Discussion started last October / November between John, Patrick and me about doing the COBDR this summer. John and Patrick were pretty fresh off a CO mostly road ride where they met Mark and rode with him for a few hours one day. Mark is from San Diego but he and John kept in touch and it seems Mark got the itch for adventure motorcycle travel. Patrick is a co-worker of mine at EMS here in Austin and John is a lazy firefighter at station 6 where I work out of on my 12 hour shifts.
The chatter continued for a few more months and it seemed everyone was quite serious about making the trip. John was planning on riding his 1200 GS and Patrick on his 800 GS, although he had a new to him KTM 450 that he was considering riding as well. At the time I had my KTM 450, my Ural and the little TW 200. I didn’t think the ride would be as fun if there were a couple of guys on really fast and nimble dirt bikes while the other guys were on bigger bikes.
Fast forward to January, I bought a 2011 KTM 990 Adventure… my dream bike basically. Everything just lined up for me so I jumped on it. Here it is after a few mods and ready for the trip.
So now the playing field was mostly even (the big KTM is still like cheating). Mark had picked up a new 800 GS Adventure and was busy getting it kitted up nicely.
It looked like a ride was coming together. I bought the Butler Map and we talked and talked and talked about the trip. We watched the BDR website videos to no end. We had a general idea of the time frame but still hadn’t nailed down a departure date. We finally got everyone’s schedules together and decided Me, John and Patrick would leave Austin on July 22, meet up with Mark on the 24 and start the trail.
Again, fast forward to about 2 weeks before launch date and I was working with John when he asks my opinion on a 650 GS from a craigslist ad. He then proceeds to tell me that a good friend of his from Woodland Park CO, a firefighter / paramedic that he used to be roommates with and work with in Woodland Park was considering buying that bike and coming along on the trip. I asked a few questions but I’m about as easy going as they come and John assured me that Mike was a good guy that had dirt biking experience and would fit in fine with the group, and as a bonus would likely provide some entertainment along the way.
Well Mike jumped right in… he bought the bike then proceeded to spend loads of cash getting it and himself ready for the trip. When John told me he had picked up the bike and was now getting ready to roll with us I knew he had to be an alright dude.
Most everyone here that is from Central TX will understand our decision to trailer from Austin to Raton NM and bypass that 700 mile stretch of West TX. There were multiple reasons from saving new tires that were just put on the bikes for the trail to being able to save a day of travel on the way home due to being able to just swap drivers if needed and push through once in the truck. So it was set… July 22 depart Austin for Raton. John found a mini storage place that would let us park our truck / trailer there for $1 / day with a 30 day minimum. SOLD!!! We rolled into Raton late evening and met up with a lady that was running an auction at the storage place for the week. She told us where to park then John asked if it was cool if we pitched our tents for the night as well. She said sure so this was our first night of camping.
The plan was to spend the night in Raton then head to Durango and meet up with Mike along the way. Spend the night in Durango then head down to Cortez CO to meet up with Mark who was trailering his bike from San Diego to Cortez. The actual BDR starts at 4 corners but is 40 miles of street till the off road section starts. We opted to just start from Cortez rather than do 80 miles to just start at 4 corners.
All set to head out.
We took a bit of scenic route to Durango on 12 out of Trinidad since we had all day and it looked like Mike was running a bit late to get started to our meet up spot. Nice weather, scenery and roads.
Heres a few of Patrick helping John with his teletubby gopro mount.
End result…
He was set on getting it high enough so as not to get his helmet in pictures or video. I think he accomplished it all the while looking a bit foolish if you ask me. Not a fan of the gopro design.
So we pushed on now changing our meetup location with Mike to Del Norte. We still had some time so kill so we stopped and had a proper lunch at a brew pub in Alamoso CO, San Luis Valley Brewing Co. Had a really good salad and a couple pints of their porter. Hit the spot.
Met up with Mike at a gas station, topped off and we push onward.
Riding behind John and Patrick.
ME!!!!
We made into Durango in the early afternoon with clear skies and warm temperatures. We stopped off at the grocery store and picked up some steaks and a few cans of beans for dinner then headed up to Junction Creek Forest Service Campground. Really cool spot about 10 minutes outside Durango. I had really wanted to hit Steamworks for a pint of their chili pepper beer called Prescribed Burn. Its fantastic, but after getting camp set up and out of riding gear for a while we were happy to just hang out at camp.
And the group… Mike is sitting, I’m the long haired guy, John is next to me and Patrick is the tall dude in the back.
John grilled up the steaks to perfection and we had a fantastic dinner. We built up a nice fire and just relaxed with a few beers before bed. Tomorrow the ride officially starts. One more shot of John being himself…
Thursday July 24
We wake up excited to get started. We were all up around 0630 and had camp taken down and bikes packed by 0800. We had a short ride down to Cortez to meet up with our 5th rider, Mark.
Rode down to Cortez and hit walmart for some last minute supples.
Stopped off at the gas station next to walmart to top off and that’s where Mark met up with us. Everyone chatted a bit as we prepared to set off on a week of riding together.
And were off… I had the tracks loaded up on my 60CSX but hadn’t messed with it to make the track highlight itself. It was just a line of dots, but Mark had the BMW branded Montana that had a nice highlighted track for us to follow along. This ended up causing me to make wrong turns several times when in front but just a few feet down the wrong road was usually easily picked up when I would look at my position and the track.
When we first hit the offroad sections it took me a while to figure out the big KTM’s dirt manners. The one thing I didn’t address prior to the trip was the suspension. I knew this was going to be an issue with the stock set up but time and money were not in abundance due to a complete kitchen remodel I had started in May. I bottomed the bike out a handful of times the first day but slowly figured out how to hit the water breaks and such and still have fun and not bottom everything out. By the end of the day I was getting dialed into riding the big bike offroad. It was a blast. For the most part the riding wasn’t terribly difficult and everyone was managing the terrain without issue. I didn’t get too many pictures from day one for some reason but I think Mike had his gopro set to snap a photo every 5 seconds so he will be able to contribute loads more. Here are a few I got.
Yes I'm packing firewood left from the night before.
Mike
Posers…
The riding was going along great. We were on track to hit Telluride with plenty of time, so much so we actually talked about going over Ophir, which is the start of section two, then going into Ouray to set up camp for the night. It was a great plan, well until…
As I rolled up to the “scene” Mark made the international sing for “its dead” you know the one, the hand slicing across the neck??
A rock apparently shot off Patricks front tire and precisely made its way THROUGH his Touratech oil filter guard striking the oil filter right in the middle. The filter had a big crease in it and we initially thought the rock put a hole in the filter. After some close inspection it seems the rock spun the filter enough for Patrick’s bike to empty itself of that really important stuff. It was funny because he was pretty close behind me and I hit a couple of relatively straight areas and noticed he wasn’t popping up in my mirrors. I pulled off to wait a bit and after a few minutes thought he had been no more than 30 seconds behind me, I turned the bike around and headed back up the trail. No more than a minute up is where I found the mess.
Sad sad Patrick...
John said he had seen a pretty wide trail of oil and immediately started to pick up the pace to find the leaky bike. He said when he caught up to Patrick he was flailing his arms around and having a bit of a tantrum screaming "I'm done... I'm done". Of course we haven't let that go.
As these things go a plan quickly fell in place. As mentioned before we couldn't see any sign of compromise to the filter itself, but in the spirit of "just to be sure" we filled the crease with Quick Steel and let it set up for a half hour or so. Here is the crease in the filter.
And filled the Quick Steel.
Here's the work party getting it all done.
So what do you do to kill time while your waiting for that magic stuff to set up? Well we had a few beers left over from the night before so lets crack em open since were going to be here a while.
Forgot to mention that when the bike emptied itself and Patrick was riding his oil pressure light came on then he said it started clanking loudly so he immediately shut it off... then threw his tantrum Filter back on the bike.
Ok that was the easy part now who has oil?? Anyone?? Luckily John LOVES to overpack so he had a full quart, and this was Mikes first trip like this so he also had a quart... well nearly a full quart. That was it. We added all the oil we had on hand knowing that someone may had to ride into Telluride to get more. We werent too far out. 20 miles or so. Moment of truth.... started the bike and it sounded horrible. Patrick panicked and shut it down after a few seconds but just as he shut it off I noted a distinct change in the noise, for the better. He started it up again and it idled as if nothing ever happened, albeit with nothing showing on the dipstick. As we were discussing riding down into Telluride babying his bike a road grader came lumbering down the hill. We stopped him and asked him if he had any engine oil and he told us he did and it was in his truck that was just down the hill and we were welcome to use what we needed. Awesome... we geared up and followed him down to his truck and were we were handed this jug of oil.
It took quite a bit. So now he has synthetic 15/50 synthetic 15/40 and dino 10/30 in his engine. The bike seemed happy and motored our way into Telluride.
The chatter continued for a few more months and it seemed everyone was quite serious about making the trip. John was planning on riding his 1200 GS and Patrick on his 800 GS, although he had a new to him KTM 450 that he was considering riding as well. At the time I had my KTM 450, my Ural and the little TW 200. I didn’t think the ride would be as fun if there were a couple of guys on really fast and nimble dirt bikes while the other guys were on bigger bikes.
Fast forward to January, I bought a 2011 KTM 990 Adventure… my dream bike basically. Everything just lined up for me so I jumped on it. Here it is after a few mods and ready for the trip.
So now the playing field was mostly even (the big KTM is still like cheating). Mark had picked up a new 800 GS Adventure and was busy getting it kitted up nicely.
It looked like a ride was coming together. I bought the Butler Map and we talked and talked and talked about the trip. We watched the BDR website videos to no end. We had a general idea of the time frame but still hadn’t nailed down a departure date. We finally got everyone’s schedules together and decided Me, John and Patrick would leave Austin on July 22, meet up with Mark on the 24 and start the trail.
Again, fast forward to about 2 weeks before launch date and I was working with John when he asks my opinion on a 650 GS from a craigslist ad. He then proceeds to tell me that a good friend of his from Woodland Park CO, a firefighter / paramedic that he used to be roommates with and work with in Woodland Park was considering buying that bike and coming along on the trip. I asked a few questions but I’m about as easy going as they come and John assured me that Mike was a good guy that had dirt biking experience and would fit in fine with the group, and as a bonus would likely provide some entertainment along the way.
Well Mike jumped right in… he bought the bike then proceeded to spend loads of cash getting it and himself ready for the trip. When John told me he had picked up the bike and was now getting ready to roll with us I knew he had to be an alright dude.
Most everyone here that is from Central TX will understand our decision to trailer from Austin to Raton NM and bypass that 700 mile stretch of West TX. There were multiple reasons from saving new tires that were just put on the bikes for the trail to being able to save a day of travel on the way home due to being able to just swap drivers if needed and push through once in the truck. So it was set… July 22 depart Austin for Raton. John found a mini storage place that would let us park our truck / trailer there for $1 / day with a 30 day minimum. SOLD!!! We rolled into Raton late evening and met up with a lady that was running an auction at the storage place for the week. She told us where to park then John asked if it was cool if we pitched our tents for the night as well. She said sure so this was our first night of camping.
The plan was to spend the night in Raton then head to Durango and meet up with Mike along the way. Spend the night in Durango then head down to Cortez CO to meet up with Mark who was trailering his bike from San Diego to Cortez. The actual BDR starts at 4 corners but is 40 miles of street till the off road section starts. We opted to just start from Cortez rather than do 80 miles to just start at 4 corners.
All set to head out.
We took a bit of scenic route to Durango on 12 out of Trinidad since we had all day and it looked like Mike was running a bit late to get started to our meet up spot. Nice weather, scenery and roads.
Heres a few of Patrick helping John with his teletubby gopro mount.
End result…
He was set on getting it high enough so as not to get his helmet in pictures or video. I think he accomplished it all the while looking a bit foolish if you ask me. Not a fan of the gopro design.
So we pushed on now changing our meetup location with Mike to Del Norte. We still had some time so kill so we stopped and had a proper lunch at a brew pub in Alamoso CO, San Luis Valley Brewing Co. Had a really good salad and a couple pints of their porter. Hit the spot.
Met up with Mike at a gas station, topped off and we push onward.
Riding behind John and Patrick.
ME!!!!
We made into Durango in the early afternoon with clear skies and warm temperatures. We stopped off at the grocery store and picked up some steaks and a few cans of beans for dinner then headed up to Junction Creek Forest Service Campground. Really cool spot about 10 minutes outside Durango. I had really wanted to hit Steamworks for a pint of their chili pepper beer called Prescribed Burn. Its fantastic, but after getting camp set up and out of riding gear for a while we were happy to just hang out at camp.
And the group… Mike is sitting, I’m the long haired guy, John is next to me and Patrick is the tall dude in the back.
John grilled up the steaks to perfection and we had a fantastic dinner. We built up a nice fire and just relaxed with a few beers before bed. Tomorrow the ride officially starts. One more shot of John being himself…
Thursday July 24
We wake up excited to get started. We were all up around 0630 and had camp taken down and bikes packed by 0800. We had a short ride down to Cortez to meet up with our 5th rider, Mark.
Rode down to Cortez and hit walmart for some last minute supples.
Stopped off at the gas station next to walmart to top off and that’s where Mark met up with us. Everyone chatted a bit as we prepared to set off on a week of riding together.
And were off… I had the tracks loaded up on my 60CSX but hadn’t messed with it to make the track highlight itself. It was just a line of dots, but Mark had the BMW branded Montana that had a nice highlighted track for us to follow along. This ended up causing me to make wrong turns several times when in front but just a few feet down the wrong road was usually easily picked up when I would look at my position and the track.
When we first hit the offroad sections it took me a while to figure out the big KTM’s dirt manners. The one thing I didn’t address prior to the trip was the suspension. I knew this was going to be an issue with the stock set up but time and money were not in abundance due to a complete kitchen remodel I had started in May. I bottomed the bike out a handful of times the first day but slowly figured out how to hit the water breaks and such and still have fun and not bottom everything out. By the end of the day I was getting dialed into riding the big bike offroad. It was a blast. For the most part the riding wasn’t terribly difficult and everyone was managing the terrain without issue. I didn’t get too many pictures from day one for some reason but I think Mike had his gopro set to snap a photo every 5 seconds so he will be able to contribute loads more. Here are a few I got.
Yes I'm packing firewood left from the night before.
Mike
Posers…
The riding was going along great. We were on track to hit Telluride with plenty of time, so much so we actually talked about going over Ophir, which is the start of section two, then going into Ouray to set up camp for the night. It was a great plan, well until…
As I rolled up to the “scene” Mark made the international sing for “its dead” you know the one, the hand slicing across the neck??
A rock apparently shot off Patricks front tire and precisely made its way THROUGH his Touratech oil filter guard striking the oil filter right in the middle. The filter had a big crease in it and we initially thought the rock put a hole in the filter. After some close inspection it seems the rock spun the filter enough for Patrick’s bike to empty itself of that really important stuff. It was funny because he was pretty close behind me and I hit a couple of relatively straight areas and noticed he wasn’t popping up in my mirrors. I pulled off to wait a bit and after a few minutes thought he had been no more than 30 seconds behind me, I turned the bike around and headed back up the trail. No more than a minute up is where I found the mess.
Sad sad Patrick...
John said he had seen a pretty wide trail of oil and immediately started to pick up the pace to find the leaky bike. He said when he caught up to Patrick he was flailing his arms around and having a bit of a tantrum screaming "I'm done... I'm done". Of course we haven't let that go.
As these things go a plan quickly fell in place. As mentioned before we couldn't see any sign of compromise to the filter itself, but in the spirit of "just to be sure" we filled the crease with Quick Steel and let it set up for a half hour or so. Here is the crease in the filter.
And filled the Quick Steel.
Here's the work party getting it all done.
So what do you do to kill time while your waiting for that magic stuff to set up? Well we had a few beers left over from the night before so lets crack em open since were going to be here a while.
Forgot to mention that when the bike emptied itself and Patrick was riding his oil pressure light came on then he said it started clanking loudly so he immediately shut it off... then threw his tantrum Filter back on the bike.
Ok that was the easy part now who has oil?? Anyone?? Luckily John LOVES to overpack so he had a full quart, and this was Mikes first trip like this so he also had a quart... well nearly a full quart. That was it. We added all the oil we had on hand knowing that someone may had to ride into Telluride to get more. We werent too far out. 20 miles or so. Moment of truth.... started the bike and it sounded horrible. Patrick panicked and shut it down after a few seconds but just as he shut it off I noted a distinct change in the noise, for the better. He started it up again and it idled as if nothing ever happened, albeit with nothing showing on the dipstick. As we were discussing riding down into Telluride babying his bike a road grader came lumbering down the hill. We stopped him and asked him if he had any engine oil and he told us he did and it was in his truck that was just down the hill and we were welcome to use what we needed. Awesome... we geared up and followed him down to his truck and were we were handed this jug of oil.
It took quite a bit. So now he has synthetic 15/50 synthetic 15/40 and dino 10/30 in his engine. The bike seemed happy and motored our way into Telluride.