Day-4 Statistics:
332 miles
10 hr 56 min
30 mph average
LJs Bunkhouse, OK
to Alva, OK
This has been a LONG day. After the
short ride yesterday and the average mph we had been able to achieve, everyone
was anxious to cut out a day by combining the next 2 days into one ride. This
meant it would be at least 324 miles long but through the flat lands of the OK
panhandle.
In order to make this happen we readied
the bikes the night before and everyone was told to be ready to depart about
6:30 am or as soon as there was enough light to ride. We did this and we pulled
out of the LJs Bunkhouse around 6:30 am as planned. This plan went down hill
fast.
There had been scattered Thunder Storms
the night before and the humidity was so high that ground fog restricted
visibility to about 20 feet and our glasses and face shields completely fogged
over. Jeff, Woodrow and I were creeping along in the lead when we lost track of
the rest of the guys that were following us. We three were on one intercom and
the other 4 were on the other so we couldn’t contact them. We decided to
continue eastbound rather than backtrack to find them. Both teams had GPS
tracks; maps and tools plus we had been riding separately for most of the last
3 days.
Finally we decided enough is enough and
took a northbound side road to hook up with a paved road to Boise City where we
would wait for the other 4 riders. This side road had gotten lots of rain the
night before and our first clue that this was not going to work was the 30 feet
of mud we went through at the beginning. We made it ok and figure if that was
as bad as it got we could get through OK; Wrong. We came upon another muddy
spot across the road but were able to go up on the side and bushwhack through
tank high weeds around the mud hole. The third mud hole stretched for 50 yards
and filled the road. I went up on the side again in a field and made good
progress until close to the end and the bike started sinking in mud so turned
around. This is when we finally gave up and turned around to go back to the
main TAT road. This was not as easy as you might think due to the high banks we
had to climb including one where Jeff almost flipped his bike backwards. We
made it but still had the fog to deal with.
What we found when we got back to the
main road was 4 motorcycle tracks heading down the TAT. Our four lost riders
had passed us while we were dealing with the muddy road. We caught up with them
a short time later. Our 3 team said that if the road ahead is as bad as what we
just dealt with we were going to take the paved road and bypass all the mud.
The 4 team was determined to ride the TAT no matter what they found so we split
up and never saw them the rest of the day. As it turned out we remained on the
TAT and didn’t have to revert to pavement but still never crossed paths.
Highlights of the day
1
Long,
straight and flat roads with very little scenery
2
Roads
broken down in 1 mile squares
3
Each
1 mile square seemed to have a different road surface; sand, light gravel, mud,
different type of gravel, deep gravel, more sand
4
You
would be riding along on packed gravel at 50 mph then be in sand fishtailing
(very scary)
We were lucky and got no rain today but
there were still stretches with muddy roads caused by the rain last night. We
were always able to find a way through without getting bikes stuck or dropping
them.
Our biggest problem was fuel range once
again. Our bikes have such a short range, even with carrying 1 gal RotoPax, that
we set up two fuel stops with our support truck. Marty had three 5 gal tanks of
fuel waiting for us at Tyrone and Gate, OK. Neither place had a fuel pump of
any kind. He would also have cold drinks and snacks, which was all we ate on
the trail today. I could get used to this kind of riding.
No dropped bikes (close calls only) and
no injuries except for 7 sore butts.
Tomorrow will be a 200-mile day to
Bartlesville, OK. Bad part is it is almost a straight line on the map on the
same type of roads we did today.
I only stopped a couple of times to
take pictures due to the lack of anything interesting see but hope to do better
on our last day from Bartlesville to OK/AR border.
BTW - 4 team beat us to the motel by 17 minutes after 11 hours of riding. We think they took short cuts but they denied it but I'll be checking Terry's GPS log tomorrow.
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