Review: Riding gear update

Finding the perfect compromise between crash protection for off-road riding and all-weather protection for multi-day adventures has, not surprisingly, proven elusive. Over the years I've experimented with various jacket/pant systems, starting at the low end for price and durability, becoming dissatisfied with comfort and performance, and eventually working my way up to the set of gear I'm using currently.

In my part of the world (Ottawa, Canada), the riding season is woefully short--barely stretching from late March (or whenever the rain has rinsed most of the road salt away) to mid October. July and August can be mercilessly hot and humid, with temperatures in the upper 30's Celcius with the humidex (worse in the bush!). Mesh gear is essential to avoid heat exhaustion in these conditions, but the frequent risk of violent summer storms with corresponding temperature drops means carrying  some heavy-duty rain protection on longer trips. And that creates the problem of having to frequently stop and change gear to stay reasonably comfortable.

As a result, I've converged on two sets of gear: one set based on the 2018 Klim Carlsbad jacket and pants for everything but peak summer, and the other based on the Klim Mojave pants with TekVest, and Klim Tactical jersey for the hottest days. With both sets I wore Alpinestars Fluid Carbon knee braces and Fox Titan elbow pads, having removed all the armour in the Carlsbad suit.

Both sets got a full workout during a month of riding the Continental Divide this past summer, so now I can report on how well things worked. Conditions ranged from low single-digit temperatures at mountain elevations of up to 4,000m, to parched sandy deserts well into the 40's. One big difference from conditions at home was the low humidity: while it was easy to get hot and sweaty, it was equally easy to dry out rapidly because of the arid conditions. At home, my riding gear remains a soggy mass of sweat no matter how little you wear or how fast you ride.

In the next sections I'll cover some observations of how the components worked together (or didn't).

Alpinestars Fluid Carbon knee braces
The D30 knee armour that comes with the Carlsbad pant is basically a joke because it flops around and offers no realistic protection in the event of a crash. Having previously tweaked a knee while riding, I wanted more support and protection on a long trip to remote areas. The Fluid braces seemed to offer good value and comfort compared to other off-the-shelf options I considered. They also happen to fit my physique almost perfectly and they articulate well with knee movement, generally remaining in the correct position after many hours of sitting and standing on the pegs. Putting them on, adjusting, and removing them is easy.

The L/XL braces fit under my size 34 Carlsbad pants with acceptable room, such that the pant fabric can still slide around freely. Nevertheless, the combination does stiffen the limbs, making swinging a leg over my WR250R somewhat prone to whacking the seat. Although I'm reasonably flexible, the issue is really the lack of stretch in the Carlsbad fabric combined with the brace simply doing its job of restricting knee movement. Once on the bike, the combination felt fine, although over time the brace would slip down slightly and cause the top part to push out from the thigh, creating a tight spot in the leg fabric. Regular contact with this area would likely accelerate fabric and stitching wear, although I didn't notice a problem.

Something else to consider with your gear is how easy it is to partially drop so you can sit on a toilet. The last thing you want to do when making a pit stop in some dilapidated gas station or restaurant loo is get all undressed on a urine-soaked floor. The combination of Carlsbad pant, knee braces, and adventure boots requires a complicated set of yoga moves to do your business. You quickly learn to bask in the power of coffee first thing in the morning, before getting dressed to ride.

My verdict on the Carlsbad/Fluid combo is I would hesitate to recommend it unless you have slimmer legs. I actually avoided wearing my Carlsbad pants as much as possible because conditions were simply too warm and ventilation and movement was too limited. I probably only wore the pants 4-5 days in a month of riding, vastly preferring the Mojave pants unless it was actually raining.

Under the Klim Mojave pants the knee braces worked almost flawlessly. These pants offer a slightly more generous cut than the Carlsbad and correspondingly much more comfort. Klim should apply the Mojave fit to the Carlsbad line, as the intended use profile is similar except for wetness of conditions. With this combo, I could easily forget I was wearing the Fluids even after 10-12 hour days.

In dual sport riding (or at least, the way we rode), there seems to be a constant need to kneel on the ground and fuss with the bike. The Fluid offered reasonable kneecap protection in these scenarios, but I noticed that sometimes small rocks could press through gaps in the patella cover. Not a good sign for an accident scenario.

After three weeks of wearing the Fluids, I was dismayed to see that the padding on my left leg side had become detached from the carbon structure. It looks like heat and sweat had deteriorated the adhesive, allowing the padding to migrate under flexing.

I was annoyed to see that some of the knee padding had migrated through to the front, leaving unprotected holes. A different shape for the padding may solve the latter issue. Adding some Gorilla tape failed to solve these issues. In a product as costly as this, I would expect to get more than 20 wearings out of them before experiencing issues like this. Fortunately, the store where I bought the braces showed them to the Alpinestars rep and agreed to cover them under warranty without issue. So, a new pair is on its way and I'll probably reserve them exclusively for more aggressive trail-oriented day rides rather than multiway adventures.

Carlsbad pant
It's worth a few additional comments about the pants independent of the knee braces. The Velcro waist adjustments proved very effective and comfortable to accommodate layering tops/bottoms, and to compensate for the 15lbs I lost in a month of riding. I ended up achieving optimal weight for the pants to ensure their fit and flexibility without flapping fabric. In addition, the leg snaps for the boot area proved superior to Velcro (as on the Mojave pant) for adjusting fit around the boots.  

My two minor gripes with the Carlsbad pants are, first, the crotch area is not very flexible, and it must be positioned a precise way to avoid painfully wrenching certain more (ahem) stretchy parts of anatomy in that region. Klim could use some work with the cut of the fabric in this area, even substituting a 4-way flex material for GoreTex as a reasonable tradeoff for breathability.

The second nit--and somewhat tied to the first--is the tendency for the pants to slip down. Again, this seems to be mainly a consequence of using non-stretchy fabric with a slippery interior, exacerbated by knee braces. I ended up ordering suspenders and they help keep the pants (and crotch) in the right position.

Otherwise, the pants are brilliantly waterproof and ideal for cooler conditions. My riding partners wore their Carlsbad and Badlands suits the entire trip--but I found the gear to be intolerably hot and exhausting in the heat we experienced.

TekVest RallyMax
I ended up wearing the vest over either my Carlsbad jacket or Klim Tactical jersey, combo chosen depending on the day's temperature. After a few weeks the vest had moulded perfectly to my torso and was supremely comfortable. It offered both excellent protection and airflow, and I came to feel naked when not wearing it. This piece of gear is a keeper.

For our Rockies trip we each wore a Kriega 30 litre pack loaded with essentials (hydration, camera, ID, snacks, etc.) carried at all times. Next time, I wouldn't choose to wear a pack and would instead strap it to my bike as one our riding trio ended up doing. While my pack fit over the RallyMax just fine, the vest has its own pouch to carry a hydration pack comfortably, obviating the need for a separate carrier. Getting the additional weight of a pack off my back would significantly reduce fatigue on long days.

On hot days, the vest and jersey made a terrific swamp cooler when both garments were soaked with water. My verdict is that vest, combined with the Mojave pant and jersey, was a fantastic setup I could live in comfortably for day after day of good weather.

Klim Tactical Jersey
The jersey served me well, proving durable, comfortable, and easy to maintain by dunking it in mountain streams to rinse out the dust and renew its swamp cooling capacity. However--and something I hadn't thought to anticipate--wearing all this mesh gear allowed dust to penetrate to my core and mix with sweat, resulting in a funky mix tempered only by rapid evaporation. Always a tradeoff.

If there was a nit with the jersey, it was its interaction with my Fox Titan elbow pads. I'd opted to use separate pads instead of the Carlsbad jacket's built-in elbow armour, since I wasn't planning to wear the jacket except when raining. However, I found the jersey caused the elbow pads to migrate down my arms, ending in a position that offered only partial protection.

Otherwise, my verdict on the jersey was a solid A. Now, if only Klim would offer it in some bright colors.

New armour - EVS Travis Pastrana TP199
Having concluded that the Fluid braces are probably overkill for 80% of my riding, I started looking for a more comfortable alternative to wear under the Carlsbad pants that wouldn't also require wearing tights to avoid chafing, as happens with the Fluids.

The EVS TP199 knee armour may be just the thing. It's a brilliant combination of soft and D30-like armour stitched into a tube-within-tube configuration.

The design, which incorporates a hole in the inner sock for your patella and a breathable mesh behind the knee, ensures the assembly remains in the correct position while allowing the CE Level 1 armour to flex around your knee and providing decent lateral support. It's very comfortable and fits nicely under the Carlsbad pant. While I haven't had a chance to ride with these pads on yet, it's easy to forget they're on. My only concern is lower breathability than the braces, but this may be offset by not having to wear tights to avoid chafing.

The sides of the knee are well covered and when kneeling, the kneecap seems to offer more protection than the Fluid braces. While there are only two sturdy straps to secure the armour in place (compared with four on the Fluid), they don't chafe and prevent the armour from sliding down. The shin protection is rigid and provides further stability when tucked into the boot.

 

Overall very encouraging. I wouldn't hesitate to ride with this on my next long trip. Sizing information below. I chose L/XL, which fits me well (6', 185 lbs). 

New armour - Alpinestars Sequence jacket

Alpinestars just released this new armored jacket, and I was intrigued to try it instead of my TekVest for less technical off-road riding on the theory it would be lighter, easier to fit under the Klim jersey, and easy to fit under the Carlsbad jacket. 

The Sequence utilizes a lightweight, highly breathable mesh chassis with sewn-in CE-1 armour which includes a chest guard. It's not at all suitable to be worn by itself: it would be shredded by any minor impact. But under a jacket it should do fine. It offers better coverage than the armour that comes with the Carlsbad, as well as a removable kidney belt. You can see here how thin that mesh is around the neck.

An important limitation of this style of protection is the inability to wear layers with it, like you can when the armour is incorporated into a jacket. Not an issue for summer riding, but something to consider on a long trip. Also, I would question the durability of the mesh fabric over a long trip. It seems too easy to rip the neck area when putting on the jacket. I may modify the design to add some structural fabric in this area. 

Ultimately, this jacket may prove to offer limited utility to only certain specific riding conditions. I think I'm back to the drawing board on finding better elbow pads so I can continue to use my TekVest for all riding.

Continental Divide ride 2018 - Part 4

Part 3
Butte, Chapter 1

We arrived in Butte, unwittingly triggering an epic sideshow that became one of the defining adventures of our trip.

As we descended a long grade on the highway into town, the famed "Richest Hill on Earth" loomed on our right. Today the hill is still being strip-mined for ore; however, underneath still lies some 10,000 miles of mine workings from the historic heydays of the town--some of the most extensive mine workings in the world.

It's hard to grasp the full influence of Butte's mining activity on North American and world events, but I think it's fair to say this extraordinary town drove far-reaching effects. Locally, a vibrant mix of multicultural communities attracted from around the world arose quickly to serve the mining interests. Just as quickly, some of these communities were thoroughly erased by the same ever-expanding workings they served.

Today, much of the main mining site is an environmental nightmare. It's one of the original Superfund sites, with leachate and flooding posing multigenerational remediation challenges and risks to groundwater reserves for the region.

I was keen to spend some time exploring Butte, but since we'd arrived in the afternoon hungry and parched, our priorities were to eat and change our oil before motoring on south. Given the time of day and implied logistics, Jeff and Pete didn't seem particularly interested in sticking around and geeking out on the mining stuff. At that moment this struck me as a big disappointment, since Butte was one of the historical highlights I'd looked forward to on the trip. But for now we stuck with our tentative plan.

At Staacks Motorsports, a Yamaha and Suzuki dealer conveniently located near the historic downtown, we luckily were able to sweet-talk the service team into changing the oil in our three bikes while we waited. This was very nice of them considering we'd shown up without an appointment and there was about a two week waitlist for service.

Still, it was a little disconcerting for us to note how one of the service people had decorated her Harley. Later we learned that Butte is a hotspot of neo-Nazis. It's one thing to read about these things "far away"; it's another to see it first-hand. 

Fortunately, right across the street was a mesquite grill with tasty grub.

Despite full stomachs and cold beer, our group energy was still sagging at this point, probably the cumulative effects of long riding days, endless dust, caked sweat and grime, and the increasing heat and dryness as we edged south. I decided to go along the others' preference to continue south the same day, rather than stay in Butte--even though we'd seen nothing of this historic place. Part of our decision was the challenge of knowing exactly how much distance we could cover in a day or week. With so far to go, we were worried about not reaching the high passes in Colorado, a key psychological goal of our adventure.

With fresh oil under us, we aimed south to a remote section of the GPSKevin route, stopping briefly to chat with a lone cyclist tackling the same route in reverse. These were long, lonely sections of rough road, and I truly admired the tenacity of this woman grinding it out in the dust and bugs.

As late afternoon approached, we found ourselves on the cresting of one of those hills we'd seen in the distance, having reached that point via gravel road that deteriorated into first a rutted dual-track and then, a grassy track that suspiciously lacked signs of regular travel. This in turn devolved into a rocky trail leading down a steep hill into a valley.

Our GPS route clearly showed that we needed to descend this hill, but all the other evidence suggested this wasn't right. We should have followed our hunches and looked for a way back and around, but a cursory search on the maps showed a major backtrack and detour of potentially hours, and we failed to recall an online forum alert about this very section. So, forward we went, with me in the lead as the more experienced dirt rider.

The track was covered in loose rock bordered by thick sagebrush. At first it didn't seem too bad. What I didn't anticipate was the track taking a straight line to the valley, with sharply increasing slope offering no opportunity to stop or even slow down to reconnoiter. Although I tried to ease down as slowly as control would allow, the increasing steepness combined with the loose rock and ruts would allow my bike to bounce, slide, and pick up momentum until it was uncontrollable. Because of my luggage, I couldn't get my weight right back and my rear wheel started bouncing higher and higher until I thought I was going to endo. With no more control possible and the slope reaching 30 degrees just ahead, my rear end swapped with the front and down I went.

The photo really doesn't do justice to how steep this section was. Pete and Jeff were waiting about 200 metres behind me, but also a good hundred or so feet in elevation above me--and we were at around 8,000'. Continuing downhill was no longer a safe option for any of us; somehow I had to get back to the other guys at the top. How to do this proved to be a real challenge for our sea-level lungs, because the elevation alone sucked a good 15% of our energy.

Thus began an agonizing struggle to get my bike and gear back up the hill. Even with everything unloaded and the three of us ferrying bags and riding gear, it took two hours to accomplish. Exhausted and shaking, there was no way I could manage to ride back up through the sage even cross-wise: the vegetation was too dense and caught the pegs, so I couldn't get situated on the bike to get traction and build up speed without stalling or looping out. In the end, we muscled the bike up together, working the clutch and throttle while hiking awkwardly beside and trying to keep the bike upright. It was grueling, exhausting work that just about broke the three of us as we tripped over sage, sweated profusely, and gasped for air.

Jeff had followed me partway down the trail, so next we had to move his DR650 back up, using the same switchback approach. Even though he was a good 100' higher in elevation than where I'd ended up, it still took the best part of an hour to jink our way through the sage, again walking with clutch and throttle. Then Pete's bike. Mercifully, he was high enough on the hill that we were able to stabilize him so he could ride the trail.

After three hours of this screwing around, we'd recovered everything to the top but were absolutely beat and soaked in sweat. Ominously, we seemed to have pushed Jeff's clutch too far, and it was slipping noticeably. Meanwhile, the sun was setting and in the dry mountain air the temperature plummeted rapidly. Having used up all our drinking water by now, we had to find somewhere with water to set up camp, and we had no idea if Jeff's clutch would recover from overheating.

The next hour was a frigid retreat back over the rutted dual track in the dust and darkness, shivering in our wet gear, trying to relocate in the dark a campsite we'd noticed earlier that day.

Turns out it was by a swamp, and clouds of mosquitoes attacked us as we set up in the dark. Eventually the air temperature dropped enough to calm the mosquitoes, but it also brought a heavy dew. As a consolation prize, the night sky was immaculately clear, dark, and full of stars. I tried some long exposure photography with no success.

The next day established that something more serious than overheating was causing Jeff's clutch to slip. Although his bike was rideable, we suspected that a clutch change may ultimately be necessary, and we didn't have the spare parts. Our priority was then to backtrack to a rest stop on a highway where we could get cell reception and order a clutch as a backup plan. No luck: Staacks, the Suzuki dealer in Butte, and several other options quoted us a couple of weeks for delivery. Rocky Mountain ATV had the parts in stock, but wouldn't ship to Jeff at an address in the US because he hadn't ordered from them before. Then I remembered I'd ordered from Rocky before, which was enough to put through the order under my name.

However, it was now a Thursday, we were ordering too late to get the shipment to Butte by Friday, and Monday was a national holiday. Rather than waste several days waiting for delivery to Butte, we opted to ship the clutch parts ahead to Jackson Wyoming, on the theory that another oil change back in Butte may solve the clutch problems and allow us to carry on while bypassing the GPSKevin route over what we now called "Fuckery Hill". Worst case, we could replace the clutch on Tuesday in Jackson as we passed through. 

So, back to Butte to change the oil. 

Butte, Chapter 2

Jeff's clutch continued to deteriorate on the 50km of slab back to Staacks. The service folks didn't think the issue was the oil (changed only yesterday!), and we didn't think it could be the clutch given it hadn't slipped previously, and yesterday's abuse of the DR was far less than the abuse needed to get my WRR back up the hill--and I'd had no clutch issues. The only significant variable seemed to be the oil.  

To be sure, we disassembled the clutch in the Staacks parking lot. 

Sure enough, it was scorched. Those friction rings aren't supposed to be black. And some of them had flaked off: the oil was dark and we noticed chunks of pad around the clutch basket, and the aluminum first ring on the far left was completely bare (we didn't know then that it was supposed to have pads).

In desperation, we got some sandpaper and used laundry soap and water to clean the friction plates of scorched cork, hoping this would be enough restoration to allow us to limp to Jackson on the highway. It was now too late to redirect our clutch shipment to Butte. 

After putting it all back together, an initial test ride showed real promise and our spirits lifted. But just to be sure though, after reloading our bike we immediately went to a Honda/KTM dealership nearby and decided to replace the 24-hour old gunky oil with something that we trusted. Draining the old oil revealed a consistency like water - we'd never seen anything like it. It had completely lost all viscosity.   

After topping up with some fresh Motorex we aimed our way back out of town only to discover after a few minutes the slippage was now worse than before. The bike was unridable and Jeff had to pull over. Parked on the side of the road at abandoned parking lot, hot, dehydrated, and utterly dejected, we considered our options. Just then, two cyclists rode by, saw our plates, and yelled out "Hey! We love Canada! We love you guys!" 

The best decision at that point was to find a hotel for a couple of days and explore Butte. The question was where: A major music festival was in town over the long weekend, and everything was booked up. Then, miraculously, the Hampton Inn on the edge of town told us about a late cancellation--the only room available. I raced ahead to book the room, and Pete limped along with Jeff in the slow lane to meet me there. Fresh cookies greeted us like manna from heaven.

We'd hoped to stay at the Hampton a couple of nights, but only one night was available until the following week. We ended up managing to secure the second last rental car available in Butte, sweet-talking Judy the hotel manager into letting us leave our bikes at the Hampton Inn for the weekend, and packing all our crap into the rental to go on a car camping trip down through Yellowstone to Jackson, to retrieve our parts the following Tuesday. This turned out to be a brilliant plan, although it would mean returning to Butte a third time to reclaim our bikes. We booked ahead at the Hampton Inn, and I have to say this hotel chain proved to be one of the best (and most affordable) options on the entire trip. Big thanks to Judy and her team in Butte for their hospitality and helping us out. Choose Hampton; you won't be disappointed.

As if all this excitement wasn't enough, that Friday night we tried changing Jeff's oil for a third time to no avail, after making frantic trips to WalMart and Autozone to get oil and somehow find a replacement O-ring that had become damaged on his oil filter cover. We'd tried everything, and just had to accept that he needed a new clutch.  

Out of options, we enjoyed the simple pleasures of washing up, grabbing dinner and beer, and checking out the local scenery.

  

Next up, Yellowstone! By car! Spoiler: it was actually better than doing it by bike.

Part 5

Tenere T7 Bust!

By now the dust from EICMA 2018 has settled with some exciting launches and surprising disappointments. In the latter category, it's rare to see a marketing bungle like the fiasco that Yamaha has orchestrated with its development and launch of the Tenere T7 World Raid.

After first announcing the Tenere T700 concept two years ago with a tantalizing prototype, Yamaha stirred some legitimate excitement about the prospect of a dirt-oriented middleweight ADV bike powered by the bulletproof and highly-rated cross-plane twin ("CP2") engine developed for the popular MT-07 street bike. How hard could it be? Take the durable and decently-spec'ed WR250R chassis and suspension concept (upgrading the miserable rear shock), stretch it to fit the CP2, add a larger tank, update the visuals, bolt on a rally-style tower with LED lights, and add luggage mounts. The result would be a reliable and reasonably lightweight platform for the dual-sport end of the ADV market--with a proven engine, where all the development has already been done and paid for.

However, EICMA 2017 proved to be just the first disappointment for Tenere fans. Rather than reveal a production-ready model, Yamaha instead announced a new "World Raid" iteration of the Tenere concept and launched a plan to test the bike around the world, presumably to tune the design for production. Thus began a bizarrely protracted marketing campaign of videos showing professional riders flogging the Tenere in exotic locations. North America--with its superb ADV riding--was inexplicably struck from the list of tour destinations. Few details emerged about the bike itself: weight, suspension, or any other facts that would help to position it against the more technically-appointed competitive offerings of KTM, BMW, and Triumph. Meanwhile, KTM was letting the public ride its pre-production 790 Adventure! But the market seemed prepared to wait for Yamaha's unique proposal, cranking up expectations for a big announcement by Yamaha at EICMA 2018.

And it was a bust. All Yamaha did was add insult to injury. As we learned with stunned bewilderment, the European market will receive the Tenere sometime in 2019, those bikes being built in Europe. But North Americans must wait until late 2020, presumably so bikes for that market can be built in Japan. For North Americans, it means waiting four years for a bike that, when it's finally released, is likely to be well behind other offerings available at that time. Understandably, Yamaha's plans were met with derision by potential customers--and probable delight from the likes of KTM and BMW.

Someone done goofed. Yamaha had a sure winner, but dumbed it down and delayed it well past the point of being competitive. The Tenere could've owned the middleweight market left by the demise of the KLR650---moreso given Kawasaki's lack of a replacement model, and Suzuki's DR650 being long in the tooth. Instead of seizing this opportunity, Yamaha diverted resources into the three-wheeled Niken--a concept that may work great in practice, but has attracted precisely zero interest from any motorcyclist I've met. Classic blunder of building a technology solution to a market problem that no one cares about.

Needless to say, I got a refund on the deposit I'd optimistically put down on a Tenere just prior to EICMA 2018. As I told the dealer, I had four potential buyers for the model, but now I don't know anyone who is prepared to wait another three riding seasons for this bike. So now I'm looking at either the BMW F850GS or the KTM 790 Adventure R--both high-spec bikes that aren't quite what I originally wanted, but may end up being more realistic options if I keep my WR250R for use at the off-road end of the ADV spectrum.

Yamaha, you let us down. If the Tenere ever reaches Canadian shores, it'll have to be substantially better than anything on the market at that time, because you'll be trying to displace the bikes we're actually buying next season instead of the Tenere we'd all hoped for.

Yamaha Tenere T700... soon?

Hopefully Yamaha doesn't skunk us again, and actually launches a commercial version of the new T700 "World Raid" that widely expected at EICMA this November 6-11.

In a fit of optimism, I stopped by my local Yamaha dealer on the way home from work today and put down a deposit on the bike. They said there's been keen interest in the Ottawa area--not surprising, given the fantastic dual-sport and off-road riding here. Already there's a long "to call" list of potential buyers.

Am I jumping the gun? Possibly, but what's the risk? As the first interested customer to actually put money where my mouth is at this dealer, I will hopefully now have the option to get my hands on a bike if and when it finally makes it to the showroom floor. I've seriously looked at various alternatives including the Africa Twin, F800GS, F850GS, and Triumph Tiger, and pretty much ruled them out. All are great bikes, but my sense is they're more complicated, costly, and heavy than the T700 for my intended application: i.e., true dual-sport riding on rough trails.

The Tenere has received excellent reviews of its engine (which takes regular gas!) and all expectation is the bike will be bulletproof-reliable as one would expect of Yamaha. After all, the prototype has enjoyed extensive testing riding though one of the most agonizingly protracted marketing campaigns in recent memory. Hopefully this has given Yamaha the chance to sort out any remaining tweaks needed to ready the design for commercial release.

So now we all wait. If and when I get a Tenere, I'll be sure to post my seat-of-the-pants review. And I may have my trusty WR250R up for sale. In the meantime, check out some pics of the T700 prototype taken at the recent Intermot show and posted on ADVRider.

Continental Divide ride 2018 - Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

We couldn't have asked for better riding conditions: crystal blue skies, cool temps, and deserted logging roads carving a roller-coaster, swooping ride through Douglas Fir forest. Hardly a bug to be seen on our visors, although the dust remained a challenge and forced us to balance separation between bikes to avoid the worst clouds, and riding within the frustratingly limited range of our Sena 10-series headsets.

As a footnote on the Senas, they are probably fine for road riding, but their analog sound quality and inconsistent wind noise (despite endless fidgeting with helmet adjustments and mic locations quickly proved tiresome and sparked many debates about who was guilty of causing the worst noise. Their lack of communication range in our dual-sport application was a serious liability--especially when we needed to spread out on on winding mountain trails. We all agreed to seek an upgrade after the trip.)

After spirited riding to start the day, minutes later we were flummoxed by yet another gpsKevin route anomaly in what was to become a common theme. Although we'd agreed to at least try the recommended main route to gauge its rhythm before considering alternatives, by now we should've known better. Optimistically, we thought it would be worth checking out a short advanced section that roughly paralleled the main route, on what appeared to be fire roads vs. the paved main road. However, it didn't take long for the gravel to unexpectedly end in what appeared to be either an overgrown landslide, or where road construction had simply ended.

So much for keeping momentum! The way forward was again the stuff of hard-enduro riding, although this picture doesn't do it justice. To our right was a steep drop-off, and just ahead the track narrowed to about 6" wide and would easily catch your uphill peg on rocks and brush. 

   

The track continued this way around the contour of a hill, getting steeper on the drop-off, until it entered a forest about 100 metres on. Some recon on foot found that numerous large trees had fallen across the sideslope, rendering it impassible. We also noticed some wide tire tracks just where the trail started to narrow. Looked like a rider on a big bike got in over his or her head, and decided to nope right out of there, and somehow paddled their bike backwards down the track to the end of the road.

A little frustrated, we followed suit and agreed that from now on, we wouldn't even consider tackling the gpsKevin alternate routes, and would instead try to make something of the main route--which was already proving challenging to follow for simple navigational reasons. Otherwise we'd run the risk of losing too much time on pointless riding, which could easily become a liability if weather conditions changed or something else went wrong--as we would discover later.

As a consolation prize, the main route offered some spectacular paved secondary roads through massive Douglas Firs, allowing us to make up time without dust for a change.

Those trees are much bigger and older than they first seem. As a tree-hugger myself, I couldn't help but imagine what history had passed by these towering pines over the last centuries. It may be hard to see in the following picture, but the Douglas fir from which this slice was cut in 2001 was a certified "witness tree", dating back to 1483. And it was far smaller in diameter than many of the bigger trees we'd seen beside the road.  

Hours of dirt made us all a little cranky, and in these situations I've found that food is always a good idea even if you don't feel hungry. So we welcomed a stop for breakfast in the hamlet of Ovando in the Blackfoot River Valley. The Stray Bullet Cafe was an excellent (and only) choice for grub. We rustled up plates of eggs and pancakes, washed down with root beer. A little pancreas abuse from time to time doesn't hurt--and it turns out we did need the calories after all.   

There wasn't much else to see in the wide square opposite the cafe--just some classic old wood frame buildings that could've been right out of a movie set, including the former town jail, or "hoosegow". That western vernacular word originated in 1908, coming from the English pronunciation of the Mexican Spanish word for jail, "juzgao" or "juzgado". 

This stop represented the quintessential Old West: Slow vehicles, slow talkers, wide open sky, dust, swathes of grassy rolling hills dotted with cattle and topped by firs, sun-bleached old buildings. We hardly saw another motorbike: just the occasional long-distance cyclist riding the same route of the Divide. 

Soon the route began to climb, once again reaching towards the Divide with more wilderness vistas. We wound our way up and over countless minor passes, through desolate ranch lands with log homes tucked down by sparkling, crystal-clear rivers. Hardly a vehicle in sight--sometimes just the occasional tell-tale dust plume of a truck bombing along a country road in the distance was the only sign of activity.

Our infrequent encounters with other folks belied a more industrial and populous history of the region. In the late 1800s, this area was punctuated with countless mining operations and the small communities that sprung up around them, many underwritten by the massive (and appropriately named) Anaconda Company that extracted all manner of riches from the geography, at seemingly any cost. Just when you thought you were in the middle of nowhere on some rutted dual-track, ruins would appear. In this case, we rolled through the once-bustling site of the Empire Mine.

Those foundations on the hillside were once home to a crushing mill, with mining carts bringing in gold, silver, copper and tin-bearing ores from shafts in the distance.

  

Nothing now but tailings, a few ore samples, and some rusted old equipment.

While enjoying a break at the mine, Pete's CRF unexpectedly tipped over all by itself. We laughed and didn't think much of it. Later, after we headed out and worked our way up a rutted, steep trail, Jeff and I noticed Pete was no longer behind us. We eventually went back and found he'd somehow picked up an old bit of wire through his tread, flatting out. He must've lost air when parked at the mine, causing his bike to unbalance and fall, but the terrain was rough enough that he didn't notice his tire was flat.

As it was by now late in the day, we were all parched, patinated with sweat and dust, and the prospect of fixing a flat was the last thing any of us wanted to deal with. Moreover, there was still some distance to go to reach Helena. It was a classic scenario of what can go wrong at an inconvenient time. Fortunately, with some teamwork we were able to change the flat in about 20 minutes--and this would be our only flat for the entire trip! Nevertheless, it was clear that after 10 hours of riding, we were all pretty tired, but since our water was low, camping may be necessary. A strong indicator of our limited time was Pete's general silence over the helmet comms (more than usual, even for a Brit!). Plus, the route was getting steeper and rockier, and Jeff's frustration with the more challenging aspects were becoming apparent, although stopping for a selfie with some cows helped mellow the mood.

Fortunately, Helena turned out to be not much further and entailed a brilliant section of smooth, downhill riding through spectacular open vistas. Just before reaching Helena, we paused briefly to evaluate an advised road closure, but we pushed through anyway: it turned out to be nothing more than some deep ruts from recent rains, and was no problem for our knobbies.

Arriving in Helena so late, we beelined for a tired (but friendly) motel in the downtown, where hot showers and air conditioning proved essential remedies for the appalling combo of fermented grundle-funk and road grime we'd accumulated. Jeff was so disgusted by our collective filth that he got his own room. Pete and I learned important limits in our selection of clothing (in his case, the heavy eaux-de-sheep fog of wet Icebreaker wool underwear; in my case the unwise limitations of rotating only two pairs of UnderArmor shorts). We opted for giving our clothes a thorough flogging in the motel's laundry, sharing a stuffy utility room with old drapes steeped in decades of cigarette smoke and disappointment.

 
Helena (pronounced hell'-en-a) is is an architectural and historical gem, well worth a visit. The town struck it rich on massive placer gold deposits, including one discovered only a few decades ago under a bank in the historic downtown. We'd arrived during a street festival of sorts, but food and beer were our priorities as evening approached.

The downtown was chock-full of beautiful old buildings with wonderful architectural details from the heyday of mining wealth.

The cathedral is a iconic landmark and highly representative of the wealth and hard work in the town's history.

A few days earlier, Jeff's Kriega backpack had spontaneously torn out a shoulder strap as he was putting it on. Since all three of us had bought identical packs just before our trip, and since the cause of the failure seem innocuous, it was a disconcerting failure of expensive and necessary gear. There were no Kriega dealers in the area, and Kriega support proved unhelpful, so we looked for local repair options. (I would normally prefer to repair rather than replace gear, but in this case the problem looked like a basic design flaw and we were concerned that a repair would only be temporary.) Miraculously, we found a sewing shop just blocks from our motel in a nondescript building with an unremarkable entrance. It was like stepping back in time.

Considering we didn't see another soul in the area (never mind the building), the waiting area in the basement seemed out of place and entirely optimistic given the lack of business down there.

But, sure enough, down the hall and buried behind mounds of sewing and old clothes was this windowless lair inhabited by a sole elderly woman who regarded us with clear suspicion.

Some haggling, a $5 bill, and an hour later, and Jeff's pack was fixed by a few bar-tacks. Meanwhile, we'd found a superb breakfast at the Fire Tower Coffee House, which that morning was being run masterfully by Dave. He had the remarkable ability to take orders, pull espresso shots, grill eggs and bacon, and serve and clear tables--working all by himself. Well worth a stop for food and to enjoy the extensive collection of Beatles and other music memorabilia up on the walls. Also, the free WiFi gave us a chance to catch up on messages, although our attention to our phones probably seemed antisocial in such a friendly place.

Leaving Helena proved to be a minor challenge: we had to detour around roadwork on the gpsKevin route, and find our way through a different canyon to reconnect with our intended route. The route snaked up into the hills as a series of gravel roads that eventually deteriorated into rough forest roads and several missed turns. Jeff's and Pete's OSMand GPS solution again came in handy for navigation: trying to plot a new route on my Garmin was tedious and ultimately fruitless in these scenarios.

While the riding was excellent, something didn't feel right with my bike. Perhaps spooked a bit by Pete's puncture yesterday, I pulled over a few times convinced that my own rear tire had gone flat. It had developed what seemed like the tell-tale vibration of a stiff knobby with low air. But each time I checked, it seemed to be holding air just fine. I eventually discovered that releasing some air helped, chalking up the problem to a combination of consistently higher speeds, higher elevations, and higher temperature, which together naturally increased the tire air pressure versus at lower elevations, leading to less compliance of the knobbies and therefore more vibration. This was another good lesson for all of us to rely on actual air pressure measurements, not just compressing the tire with a boot make sure it was full. Tire air pressures crept up and down with our elevation changes, so we learned what to watch for. With the correct air pressure, problem solved! We were all relieved, because even little problems like this can build up and wear down a group, killing momentum when you want (and need) to make up time.

At least we had engines. Just before one crest, after a long, hot climb on a rough surface, we passed a couple of sweaty, sun-beaten cyclists following the same Continental Divide route who looked like they'd already spent a few hours getting to this point. Unfortunately for all of us, just a few hundred metres on we discovered the road was completely closed due to treefall and other damage.

Clearly there'd been some major weather activity in the last few weeks, confirmed by stories from others we'd met that long sections of the route had been impassible mud not long ago. Equally clear was that we shouldn't enter the closed area in the face of active clean-up work, or we'd likely face significant fines from the workers who passed us.

It had been many kilometers since we passed an alternate route option, which really sucked for the cyclists coming up behind us: they'd completely wasted their morning and would have to descend all the way back down thousands of feet of elevation to find an alternate route at least another 50km out of their way. Not fun when you're low on water and there's no shade. But there didn't seem to be any alternative besides taking the "expert" gpsKevin route which, judging by the terrain we could see from our present location, was likely another Hard Enduro epic beyond our bikes and skills. The map at the closure wasn't much help either, and both we and the cyclist swore at whoever thought to close the road at the top of the mountain rather than at the last intersection with an alternate route.

All this backtracking was sucking hours out of our day, which normally wouldn't be an issue but we hadn't even hit the hard stuff on our journey. We needed to establish a rhythm for traveling and interacting with each other as co-adventurers, to avoid frustration. Having been on numerous group trips in the past, I'd expected to reach this dynamic at some point early on in our adventure, once the initial excitement wore off and the stark prospect of thousands of kilometers of overland travel on hot, dusty roads started to settle in. Fortunately it happened now, while the weather was perfect. This was actually a really fun stage of commitment for me, because it reminded me of when I competed in long-course duathlons, and having to dig deep within myself to overcome doubts and discomfort, and find the determination to cross the finish line. Basically, the problems are all of your own making and in your head: Accept the situation for what it is--a series of trivial setbacks--and look for ways to enjoy them as simply part of the adventure.

Eventually the rough mountain roads gave way to paved highways through stunning canyons with glittering rivers at their base, providing a welcome change from the dirt. Some diversions along  abandoned rail beds built originally to support the mining boom in the 1800s were equally fun. At the time, these railways would've been the only passable routes through the area, and we had them all to ourselves, ripping along standing on the pegs. Along the way were many signs of old mines, including dark timber-framed adits into the cliff beside the trail, piles of old square timber, twisted old iron machinery, and other detritus of lost communities. Would've been nice to stop and check some of them out, but we were going too fast and we were determined to reach the historic town of Butte, Montana, where we had planned oil changes and maintenance.

Dirt yielded to Interstate, where a long descent revealed a panoramic view of Butte and ample signs of its continuing history as one of the most remarkable mining sites in the world.

That hill in the distance hides thousands of miles of underground mining tunnels as much as a mile deep. Whole communities used to exist on the mountain, swept away by excavation to become what is now one of North America's most contaminated sites.

"Our Lady of the Rockies", a statue based on the Blessed Virgin Mary, watches over the town.

Being a mining junkie, visiting Butte was a highly anticipated destination for me. The town has an incredible history stemming from the vast riches dug out of the local mountainside known as "The Richest Hill in the World". Today it remains a hardscrabble community frozen in time, home to incongruities like a vibrant music festival and neo-Nazis, as well as a proliferation of more side-by-sides and Harleys in daily traffic than we'd seen anywhere else.

In the next post, I'll cover some of Butte's history, but the short version is if you are at all interested in mining, you have to put Butte on your bucket list. What we didn't know is that we'd end up going to Butte three times... it proved hard for us to get away despite our best efforts!

Part 4