New Mexico Trip Part II

12SEP10 Departure day starts early, as usual. With my earplugs and exercise yesterday the early, early riders do not disturb me, and it isn't until about 0730 that I actually could be called 'awake'. It's fun and fascinating to see everyone pack up. So many types of tents, so many styles of saddle bags, so many methods of packing. Somehow it all fits - and what doesn't gets bungee'd on somewhere. It isn't unusual with the great vendor deals available to see extra helmets, boots, bags or whatnot attached to bikes heading as far away as, well, Minnesota! My own routine is pretty set, and I get it all put away about the same time as Dave. He was heading down to Albuquerque to visit a friend, and then up to Durango CO to visit his late wife's ashes. You may think that would be a lonely thing to do on a motorcycle, but I believe he made enough friends over the weekend to ease it up a bit. And besides, a little alone time is a good thing.

For me the day will be to head to Las Vegas NM for breakfast at the Hillcrest Restaurant, then down to Tucumcari for gas and to pick up I-40E THROUGH Amarillo (what IS that SMELL??) and on to Hinton OK to camp at Red Rock Canyon SP. Why not home, you ask? Well, my youngest daughter Emily is now a freshman at Oklahoma City University, and has Monday afternoons free. My wife had the opportunity to help Emily set up camp in the dorm and to visit while I tended our other daughter still at home, Robin, but I haven't yet seen the campus on the other end of my paycheck. On Monday I hope to share lunch and be impressed. The ride is the ride, and while the trip out of the mountains is depressing, the ride through the prairie and down to Tucumcari buoys my spirits. Then I get on I-40E and simply put my head down. Until Hinton. There I get off the interstate and pass thru town for the SP, first stopping at THE grocery for food. Again the selection of meat is labeled by day and use. Todays cut for grilling, Yesterdays cut for stew, and beyond that - dogfood. If you didn't like your dog. Times are hard, and don't you forget it. There was a young couple with 3 bags of groceries at the check out looking as intent as if they were buying a car together. When their check wouldn't clear the computer I thought they were going to weep. Finally a supervisor came and manually over-rode the machine (there's a Ray Bradbury story there, I'm sure of it) so they could get on with their lives.

At the State Park I puttered back to my usual spot, and as, ah, usual, there was a story in the next campsite. Guy and Gal. Coulda Shoulda been a romantic evening, but I could hear him bait her with politically charged statements and then set off on a speech. Not once, but several times.

I was beginning to wonder if a move was in order, then things got quiet.
Great!
Then things got noisy. In a way that would have made even a hotel room inadequate.
Hubboy.

Earplugs are the greatest invention of the modern world - allowing anyone to sleep anywhere.
If they can keep their imagination in check.

New Mexico Trip Part II

11SEP10
Hiking today, Mean it.
This time when I roll the bike to the bottom of the hill I am not alone and there is a collective sigh of relief when the bike fires up strongly. Thanks Dave.
Off through Taos to the ski resort. Note: NM150, which leaves 522 north of Taos and is an in/out to the ski resort, is a beautiful ride, in deep canyon shade with twists and falls and is worthy on it's own.
At 0945, about an hour later than I'd have liked, but such is vacation, I shuck my road gear for trail duds and am headed uphill; a status that will continue for the next 8 miles. Well, there are some appreciable downhill bits - but that only means MORE uphill both coming and going. Sigh. Just like life.
At about 1315 (or 1:15pm) I join a group at the summit and we do our little dances of self congratulation and try to get cell phone signal. Along the way I've seen marmot, chipmunks or ground squirrels, and prong horn. I have also passed several groups and not been passed myself. I feel pretty good about that, for an old 54 year veteran of this planet.
My last foot fall on the trail is 1630 (4:30pm - c'mon, get with it) and I am pleased to have covered 16 miles and +/- 4500 of elevation change. Now it's back to camp for the big Saturday night burrito and hoe-down. Hoe Down? I wonder if that comes from putting ones' 'hoe down', stopping work, and recreating?
Revelry lasts to the wee-hours (so called because that's when I usually wake up to (yup) wee), but I do not, and sleeping in 38 degrees is just right!

New Mexico Trip Part II

10Sep10
Where are you riding today? not How are you? or How did you sleep? is the first question you'll be asked at a BMW rally. I amaze my circle by announcing my intent NOT to ride, but rather to hike - up Wheeler Peak (again), highest point in NM at 13,200 or so. Quizzical looks and flying eyebrows tell me I'm not making much sense, but that's ok. I'm here to do what I want to do - and I've already plowed most of these roads last month and in previous years.
As a courtesy I roll my bike from between the tents and down to the flat near the road and attempt to start it. That's right - attempt. At first I put it down to the cold, but on the second push of the starter the lights go out and the starter sounds like a cricket. A sick cricket.
Then nada.
Crap.
I've been nursing and rationalizing an electrical problem since two summers ago when daughter Emily and I rode up to Banff Canada and back. The generator light which is supposed to illuminate before start and extinguish at idle (+) RPM hasn't been coming on regularly. For all this time, however, the bike has continued to start and run fine.
Until today.
I have cables and begin asking for help. All I want is a running bike from which to draw enough power to start my bike, and then I still believed (mistakenly) that it will recharge itself. What I get are offers of other avenues - kind and well intended, but not what I want/need. FINALLY another rider is about to leave and in 2 minutes we siphon electrons to start my bike and I am off!
For about 15 of the 20 miles into Taos.
My GPS says 'external power lost', the bike surges, and then dies, and I coast to the side of the road.
Well, at least I'm sure of one thing - the charging system isn't working if that light doesn't come on like it's supposed to! Ah well, I'm at ease. I have tools, I have resources at the rally, and it isn't raining. In fact, the day is BEAUTIFUL, just like all the days at the rally will be this year. So I remove the battery, stash my 'valuables', and stick my out my thumb. 5 min later a pick-up stops and 15 minutes later I am back at the rally.
Dave is still there, and offers any assistance he can, and after locating a spare battery (care of the Land of Enchantment BMW Riders Club) that will fit I am on the back of his bike heading towards Taos.
We replace the battery and the bike starts, but Dave, as a professional, is dissatisfied with leaving it at that and cajoles me into troubleshooting the charging system (aka Doing It Right) and we take apart the instrument cluster and de-corrode the connections. Voila! Bright light before start, Dark light while running, and 13+v going back into the battery.
As a thank-you I take him to lunch in Taos, and then we ride the southern end of the Enchanted Circle to Angle Fire, and down 434 to Mora, where I tarry to take photographs in the evening sun.
Back at camp we are treated to firey chili and bluegrass music by the babbling trout stream, and I am grateful for the resourcefulness and comradre of the BMW clan.

New Mexico Trip Part II

9Sep10
This write up is a little after the fact. It's still in the same month, though - I'm not leaving you hanging on the edge of the Andes again!
While it is extremely convenient that American Eagle flys into Santa Fe (SAF) airport these days, they do so in small commuter jets that tend to fill up quickly and unexpectedly. Instead of departing DFW on Friday the 10th, 'space available' was rapidly becoming 'space un-available' and I needed to didi on Thursday afternoon. A quick call (oh dear, even that action word has been up-dated! a quick TEXT) to my friends and Jeff B broke off his busy day to take me to the big airport.
A little concern over my hiking poles with their sharp carbide tips was quickly put at ease (didn't even raise an eyebrow), but my 4oz of deodorant stick had to go (sorry, 16A and 16C, whoever you were!)
EZ flight and land at SAF with it's adobe styled terminal, and the 20 minute walk over to Airport Storage. I stopped along the way to buy a tire gage, and witnessed the all too human ego display that must give God the willeys every time it happens.
"Miss, you need to turn on pump 4" "But you told me pump 6" "No, I didn't, just turn on pump 4" "Ok, but you told me pump 6" "No, I didn't" "Yes, you did. Pump 4 is on now".
This pass all I was carrying was hiking poles, toiletries (less than expected) and one extra set of clothes. After all, everything else was still on the bike waiting for me! Tuck in here, repack there and I'm off with a wave to Ian, who was making the rounds with his two pit-bull dogs.
Route for today is simple - up NM599 north to 285, switch to 68 at Espanola, and then cut off on 75 thru Penasco to 518 and the Sipapu Ski Resort. While I wasn't the first to set up camp (by any means) I was still able to use the very same site I've used for over 6 years now, at the far end of the 'noisey' campground away from the lodge, at the foot of the ski slopes next to the trees and the wooden out house.
Pulling in I am greeted by a couple who peer into my visor, note my campsite and cry RANDY!!!
I am at a loss as to who they are.
Folks begin to look familiar while their name and origin of contact elude me. Nancy and Curtis are from north of Denver and we met 2 years ago.
My next door (next flap? we are camping) neighbor is a new guy, though. Really new - like a rally virgin. Dave Long is riding a lovely R1200RT down from Minneapolis-St Paul on an extended tour. Turns out he was a Navy enlisted man, and while still in his prime (just like me only a couple years more), has moved through several careers since then. Including electrician, which will come to play a part in our story.

A Child of the Magenta Line

Technology is continually changing, that's for sure. In modern times the rate of change has been changing too - it's been accelerating. In college I was issued both a slide rule and a calculator (guess which one I used more?). During my times in the Navy I had to learn semaphore and Morse code, but that was immediately obsolete with VHF, and HF radio communications. As a pilot I read about flying the null and actually did fly VOR's, but the first was gone even before I pushed a throttle forward and the second is withering as I type, replaced by GPS. Even typing has gone through the flux-gate. I have a MANUAL typewriter with ribbon and tack-a tack-a keys and a bell at the end of the line, which was replaced by a thermal dot matrix printer, then a computer keyboard and now a touch screen txt-ing smart phone.
Where does it end?
Is it worth it?
The speedometer on my motorcycle starts with a gear attached to the drive shaft, which spins a cable in a housing, which spins a disc with a magnet, which affects another disc and magnet which moves a needle over the instrument face with numbers. The only 'magic' is the magnetic connection (so you don't break the needle when you move backwards). For distance that same cable drives a gear which rotates numbers on a column. It will count backwards.
If you know a motorcycle rider, you know that two of the most important topics of conversation are Speed and Distance. The problem is that that mechanical connection between the rear wheel and the speedometer has 'slop', sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, and there's reader error as well. So two riders can travel together exactly the same rate and one will claim to have been going 80mph and the other may claim 85mph and both will be telling the truth, as best they can.
Put a GPS on the bike and see what happens.
Now the bragging rights of traveling 85mph all day long becomes 77mph, and a little of the wind has been taken out of our hero's sails. Along with that are the little cookies which the GPS leaves behind as a TrackBAck feature (so Hanzel and Grettle can find their way home). Goose the throttle up a little bit and do 85 on the GPS and get pulled over by State Trooper Rock Hammer and try to explain that you were only doing 77 in a 75 and watch him highlight a cookie reading 85 on the GPS.
Tag, you're it!
Even more, put an emergency locator, like SPOT, on your bike to keep folks at home appraised of your location and voila! Not only is your speed available, but when you decide to visit a location not approved by she-who-must-be-feared, it is impossible to sweep over the GPS track with a bushy branch and claim innocence.
Don't ask me how I know.
Whatever you may have paid for your device, it's screen will never be the size of a folding road map, and so another small problem, no pun intended, is that to see where you are you have to cut away where you could go. I mean, the scale is so large that you see but a postage stamp map and can easily pass by the World's Largest Ball of String or Biggest Frying Pan and never see it though it was only 3 miles to your side!
Then there's the idea of sharing your travels with friends.
Oh, the Internet is a wonderful place full of information and communication. There's email and facebook and blogspot. There's also cell phone coverage for person to person calls, texting, and tweeting. But the thing is, how do you cover them all? And more importantly, do you really want to?
My daughter likes to send me a message via my facebook wall. So I get a note posted there, but then I get an email telling me to look at my facebook wall. So why couldn't she just send me the email herself? Or, since she's doing this on her smart phone, why doesn't she just call and speak to me directly?
These things puzzle me as I ride along at 77mph.
The Magenta Line?
In recent pilot training one of the grey heads who was tasked to instruct us in the newest forms of navigation (now there's another subject for discussion: why are those tasked to teach the NEW-est usually the OLD-est?) coined the phrase. Early aviators flew above roads or tracks or along rivers. To identify a town they would circle a water tower proudly announcing MEMPHIS, HOME OF THE FIGHTING ELVISES, or even (gasp) turn off the engine to shout to stupefied ground walkers for directions. Radio came along and we flew invisible beams between stations with little relation to ground features. We no longer open maps to plan a route, select navigation radio stations, tune them in, identify them by Morse code, and fly a compass bearing or radial. The navigation system does all that for us, and checks with GPS as well, reducing our aviation maps of aerial highways down to a single magenta line which the autopilot tracks with plus or minus a tenth of a mile accuracy. Maps? We've got 'em, but they are as pristine as when they came out of the mailer.
Hey, Captain, what's that lake on the left?
Uh..........?
I am a child of the Magenta Line.

So, How were the roads?

One of my rider friends who is rumored to have introduced Harley to Davidson posed the question - would any of the roads you took prohibit a regular street bike with a reasonably skilled rider?

Hmmm.

While I'd like to say that only the most skilled off-road rider on the finest off-road equipment should attempt to follow my trail,

it ain't so.

The BMW R80 G/S is not meant as a stump hopping trials bike. It is meant as a bike that can be good on paved roads and dirt roads or fields. (Glade and Strada). I rode 10+ hours out there on high speed pavement, then took whatever dirt road I fancied from the maps.

On dirt for a 'normal street bike' you have three things working against you - the first is tires. I run Distanzia 80/20 tires (80% street 20% dirt) which allow decent road work and fair dirt. They have some grip in loose stuff and mud but don't vibrate too much on pavement. Second is body-work. The 'normal' bike now has enough fiberglass or plastic fairing on it that if the body work is seriously damaged from a fall (even in a parking lot) it can be a total loss to the insurance company. Not to mention guys like to keep those bikes 'pretty'. The G/S has next to no body work - only enough to keep much out of the rider's eyes and out of the battery area. Finally is confidence. Many experienced street riders will pull up like a cow at a cattle-guard when the pavement turns to gravel or dirt. They've just never done it.

Even with better tires there is still the problem of WHAT IF.
What if you fall over (good possibility) and have to pick up that big ol' bike by yourself?
What if you get past the point of no return on gas or time and come onto a patch that definitely requires more suspension? Now, that can happen to the G/S (or any bike/rider) too - but it takes more. If the distance between two gas stations is 100 miles and you do 99 and come to a stop, guess what? it's 99 back!
What if all the vibration and jolting causes something to disconnect or fall off? Would you be able to diagnose and repair it?

I suspect that given the desire a normal rider on a normal bike with normal tires could take the dirt CR and occasionally NF roads I wandered.
But they wouldn't like it much.


So I think my answer to the question is -

Maybe.

But that's what makes it an adventure, not just a ride.

These are a few of my favorite things...

2010 New Mexico Trip Part 1

Friday 27 August 2010

After a leisurely get up and pack I violated my own rule - if a shower facitlity is available use it, you never know... - and headed south along NM84 with no particular destination in mind, just a general plan.
And you know what they say about plans and vacuums.

The RV Campground office was a WiFi hotspot, so on my phone I was able to locate a Youth Hostel in Santa Fe, and determine that the two (12:15 and 4:00) American Eagle flights had open seats. I 'planned' to ride south, pick up some dirt, and then camp out at the hostel until Saturday but IF things worked out I could take the 4pm flight home and be able to watch my son on stage at Pirate Days in Grandbury Tx.
A can of fruit cocktail and some hand picked blueberry's later and I was on my way. The blueberry's warrant a little explanation.
Last night as I was checking emails and weather I noticed a woman, about my age, walking tenuously out the gate towards town, and then returning a very short time later. I asked if everything was ok and she said she'd only gone out to get a view of the sunset. We chatted and it turns out she's traveling solo, either tenting or sleeping in the back of her Saturn, getting away from Santa Fe for the first time in 7 years - after taking care of her ailing aged mother. We chatted about roads, destinations, careers (she and her ex-husband had had an eclectic collection of jobs from interim B&B managers to art shop clerks), and taking care of loved ones. The next morning (today) I offered coffee (refused - she's a tea drinker) and she countered with the berries. When was the last time someone at Starbuck's bought you a muffin?
Read Steinbeck's TRAVELS WITH CHARLIE, you'll be glad you did.

There was a little dirt road by Cebolla that went 9 miles in to a trout lake. When I got there it was actually fairly developed with a potty and picnic area. Someone had not read the signs admonishing that campfires be drowned, stirred and drowned again, and I spent 15minutes shuffling water from the lake to the smoldering fire ring in a coke-can.

Further south I left pavement for dirt again on 115 at Canjilon, and spent the next 40 miles alone with the pines, mesas and cattle, emerging again near El Rito and Las Placitas on NM554, which lead me back to NM84 south. Having accomplished all the plans I'd made pre-trip, and having time and seat available, I simply headed back to the SAF (Santa Fe) airport, tucked the bike away (gas taps off, electrics disconnected, leave all hazmats), and got listed for the 4pm flight by 3pm. Like a charm. In an hour thirty I covered all the ground it'd taken me a day to do on the bike, with a soda in my hand and Kindle on my lap.

So now I look forward to 9September and my flight back to collect my bike, enjoy the Land of Enchantment Riders BMW Rally in Sipapu NM (just south of Taos), and bring it home for the winter.
Until next time - Bien Viaje!