a ridge line to Mountainburg. I had seen a post from a previous TAT rider who included a picture of a real bad section near Mountainburg. This was that section.

Three of the riders have ridden the TAT from Charleston, SC to the OK border (except for a section in MS) and we all agreed this was the worse section on the whole TAT up to now. We found a terrible road that had been eroded badly by previous rains and currently had two streams of water going the full length, one in both lanes of the road. As a result there were constant baby-head rocks (my wife hates that term) the whole way and even some full baby size rocks. I’m talking non-stop for what seemed like several miles. The map below shows the start at the red pin and it was constant until the bend to the right were we finally connected with the road to Mountainburg. It was clear that the “Dead End” sign meant this stretch was no longer considered a road passable by most vehicles and it was right.

We had Terry on his new “light” KTM riding lead and he would keep sending back comments like “it looks even worse up a head”. An Intercom is so important for passing road conditions like this. My only though was “I hope we don’t have to back track up this road because as bad as going down is, going up would be almost impossible”. One section to take note about is someone had put down about 30’ of asphalt trying to improve one steep area but it had washed away at the end with about a 2’ drop. If you ride to the end of this asphalt you will have a very difficult time getting off the drop or getting back to where there was a place to get off at the top and ride a more passable route off the asphalt. Luckily Terry had spotted the danger and warned us to take the exit at the top of the asphalt.

Both Jeff and Woodrow dropped their bikes at least once maybe twice (they won’t say for certain) on this bad section. No damage or injury but a B----- to get back on the bikes and continue. No way anyone could park his bike to help anyone else. Jeff actually laid his bike on the ground once to help Woodrow but Woodrow got the bike up on his own.

I marked the start of this section “Hell Road” on the map for very good reasons. Like I said, there was running water in both lanes and it hadn’t rained for several days here. If you hit this in real bad Wx I would really consider the by-pass.

Only one real water crossing on this section shown on map below. There was one stretch of several miles where the road was full of water holes and some mud but all of it was passable with little to no problems. Jeff did drop his bike the first time in a mud hole trying to take a sloped route around the hole. We advised him after he got out of the hole that that is usually not a good idea for the reasons he just discovered. I told him that if the bike in front made a good run why try some other route, follow the leader. At least it proved that his new Wolfman bags were watertight.

That’s all the specific TAT trail details. The rest is more about our ride and several events that happened.

With the end of this ride, 3 of us have ridden all the way from the East Coast, Charleston, SC, to the AR/OK border; most of that on the TAT except for a section in MS that we will ride later. That’s about 1,800 miles on dual sports. We will be leaving to ride the TAT section from OK/AR border to Lake City, CO in August so this was a warm up ride and to shorten the Aug trip a few days.

We all met in Russellville, AR Waffle House at 6:15 am on Sat. Jeff and I had spent the night before at a local motel but Terry and Woodrow drove from North Little Rock. I used the time in the motel to go over all the gear Jeff was carrying plus repack my bags. We did remove some duplicate items to help reduce the load.

We then drove the trucks about 10 miles north to Dover, AR where we parked in a supermarket parking lot to unload. I had coordinated leaving the 3 trucks and 1 trailer in the parking lot with the Chief of Police and the supermarket owners. All of which were very helpful and did not even know the TAT ran about 10 miles up the road. Great place to get food and gas but no motels. Several pics at the parking lot and Woodrow showing off the holes in his riding jacket from his crash on Leg-1 where he broke his leg. Also, a pic of Terry with his brand new KTM and the odometer reading of 1 mile. What I had previously failed to realize was he had no way to carry any gear or clothes so I had to stuff them into my GL bag. Therefore he rode the most powerful bike with nothing but the rider for the next 2 days. While we were suffering with heavy bikes on the tough stretches, Terry was all smiles riding his light KTM and asking us what was the problem.

This is a beautiful section of Arkansas and the ride through the Ozark Nation Forest is full of mountains and streams. I kept stopping to take pictures and this is only a few of them:

Oark Café is a must stop on the TAT and we of course had to follow tradition. The café was full of people having lunch so we all had a piece of excellent pie. We signed the Log Book and it is full of signatures for years back. There is also a paved road to Oark so lots of touring bikes make this stop in addition to TAT riders. The owner gave us Oark Café stickers for our bikes and off we rode.

The next event is very embarrassing and I considered leaving it out of my blog but I know one of the other riders would made a comment sooner or later. We decided to get gas at Turner Bend a few miles past Oark Café because I’m very familiar with this place. It is the main outfitter for kayaking/canoeing the Mulberry River. Our Arkansas Canoe Club (ACC) puts on a white water paddling school here each year early in May and we usually have 100+ students and 200+ instructors and support personnel in the Turner Bend camp ground for a long 3 days of school. Both my wife and I have taught at this school for many years and love this spot. It is also right on one of the most scenic touring bike rides in the state so on any given week-end and especially a Memorial Day weekend with great weather this place will be full of touring bikes; Harley Davidsons, Goldwing’s, BMWs, Victory’s and more. Turner Bend is a few miles south of the TAT but well worth the stop for gas and they make great sandwiches.

As we pulled into the parking lot it was full of bikes and people all around the gas pump. I would guess at least 30 to 40 or more in the immediate area. In fact the pump had several riders and their bikes in the way. They moved slight to one side as I rode up and asked if they were through with the pump. They said yes so I put down my kickstand and started to get off on the high side and immediately dropped the bike and rolled over on my back at the feet of these guys. They just all stared down at me in disbelief but immediately helped me up and lifted my bike. Everyone in the parking lot stopped to watch this fool, me, to figure out how he made it this far with such a heavily loaded bike. One guy said you really got that bike loaded and all I could say was “yes it is”. Everyone went back to what they were doing with no comments but my riding partners sure gave me a bad time and said they couldn’t believe what they saw. I told them it was all that crap I was carrying for Terry that caused the fall but they knew better. I’m including a few pics of the parking lot and fuel pump after they had all cleared out. My only excuse is I was more nervous about hitting one of the HDs that I didn’t pay attention to the slope next to the pump where my kickstand was setting. The bike was barley on the stand when I shifted to the right and that was all it took to go over. BTW as the large group of HDs was leaving one older HD had a dead battery so the rider pointed it down a slope, started running along side of the bike, kicked it into gear and the bike immediately fell with him flying over the handle bars onto the ground. His was a much more spectacular dropping than mine was.

We finally made it to the Oklahoma border, which is nowhere near a motel. We considered riding south 50 miles to Van Buren, AR or back east 29 miles to Fayetteville, AR. We were all tired and ready to get off the bikes, take a shower and drink a cold beer so took the shorter selection to Fayetteville. We arrived at the motel in busy traffic around 6 pm; 10 hours after we started riding from Dover. Jeff made a comment that the longest he had ever ridden a motorcycle at one time was 2 hours. I asked him if he thought he could do this every day for 10 to 15 days on the longer TAT rides. He said yes but he may rethink this after he gets home.

The ride back to the trucks the next morning was not bad at all. Temps were cool and traffic non-existent plus Hwy 71 south out of Fayetteville is very scenic with lots of turns that motorcycle riders’ love.

Last Pic is of me and my son Jeff after our first TAT ride together. Hope he comes along for the big rides out west.

Lessons Learned

1.    Jeff learned what worked and what did not work as far as loading his bike and gear to carry. He also learned what he needed to have easy access to instead of having to stop to dig into bags.

2.    Terry learned that his new KTM makes a weird sound that sounds like it is about to throw a rod but all instrument indications are normal. He installed a new skid plate just before this trip so thinks it may be knocking against something but I told him every KTM I’ve ever heard (all 3 of them) sounded like they were about to come apart. He also learned to not follow Woodrow too close as a result of a quick stop and running into him from behind. It put a knot on Woodrows previously broken leg but no apparent permanent damage. Of Couse on Leg-1 we thought his leg was OK but it was broken. Better go get another MRI Woodrow!

3.    Woodrow learned that he still needs lots of practice on rough terrain. He dropped his bike on Hell Road because he tried to put his foot down on the low side and the ground was a few inches below his foot. He took a hard fall that time but no damage or injury. We all think he is made of rubber with all the pounding he gets and still gets up to keep riding.

4.    I learned to pay more attention to how the bike is leaning on the kickstand and especially with a large crowd of other bikers watching you. I also learned to not fall for the line “I haven’t gotten racks for my new bike yet so would you carry a few things for me?”. I also learned that the FMF exhaust upgrade I recently made makes the CRF a great ride but it has definitely gotten louder as it burns in.

Long post I know so hope you can put up with my rambling on.

Next on our agenda is local riding for the next couple of months but we have nailed down the dates for the Aug TAT ride to CO. 2-13 August. We also have a support vehicle for this ride and I will post in a few days our plans for that ride.

Ride safe everyone.