In a couple weeks 5 of us are riding our motorcycles on the Continental Divide from just outside Pueblo Colorado to Canada. We will be riding highway from Kansas City to Pueblo, and from Canada to Kansas City. The rest of the trip will mostly be off-road. I would like to dedicate this trip to my Uncle Brian. Brian Loves motorcycles!
Here is our story...
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Here is our planned route:
Our total planned route is 4,059 miles. I think it will be about 4,500 miles before we get back. I foresee some unplanned routes on our trip.
We did a test run on Memorial Day. We rode 300 miles and it took us about 8 hours with 1 lunch stop and 1 gas stop. We will have a few 300+ mile days on our trip. This ride was very exhausting. I expect the first few days to be a mind game. Here is our track from Memorial Day.
6-20-12
Got some new shoes from Engle Motors. I have gone through 2 of these Continental TKC 80 tires already. Historically I have only been able to get about 3,000 miles out of one of these rear tires. I guess I will have to be a little easy on the throttle to make it home on this one...
6-24-12
Departure day is getting closer! Yesterday I used a rear fender dirt bike graphic I had laying around to protect my tank during our trip. I don't expect to have a lot of chances to wash my bike and I didn't want dirt and dust to sit under my tank bag and destroy my paint. Minus the little crease on the right side it doesn't not look terrible. You won't be able to see it any way.
Next order of business will be tire changes. On Wednesday we are all meeting up to swap rubber.
My primary luggage will be the Wolfman Expedition dry bags. I am waiting on Wolfman to send me new rubber backings so I can get them mounted up and start packing the bike. Hopefully I will get them today.
6-26-12
I am pretty much all packed except for my clothes. I spent some time last night putting everything in zip lock bags. It's incredible how much room a sleeping bag takes up. I have it compressed down as small as it goes and it still takes up almost an entire Wolfman Expedition side bag. As it stands right now I will have 1 tank bag for electronics, road snacks, wallet, etc. 2 Wolfman Expedition side bags, 2 Wolfman large Rollie Bags, and 1 Carribou luggage top case. The top case shouldn't have much in it. I will use it for over flow or just another place to put stuff while on the run.
6-27-12
New tires! I think we are ready to roll! In only a little over 24 hours we should be set up and making dinner at our first camp site.
6-29-12
Today we leave! Right now were waiting in Matt to get out of work. I just finished up a couple things on the bike so now it's time to roll!
Problem #1! Jim made a plate for a bike that Jamie is borrowing. We realized right before we left that it covered the gas tank. Ooops! It's 5.00 and were still in Kansas City. Jamie left you ladies a nice surprise.
3:00am MT
We finally arrived in La Junta, CO. It's 3 am! This is not the planned arrive time or place. We are officially 60 or so miles behind schedule. Today we really need to make it to the Breckenridge Fricso area. No more blog chit chat, time to sleep!
6-30-12 6:00am MT
I can't sleep. My damned internal clock is denying me the privilege to sleep in. Oh well.
What is it about motorcycles and the release from life that they give you while riding. I feel very sorry for the people in the world that have never ridden one. And even more sorry for the people in the world who have no desire to ride one. You get on a motorcycle and the world problems go away. The only thing going on at that exact moment is you, the bike, and the beautiful sights of mother nature. It's awesome!!! So back to the non motorcycle believers. Did you know that if you packed a 747 jumbo jet full of people and slammed it in to the earth that it would equal the amount of people that die in car accidents every day! So, thats 365 jumbo jets that crash every year. If 365 planes crashed every year do you believe that anyone in their right mind would fly? I sure as hell wouldn't. My point is, why are so many people against motorcycles but they drive their death box to work every day? This is a mystery that will never be solved.
Back to bed I go. I need some sleep!
Couldn't sleep. I guess a trail nap will need to happen a little later.
Yesterday we covered 543 highway miles. Today we need to get around 500 miles again to stay on schedule. Here goes nothin...
First day went good. We rode a lot of cool stuff today. The mountains are so beautiful. We didn't have any major events except for Dan's KTM not wanting to run right. For some reason the internal gas pump keeps pumping all of the gas to one side. We also did a really fun hill climb.(video of that later). All in all a very good day. We are back on schedule because we cut some of the route off. We totaled 269 miles today. Not too shabby. Not too many pictures from today's ride on my phone. Those will have to come later.
7-1-12
What a day! We totaled 273 miles today and 1,088 miles total. We saw some really cool stuff today. We basically rode along one river or another all day. Really good stuff. We saw a guy who is walking the continental divide and says that he should be to Canada in September! Wow. That dude is crazy. Soon after making it to Wyoming the scenery changed a bunch. We rode a flat and straight gravel rode for miles and miles. We were doing 80-100 at times. Whelp time for bed.
I seriously slacked off with the ride after we got back. I also started getting in to some areas at night where I couldn't update in the evenings or early morning. So it's time to get this finished!!!
