Dreaming of Dakar

This weekend is the big event for the summer. I am doing the Paris to Dacre ride in Ontario Canada.  This is an 800km (500mile) ride through Ontaria, starting near Paris (not far from Toronto) and ending in Dacre (almost to the Quebec border).  The intention of the ride is to try to simulate what a day of the Dakar rally is like.  Granted, Ontario doesn't have deserts with big sand dunes like the Dakar but it sounds like there is still a lot of good off-road riding.  It is technically not a "race" but is a "challenge ride".  Just finishing is the key however it sounds like many people want to get to Dacre first for the bragging rights.  Our team's goal is just to finish which is a challenge in itself.  The ride is expected to take about 16 hours, and that is if things go well.

I have been meaning to do a blog post talking about all the preparation I have been doing but was so busy between getting the bike ready to go, packing camping gear and supplies for the ride along with trying to get some important stuff finished up at work I have not had a chance to do much else.  The DRZ is all set, I put on a fresh set of tires, changed oil, and checked to make sure everything is tight.  So far the bike has been good and reliable, hope that continues.

Jane and I are on our way now.  We left home around 10:00 this morning and are in north-west NY state camping right on the shores of Lake Ontario.  We are most of the way there now so there won't be a rush tomorrow morning, we can just enjoy camping.  Jane and I always say we want to do more camping but all too often never find the time.

Nice views of the sunset here.

Saturday evening was beautiful and clear. I hung out around the campfire with the guys camped next to me and had a nice evening swapping riding stories and drinking a couple of beers. I probably should have gotten to bed a little sooner to rest up for the next day but still managed to get a decent night's sleep. Sunday morning I woke up early around dawn. I could tell it was early by the complete lack of noise from any other camp sites around me. As I lied there half awake in my tent I had the thought to grab my phone and check the weather. Forecast didn't look good but neither had the Saturday forecast and it had actually turned out to be a very nice day. I then switched over to the radar screen and could see that rain was most certainly heading my way. By my guess it was about 30 minutes away or less. Since I really hate packing a wet tent I decided to get up and start packing. Sure enough just as I was finishing folding up the tent the rain started to hit. I got the coffee pot out and decided to shoot another quick diary video:

Without the tent it was a little more of a challenge trying to get my gear on while trying to stay dry.  I had a lot of my stuff in the truck and I was trying to get dressed in there.  This really is starting to get me think a little more seriously about getting an enclosed trailer.  I could keep my gear organized and dry and could even set up a cot in there and not even bother with a tent.

Since I head heard the Sunday route was a lot easier than the Saturday route I wasn't in as much of a rush to get going early.  I got my knee braces and boots on before the riders meeting but left the rest of my gear until afterwards.  There was a little bit of hunting for various items before I got going because I really didn't do a good job of organizing when I packed the tent up.  A lot of stuff was just shoved into the truck.  It was a little frustrating but is probably a good lesson for me to do a better job of organization.

I think it was around 9:30 before I got rolling.  The rain was light but steady and I knew it was going to be a wet day.  There was a little extra challenge in navigating the route on this day.  The way you navigate on a ride like this is they give you a "route sheet" which is printed on paper the width of a typical receipt you would have from a cach register.  This goes on a route sheet holder you mount to your handlebars which has a knob you turn to scroll through the ride.  It will give instructions and distances.  Normally they also have arrows along the route which they attache to trees or telephone poles to help out so navigation isn't too difficult even if you are not paying close attention to your odometer.  Today's ride however would be a little different.  Since this goes through some more populated areas they have had issues in the past with people either removing or changing the arrows.  So, they just use some ribbons to help mark the course.  The problem is the ribbons are very difficult to see (at least to my eyes).  So navigation is almost entirely using the route sheet and odometer.  This is actually very good practice for me since that is how you navigate in the Dakar and I actually enjoy the navigational challenge.  I did miss a couple of turns during the day but was always able to get back on track.  There were a couple of times I was able to help get a few other riders back on track as well.

No, the important thing about navigation like this is you must make sure you reset the odometer at the right location.  Evidently I misinterpreted the very first reset as I was almost immediatly confused and had to double back.  The route sheet simply wasn't making sense.  Luckly there were several other riders around so I followed for a while until the road turned down a trail.  This was an obvious landmark and this allowed me to get on track.

By this point it was raining a little harder now and the sky was very deep black.  The trail went through some very dense trees making it even darker.  Add to that the fact that I wear glasses (which were fogging up) and goggles (even more fog) and I was nearly blind.  The goggles had to come off almost immediatly.  Still visibility was very poor and the trail was slick and greasy.  This was much more difficult than I expected.   I was hitting just about everything on the trail since I couldn't see it.  I could see enough to know which way to go but that was about it.  My first drop was about 2 miles in.  This was looking to be a very long day.  The trail turned to muddy single-track, areas were getting backed up from riders waiting for a clear path through the difficult bits and others just like me were having a lot of trouble seeing.  At mile 3 I had almost given up, I felt fine but I just could not see and I didn't feel safe riding like that.

I figured it was a good time to stop for a bit and shoot a little video:

Somehow after this my camera battery went dead and I wasn't able to shoot any more video or take any still pictures for the rest of the day.

I decided it was still very early and I would just be very cautious and move forward.  The plan would be that every time I hit a paved road I would ask myself if I wanted to continue or just ride back to the start and call it a day.

The paved road sections were almost more trecharous.  Moving slowly down the trails I am ok riding without the goggles but going down the road the rain drops would smack into my face with a lot more force.  The problem is if I put on my goggles the fog made it impossible to see.  I ended up finding that if I would just hold the goggles in front of my face with my left hand I could get enough air flow to prevent fogging  but it would protect my face well enough.  I of course rode fairly slowly and carefully when doing this.  Luckily there wasn't a lot of road section and there was almost no car traffic so it wasn't too much of an issue.

The first few trail miles were all narrow and dark single track but thankfully after a while it opened up into more unmaintained roads.  These were roads where I was able to carry some more speed and since they were wider the trees were not blocking the limited light nearly as badly.  I think the sky also started to lighten as the day went on and the sun got higher.  This unfortunately did not mean an end to the rain however.  But since I was moving a little faster that got rid of some of the fog on the glasses and since I was making better time the thought of finishing the full 115 miles started to seem believable.

On of the most fun parts of the ride were through Bear Brook State Park.  Normally these trails are closed to any motor vehicles but for the charity ride they are open.  We were told to be aware that there might be mountain bikes and horses on these trails and to be certain to give them the right of way however the weather worked to our advantage in this respect.  I never saw anyone other than other motorcycles on any of the trails.

It was in Bear Brook where I had one of those amazing and inspiring moments.  A large group of bikes had caught up to me so I pulled over to let them through.  I followed them for a while and I was just barely able to keep up with the last rider in the group.  Luckilly I wasn't able to keep up too closely because he wiped out going around a corner (if I had been closer I might have hit him!).  I asked if he was ok which he said he was.  I then noticed he was having a little trouble getting up and I said "you sure?".  As he got up I realized why he was having trouble getting up.  He had only one leg!  He got up, grabed the handlebar and lifted the bike (something I have trouble doing with 2 legs) hopped on and rode off.  Nice to see he doesn't let this prevent him from doing what he loves.  I will think about this the next time I think my knee makes it difficult for me to ride.

After Bear Brook we went along some power lines and I managed to get the bike stuck for the first time in the 2-day ride.  It was a little uphill bit and I was following a fairly deep rut from other bikes.  This is something I know not to do but I didn't see how deep it was until too late.  I hit the gas to try to power out of it but of course just dug in a little deeper.  This is an area where my physical fitness work really pays off, digging a heavy bike out of deep mud takes a lot of energy but even so I was getting a little winded pulling on the bike.  I was trying to pull it straight back but even that was very difficult.  After a lot of heavy breathing I managed to get it back a few feet to where it was a little more solid.  I decided to give it one more go powering through.  I moved all my weight back to the rear for good tracking and hit the gas.  The bike flew out of the rut.... but I didn't!  I really am amazed at how thiks bike can take a beating.  It landed on the rocks pretty hard but no obvious damage.  It was still a little muddy where it landed so picking it up was a little difficult but not as bad as digging it out had been.  I needed to sit and catch my breath for a few minutes.

I finally reached the lunch stop around 1:00.  They had a very good lunch for us this day.  I wish I could recall who supplied it because lunch on both days was donated by locan companies to help out with the charity.  If I can find the company I will be sure to give them credit here.  They had some very good BBQ chicken breast sandwitches, bananas, chips, and some very good chocolate chip cookies.  When I am riding like this I don't worry too much about diet food.  I am most certainly burning more calories than I could possibly eat on a day like this.

At lunch I ran into one of the guys who was camped next to me.  He said he had passed me several times through the day and it looked like I was "plugging along pretty well".  I said "oh yeah, you were the guy on the orange bike" which is a joke because 2/3rds of the bikes on a ride like this are orange KTMs.  My Suzuki with the oversized gas tank however is pretty unique and stands out much better.  He was riding with a larger group which always means stopping and waiting for one or more riders who had an issue, he also said he had a flat he needed to fix.  So, even though he was riding at a much faster pace than I the fact that I don't tend to take many breaks meant we were making about the same overall speed.  Later on in the day I ran into him again (however I didn't know it at the time, like I said, lots of KTMs out there that all look alike) he and his buddies had gotten turned around and I helped them get un-lost.

At this point the roadbook listed 2 possibilities.  There was a shortcut that cut off about 30 miles or so to allow people to get back sooner if needed or the normal route.  I of course took the full normal route.

The "normal" route of the road book said something like "mile 6.5, right onto dirt road - obscure".  The "obscure" ones are always fun to find.  Somehow I managed to miss this on the first try and had to double back to find it.  Luciklly the next bit was "follow arrows through Jay's 2 MX tracks".  The arrows helped me confirm I was on the right "obsure" dirt road.  I was looking forward to the motocross track bit as I have never ridding motocorss and wanted to see what it was like.  What the roadbook didn't mention was that there were several miles (seemed like forever) of narrow and difficult single track trail leading up to the MX tracks.  OK, perhaps it wasn't several miles, and perhaps they were not that difficult but it was once again raining very hard and I was having difficulty seeing again.  If it hadn't been for the arrows (very glad they did decide to put arrows on this section) I would have thought I was lost as there was no MX track in sight.  I finally reached the first of the 2 MX tracks.  I didn't get too crazy with jumps and such and it was a fairly tame track but still the 1 lap was kind of fun.  Then it was back into the trees and more singletrack.

The lack of visibility made the riding very difficult.  This of course made me ride even slower which meant I didn't have momentum to get through some of the more difficult bits.  I am sure with a little momentum it would not have been an issue but as it was I managed to drop the bike a few times.  Climbing up one hill I dropped the bike hard on the left side.  As I picked it up I noticed the left hand guard had gotten bent a bit and was interfering with the clutch lever.  It wasn't really ridable like that (the clutch is important!) so I needed to find a solution.  It looked like all I needed was a hammer to bang it back into shape.  Of course that isn't in my little tool kit I bring with me.  I stared at it for a while and really hoped I wasn't done for the day.  That's when I realized this is New Hampshire and picked up "nature's hammer" (a rock) and pounded the hand guard back into shape.

The rain really was coming down hard now.  I was releived to come out of the trees at the second MX track.  I was going to be wet either way, at least out here I could see better.  This track was more difficult than the first and there were some steep climbs on it.  Steep enough that with the rain I was having a lot of trouble with traction.  The DRZ is by no means an MX bike.  I came down one steep hill which then made a quick 90 deg turn to the right back up the same hill.  Once again the lack of momentum bit me and the rear slid out and down I went.  This time the left side hit hard enough to break the end of my clutch lever off.  It was still usable but still annoyed me a bit as I had not broken anything on the bike so far on the 2-day ride.

As I was picking up the bike the real rain started to hit.  Then the lightning.  Since I was out in the open I decided that down in this little valley on the track was probably the safest place to be.  I didn't want to get to the top of this hill until the danger of lightning was gone.  There was no where to take shelter from the rain (not that it mattered, I couldn't get any wetter at this point) so I just sat down on a rock and waited for the weather to clear.  This was some of the heaviest rain I had ever seen.  I figured as long as I was sitting here I would try my fancy new waterproof camera again to shoot some video.  Nope, battery really was dead, very dissapointing.  I really wanted to get a shot of this.  There were streams coming down the track toward me.  That's when I realized that there really wasn't anywhere down in this little corner for the water to go.  In the 5 or 10 minutes I was there the water level got to about 6 inches where the bike was.

Eventually the rain let up and I had not heard any thunder for a few minutes so decided to push on.  The problem was of course there was no way for me to get a run at this hill and tracking was even worse now.  I managed to drop the bike 2 more times trying to get up this hill.  In the end it was more muscle power than engine power that got me up it.  I really could have used a hand getting the bike up there but I had not seen another rider in quite some time.  I had heard some other guys behind me back on the single track trail but I had not heard them in quite a while.  They must have been waiting out the weather back in the trees.  Or, perhaps they found a shortcut out of there.  Either way I was all alone here.

I had never been more relieved to see a paved road after that.  I think I had spent about 1.5 hours out there and probably only went 2 or possibly 3 miles total in that time.

Next was Patuckaway State Park, another area normally closed off to motorcycles.  These were some fun roads, a little more difficult than the ones at Bear Brook but still a nice relief after the nasty single track trails back by the MX tracks.  I was really starting to wonder if eveyone else had gone home.  There were lots of people still at the lunch spot when I left and others were still arriving there.  A few riders had passed me but certainly not everyone.  I think a lot of them took the shortcut back after lunch.  Was I the only guy still out here?  I got to a point where the trail crossed a public gravel road and there were 5 or 6 KTMs there.  They said they had gotten lost and were asking where on the route sheet I was.  They had already come through this trail and somehow had come back to this intersection on the road.  So, they were supposed to be a couple miles ahead of me but the route wasn't supposed to come back this way.  I was able to tell that if they kept going on the road they were on they would reach the point where they were supposed to come back out of the woods.  I made a mental note of this in case I ended up taking the same wrong turn they did.  At the end of the day when I got back to camp I found out this was the guys camped next to me (like I said, lots of identical KTM bikes out there).  They thanked me for getting them back on track and said they managed to make the rest of the day without getting lost again.

The weather started improving after that.  I even saw a little blue sky after a while.  That isn't to say that the rest of the day went without incident however.  The heavy rains meant that some of the puddles were considerably deeper than expected.  After one of these the bike began to sputter pretty badly.  This had happened once the day before however that time I was able to keep riding and it cleared up.  It was obvious that wasn't going to be the case.  I needed to deal with it in order to continue.  Just the other day I had been chatting with another DRZ rider and we were swapping the usual riding stories.  He had mentioned getting his bike swamped in some deep water to the point where it would not run at all.  The did the usual things of taking out the spark plug to clear the cylinder and tipping it up on the back wheel to drain any water out of the ehaust but still it would not fire.  He then drained the carb flot bowl and it fired up instantly.  I mentioned "gee, I don't even know where the carb drain is on the DRZ" and he pointed it out to me.  Good thing he did cause that was exactly what I needed.  I grabbed my screwdriver, drained a tiny bit of milky looking gas out of the carb and it fired up instantly.

The next unexpected incident was a very large tree lying across the trail.  This must have been a recent fall because normally they take care of anything this large ahead of time or at least make sure there was a path around it.  I could not see any way around it, the only way forward was over it.  This one was way too large (for me at least) to do the simple pop the front wheel over it method.  I got off the bike and popped the clutch to get the front wheel over and set the skid plate on top of the tree.  Then it was time to apply one of the skills I had learned at the training course up in Canada a couple weeks ago.  Got on the bike, pushed back on the tree with my legs to get a few inches of runup, and let er rip!  First try I was over!  This alone made that training course worthwhile.

I finally reached the end at around 6:00.  I was surprised to see how many people had cleared out already.  I had had a few more riders pass me but certainly not all of the ones I had seen still at the lunch spot.  I am curious how many people did the full course with this weather.  The KTM guys camped next door were just getting the last of their gear packed up and seemed a little impressed that I finished the full course on my heavy bike at my slower pace.  They said most guys would have given up.  Good to see my stubbornness is good for something!

For the 2 days my odometer read around 235 miles and I think it was roughly 15 hours total (7 the first day, 8 the second).  The only real damage I did to the bike was break the tip off the clutch lever (a $20 fix).  I didn't injure myself but was certainly sore for a few days.  I think this was probably really good training for the P2D (only 2 weeks away!).  From what I have been told there isn't any single track trail, I would guess that the more difficult bits of the P2D are similar to the class IV road sections we did this weekend.  Also, there is a lot more regular road.  So, I think I should be ready.

I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of raindrops on my tent.  The weather forecast had said rain and thunderstorms so I was prepared for a nasty day.  Since it was only sprinkling at the time I decided to get up and start getting ready.  I shot a short "video diary" bit with my new camera:

The riders meeting was going to be at 8:00 and I wanted to be ready to go immediately after.  I know I am not the fastest rider and I want to be sure I have plenty of time to do the full course.  Around 7:30 I was putting my gear on in my tent when the thunder came.  One nearby flash of lightning got me scurrying out of the tent and into the truck.  Looking at the weather radar on my phone I could see that this was the tail end of the storm and it looked like it would clear up soon.  There was still some drizzle during the riders meeting but the rest of the day actually ended up being very nice!

From this video you can see how the weather was starting to clear.

As soon as the meeting was over I was off and on the trail.  I think I was the first one other than the pre-riders who had gone out earlier to check for any issues on the course.  I could only see 2 tracks in the dirt.  I had seen this first section of trail a couple months before when I was helping clear trails.  It is an easy bit of trail with no real surprises but I still felt a little uneasy.  With all the rain the trail was a little greasy which always takes me a few miles to get the feel of.  I suppose that will come with practice.  My goggles and glasses were fogging up pretty badly due to the dampness still in the air so I ended up riding most of the trails without the goggles and only used them on the road sections.

The first half of the route up until lunch was much easier trail than I had expected.  This was nothing like the "Hoot Owl" ride that I did last month.  It was actually quite a bit of fun and I was able to move along at good speed.  Of course my "good speed" is relative.  I still had a lot of riders pass me.  I know I am not the fastest and it certainly isn't a race so I always move over and let them by.  As would be a trend for both days however I would usually find them taking a break at the next intersection and I would just keep going.

There were some rocky unmaintained roads (what we call class VI roads here in New Hampshrie) and a few had some tricky climbs and good sized ledges I needed to avoid.  There were a couple of water crossings and on one the bike started to sputter a bit after.  I pulled over and opend up the airbox and found it to be dry so I got back on and rode it for another half mile and the sputtering cleared up.  I need to look closer but I am guessing that the vent line to the carb is picking up some water and needs to be routed to a higher spot.  This is something that I MUST take care of before the Paris to Dacre as I am told there will be several long and deep water crossings.

I made it to the lunch stop by 10:30.  I was really quite surprised at how quickly the ride was going but I had heard that it got a little trickier in the afternoon.  There was one optional hero section just before the lunch stop but I skipped it as I wanted to save any hero sections for later in the day to make sure I had the time and energy to do the full course.  I called Jane to let her know I was doing well.  I had to brag a bit about how I had not crashed even once so far!  On the Hoot Owl I had crashed 3 times and bent the bars in the first 5 miles so this most certainly was going better.

I had a quick lunch of a burger, hot dog, chips and a snickers bar, then cleaned my goggles and glasses and was off again.  Since my long term goal is to do long distance endurance rallys like the Dakar I need to be efficient with my time so I should get used to doing that now.  A few minutes saved on a lunch break can make up for a lot of speed (of course I need to get faster on the bike as well).

Mid afternoon things started to get more interesting.  I was on a long twisty climb with some loose sand and felt I was doing fairly well when I lost traction on the rear and went down.  This was 60 miles in or so and I had my first fall.  I wanted to shoot a little video with my camera of the spot but I was kind of in the way of other riders and they of course were trying to keep momentum to get up the climb so I did the right thing and got going again.  I then noticed that my mirror was swinging around loose, evidently the fall had loosened it up where it screws onto the handlebars.  Sounds like another thing to check before the P2D, some locktite will help here.  I got to a good stoppping point and just took it off.  I was going to put it in my backpack but I hate having to take the backpack off with all my gear.  Just about then another rider stopped and asked if I had a spare tube, he had been riding with a flat for the last several miles.  I am always willing to help out another rider so I had him get the tube out of my backpack and put my loose mirror in the pack.  He said he would bring me a new tube that evening.  He had other buddies behind him on the climb and said he didn't need help chaning the tire so I continued the climb.

At the top of the climb we were rewarded with an amazing view from the top of Caverly Mountain:

Several riders were taking a break there and I had planned on getting back on the bike right after the photo but just about then Austin (the guy with the flat) came up to me and said he thought one of his buddies had a pump to air up the tire but turns out they did not.  Being the old boy scout I am I take the "Be Prepared" motto to heart and of course have a pump in my backpack.  So, I hung out a little longer while Austin fixed his flat.

Once he had the tire aired up I said goodby and headed back down the mountain.  He is a very fast rider (found out later that he does a lot of enduro and hare scramble races) and even with the head start I had while he was putting the wheel back on the bike he passed me well before I was down to the bottom again.  As he told me later however a lot of that has to do with the fact that his bike is 100 pounds less than mine!  I am seriously thinkin I need to get a lightweight KTM 2-stroke bike.

Just after Austin and his other KTM buddies passed me I started noticing a rattling from my bike and the exhaust was certainly louder than normal.  I found a good spot to pull over and found the bolts holding the pipe to the head were way loose.  Luckily I carry plenty of tools with me.  I dug into my pack and found my handy Tusk multi-tool which has the allen wrenches I need for these bolts.  Of course then I find that the short little tool won't reach into where I need it.  I tightened them as well as I could with the pliers on my leatherman and just decided I was probably going to have to re-tighten it again before the day was over.  Surprisingly it was not a problem again for the whole weekend but this is still another thing I am going to have to double check before the P2D ride.

An hour later or so I hit what was probably the most difficult bit of the non-hero section of trail.  It was a long climb with a lot of medium sized rocks.  It is the kind of trail where you need momentum to get up the hill but going to fast you just get bounced around on all the rocks.  It is exactly the kind of trail you DON"T want a heavy bike on!  Shockingly I was actually catching up to a couple of riders on this climb.  They were convinced they had accidentaly gone on the hero section (I didn't want to dissapoint them with the news that this wasn't a hero section).  These guys were obviously tired from the long day and said they were probably going to bail and take the paved roads back.  This was about 3/4 of the way through and I was still feeling pretty good.

The nasty climb reminded me once again that I wanted to shoot some video but as usualy on the good parts of the trail there was no good place to get out of the way and shoot.  On the way back down (which wasn't nearly as difficult) I found a good spot and figured I would shoot a bit.

At this point I was feeling a little smug that I had managed to go this far with only falling once.  That of course was a mistake.  I hit the section of trail that takes you to the start of the hero section of Whiteface Mountain.  This was the ride I did with some of the other club member a couple months ago (see my earlier post Trail Ride with MVTR) and really wanted another shot at it.  I was still on the easy ride up to where the trail starts and was feeling overly confident since I knew there was nothing tricky here.  So, of course I speed up.  Just then I managed to get cross rutted (front wheel and rear wheel in different ruts) and went down.... hard.... and tumbled.  A quick mental check, anything hurting?  No.  Is it just shock hiding an actual injury? ..... no, don't think so.  I really am impresed at how well my gear protects me.  It was well worth the money.

On the actual hero section up Whiteface I did drop the bike a couple more times but that was to be expected.  I still dropped it much less than the first time I went up it and this time I didn't do any damage to the bike.  Most importantly I didn't have any of those incidents where I came to a stop and just couldn't find a place to put a foot down (that caused several drops last time).  At the top of Whiteface I was rewarded with another excellent view.

I made it down safely with no more drops but this climb did take a lot out of me.  I had a couple more drops on some of the non-hero trails before the end but I knew I was most of the way there at this point.  It was about 3:00 so I knew I had plenty of time to get back to the start.  In the last couple of miles there was a greasy muddy road wich felt exceptionally difficlut at the time but that was just me being tired.  I just slowed down and took it easy.

Back at camp I surveyed the bike and found nothing broken, just muddy.  Even the bolts on the exhaust were still in place and had not loosened again.  I was tired but not injured.

I had heard that the Sunday route was much easier.  Of course the weather might change that......

to be continued.

I am writing this sitting in the camping area of the New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon.  Those of you who follow NASCAR will be faimilar with the place.  This is the location for the New Hampshire Charity Classic Trail Ride which is tomorrow and Sunday.  Not only is this a great chance to do some trail riding but it is a very good cause.  The event is in it's 30th year of raising money for Cystic Fibrosis.  A few years ago children diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis typically only lived to around the age of 8.  Currently it is not uncommon for them to live until mid 30s.

It isn't that far from my home but I still decided it would be nice to camp out so I could be ready to go in the morning.

I am not sure how many bikes they expect but already the place is filling up and still more are arriving.  I tried a panoramic shot to try to give an idea of how many people are here.  There is still a lot of the are you cannot see from this shot.  You should be able to click on it and get to a larger version.

I have 2 days of 100 miles each of trail riding ahead.  If I survive tomorrow with a little energy left over I will post an update.

I woke up Sunday morning with a bit of energy.  That actually surprised me since I still felt a little bit grubby from the day before because the lovely Howard Jonsons in Bowmanvill evidently hasn't replaced their water heater in my lifetime.  I had tried showering when I got back from riding and it started out cool then ended up ice cold.  An hour or so later they said it was fixed and I verified I did have hot water.  I didn't feel like re-showering right then so I waited until I was ready for bed and it was ice cold again.  Between that and the fact that much of the hotel looked like it was about to be torn down I was less than impressed.

I had been considering doing the full return trip in one day.  I thought that would be more good long distance practice for the P2D and would save me the price of another hotel room.  I have set a budget for my motorcycling adventures and am already over it so saving a few bucks would be a good thing.  Since I didn't get to bed really early the night before and didn't get rolling until after 7:00 I wasn't sure if I would do the full day or not.  But I had energy and felt like riding.

The first couple of hours I was just blasting down the 401.  Ok, by blasting I mean doing the speed limit of 100kph (62 mph) but on the DRZ with no widnshield that feels like blasting along after a while.  I made it to Kingston at 10:00 and decided to cross back into the US via the ferry.  I lost a little time since the next ferry was to leave at 10:30 but this gave me a good opportunity to hit the restroom and snack on some trail mix.

The ferry ride across was nice and gave me the chance for a little more of a break.  I wasn't planning on taking many other breaks for the day so I relaxed a bit and enjoyed the ride over to Wolfe Island.

Going this route actually means taking 2 ferrys.  The one from Kinston to Wolfe Island is a free ferry (I believe it is run by the city of Kingston).  Then it is a short but nice ride across Wolfe island to a privately run ferry to get into the USA.  This one costs $7.50 but I think even the bridge was $2 to get across so that isn't bad.

This one is a much smaller ferry but it doesn't appear to get as much traffic.

There were only 3 cars but I think 7 of us on bikes.  It as actually kind of a cool site with all the bikes lined up along the front of the ferry.

Obviously this isn't the high traffic border crossing.  Nice thing about traveling lightweight on a dirt bike is they believe you when you say you have nothing to declare!  Really wasn't room for me to bring anything back.

I think by the time I had gotten on the road again it was about 11:30.  So about 1.5 hours to get across with ferrys, customs and everything.  Certainly slower than just riding down the road another 20 miles and taking the bridge but was something different.

I had decided a day or two before I left on the trip that I was going to try out a road in Vermont on the way back.  Someone on ADVrider.com had mentioned the "Bayley Hazen Military Road" which was built during the revolutionary war.  Much of the road no longer exists but what does exist is supposed to be a mix of good gravel along with some fairly challenging washed out unmaintained roads.  I thought this would be a good chance to hone some of the skills I had learned the day before.  Of course going this route meant my 490 mile route became closer to 550.

Through New York I headed east and a bit north following the border.  After about 30 minutes or so I come up over a hill and see 7 or 8 police cars along the side of the road with lights flashing.  My first thought was there had been an accident but the I noticed they were briefly stopping each car that came through.  When I got there the officer told me they were doing a motorcycle safety check and asked me to pull over to the side of the road.  I was a bit concerned they were going to be looking for something wrong but he then said mostly what they were doing is checking for DOT approved helmets (lots of the harly guys wear things that look kind of like helmets but really are just plastic hats) and motorcycle licenses.  So, the fact that I was not only wearing a helmet that was DOT (and SNELL) approved but was wearing all my off road gear including knee braces, elbow pads, chest protector, and boots probably helped me out.  He didn't seem at all concerned about me, glanced at my license and seemed satisfied that I was a good safe rider.  I think the whole thing took under 5 minutes.

Having had a good long break on the ferry I decided the rest of the day I would do no more than stop for fuel as needed and no more than 1 stop between fill ups.  This gets me about 100 miles (160k) which is about the range Robb and Brad (my P2D teamates) can do on their bikes.  I do like my oversized tank!  I tried to keep these breaks quick.

I made good time across northern NY and reached Lake Champlain which borders Vermont.

Around 4:30 I reached Montgomery which is the northern end of the Bayley-Hazen road.  I stopped at a gas station for a mid-fuel break.  I had drank my camelbak dry so I bought a big bottle of water to refil it and also a powerade to drink then.  I gave Jane a call to let her know I was OK and was off.

This part of the Bayley Hazen road was really just a well maintained and often traveled gravel road.  It was certainly more interesting than riding down the highway.  Then I came up a hill and was surprised to see a BMW 800GS in the ditch!  He had been coming from the other direction and it looks like he had a little too much speed coming down the hill and around the corner.  He and the bike were OK (other than being in its side and in the ditch).  I gave him a hand getting the bike out and grabbed a pic afterward, didn't think to get one with it still in the ditch.  By this time his riding buddies had figured out he was no longer behind them and had turned around to help as well.

I slowed a bit after this, honestly I wasn't going all that fast to start with but it was a good reminder that surprises can happen.  Was glad to see he was OK.

The GPS route I had been given had 2 different tracks.  One was the "big bike friendly" route and the other was the "with hero section" route which hit the unmaintained parts of the road.  I was very disapointed that when I got to where they split off the "hero" one was marked with a "No Trespassing" sign.  I have mentioned this to others since I got back and they were surprised to hear that.  Most people take this from the south to north so they said if the sign was there when they did the road it would have been to their backs and they didn't see anything coming from the south.  I was very disapointed since this meant I was not going to hit the interesting bits of road.

It was still a good ride, even if it wasn't as challenging as I had expected.  There were some nice sweeping corners with some loose (but not deep) gravel which were kind of fun and good practice.  A few bits of the road did have the desired remote adventurous feel however.

I reached the south end of the road at Wells River a little before 8:00.  At this point I was too close to home to bother stopping although I knew it was going to be dark for the last bit of the ride.  I quickly fueled up and drank 1/2 a gatorade and got going.  It was still light at this point and I wan'ted to make the most of the failing daylight while I could.  It was a clear evening so I still had some light well after sundown so it was close to 9:00 when I would say it was completely dark.  At this point I needed one last break to clean the bugs of my faceshield as oncoming headlights were making quite a bit of glare through all that mess.  A quick 5 minute break to clean it and down the last of the gatorade and I was on the final push home.  I figured Jane would be up waiting for me and didn't want to keep her up too late so I hit I93 a little ways north of Concord and came home the fast way.  Around 10:15 I was home.  Yes, Jane was still up so I was glad I didn't keep her up too late.

According to my GPS I did right around 550 miles and total time was 15 hours.  I figure that isn't bad for a bike that really won't go over 60 and I lost a good hour taking the ferry.  Most importantly I was happy to see I could maintain my energy riding that long with only quick snacks of trail mix and cliff bars.  I had not even had a proper breakfast before I started.  So, as long as I don't tire myself out too badly in the more difficult off-road sections of the P2D I should have the endurance to do it.

I am however going to have to head up to northern Vermont and try the Bayley Hazen road from the south sometime this summer!