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Ecuador box...checked!

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The Wee was fine. It did everything we needed it to do and it's a good solid bike. Maybe not totally thrilling with my 220 pounds and the wife's 110 (+50) along with our riding gear and luggage. A very nice size bike for down there. I wouldn't hesitate to rent one again.

Freedom had a BMW GS800 sitting in the office that looked awfully tempting. A similar overall size bike to the Wee with a little more motor. The tempting part for me was that I'd never ridden one before and always wanted to. They also had a GS 1150 there but for my tastes that would be a little much.

On a side note the Wee had H&B luggage mounted and I was very impressed. Made out of some very robust plastic. I looked them up on line and they sure aren't cheap. I'll keep my Givi's for the time being. When I first saw the bike I noticed that it had a Continental Knobby mounted on the rear with an Anakee II on the front. Like an idiot I thought a another Anakee on the rear would be fine. There were some times that I was real glad that knobby was on there. It also performed much better on the road than I would have imagined. Nice tire. Turns out Freedom knows what they're doing afterall. :rider:

By the way we road on some excellent "paved roads" and I'll show some of those soon. I am about to start editing again tomorrow. I'll have a few more pictures too.
 
Thanks for the info. I am tempted to head out there in July. I have a wee now with happy trail luggage so Im pretty comfortable on the bike even 2 up. I just got it so I would probably hold off on renting the BMW. I would hate to get the "I need one" bug.
 
MacDaddy said:
Thanks for all the kind words everyone, its very nice to hear.

Nice having you following along again Wally.

Vinny, I hope I'm showing off your beautiful Country adequately.
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You are doing a great job. I'm glad you liked it.
I hope to rent from them at the end of July for a couple of days. I'' be there for 2 weeks visiting family.
I wish I could have a bike there. My V-strom might end up there in a couple of years. The import taxes are crazy; the V-strom costs more than double. I dont know how Freedom can afford it.
It sure is a great alternative to Europe dough.
 
MacDaddy said:
...When I first saw the bike I noticed that it had a Continental Knobby mounted on the rear with an Anakee II on the front. Like an idiot I thought a another Anakee on the rear would be fine. There were some times that I was real glad that knobby was on there. It also performed much better on the road than I would have imagined. Nice tire. Turns out Freedom knows what they're doing afterall...
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Interesting. I always thought the more aggressive tire on the front was preferable if you don't want to run knobbies on both wheels. I see many more people running a full knobby on the front and a 50/50 tire on the rear.

_
 
SilverBullet, that's what I usually see too and don't disagree. If I hadn't had to work this year and been able to ride the TAC that's probably the route I would have gone on my Wee. I think for a lot of Texas dirt it's a smart choice. That said, the few times I really wanted traction in Ecuador I was really happy that knobby was back there. Conversely I was really expecting that tire to get sketchy on the paved mountain roads but it didn't.
 
Okay, let’s try to wrap up Uno Dia. :clap:

As we’re clearing the quarry thing we stopped for a short break.

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Little did we know the small village before us we Quilotoa. If you look just past the larger group of buildings you can see the forming of the crater.

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The GPS led us right into the parking lot before we realized exactly where we were. I was told you can get fog and rain in the afternoons up here and they’re right. One thing about this trip, it seemed we were always running just a little late. We were now having one of our first run-ins with this phenomenon. We hiked down these to a look out.

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Just before we got there, the fog had begun to roll across the crater. I suspect we got to see about 40% of the water as the fog quickly consumed all the scenery. Darn, if we’d just gotten there five minutes earlier! :giveup:

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Oh well. It was starting to get a little late in the day and we needed to get past a nearby town called Zumbahua so we could find our lodging for the night. As part of this tour we were spending the night at a working farm / B&B. It somehow sounded quainter than Motel 6. We were advised to be there by 6 pm if we wanted dinner. :eat:

So…we’re passing through a small nondescript town and the GPS has us headed straight. The blue sign at the beginning of the video shows us right on track. A minute later the main road seems to end. The GPS tells me to go straight but it sure doesn’t look like a main road. We rode by a few people and I wonder if we’ve stumbled onto the drive to their back forty. It’s also pretty steep and as is usually the case, the video doesn’t quite capture the steepness of the hill. And lucky us, the ruts get a little worse at the top. :eek2:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b7L3yWPyd4"]Hill climb[/ame]

The front end got a little light a few times on the hill which always makes it more interesting Well we made it anyhow and it was actually kind of fun. Besides, what’s the worst that could’ve happened?

It’s almost 5 pm when we cleared the hill which dumped us onto the main road. Another REAL road, Whoo Hoo! Oh wait, what’s this, road construction. The road’s shut down, Rats! Senior, can you tell us what’s wrong and how long we’re stuck here? What…No I don’t speak Spanish. Darn, it’s been long time since breakfast and we really don’t want to be missing dinner tonight.

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No stopping the pedestrians though. Speaking of which, all the people we saw were dressed so nice and they were all so well kept no matter where in the middle of nowhere we passed them. Very cool!

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The road didn’t open up until 6 pm. Luckily we were at the front of the line and didn’t have to pass anyone. We soon cleared the massive cleanup taking place because of a rock slide just before Zumbahua. This seems somewhat common (as we will see later) and the workers looked like they’d done this a time or two.

Okay, it’s going to get dark soon but first we’re rewarded with some very nice pavement and NO TRAFFIC! This video ends just as I miss the turn off to the B&B at the end of the guardrail on the left. Yes it’s hard to see.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrtiX570BFA"]Posade De Tigua[/ame]

We double back and find the road, miss the farm but are soon aided by some nice locals on what looked like a deserted road. Michael and Margarita (are hosts for the night) are waiting on us and joy oh joy, they held dinner for us!!! Happy, tired and soon full, it was a great day!
 
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A totally unscripted :doh: recap of day 1 done the following morning.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuYBuUkZ6tA"]Day 1 recap[/ame]
 
Your low traction riding fu is impressive :bow:

I would have been tense with just me on the bike, but having the wife back there would really make things... uh... interesting... :wary:

Hard to judge speed in the vids, but you seemed like you were able to run pretty good on the wet stuff even with the non knobby tire. I'm guessing it was more sand/dirt than clay?
 
Your low traction riding fu is impressive
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Well Scott, your not the first person to use those two letters to describe my riding technique. :rofl:

I'm guessing it was more sand/dirt than clay?
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You are right sir, dirt and sand. The speeds weren't that great. When you're out there on your own (as you described with spouse on the back) you don't feel overly racy. That said, I rode a lot of off-road when I was younger and that certainly helps.

We met briefly after a pie run early last year Scott. I wouldn't expect you to remember though. I took this picture as you and Mr.2mch talked in front of the Rock Church near Cranfills Gap.

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More, more! Did you mount the camera on your helmet?
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I'm working on it Wally. This is the first time I've done video on a report and basically I have no editing skills. But the most time consuming thing is uploading to YouTube. A 4 minute video takes about 3 hours on my computer.

Yes the camera in mounted on the lower left side of my helmet. I thought you might have seen me move my visor up and down. The Countor cameras are good about letting you use them anywhere and just twist the lenses to level the video.

To no one in particular: as has been said before by others when speaking of video length, "Nobody cares about your videos like you do, so keep it short." I agree. But I'm going to put one together covering the road we left on on day 2. It's such a nice road I may make it 6 or 7 minutes. If it were some place like Colorado (beautiful BTW) where much has been on display, I would keep it shorter but I haven't seen a lot on Ecuador posted so I may let them run on a little. Nobody says you have to watch it all.
 
What a charming morning. (breakfast was great too!)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCOZIc1ryQA"]Posada De Tiqua[/ame]

Our hosts, Michael and Margaretta

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MacDaddy said:
We met briefly after a pie run early last year Scott. I wouldn't expect you to remember though. I took this picture as you and Mr.2mch talked in front of the Rock Church near Cranfills Gap.

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I seem to recall you were riding the FJR that day?
 
Yes Scott, I am impressed you remembered my FJR. I was two up that day with a young lady that is my neighbor, long time friend, and cop.

Yeah Mudclod, I think I could live there too.

Mr2mch you're right, that was after the Hico Pie run and doubly right that the 2012 Wee hadn't arrived yet.

Rainmaker, (my apologies for the belated response) Yes book that trip in July!!!!!!!!
 
Day two and it’s a beautiful morning for sure. I’ll give you one more video leaving the Posada De Tigua just because it’s so darn pretty there.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYZew2sSFsA"]Leaving the Posada De Tigua[/ame]

We traveled the 800 meters to the main road, turned left and continued on where we’d left off the evening before. This road takes a while to build up to a little over 14,000 feet and twists and turns all the way down to the small town of Pujili. This was one of my favorite roads on the trip and there was virtually no traffic.

We go over the top and just start down at the end of the first video. It’s pretty barren up at the top of the mountain. I let these run a little long, especially going down. Watch a little; watch a lot, your choice. Enjoy, because it sure was fun making it.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3R-tseBGOU"]Up the mountain towards Pujili[/ame]

And of course, what goes up...?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4L0TU5KVoI"]Com'on Pujili[/ame]
 
Nice music choices on the videos.

Quilotoa from when I was there in '06

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Roadside Cuy stand, I'm sure you saw a few of those.

IMG_1331sm-M.jpg
 
Thanks AndyT, so that's what it looked like down there. I wish we'd had your weather for sure.

Yes I saw the Cuy and that's as close as we ever got to it. ;-) My complements to whoever shot those missiles into those little things, that's pretty good shooting. I guess that's what I once heard referred to as a "Texas heart shot." Get's there eventually. :rofl:
 
Re: Ecuador box...checked! Natalie Merchant sings Patti Smith

Steve's extra sensory perceptiveness in musicality seems to (somewhat) match my own tastes & ecclectiveness.....maybe not all the time though....

I can't tell ya how many times I've been on the road...usually late at night listenin to Elton's Yellow Brick masterpiece while the miles rolled away......(& we did too!huh) It was the 70s man!
 
unbelievably, inconceivable that your better half rode with you. you are a very, very good pilot. it's very impressive how you managed the different roads.

btw... i did see the shadow of both of you on the paved road, which was awesome!

the music was great too!
 
unbelievably, inconceivable that your better half rode with you. you are a very, very good pilot. it's very impressive how you managed the different roads.

btw... i did see the shadow of both of you on the paved road, which was awesome!

the music was great too!
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Wow, what kind words FJRSTAR. I'm just about to go out the door for work and seeing this really made my morning. And to everyone else who's been so kind, thank you. I chalk up any success in riding I've had to being the owner of a mighty FJR. :trust:

Let me brag on Kathleen for a minute. We've been married for 24 years and there's a bit on an age difference between us. I won't reveal her age but let's just say the first number begins with a 7. Maybe just barely a 7 but a 7 none the less. She's incredible!
 
MacDaddy said:
Wow, what kind words FJRSTAR. I'm just about to go out the door for work and seeing this really made my morning. And to everyone else who's been so kind, thank you. I chalk up any success in riding I've had to being the owner of a mighty FJR. :trust:

Let me brag on Kathleen for a minute. We've been married for 24 years and there's a bit on an age difference between us. I won't reveal her age but let's just say the first number begins with a 7. Maybe just barely a 7 but a 7 none the less. She's incredible!
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Excellent report. I hope to be married 24 years someday - my wife and I went on our longest 2 up trip so far this weekend and it was good times.

I concur that your pilot skills are excellent to be able to navigate all this 2 up.

:clap:
 
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