TAT-2016 Post 44 – Thursday, 4 Aug 2016 Addendum

 Woke up this morning (Friday 5 Aug) and remembered I didn’t post the track from my GPS and there were a few other thinks I forgot to post. I will fill in the gaps here plus add more pics from yesterday.

It rained all night plus some are driving to Gunnison to get parts for their bikes (Yamahas and KTM). The Hondas are still going strong with all parts intact. As a result, we plan on using today to repair bikes and clean gear anticipating leaving early in the morning for Day 1 of our TAT ride back to Arkansas.

The maps below are from my GPS and SPOT. The first one shows our 104 mile ride including Engineer Pass then Stony Pass (going counter clockwise). The gray and thinner red line shows our original planned return, Cinnamon Pass. We all agree now that we should have attempted Cinnamon pass but you had to be there to understand our logic to go the Stony Pass route. The Stony Pass route added 60 miles to our ride.

I’ll discuss several topics in the rest of the post.

Bikes:

We all had good light bikes with new rubber. We were not heavily loaded which helped mostly on Stony Pass. Multiple drops didn’t do any serious damage and with the exception of Steve’s front sprocket, we were not delayed by breakdowns. No flat tires and we rode a LOT on very rocky trails. I was using 19 psi both front and back and the others were similar.

Honda CRF250L – Both CRFs had the FMF/header upgrade and it made the difference in making those steep climbs. Many times we’re in 1^st gear and it was obvious the CRF was pulling at the top end of its power. An unmodified CRF with a heavy load would be questionable. This only was an issue on the steepest climbs especially if rocky or wet but the CRF performed perfectly 95% of the time. I’m not saying don’t use the CRF250L but I highly recommend doing the FMF/header mod. One thing I did have a problem with at the worse moment while doing a steep climb. I was just starting the climb and on my pegs when the engine bogged down several times in succession. It scared me so much that I set down and kept turning the throttle until the engine started running at full power again. I continued the climb but was very concerned what was causing this to happen. The CRF is fuel injected but we were close to 12,000’ with the air pretty thin. It ran fine for a long time before the same thing happened on another climb. This time Woodrow was behind me and shouted that my kick-stand was coming down. This of course kills the engine. What was happening was when I got up on the pegs my boot was hitting the kickstand causing the engine to go on and off. I’m eliminating the kickstand kill switch when I get home.

Yamaha WR25R – Both WRs also had the FMF upgrade and didn’t seem to have any problems with climbs. Jeff has a big sprocket in back so his bike could climb much better than mine.

KTM690 – His bike did great as you would expect. Climbing or descending caused him no problems, even on those real rocky stretches on Stony Pass.

Altitude:

Lake City is 8600’ and the passes go up over 12,000’. I definitely don’t do well at these altitudes and have had a mild upset stomach and no appetite. I’m also not drinking as much water as you should so that doesn’t help. I’ll be glad to head down to lower altitudes tomorrow.

Riding Clothes:

This caused a lot of discussion before we left on this trip. I finally brought both warm and cold weather gear and glad I did. Riding the passes was very cool/cold and with the rain it would have been miserable if not properly dressed. Once we get in NM and OK the mesh warm weather gear will be my choice. We have a support vehicle so this isn’t a problem but the non-supported TAT riders have to carry it all and I appreciate how this increases the bike’s load.

Today:

The weather has been on/off rain and the wind is blowing. Several of us drove in the truck the 100 mile round trip to Gunnison to get parts for bikes. Steve got a new front sprocket to replace the one that caused so many problems yesterday. Terry bought a set of mirror replacements for his KTM. He bought the same type as I have, Double Mirror I think they are called. I picked up a new spout for my RotoPax after mine failed yesterday. It would not unlock and let the fuel flow. The new spout is a straight spout so I’m glad to get rid of that pain-in-the-a locking spout.

It’s noon and we have to decide if we plan on riding or not due to the weather. I would like to try a run up to Cinnamon Pass so will let you know how that goes in the next post.

Got to get this loaded so more later.