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Another Great ride is in the record books..........New Mexico and Colorado
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Three of us headed to the Mountains on Aug 1st,....Only two came back......Pictures and a short ride report follows....Will keep it simple and let the pictures do the talking...........Enjoy
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More Pics...Post #22
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As many of you that have followed last years CDR Report...You know why Carl is known as "Thumby"......I took the precaution not to have any more fingernails lost
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First day ends north of Silver City NM....with just shy of a 1000 miles on the van and a beautiful sunset....
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First day of riding....15mi down a twisty black-top mountain road, we come to the start of our Adventure.....This land mark sign says it all.......
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Head through a National Forest for miles n miles to come down out of the mountains to this beautiful pasture lake.............
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We head down past other land marks on into Pie Town, NM. for some famous pie and coffee......Looks like the singer has had his fill of Pie, coffee or both.........
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We headed on into Grant NM for the first nights down time.....Grant is a blip in the middle of NM....nothing worth snapping a pic over..........We get a room in the same hotel we did last year, and just by chance, she gives us the same exact room we had last year.....I suppose this is where she puts all the "Flea Bitten" dirt bike riders.....smiles
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While unpacking the KLR, I notice dripping oil from my rear shock.....not a good thing considering what we're about to be faced with up in the Colorado passes.....
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Third day consists of plains riding, gradually making our way up into the northern mountain range of NM..........
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We pull in a small town for a fuel stop, and I'm thinking I need to do something about this bucking horse I'm riding....with little or no damping, the shock spring is having a ball kicking me in the butt........I mention that I might need to find a shop to rebuild my shock......This is where Charlie chimes in and states that he has a small oil leak coming from his oil filter housing and it's getting on his boot. He, in no uncertain terms, says he's going to SantaFe to a Kawasaki dealer to fix the leak and he'll meet up with us later...........We try to convince him we're a three man team and shouldn't break up, or that, the leak is so small that the oil level hasn't moved in his sight glass, or that he could try to buy some gasket maker from CarQuest and fix it..........But No, he was dead set on splitting off from the group. We made some calls and found out that the Kaw dealer was out of business.......We tried again and finally convinced him to try the CarQuest route.
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We pull into Espanola NM.....get a room and find a parts store for Charlie........I find a computer in the hotel lobby and place a help add on TWT for a shock replacement..........By the time I go get some beer and get back to the room, Carl tells me I have two shocks and the whole internet knows of my call for help..............Long Story Short.........Rich from Fort Worth, ships a shock to our next destination Lake City CO.....Way to go Rich....Thanks...........and Charlies Exxon Valdez, small leak is fixed with some gasket maker.
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We head on into Colorado and make our way to Platoro CO.....a small mountain valley summer town.
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To make a trip like this on dirt bikes, we've learned not to take more than we really need.........We've learned to bring one change of clothes and that's all....We wash our clothes every night in the bottom of the tub and hang them out to dry.........Well cotton wear just doesn't dry entirely over night...So I woke to two pair of wet socks....I went down to the front desk to see if they had a hair dryer that I could borrow.....The guy said No, but his wife would dry things in the Microwave.....He said you can use the one in the breakfast area.....I said okay.....First time for everything........Well I looked, but didn't see any settings for socks........So I guessed....Well I got some dry socks, really dry socks.............
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To get to Platoro, which is open only 6 months a year, we had to climb up into a mountain pass leading to Summit CO., our first real Mtn pass......We, by chance find a lodge that had good rates, a restaurant, and friendly people. Most of the buildings in these pics are covered with snow during the winter months....everyone leaves and heads to lower grounds......There were some pics the lodge had that showed a typical winter....Unbelievable.........
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In front of the lodge was this refrigerated river that ran by a bonfire pit and a horseshoe pit....tried to drum up a game of shoes......no such luck.......my fellow AARP riding partners were in need of some R&R.......Food was good, bed was soft, we slept well up there in the mountains that night.
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We head over the Summit Pass on into Lake City.....Look around and finally find a room in a great hotel with a view.........Get a Big, hearty Italian dinner, a couple of beers and talk about the next few days of riding.
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Wake the next morning to news from Charlie that he's going home. Riding 800 miles back to Austin. I ask why. He says he has a headache and his neck is starting to hurt him. He's afraid that things will get worse and doesn't want to risk having neck problems............
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Well those out there that are about to say, Well Doc aren't you a Chiropractor.........Don't even ask. Neither Carl or I tried to talk him out of his decision........The three of us had breakfast and went our separate way.......Carl an I, high up into the mountains, Charlie back down to hot Austin.
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Now!,...The riding really starts to get good.......We mapped out a bunch of famous mountain passes and headed out to top them..........Today is Wed......we crossed (Cinnamon, Corkscrew, Black Bear, Stoney Creek Passes) all in one day..........Little did we know, this was going to be a day from ****...........
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The following pics are of these passes....They may not be in the correct order, but you'll get an idea how Beautiful and how Rugged they can be.........Dual Sport Riding at it's best,......not for the faint of heart or lacking in skill..........
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Previous pictures are of,.....Yep, you guessed it, ( Cinnamon Pass ).........Next is Cork-Screw, Since we were feeling our Oats, and felt warmed up, we decided to attempt ( Black Bear Pass ).....Pictures never do justice to heights, angle of climb or decent.........Trust me when I say, We weren't in flat Texas any more............
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..........Still More to come......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av7y77ytDw0
