So this guy (me!) walks out of a Bank of America yesterday and he sees this BMW:
He's thinking to himself, "I've seen that bike somewhere...where the hell do I recognize that damned bike from...??". We're not just talking about any BMW 650...but THE EXACT SAME BIKE....He knows it.
As he gets closer.... it starts to dawn on him...
He remembers reading a blog a few years back about a guy named Allan Karl that essentially quit his day job to travel, by motorcycle, to every corner of the world....Could this be the same guy? Certainly not. What are the chances?
Well guess what...
All joking aside, Allan was kind enough to take the time to chat with me about some of his travels and experiences. What a great guy!
I consider Allan one of the original "ADV" guys. Certainly he was one of the pioneers of "Adventure Blogging"! I remember reading his blog well before I had ever heard of ADVRider and I'd have to lend credit to Allan for inspiring my upcoming Alaska bid.
I'd highly recommend giving his blog a good read. You won't be disappointed:
So, the crew over at ST-Owners.com have had some games of "Tag, You're it!" going on and today I decided it was my turn to play.
The concept: Find the location of the last picture posted, ride to the location, take a picture of your bike in front of it. Then all you have to do is shoot a photo of your bike in another location and post both pictures before someone else does. Simple.
The last location was Stonewall Mine in Julian (HWY 79). It's a great little place for a hidden tag. I'd never been to it until today:
My buddy (and neighbor) Ryan tagged along (no pun) on his Harley:
After the first tag was bagged, we shot into Julian for a bite to eat:
We swapped bikes for about 30 miles. It was a nice change and my first experience riding a Harley. I have to say, I liked it!
Well, I finally got the bikes delivered and they barely fit in my 1 car garage.
As much as I would like to keep these (And yes, they are as nice as the original pictures), I have decided to "flip them". Realistically, I just don't have the space in my garage to keep *5* bikes.
Every time I need to prep one of my touring bikes for a trip, I'm going to have to move the classics out of the way and risk damaging them. It's obvious I need a bigger house...well...not house... I like my condo...maybe a two bedroom 4 car garage....? But I digress.... :)
An interesting note: When the shipper (the owner and driver of the shipping company) arrived with the bikes, he immediately commented that everyone that saw them thought I had made an exceptionally good deal (also considering who the previous owner is - Paul Teutul Sr!). His exact remarks..."They are beautiful. Contact me if you ever want to sell them because I have some people that would be really interested."
So I shot John a call last week and let him know my decision. He said he'll shop them around. I've also decided to list these as a pair on ebay, using the original photos from the ad. Probably not the smartest decision as it won't maximize any profit, but it's not about the profit in this case. These are exceptional bikes and they just aren't going to fit in my life right now.
I have a cool story to go with this and that's enough. :)
Let the bidding commence.
Here's a link to the purchase ad (It reflects what I paid for the bikes including shipping):
So back in Spring, I stumbled across a couple classic Honda's on Ebay. The advertisement showed what appeared to be some grainy photos of Paul Teutul Sr. standing with two classic Honda motorcycles: A 1970 Honda CB750 and a matching 1970 Honda CB450.
The seller had zero feedback and ended late on a Sunday evening. The advertisement wreaked of fraud.
There was quite a bit of activity on the auction and I figured "What the hell! I know how to get myself out of these things...." so I signed up with my favorite bid sniper program and a few hours later, I won the auction!
On my lunch break the next day, I got the phone number from the Orange County Choppers home page and gave them a bell. After explaining the the situation to the receptionist, I was put on hold for about 5 mins, after which, she confirmed that it was a real auction. At the bank, I had the certified check made out to Paul Teutel Sr. himself as the bikes were part of his personal collection.
After speaking with the person handling the ebay auction for Mr. Teutel, the check was in the mail and the waiting began.
Apparently Paul Sr. was thinning out his heard to make room for some new bikes. I had hoped to either fly out there and meet him or at the very least get some photos of him sitting on the bikes, but because of his schedule, this was not to be. Maybe some day I'll have another chance. :)
The shipper contacted me tonight and said he was finally on the road and that the bikes will be here Tuesday. Time to get in the garage and make some room...
The pics from Ebay. Can anyone say "Photoshop"! :)
It's been a while since TechSTOC 2008, but work has had my full attention for the last couple months.
Thanks to Fred C. Adams and Turbo City Tom for organizing this.
I chose to ride the 2006 KLR-650 up. It's pretty much done and ready for Alaska. I have to install some wire conduit to protect all of the additional accessory wiring from chaffing. I also need to add my Starcom audio system. That's it. Done. :)
Here are the photos!
Next up: Delivery of the 1970 CB450 and 1970 CB750 I purchased from Paul Teutul Sr. of Orange County Chopper fame.
-Day 0-
We were originally scheduled to leave for the trip on Friday, 6/13/08, but thanks to Lee's boss letting him out of work at lunch, we decided to do the grind to and through Malibu a bit early. This would set us up for an easier ride the following day. We still weren't certain what Lee's daily range would be, so this was a good thing.
Lee and I left Anaheim at 4:15PM, hit some really bad traffic slabbing it up to Malibu but it cleared right when we hit the coast. We had to stop a couple times to work out some bike to bike communication issues (Lee started reporting that I was 'fading out' on transmit, but I could hear him fine). After some investigation, I found that the cable between my helmet lead and the bike communication system was full of condensation.
The ST1300 packed and ready to leave San Diego!
Some photos from Mom's house as we were preparing to leave:
I grabbed some Vaseline from the gas station, slathered both connections and problem solved! (Or so I thought...)
-Day 1-
We left the Motel 6 in Morro Bay this morning around 8AM to about 100miles of foggy coastline:
From the balcony at the Motel, I snapped a local:
I have to say that I am really impressed with this new Canon Powershot SX100 IS Camera. It is the perfect travel companion (Small enough to pack, big enough to operate with gloves). It's 10X Zoom and Image Stabilizing is awesome! Beats packing the SLR.
The next stop on the list was the Redwood Bar and Grill. I attempted to mooch their WiFi for a bit...and then it hit me....Why the heck am I connecting to the internet? Sheesh....I have to learn how to unplug! This is the same place that we (Dana Teel, Fred C. Adams and I) had the wonderful hamburgers at on the way to Redmond, Wa (WeSTOC 2007) last year.
The Redwood Bar and Grill wouldn't open to serve food for another two hours, so we continued a few minutes farther down the road and stopped at a different spot for breakfast:
We made San Francisco around 3:00PM.
Lee inspecting a "Gold Nugget" he gathered during the day's ride:
The next stop (and final destination for the day) would be The Bodega Bay Harbor Inn and "The Tides" for dinner:
Dinner for the evening!!
-Day 2 -
I couldn't sleep and was up, off and on, for most of the night with an extremely sore neck. A few days prior to the trip, I had to call into work sick. I had flu like symptoms (nausea, headache, etc). What I thought was the flu, I found out seemed to be related to my sore neck. It seemed to be getting worse over the next few days and the Chiropractors I visited before I left, couldn't seem to move it.
Wearing a helmet for 10 hours the previous day, wasn't helping the situation.
Lee recommended we pick up some Alieve. I should have taken one the previous night...
We got up around 8:00AM looking for the "breakfast" part of the B&B we were staying at and were happy to find it being looked after by the local guard:
About an hour up the overcast California coast, we stumbled across a sign that had Lee's name written all over it....literally....so naturally:
It had seemed that the legendary HWY 1 was going to be overcast for the whole trip. It still didn't stop me from taking a ton of photos:
As we turned east, heading towards the 101 and the heart of Humboldt County, we came across evidence of a deer strike. A danger that all motorcyclists face:
At this point, I couldn't believe how many Harley riders we were encountering. It was strange that no one was waving, I mean, most Harley riders won't wave at someone riding a Japanese motorcycle, but usually, you would get a few. I don't think we got a single wave out of hundreds of bikes. As we rounded a corner....I realized why:
......We had ridden into the heart of "Harleyville". We were to find out later that there were no less than 2000 Harleys riding around these parts for the annual Redwood Run event. These photos don't do justice to the amount of bikes we saw. It was quite impresseive.
I could only speculate that the reason no one was waving was because they were simply too exhausted....there were simply too many riders to wave at!!
The second we hit the 101, and Humboldt the clouds cleared and the sun came out for the first time in two days. Next up on the route was The Avenue of the Giants. There are no words to describe how awesome this road is and how big these trees are...so I'll let the photos do the talking:
We made the destination for the day, Patrick's Point State Park, a little after 5:30PM. It would be our first camping experience for the trip...among other things:
Lee practicing the "Mellow Wave 1.0" for display at WeSTOC....little did we know that we were a version behind (stay tuned):
Lee's $20 Walmart special tent served him well for the whole trip:
I used the same tent on my trip to WeSTOC 2007. A really good value if you want to "try" moto-camping.
Having landed a bit early at the camp ground, Lee figured he would perform his first chain maintenance. One of the many advantages of my bike, the Honda ST-1300 is the shaft drive. No chain, means extended operation and longer drive maintenance intervals. I must say, though, chain maintenance on the venerable VFR-750 has got to be one of the easiest procedures in the business. Sporting a single sided swing arm, this task takes no more than a few minutes to perform if conditions are right:
The camp setup along with Lee's chain maintenance took all of 1 hour. Pushing 6:30, we sat looking at each other wondering what we were going to do for the next 3 hours of sunlight. We decided to hike one of the many trails in Patrick's Point:
Pigeon?
The zoom on this camera is incredible....
The previous picture was a zoom on the island to the far right of this frame....
Hiking the trail burned about another hour. Still plenty of daylight. We were starting to get a bit hungry now, so we both decided to ride into town (about 20 miles south) to pick up a small pizza and a couple cans of beer. We also needed some lighter fluid to start the wood we purchased from the ranger. Aside from Lee having to dodge a Bambi, the ride to and from the pizza place was uneventful. We brought the pizza and beer back to the camp right around dusk. Time to start the fire.
And this is where things went a little weird...
In the background of the previous photo, you can see a small blanket spread out in the site next to us. When we left for dinner, there was no one in this site. When we returned, we saw an old beat up Volvo, with a young hippie couple unloading their stuff. The girl was sitting on the blanket watching her boyfriend unload the stuff. She was playing a guitar with I don't know how many strings missing. She also couldn't play...but it was clear that SHE thought she was playing "music".
As Lee and I prepared to settle in for a nice, relaxing dinner next to our camp fire it soon became evident that this was not to be the plan for the evening. Like moths to a flame....we were invaded by hippies.
They came from all sides.
It started with Adam and Asia (the neighbors we mentioned). Adam came over, extended a hand in friendship to Lee and proceeded to plop himself down at our fire. This soon brought Asia and her guitar...with three strings. It was really more a drum....with strings....
No more than 5 minutes passed when 4 others showed up out of the darkness.
"Wooow maaann....nice fire! Can we hang a bit?"
At some point, our two neighbors disappeared back into the darkness and reappeared with two medieval looking devices. Thoughts started racing through my mind...."Are these fools going to battle each other, knights of the round table style??"
As Adam dips one end of his staff in the fire, he leans close and whispers, "Warn me if a ranger shows up...."
There are no words to describe what ensued next....so here is a video:
This activity lasted until the early hours of the morning. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep.
-Day 3-
We got up a bit late, re-packed our bikes and hit the road north. Today was a new ride for me. I had never ridden the Oregon coast. We picked up a trio of Harley riders that were loaded for bear and heading back to their home state of Washington. I must say that I was very impressed with this group of Harley riders. They road the hell out of their bikes. When passing, the last rider always checked for a clear passing zone and would wave us on as well. We tailed these guys for 200 miles.
Sorry about the lack of pictures, we had too much fun riding. For the rest of today and the following day, we visited with my dad and hung out in the Eugene Oregon area.
-Day 5-
We left my dad's house close to noon. A late start and a leisurely pace kept us meandering towards Crater Lake. It was nice seeing my dad and Louise, but I was glad to be back on the road.
We made the crater around 4PM in the afternoon.
Lee and I had these little guys (Grey Jays) eating out of our hand (literally) at the Crater Lake visitor center....
It was 5PM and we were sitting at the Crater Lake visitor center pondering our next move. From this point forward, it was new road for me. I also didn't have a real plan other than an estimate of the miles we needed to cover for each day and a basic route planned into my GPS. Lee was relying on me to calculate fuel stops as well as the general navigation for the trip. The next sequence of events help comprise one of the best and most entertaining experiences of the whole trip. I only plan to summarize said events here. The next time we are hanging out, buy me a beer and remind me to recount the "Hills have eyes" story....it will be much more entertaining in person.
At Crater Lake, the plan was to head south and east through eastern Oregon and into the northern part of Nevada. I didn't have a camp site or motel planned for the evening, so we figured we would just ride until we were tired and would use the GPS to find a place when needed.
We rode for about 3 hours and encountered a fire that caused a course change away from my planned route. It added about an hour and a half to the trip and threw all fuel estimates for the remainder of the day off.
We spent another 4 hours riding and ended up, out of gas, camping in the middle of the night in Denio Junction on the side of this building....
(You can just make out my tent to the left of this picture)
This was the middle of nowhere (The Hills Have Eyes country!!!)
When we saw a light on in the building, this is the scene that greeted us!
The gas pump's gauges were long since broken....but the pump still worked!!!! We re-fueled, were told to go ahead and throw the tents up on the side of the building and that breakfast was served at 6am....we really lucked out!
-Day 6-
The stress of being in the middle of the desert, not seeing a car for 3 hours and knowing Lee was running out of gas (my bike has 80 miles more range than his smaller bike) had taken it's toll. I was so tired when we arrived the night before, that I didn't unpack my air matress and simply slept on top of my Aerostich suit. It was barely acceptable....but the camp site turned out to be a nice place
We were about 100 miles from the next major population.
After chatting it up with the bar proprietor, he confirmed that Denio had a population of 38 people, of which were mostly miners and hunters....he also said that he was the youngest man in Nevada to hold a liquor license....24YO!! They knock down $500K a year at this little place....off the grid!
After breakfast, we hit the road and set our sites on the destination for the day: St. George, Utah.
Most of Nevada looked like this
We stopped for lunch at the Owl Club Cafe at around 2PM.
This was just off of HWY 50..."The Loneliest Highway"....they weren't kidding!!
Before leaving my dad's house, I was forced to swap another cable in my bike's communication system. Lee reported that he was hearing static when I transmitted. He also said my signal was cutting out. I thought I had fixed the problem back in Mailbu, but it seemed that things were getting worse. The new cable didn't last a full day....by the time we hit central Nevada, I could no longer transmit. I could still hear music in my headset....just no transmit. I used the GPS to locate a Radio Shack along our route (I love the Garmin Zumo!!) and proceeded to tear into the bike
I swapped the cable again....the new one felt very lose and retested. Lee could hear me again...however, I was beginning to suspect something else. Perhaps the heat was causing my radio to stop transmit?? It was damned hot out....over 100 on some of the stretches....
By the time we got near the Utah boarder, transmit was broken again and I was now getting static in my left speaker...I tried to concentrate on the scenery and not let the glitch bother me
Utah!!!! Thank god for something not flat!!!
We stopped in St. George for the evening at a motel 6 and I finally started "working the problem" on the audio system. I had it sorted out in 20 minutes...the problem was in the helmet Mic and Headset. I found frayed cables where the cable exited the back of the helmet. Great. Not a chance of fixing this one on the road.
Earlier the previous day my buddy John Mapes (John_Diego) called me to check in on our progress and to make sure Lee and I were "OK". I hadn't posted on the club board for a while and people feared the worst. It was nice to know people were looking out for us. We really have a great club!
Anyway, it occurred to me that John would be making WeSTOC in Taos, NM in a few days, so I called him from the hotel and asked him to stop by my place before he got on the road. I asked Megumi to grab my spare helmet and pull the extra Mic kit out of it so John could bring it to me in Taos. Go John Mapes Express!!!
-Day 7-
We left St. George after eating at a Denny's resurant. It was freaking HOT!! It wasn't 10am in the morning and it was already over 100F! Time to get the hell out of ....er...George!
With the exception of the "tar snakes" (the tar that road repair crews pour into cracks in the road) Utah was great! Amazing scenery!!
In the middle of the desert, by chance, we found a nice little campground available for $12 per night in Fruita (Just off HWY 24 in Capitol Reef National Park).
Again, by chance, this guy was camping at the site next to us.
His name was Donald King. He has ridden all over the world on different bikes (Mainly Harleys and BMWs) and had many tales of adventure. He has over 900,000 miles under his belt and he told me that his goal is to bag 1 million before he dies.
He is in his 70's and rides 3-4 months a year. He keeps a written journal and highlights all roads he has ridden in a US atlas.
It appears he will achieve his goal with ease:
As we sat with a couple beers talking about the day's journey, Lee mentioned that he was excited to have the opportunity to fall asleep under the stars. He admitted that he has never seen an actual shooting star...
Black socks and flip-flops!?!? Sheesh...step into the 90's dood!!
-Day 8-
We awoke to the noise of our neighbors at the camp ground.
Our site was really great...
As we made our way towards the western boarder of Colorado, I was continually impressed with Utah's scenery.
After crossing into Colorado, Lee indicated (by flashing his lights and pointing his finger at his tank) that he needed gas. I really missed the radio for these situations....but it was nice to just hum along in silence for a while...
I miss judged the fuel range of Lee's bike by less than 10 miles. Luckily the lady at the intended fuel stop lent me a can to bring back some gas.
The miles rolled on as we headed deeper in to the Colorado Rockies...
Colorado was the one state that I had read about being some of the best riding in the world....and I was not to be disappointed! The irony is that I was so enthralled with the roads and scenery that I failed to take many photos of the experience.
I originally planned for an average of about 2-300 miles per day, mainly out of concern for Lee's comfort level. His bike has less fuel range and is, arguably, less comfortable than the ST-1300. Much to my surprise, he and I ended up doubling our average to about 550 miles per day. This effectively put us 2-3 days ahead of schedule. The roads were great and our bodies were adjusting to the conditions. We both agreed that we felt better when we were riding than when we were stopped somewhere.
Riding was becoming second nature...it was great!!
Lee getting the tunes ready for the road. Sadly I still had no music.
Now we come to one of the more interesting observations of the trip. This sign
Through out the whole state, we found permanent signs like these where ever there was road damage. Some of this road damage was very extensive. What I found funny was that it appears to be cheaper to put up a permanent sign stating the obvious instead of fixing the actual problem. Maybe I should try this in my job.... "Please use this server at your own risk"...
We ended this wonderful day in Durango at a very cheap Motel. Lee mentioned that his nose was stuffed up....uh oh....
-Day 9-
We woke up fairly early and to the sound of Lee's wheezing. He had a full blown head cold or really bad allergies. I was banking on the latter and ran out to grab some antihistamine for him. We toyed with staying in Durango for another day just to rest, but after popping the Claritan, and eating some breakfast, he felt a lot better and wanted to get on the road, again stating that he felt better when riding and that this was a life time experience that he was not willing to risk losing to allergies. Proof that he is tougher than me. What a trooper!
We continued to zig zag through the state heading towards Aspen, Co. I wish I had taken more pictures...it was an amazing ride!
As the sun (and temperature) started to drop, we began to worry that we would get trapped riding at night. "Night" is not really a problem, it's what night hides that is the real danger. At this altitude, the deer still carried their winter coats, a the perfect camouflage. There were numerous occasion on this stretch of road that bambi caught us by surprise. One group were less than a dozen feet from me before I caught the movement of their ears and jammed on my brakes.
Tensions were running high and I vowed that the next place I spotted, campground or motel, I was stopping for the night. Lucky us, we found a classic brothel turned B&B...and they had one room with two beds left. And it had a bar with four bar stools!!
This place had more humming birds than I could count. There were 5 or 6 of these of these feeders packed full of birds. Some of the more courageous individuals would zoom in, hover about a foot from my face for a few seconds, then zoom back out again.
Community bathroom
Little rooms. It's all we needed.
This place had satellite internet that was fast enough to stream some netflix....Lee crashed out after having a couple beers and I settled in for a good documentary "Cocaine Cowboy".
-Day 10-
Today would lead us into the heart of northern NM. Our destination was an easy 300 miles and we were running about 2 days ahead of schedule.
Most of the day was overcast, but dry
We made the Kachina Lodge, home of WeSTOC 13 around 3:30PM
Mileage since leaving San Diego?
3817 Miles
No sooner had we donned our bike covers (Lee's is make shift from a cheap Walmart Tent - It fits like a glove!) than the skies opened up and dumped.
3800 miles and NO RAIN. We get to the event? It rains...
For the next 5 days, Lee and I hung out and had fun meeting people that we had only known previously from the ST-Owners Club. We did the local rides, drank a lot of beer and had a lot of laughs.
Aside from a 4 hours blitz across the Arizona desert in 111F sustained heat, the ride home was a one day, uneventful 900 miles. We left Taos NM at 7:30am in the morning and made San Diego around 10PM the same night.
Oh....and remember that "Mellow Wave 1.0" comment I made earlier?
