Out of the Jaws of Death

Bud and I woke up rested from our nests there on the Colorado River some 30 miles northeast of Moab on hwy128. BTW, Bud sleeps on the ground with no mat or anything. He used to use bubble pack but not anymore. I sleep on an Air mattress. 'Tip of the day' is that I blow the air mat up with my exhaust from one of the bikes. If the muffler is cold it will blow the mat up in a minute or so....If the muffler is hot, that's another issue. :)

OMB's ignition switch didn't act up that morning.

We broke camp and headed to Moab for coffee. The early morning sun on the canyon walls was inspiring as well as beautiful. While we sat at Burger King with our coffee and biscuit, Bud said that he would like to get some contact cleaner and try to spray some into his Ig switch.  I've reconditioned a half dozen Honda ignition switches of that era, and I couldn't imagine how any clearner could get where it needed to go, but why not try it?

Just across the street was a Radio Shack so Bud went there and retrieved a can. The Ig switch is more accessible on his half-a-bike than my Sabre so that part was easier....and throughout the morning the contact cleaner seemed to help some. Cool, we would see as time went on.

In the back of my mind, was concentrating on taking a look-see at Muley Point, and showing Bud the Moki Dugway as well. I'd been skunked twice before at Muley, once by mud and once by snow, and thought that the 3rd time would be the charm. I'd make a determination whether or not to go on down to Mexican Hat After we had seen Muley point. It was likely to be hotter down there.

Well as many of you know, Muley Point is one of the great sights of the world. Once you get there you futilely try to capture the place on Camera. Click, Click, and more clicks, but to no avail. Here's my best effort.

Those Buttes in the background are 50 miles or more away in Monument Valley.

I always thought it'd be neat to spend the night sleeping on that rock.  It's about 15ft X 60ft as I remember...don't know how I'd get on top though.

That's John Brown's Trail down there. I'll have to check that out one day.

We rode back out to the main road at the Top of the Moki Dugway for some more hard to capture pictures. There was always a horse trail here but it wasn't until a mining operation needed to get the ore to Mexican Hat that an actual wagon width road was cut into the cliff.

At the bottom, we met a 30 yearish European couple that was doing a western Tour. She asked us if the going got too tough up there, and were there places that they could turn around. Scheesh. She was really worked up about the possibily of dying up there.

 I told them it was ok and worth the drive.....We would see them again the next day....

The weather was only moderately hot due to many clouds and thunderheads so we motored on thru Monument Valley To Kayenta

See the rain clouds??

Monument Valley is great... It looks like that cloud dropped out from the big cloud above leaving that blue sky.

We stopped in Kayenta for dinner at McDonalds where we had the fatal incident with Buds Ig switch.  I'd been telling him it would be ok.   Now you know how much I know about the future.  I do know a lot about those switches, though, but I'm never positive that I can fix one for certain.

I had an ig switch meld down in Anchorage with my Sabre in a Meyer parking lot.  I fixed that one, but it's never a sure thing. 

In Kayenta it died for good when we walked out of Micky D's at about

6pm. Oh Shit. That's strictly Indian land and motels will be at

least 75 bucks. Woe is me...... :(

The good news is that it's the same Honda switch that my 84 Sabre uses.  More good news it that his switch was easier to get to than the switch is on my bike.

So in the MD parking lot we started pulling his switch apart. Turned out a

bad contact had gotten things hot enough that the red wire (that brings all the juice from the battery) un-soldered

itself from the switch. Beautiful, just fucking beautiful. Most IG

switch repairs only require contact cleanup, but not soldering.

However, I did have one of those pen-sized Benzene torches with me

(first time ever). I'd never even lit one before, and couldn't keep

this one lit. It turned out that it was out of benzene fuel..... A nice

Indian gal in a pickup nearby told me to check the Ace hardware that

was a couple blocks away.

Sure enough, I got in the hardware store before it closed, and they had a refill for lighters that would fill my torch.

Woohoo, we were back in business.

While we worked on the bike, 3 Indian grifters hit us up for money,

and a fourth told us of a campground at the Navajo National monument

just up the road 30 miles. That was good news.

And another Indian was watching the goings on. I asked him if he

knew all the words that came from the Indian music played by a car

radio in the drive-thru lane nearby. He said he did, but that some of the

younger kids weren't keeping up with traditional languages. Also, he said there

were hundreds of top Indian recording artist making records out there,

just like we have in LA and Nashville.

But back to the repair.....I got that red wire to make a solid

solder connection with the switch base, and reassembled the switch

right the first time.  I'd also scraped the corrosion off the switch contacts that caused the heat that caused the problem.  Voila, a new switch....all by 8pm.

We had enough time to get to that Campground and bed down just barely beating the darkness, There was a thunderstorms in the area and one  going on to the east, which seemed to be traveling north of us with bright lightning, and a 3 mile, 15 second delayed thunderclap arrival. That would put the edge of the storm at least a mile away. We thought that the rain would blow on by. 

At our Campsite

Looks like there are more storms running around in the area.

That storm didn't blow by. It hit us square in the kisser. In fact, three storms hit us that night. The Ranger in the morning said about 2 inches of rain fell. We got soaked. My Blue tarp acted more like a mosquito net in regards to shedding water. Again it was warm so no real harm was done. But I am going to get a new tarp for sure. Ha

Before we left in the morning From The Navajo Natl. Monument (it was free camping by the way), I took a long walk over to the canyon rim and watched the sunrise. Wow!

Knarely old tree from my walk

Morning walk

Bud and I also walked down to the canyon viewpoint to view the Indian ruins in the cliff on the opposite Canyon wall. The visitor center offers an 8 mile walk to another ruin as well....that's not round trip distance...no thanks

Zoomed in a bit.  There is a walking tour from the Visitor's Center that will take you down to get closer.

Indian Pottery at a roadside stand

We ran into that couple from the Moki Dugway at the Visitor Center. Turns out they didn't have the 'honies' to drive up that killer road. I'm sure he would have gone up, but he had lost control....too bad.

I strapped my soaked sleeping bag to my towed bike and aired it out as I rode.  Bud did the same.  They dried it out pretty well. At one point in our ride to Kingman Bud wanted to get down for a nap, so we pulled off I-40. We wandered off 30 yrds from the bikes for a bit of shade. A bum showed up to hitch a ride near our bikes. It bothered Bud so much that he couldn't sleep. I figured that if Bud was watching the fort....there'd be no problem if I nodded off. Heh he.

Bud trying to nap.....

About 5pm we pulled into the Value Inn in Kingman. We splurged at $42 for the night. I didn't like breaking our 'camping only' streak for the trip, but what the hell.   

It turned out that we only spent a little over $400 each for the trip, and it was just too hot as we dropped down in altitude to enjoy a campout.

We rationalized that we deserve one night on sheets, and slept without guilt....or fear of thunderstorms. :)

We got up early to beat the heat and made a bee-line the last 350 miles to our homes in North San Diego County

About a hundred miles out in the mtns southwest of Palm Springs we got in another nap under some trees

It had been a great trip. Bud and I were tickled to see our wives, and thankful that we had escaped, once again, from the jaw of death on our journey to the unknown. Was that too dramatic??   Hummm, I don't think so.

Thanks for reading about OMB's Last Ride..

A live map of the day.

The rest of the story:
After this trip, I realized that I wasn't being fair to OMB's wife who was alone when I dragged Bud off on these trips.  I left Bud alone after that.  Bud lived to be 93 when a stomach aneurysm got him one day.  Peg lived several year longer.   That was the end of 2 beautiful people.  I'll alway think fondly of Old Man Bud.

Bud History, #4

 Bud got out of the Navy before the war was over, and started
Art School on the GI Bill. Of course, he had 3 of his four kids by
then to complicate things. He did several years of school, then he
landed a job doing all the illustration for Bell Auto parts catalog. That was
before 1950.

As always he continued with his Hare and Hounds races around the LA
mtns. He can't remember much about yesterday, but he remembers every
mile he put in on those Mtns. Ha.

Anyway, he got the chance to go to the Bonneville speed meets for
several years in those days with the Bell catalog people. I took him to a Bonneville speed meet last Sept (2009). He told me lots about the old days. Bell Auto Parts was a huge hotrod supplier in those days. They sold everything to do with cars and racing. Since then Bell has broken up into a dozen company, but in those days Bell was the shiznits.

One night we went to dinner at the freeway near the
Salt Flats. Bud spotted another old geezer with an old (prolly 50+ yr
old) Bell Tshirt on. We invited him to sit with us a while. I really
enjoyed listening to the two of them go on about the old days.....and
it turns out that this 80 yr old was starting a Belly Tank Lakester as
we spoke. The guy lived in Salina Ut. I'd love to go see what he was
building or better yet watch him run it when it's finished. And I
have no doubt that he was serious.

Bud continues working for Bell and in the late '40s riders were
realizing that hardtail rear ends on their Motos needed to be improved somehow.

It must have been mind-boggling at that time to engineer a suspension that had to compensate for a chain drive. With Bud's new marketing knowledge from Bell, Bud built and began to sell a swing arm kit that you could add to your motorcycle. Can you imagine that?

He'd go down to the AC Delco shock factory and sort thru the barrels of
rejected shocks to find shocks for his kits. Bud still never ceases to
amaze me.

___________

Heading home...good things come to an end

Eventually, it was time for all good things to come to an end. Nearly everyone was scrambling to break camp Sunday morning. Bud was packing away, as he warned me again about his Ignition switch.... This time I went over and tried the switch myself.

Hummmm.....the switch turned to the on position easily, but the dash lights didn't come on....That's different than what I thought he was talking about. Turning the switch on 5 or 6 more times produced dash lights. Oh,...the common ignition switch problem....damn, I hoped that I wouldn't have to deal with that by the side of the road.

So about 10am Nip, Bud and I hit the long trail home. I vowed to shorten the trip home as I'd added 600 miles to the outward bound journey. Still, I had no real plan. I was way worried about crossing the hot desert. I limited the heat abuse on the trip out, but didn't want to bungle into any sustained 110+ degree riding on the way back.

We started off North toward I-70 at Minturn. We'd be needing gas around there. The ride to there was beautimus of course. I was looking right when the gas station went by on the left. Oh well, there'd be gas at I-70 a couple miles down the road, no doubt. Bud would soon hit reserve, but he had at least 30 miles after that.

Usually, I keep tabs on Bud's where-abouts in my mirrors. This time I had let myself get a 1/4 mile out front as I turned onto the freeway, but I did see a couple bikes way back there. I'd go slow and they would catch up, I thought. Nert, Bud had fallen back when he went on reserve, and that unnerved him on the gas subject.....and with me out of sight, he decided to stop at the freeway entrance.

I didn't know what was going on so I waited by the side of the road some 2 or three miles west on the freeway. Eventually, I figured I had to go back.....maybe those 2 bikes I'd seen weren't them. They had no cell phones. I went 5 miles before I could find a turnaround and head back. Then the couple miles back to that gas station in Minturn looking for Bud.  No Bud, but I was there so I gassed up.

Now I really didn't know what to do. I could see this really becoming a disaster. I knew that Nip was with Bud and would take care of him, but Bud was my responsibility. I could see the possibility of never finding Bud. Maybe he had crashed before Minturn....maybe they had decided to find me on down the freeway. Shit, shit, shit.....why wasn't I paying more attention?

Well, about that time I hear Half-a-bike pull into the station. Bud had decided to backtrack and get gas leaving Nip to answer questions if I should show up there at the fwy where the'd been waiting. I was way relieved to make the reunion with the Budmeister. I resolved to watch Budman like a hawk from then on. Reunion with Nip at Minturn near I-70

Glenwood Canyon on I-70

Railroad on the left and double-decker I-70 on the right. They've even color matched the Hwy concrete to the stone walls.

So we are running down the freeway toward Glenwood Springs, and I pull off at a gas station for coffee or summat. Nip's been thinking. He was raised till a young man in Kansas, and he decides that he wants to go back as he's so close and dig up some family and buddies from the old days. He had mentioned it before, and we all were independent of one another, so I respected his choice. After our refreshment Nip lit out for Larado, Kansas. I was sorry to see him go, he had been a good travel partner and new friend. A fact of life is that you don't make many new friends once you hit the golden years.

I had no idea how Nip being gone would make keeping track of Bud that much harder....

50 mile down I-70 I spied a rest area by the Co R. We stopped for Bud's afternoon siesta. While we were sitting there Tom Whitelaw rumbled in for a break as well. It was like old home week. I hadn't seen Tom for over 4 hrs. :) Although we were going the same direction, Tom was traveling fast so we couldn't ride together, but it's always nice to stumble onto a friend.

While Bud napped, a sidecar BMW came in with his Goldwinged partner. We sniffed bikes and he told us all about the BMW rally he was coming from. He was a nice old coot. Soon Bud was revived and we rolled westward.

So Bud and I blazed on toward Grand Junction. Gassing there, once again Bud had ignition problems. The bike started a few times and then the motor stalled as the lights went out. Eventually, it stayed running.....that is until I entered the freeway a quarter mile away. But Bud didn't make it more than 50 yds up the onramp before his bike went dead. Me, I'm a mile down the freeway before I notice him missing, Shit, I lost him again. I figure he might have missed the freeway entrance and was wandering around town somewhere, and this time without Nip to keep track of him. Damn!

Well, I found him on the onramp, scheesh....and some switch jiggling got him underway permanently this time. I decided to get back to the little roads where I could turn around and go get him if necessary without dealing with mega traffic and freeway turnarounds. We would go past Fruita and turn south toward Moab on Hwy 128. 128 is a great road that goes along about 35 miles of the Colorado River thru a magnificent red cliff gorge.

Approaching the Co R on 128 in Ut

Bud had been watching the Co R all the way down I-70 and he had a cooling swim on his mind. I had talked him out of it until now, but once he saw the river again it was now a must do.

Evening was working on us, and no sooner did we get to the Co River, and a BLM campground appeared. We stopped for pictures and a dip, but decided to spend the night. $6, I can do that. Hang the cost.

So Bug got cooled off....me? not so much.....Bud said the water was colder than crap. Heh he.

We took lots of Pics of the cliffs at the campsite....did I mention that the stars are spectacular out there in the clean air.......

That white thunderhead cloud was awesome in person.

There was trouble brewing up ahead for tomorrow.......

Riding around Leadville...and problems

Other riders went all sorts of places on the next day on Friday, Jack Smith made a 450 mile run that included Black Canyon.

Then there were riders that had some trouble. Matt was having charging problems on his 82 Magna, and that bike has been Steady Eddie over the years. Kent, also had charging problems crop up while out on his 20xx FJR1300. He was 10 miles from town when he called for help. DeWayne took my bike trailer out to get him with his pickup truck. The FJR fit on the trailer just fine and was soon back at camp for repairs.

Mo and Steve had pulled into camp, giving us a little class with their 2 very fine 84 VF1000F V4s on a nice trailer pulled behind a beautiful late model Mustang. They had gone for a ride, and Steve had sudden death syndrome happen to his bike....It died at speed and never fired again. Eventually, 'Big Red Mo' was able to retrieve Steve and his bike with their trailer.

Jack Smith (left)......BRM (Right)

[BTW, Kent got his FJR back to North Carolina by buying a car battery (and strapping it to the passenger seat)  that would fit in the Mustang who lived in NC also.  Kent took the fuse out of the headlight to minimize electrical use of running his motorcycle.  He then rode along with the Mustang switching batteries with the Mustang when necessary.  Pretty clever, I thought.]

I thought that I could diagnose the VF1000F's problem but was completely stumped after examining the beast. This is what I found....

1. I was able to pull #1 & #3 Sparkplugs. There was compression

there, but to my fingers it felt weak....maybe half what there should

have been...just IMHO.

2. I drained #4's float bowl into a beer can bottom. There was the

proper amount of fuel in that Float bowl.

3. There was plenty of battery to grind the starter/engine for testing.

4. I pulled the screws used for carb sync on #1 & #3. There was

zero vacuum there during engine rotation with the starter.

5. Also no vacuum at the carb intakes in the air box.

6. It had spark on #3 & #4. I didn't test the other 2.

I gave up further testing.......What could the matter be???

[Infomation came out months later when Steve tore the engine down that one of the two timing chains had broken. It bent valves and ruined the crank case as well.]

So Saturday came and went with many cycles filing in and back out in a frenzy to get as many Co roads under their belts as possible. Many riders had to be back to work on Monday or Tuesday....in the east.

Jack Smith had done an SS1000 on the way to Leadville and was going to attempt a BBG 1500 on the way back to Pittsburgh.

On Sat I didn't ride so I could rest up from more than a week of riding every day. I kept having thoughts about Steve's VFKF. Nothing shed any additional light on his bike's malady.

The camp mascot wanted my chips.

Later we all went to Quincy's steakhouse for dinner. Seems they have Steak or prime rib for 8 (small) or 10 dollars (larger). That was very good for a pleasant change in our diets.

Have you ever seen such a bunch of old riders

After dinner a few beers were had around the campfire. That was fun.....then Zzzzzzz happened.

Skyset at Surgarloaf camp

Double rainbow

Tomorrow we would head home.....there was still much to see. Muley point, Moki Dugway, Navajo Natl Monument.......

ST Elmo & Independence Pass

We all got up that Thursday morning. In the three days that we'd been around LD's our gear was all over hell. Gathering it all up took more time than usual, and we hadn't fully recovered from yesterdays ride thru hell on the Rainbow trail.

Squalls were in the air....

Finally, we were ready to leave.....but LD said that we should ride the backway 10 miles out to the road for a last dualsport ride before leaving. So we did that. Palma Canyon or summat. Very nice. Look at this picture of paradise at the junction to the paved road.

Here's a live map of the day's ride. https://goo.gl/maps/oeAiXxiuS6E4XH1E6

So then we were really ready to move on to Leadville's Sugarloaf Campground where we would be meeting about 20 riders from all over the states. These guys are from the Sabre/Magna (sabmaggot) internet list that has kept in touch since it was started back in about '95.

Most have moved on to newer bikes, but there were still 6 of the first Generation of Honda V4s that showed up. Most of us had met before at one time or another. Quite a cool bunch of folks.

 Nip, Bud and I moved out of LD's new deep graveled driveway without getting stuck or falling down. We were going to visit St Elmo Co as it was on the Way. We'd see both Tom And LD in Leadville later.

We stopped in Salida under the big 'S' on the mountain to watch some kayakers practice in the water feature installed there on the Arkansas River.

Next was St Elmo. It is a neat old mining town from the 1880s that is very interesting. We had a hot dog at the general store there...doesn't everybody. Oh, and we watched the chipmunks that were being fed by kids across from the store. Then we walked around town and took pictures.

We'd just finished our hotdog.

Parking right in front of the store...Woohoo

Nip loads up and we head out to the meetup in Leadville.

This road leads up over Tincup Pass at 11000 ft.

Some kind of working cargo sled

Then we moved on. I made a wrong turn onto 285 just north of Buena Vista. I pulled into a multi-pump gas station and selected the only pump that said go inside with your credit card. Grrr....but ok, I can do that. We gassed up and leave. About 15 miles up the road I discover my routing error and get us turned around and back on track after consulting my map. That is a nice canyon on that section of road going east from Buena Vista on 285, though. :)  I needed north on 24.

50 miles later we are in camp in Leadville. About 5 other SabMaggots are already in camp. Hellos and handshakes were had as we pitched our camps. The Majority of folks would be in Tomorrow, Friday.

Among them was Tom Blum who is famous for his travels with Vermin, an ADVrider from ADVrider.com, in Mexico.

There's my Blue tarp setup...

More of the Thursday arrivals

We BSed each other till it was time to get some food at around 5pm. 10 or so of us went to town for a burger for dinner. That's when I found out that I had no Credit card and had left it at that last gas station 50 miles away. Damn.

I had unloaded my bike of all the saddle bags and such for a couple of day's riding in the area, and I had 2uped Bud to town behind me. So after my burger, I fixed Bud up with Carl Custer to take him back to camp while I beelined it back to that gas station hoping that it would be there.

Damn the bike felt good when running unloaded. I had to fight with myself to keep the speed down. Sure enough, the credit card was waiting for me. The attendant wondered what became of me. I signed the charge ticket and made my way back to camp. All was well, and I wouldn't have to admit to my wife that I'd lost another Credit Card. Future trips depended on that. Ha.

The rest of the evening was spent lining up what rides to do the next day. It looked like we might get some rain that night, but none materialized.

We had said that kickstands would be up at 0900 in the morning. So much for that idea. But the group of 5 riders that I was in, did take off for Independence Pass and Aspen by 10am. That is a great 60 mile ride from Leadville to Independence Pass and 125 back again, If you go thru Glenwood Springs on I-70. It was only about an hour to the top of Independence pass where we stopped for pictures, of course.

On the way to Independence Pass

Me showing off

At the top

Down the western slope to Aspen is just as good, but Aspen is a traffic nightmare, and was that day as well. On the way to Aspen, we stopped at a pull out to view a bit of the creek by the side of the road. Some kids were jumping into a deep pool there. It was quite a place.

Down the western slope

The old swimming hole is about 5 miles down the slope toward Aspen after there was some runoff build up big enough to cut a canyon thru these rocks.

The girls were the only ones with the cajones to jump.

The water looked cold to me.....but it did look like fun. :)

After giving up on Lunch in Aspen we went back to camp, and had a general good time with the rest of the riders that had showed up from all over. It was a general good time.

Bud and I enjoyed Steak for dinner cooked on my homade alcohol Stove.