Floribama Riders

I'm hanging out with the Flomax gang again, and today, we took a break from motorcycling to go fly fishing. Actually, Bob, Greg and Lloyd are doing the fishing, and I'm sitting with a rock as a backrest, writing this dispatch.

I just told Lloyd a really sweet story about how my Uncle Jim took me fishing when I was 11 years old. We spent half a day on the Esopus River in New York's Hudson Valley. On the way out, Uncle Jim had to carry me on his back to get us across a deep spot in the water. I noticed a dollar bill trapped underneath a rock, waving in the current, and I asked my uncle to stoop over and pick it up. It was a little bit of an ordeal, considering the fishing gear and the kid on his back, but he did it. I still have that dollar to this day. Lloyd's response? "And you're still tight with a buck."

Sheesh, I don't know where I got this reputation within the Floribama Riders for being stingy. I'm a generous tipper, but I think some folks think it's strange that I only own motorcycles (three currently) and no car. I also hate paying for lodging when I'm on my own. I can sleep pretty well on a picnic bench, and I did that two Saturdays ago, come to think of it.

But this dispatch is not about me. Today, I would like to thank the awesome members of the Floribama Riders who have kept me alive and mobile over the past two days. Let's just start this off with a quick shout out to my latest favorite peeps on this trip, along with how they helped me out, saving my bacon in some cases.

• Mark: Advice on riding in gravel
• Scott: Advice on riding in gravel
• Ryan: Advice on riding in gravel (Can you tell I was a little afraid of the gravel?)
• Bob: Dinner
• Scott: Handlebars
• Thor: Suspension
• Mark: Breakfast
• Scott: Diagnosed oil plug, showed me what to look for oil spots
• Bob, Greg and Lloyd: Rescue

Day 5: Pocatello, ID to Arco, ID (220 miles)

Ryan and some other folks decided on Saturday night who should ride with whom on the first day. This was a little presumptuous, but in the end, they made some good choices that seemed to stick for the rest of the trip. As a relatively novice rider in the dirt, I was assigned to ride with Mark, Ryan and Scott.

Mark can ride pretty much anything, but at 78, he does not go out of his way to ride aggressively over rough terrain. Scott, like me, is primarily a street rider, but he has dirt experience from years back. Ryan is our group's superstar, the 30-something kid who organized the route for the entire trip and rides like a bat out of hell. I figured that he chose our group to babysit me and to evaluate my riding ability. I have known these guys for years, but we have not ridden off-road much, primarily because I did not own a dirt bike until a few months ago. I have 13 years of street riding experience, I commute by motorcycle daily, and I have also ridden to Panama and back. In this group, I still feel like a novice.

We set off down some gravel roads outside Pocatello, and Ryan immediately opened up his Yamaha WR250R to 70 MPH. Riding in second position, Mark kept him in sight at 60 MPH. My front wheel felt like it wanted to dart in 10 different directions at once. I gripped the bars tightly and hung on, feeling terrified at 35 MPH. Scott rode closely behind me.

Throughout the course of numerous consultations at our rest stops, I received the following advice.

• Mark - Gear down. Using a lower gear in the gravel helps stability. Always keep the bike pulling.
• Mark - Give it a little throttle.
• Ryan - Keep your hands loose on the bars.

Later in the day, I found I could gain speed if I cleared all thoughts from my head except these three: "Gear down, throttle, loose on the bars." If I had gained speed during a fast section, I would repeat "loose on the bars, loose on the bars." In this way, I was able to avoid slowing down the group too much. After a granola and beef jerky lunch at a gas station, the route started to pick up more interesting features. It turned into a "double track," a route that trucks and four-wheelers could travel. For dirt bikes, we had a choice tire tracks in which we could ride, with a grass divider in the center.

My favorite part of the day was riding through rolling hills with mountains in the distance. Ryan rode close behind, capturing video from his bike-mounted camera when two pronghorns burst from the tall grass, bounding ahead of our bikes. A pronghorn is a large mammal, native to western North America, that looks similar to a deer or gazelle. What an incredible adventure to ride along with bounding pronghorns! The animals probably did not enjoy being pursued by two loud, snorting motorcycles, but it made me feel closer to nature.

We rolled into the motel in Arco to a scene where everyone was performing bike maintenance. I checked a few things before heading to The Pickle restaurant for dinnerh, which Bob graciously bought to show his thanks for my lending him some bearing grease. Bob had spent a rough day fighting with his steering because the bearings had partially frozen. The steering showed strong resistance at first and loosened up dramatically once he broke past the frozen zone. This made riding on gravel roads and dirt tracks quite exciting. I was happy that I had brought some supplies that nobody else had.

After dinner, I came back to the Lost River Motel parking lot and finished monkeying with my bearings. Scott was a big help there because he made me realize I could move the throttle tube up farther to the inside of the handlebar.

With the handlebars and barkbusters in good shape, I moved onto the suspension. Bob had set up the bike at a lower height, and I wanted to move the suspension back to the higher setting. This would give me a little more ground clearance and shock travel. Thor has the same bike, and he knew how to quickly change the settings. He also held up the rear of the bike while I monkeyed with the bolt.

Mark C. served as my roommate that night, and he very generously let me eat half his breakfast in the morning. Mark is a light eater, and for some reason, many places in Idaho serve enormous portions. Oh, he also shared half his dessert the night before.

Day 6: Arco, ID to Challis, ID (200 miles)

After breakfast, a relatively large group of seven people left for one of the largest rides of this trip. The riding would only total 180 miles, but early in the day, we would tackle Massacre Mountain. Thankfully, the mountain offered a hard and an easy way, and I hooked up with the group that planned to take the easy way. Stan led the way out of town, guided by his GPS toward the gravel roads that would lead us to the mountain.

After a half hour of riding, we stopped at the side of a gravel road for a quick chat. Someone looked toward the underside of my bike and said, "Hey man, you're leaking something." I looked down, and a liquid was just pouring out of the underside of my bike. I was a little annoyed and thought this might be the reappearnce of the fuel petcock issue the night before. I said that I thought it was gas, but a couple of guys started pointing and said, "No, it's oil." I said, "It's not oil," ready for a small argument. Scott walked over, looked underneath the bike and correctly diagnosed the problem as a missing drain plug.

We realized the plug must have fallen out recently because there was still a decent amount that dumped out of the crankcase when I stopped. Scott started walking along the oil trail, looking for the drain plug. At first, the trail was a black streak in the gravel road, obvious to my eyes. Scott kept walking along, saying he kept seeing drops of oil. I walked alongside him for a few minutes and could not see a thing. He pointed out how the small drops would appear on the larger rocks. After following him for a while, I could see the oil drops myself. I said that he must have been a hunter to see such small details. Scott said, "No, I'm a mechanic, and I drop stuff all the time and then have to go find it."

Scott searched with me on that road, taking slow steps and scanning carefully until we saw the next oil drop. The goal was to find the spot where we saw no more oil and then to backtrack to the drain plug. After about 20 minutes, Mark rode up to say that the group had made contact with Lloyd in the chase truck, and he would pick me up shortly. The group rode on to Massacre Mountain. I continued to walk the road looking for my drain plug, but I could not find it before Lloyd arrived in the truck, with Bob and Greg riding their bikes.

I was glad to see my friends, but I would have loved to have found a gray drain plug after walking half a mile of the gray gravel road. I placed a cairn (pile of rocks, typically used by hikers) in the road where I spotted some oil before I hopped in the truck. Maybe I'll go back and find that drain plug some day.

Lloyd stopped the truck at a Honda motorcycle shop we happened to see on the side of the road. Although I was riding a Suzuki, the youngest member of the parts staff dedicated himself to finding a plug that would fit. We ended up with a self-tapping drain plug, which is kind of a last resort, but it worked. After the ordeal of rescuing me on a deserted road, Bob, Greg, Lloyd and I felt like lunch. The owner of the hotel where we stayed said we should try a bar called The Four Winds because it was a unique experience. As we left, he said, "Watch out, or you might find yourself in a bar room brawl."

The Four Winds looked like a good place for a weekend honky tonk, with its rough-hewn wood finish, the pool tables and a small stage at the front. It could be a rough place for a bunch of Easterners dressed in funny motorcycle gear--but not at noon on a Monday. We joined the lone patron at the bar, and Lloyd promptly ordered a grapefruit juice and vodka. It sounded like such a good idea that we all joined him. This served to mellow the mood, which I appreciated because the original plan for the group was to spend the morning fly fishing until they received a call about some knucklehead who had lost his drain plug.

We noticed a brief menu behind the bar, and we asked the bartender what he would recommend. "Oh, the food? I wouldn't eat it," he said. He recommended a small Mexican food truck for its cheap and tasty food. We knocked off our grapefruit and vodkas and scooted down the road to the food truck. While in line, I spoke to one of the locals who said the truck became quite the controversy in town. "Well, the food is so cheap and so good that the other food joints in town are scared. They tried to get 'em with health violations because it's a mobile business, but now they've been health inspected, and I love to eat here."

Bob, Greg, Lloyd and I ate across the street at picnic table next to a large submarine tower that's a local landmark. Greg refused to take a photo because you see photos of the submarine in every tourist's account of Arco, ID. After lunch, we headed for the next night's motel in Challis, ID. But first we had to check out some local fly fishing spots. Bob, Greg and I mounted up our bikes, and Lloyd rode behind us in the truck, towing the trailer.

We stopped at the Mackay fish hatchery, and Greg grilled the two friendly hatchery [Forest Service?] employees about the best fishing spots. We got a little lost while trying to find the recommended spot, so we went to a dam near U.S. 93 that offered good fishing. That's where I am now. As I sit writing with my back against a boulder, I can just see Lloyd's sneakers across the gravel parking lot. He removed them to climb down into a small stream. Every once in a while, I catch a glimpse of his fly line whipping back and forth in the air. He lets out a small whoop, and I walk over to see him releasing a small rainbow trout that easily fits in his hand.

We arrive later in Challis, ID to the wonderful Challis Motor Lodge and Lounge. In conversation, we emphasized the and *lounge* part with an air of "ooh la la." We walked into the lounge and bellied up to the bar to order a beer and register for a room. The motels where we stay on this trip seem to have been transported from another era. [Ack, I still need to write a good description of the lounge here, based on someone's photo.] A group of Floribama Riders sat at a long table, ordering meals of steaks, burgers and fries.

I walked outside and saw Jason make a dramatic entrance. Jason said that John P. had taken a bad fall and hurt his ankle and needed the chase truck right away. I felt concern for John, but my second thought was for Lloyd. His day had begun picking up one stranded John (me), and now he would head out just as we had arrived at a charming Motor Inn and *Lodge*. I walked inside to deliver the news.

For the next 10 minutes, the group experienced some chaos in the parking lot as we tried to figure out what to do. Jason ran around telling everyone the story. Mark C. talked on his cell phone to somebody about the incident. We had the coordinates of the crash site, but those were not useful because it was too high up on the mountain for a truck. Thor was riding John down the mountain on the back of his bike. They left John's bike on the mountain for retrieval later. It was difficult knowing exactly where Thor and John would be, although supposedly they would follow the GPS track that Ryan had sent everyone. Greg worked the phone, looking for a local medical center. Greg had the idea of calling 911 to see if the EMTs would drive down a gravel track to meet John. In the end, we called 911, and the EMTs rolled into the motel parking lot and waited for John to arrive on the bike.

Lloyd and Greg did get to sit down in the lodge for a few minutes that night, but then Lloyd drove John to the nearest hospital that was 90 miles away. It would have cost a bundle to have the EMTs drive that far. I roomed with Greg that night, and he got up at 6 AM to drive the truck with Ryan and Thor, who would retrieve John's stranded Husquevarna in the woods. Greg drove the truck as far as he could. Then Thor rode his DR650 with Ryan on the back, and then they headed back to the truck. They loaded both bikes into the truck and arrived in the parking lot near 9 AM, just as the rest of us were gearing up to head out. The truck was not completely necessary, but Greg wanted to give Ryan and Thor as much rest as possible to prepare them for a day of 240 miles of off-road riding.