TAT-2016 Post 11 – Sunday 18 Oct 2015

Our next ride was a repeat of the 11 Oct 2015 Columbus Day ride except it was just Terry and I; Damascus, AR (Highway 65) to a little past Highway 7 north of Dover, AR. Since Terry missed the ride on Columbus Day I offered to repeat the TAT section so Terry could check that section off his must do list. I also wanted to get a long ride in before I went in for hand surgery the next morning. This will be my last ride until around Christmas or early January. Steve and Dale elected to go to the Lake Winona area to ride and Woodrow had family commitments.

Since there would be only two bikes on this ride I used my truck and trailer to haul our bikes to Damascus. I didn’t want a repeat of the trailer excitement of the previous week so we were able to unload quickly and hit the TAT at around 8:30 a.m. Temperature was 43 degrees and didn’t really warm up that much all day. Big difference from the 90’s from previous week.

We went through Scotland and down the same road on the return loop that had the private sign and water crossing that we found last week. Still the most interesting sections of the ride.

The ride was uneventful and the map and pictures show the same loop Damascus to Damascus; 150 miles total. One thing I did do differently was to run my bike out of gas to see exactly how far I could go on the internal 2 gallon tank. The answer is 140 miles, 10 miles short of the 150 mile loop end at Damascus. I had an extra gallon of fuel in my RotoPax so when the engine started skipping I pulled over and emptied the RotoPax into my main tank. Result was right on 70 mpg so with the extra gallon I have about 210 mile range. That’s good enough for the Atlantic west to Colorado legs but I will reconsider my fuel situation later for the more western section(s).

We arrived back at Damascus around 3 p.m. My wife’s family owns a farm on Cadron Creek not far from Damascus and she and some family members were spending the day at the farm. I called to confirm they were still there and rode my bike the short distance to the farm while Terry loaded his bike onto the trailer and drove my truck to his home. After arriving at the farm, I rode around some on the pond berms and dirt roads. That CRF is so much fun doing this kind of riding.

Later that day I headed for home and rode another 60 miles on back roads getting there. Total for the day was 210 miles and if you didn’t notice that was all the gas I was carrying. I finally had to divert to a small town to fuel up or I would have been stranded on some back road, just a few miles from home.

Since I’m out of commission for a while I will use this time to make a few more additions to the CRF:

1               Hand guards – still having trouble finding ones that will fit easily while providing good protection if (when) bike is dropped

2               Luggage - I learned on AK1 and AK2 to keep bike center of gravity (CG) as low as possible. I’m planning on using a horseshoe shaped soft bag that ties to the passenger pegs. Plus I am packing very lite!!

3               Maybe new seat – There are aftermarket seats a lot more comfortable than the 2”x4” seat that comes stock. I did ride over 200 miles today but 10 days straight of this duration will be tough.

That’s it for now. I will post more as the other TAT team members make rides.

I had my surgery the next morning; see temporary soft cast picture. I get a hard cast next week.