30.08.2010 Beartooth

Pic - Grand Teton National Park from 29.08.10

The big attraction today was going to be riding the Beartooth Pass. It's been rated as one of the best rides in the world - probably by the Americans :).

The day started off bloody cold, the maximum I could expect was guesstimated to be 58 degF (14 degC) All I know is that first thing in the morning it was raining and freezing. I started off today by finishing off Yellowstone. I need to change my opinion of this after riding the western and northern sides of the park. Much more to see (from the road anyway) and I was more impressed. Saw another buffalo (ho hum) at the start of the day, then saw a herd of about 20.

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The worst thing about riding in the rain is that you have to pay more attention to the actual road and I can't relax as much as usual. I don't think I was getting rained on, as much as I was riding through a cloud.

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Map - Beartooth pass - lotsa corners :)

After Yellowstone, I had a short trip to the start of the Beartooth. The road reaches 10,947 ft (3,336 metres) at it's highest point, but the mountains are another 2,000 ft above that. For comparison, Mt. Kosciusko is 7,370 ft (2,228 metres), so yeah, it's pretty high - probably the highest road I'll get to ride. So of course, the higher I went, the warmer it got.. oh hang on, the other one. The rain may have stopped, but I think that was only because I was above the clouds:) The wind also picked up which made my day - especially going around hairpins without any railings. I stopped once to take some pics, but froze, so only took a couple of shaky pics. The clouds were pretty much covering anything I wanted to see anyway. Bit of a bummer, but such is life. At one stage, I was riding through an area that had snow on the roadside.. well, it was probably ice rather than snow. There were also what appeared to be small glaciers on some of the peaks as well.

On the way down I stopped at a viewing point as the weather had cleared a bit. There were about 20 pretty tame chipmunks hanging around trying to grab whatever food they could - most of the people in the area were more interested in them, rather than the scenery.

About 20 miles out of Red Lodge (where I am now) it really started to rain and the temp had dropped to 42 degF (5.5 degC). Some summer holiday!! A city nearby got an inch of rain in an hour or so. I was pretty happy that I stayed dry - but still have to dry my gear for tomorrow. According to a store owner, today has been the only day this week that the clouds and rain have been around - just my luck - the views from Beartooth would have been amazing. Here's a site about the highway here.

OH yeah - the highlight of the day. I didn't get lost. Not once!

Cheers.

29.08.10 Home on the range

Before starting off today, a guy noticed the Australia stickers on the bike and started to chat to me. His son now lives in Bendigo. Small world.

The stickers have been a good thing as I've had quite a few people wander up to say "Hi" and have a bit of chat. This is a pic of the bike after the roadworks heading into Pinedale, WY yesterday. You can't really tell from this, but it's pretty grotty.

Today I was to ride through two National Parks. Grand Teton and Yellowstone. Grand Teton has some amazing mountains and was pretty spectacular. Yellowstone didn't do much for me. Not much was all that visible from the road, so I'm guessing this area is more suited to hikers. Didn't see Yogi either. I was going to catch Old Faithful, but I just missed the last eruption by 10 mins, and I'd have to wait another 80 mins for the next one. I passed and moved on.

I'm probably going on too much about SUV's, but I parked next to this SUV that had a huge suspension and body lift. I was hoping to get a photo of it next to the bike, but while I was getting my gear sorted, the owner showed up. He was a short Mexican guy, and when he opened the door, his chest only came up to the bottom of the front seats! I didn't see him get in it, but I reckon he would've had to take a run and jump to get in there. I had to stop from laughing.


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Map - I wasn't supposed to go to Mammoth (near Gardiner) :) Nice road and great views all the same!

Yet again, my stellar navigation skills were put to use and I missed a turn off. No big deal I thought, I'll just go to the next town, fill up on gas and turn back around. I hadn't been paying too much attention to how much fuel I had, so was getting worried when I dropped to two bars, and then one, and I still hadn't seen a town. I had started to pull the clutch in on the downhills as I was starting to get stressed about running out of fuel. I ended up finding a gas station in time, and it was sweetest sight I'd seen in a while. I had only gone 40 miles out of my way, so a total of an extra 80 miles. I was getting worried about the time, as I didn't want to be riding at dusk. I started to move a bit and was making good time until I noticed this big brown 'thing' walking along the road toward me. Because I'd been seeing all these bear signs (ie. don't leave food around, be 'bear aware' etc) I thought it might've been a bear! After a bit of sphincter pucker I realised it was only a buffalo. Yeah.. that's what you want to see on your side of the road - a buffalo on his afternoon stroll. I can tell you one thing.. they're big suckers. After that I wound it back a bit and took my time.

But what sort of day are you having when you only see one buffalo? Pretty poor really. 30 miles later, the traffic had slowed right down to nearly a crawl because there was another one happily munching away on his supper. I wish I had easy access to my camera as it would've made a great photo. Then another 5 miles, there's another one right on the other side of the road. Also a short distance off the road were deer and elk. Pretty cool stuff and really made my day.

To top it off, just as I pulled into the motel, it started to hammer down with rain!!

So here I am in West Yellowstone in Montana. It's another cowboy town, but with what appears a very big tourist factor - there's a busload of Asians wandering around, and I reckon I've heard another 3 or 4 languages as well.

Tomorrow's going to be another short day (well, if I actually follow the map!) but should also be spectacular as well. Although it's supposed to be raining and 12 deg C. Talk about swings and roundabouts with the weather.

Cheers!
p.s. I'll have a crack at posting the photo's I've managed to take tomorrow.

28.08.10 Yeehah - I'm in Cowboy country

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According to all the weather reports last night, it looked like I was in for a wet ride. Turned out to be spot on, with the rain coming in at about 100 miles into the ride. Somehow I manage to miss the worst of it. According to the guy at the outdoor shop, the rain they had the previous night is the hardest that he's seen in 13 years of living in Pindale.


Even though I missed the most of it, I did get a bit wet. Then I had about 10 miles of roadworks, so the bike's looking a bit dirty. Gotta love having a rental! I have to go back over the same roadworks tomorrow morning, so I guess it'll look worse yet.


When I walked into the hotel this afternoon, I noticed another motorbike rider in the lobby, so said G'day. He said to watch out for the water as he had just dropped his bike. His bike was pretty much OK, just some bark off, but he banged up his knee pretty bad. So much so that he rang his wife to come pick him up. Thing is, his wife is in Colorado which he reckons is 500 miles (800 kms) away - he had a bit of a wait in front of him.


Pinedale is a small town - very much a cowboy town - ratio of SUV's to normal cars has gone up from 1:1 to 3:1 (according to my educated estimation). At one stage I saw a Prius and thought he must get a lot of grief from his mates, then I saw that it had Kansas plates on it. Didn't thnk he'd be a local.


One other thing I forgot to mention, both Idaho and Wyoming have interesting safety requirements for motorcycles. It basically consists of bandana (or cap), sunglasses, jeans, t-shirts and sneakers. ie. no helmets. It's one of the weirder things I've seen. I don't know how they go with all the rain that's been around. The rain would have to sting if nothing else.


There's a mega store here in Pinedale. It's a full on supermarket, a deli that serves hot soup and sandwiches, a drug store (Pharmacy), bottlo, hardware store, sports store and gun shop - all under the one roof! Had a bit of a squiz at the guns, but didn't want to look too closely in case I got tempted :)


Overheard this guy talking to a shop owner about his mountain bike ride from Canada to Washington. He's riding a dual suspension mountain bike with only a bivvy bag for sleeping in (A bivvy bag is basically just a cover for the sleeping bag - no tent). He's aiming to do 100 miles per day. Pretty good going, given a portion of it is off-road!


One last thing for the day. When I spoke of the twisties on the second day, I should put some perspective around it. One of the roads is called Rattlesnake Grade. It has something like 200 corners in 10 or 20 miles. Pretty sweet stuff.


'nuff for now, Cheers.

27.08.10 Hotshots, blocked roads and the Jacksons

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Took off this morning with the weather much cooler than the past few days. With my morning mantra of "Stay right, stay right" still ringing in my ears, I got a nice surprise about 5 miles out of McCall where the roadworks meant I had to ride on the left side of the road - I felt more at home for those few miles than I have for the past 6 days :) There was also some smoke coming from the mountains - about 1 km of fires by the look of it - but still some distance from the road.


Again, the roads were awesome with a good portion of the day following a river that changed from being 100 m wide, to being not much more than a stream and then becoming a full on white water river. It reminded me of part of the Great Alpine Rd that follows a river for a bit. More incredible ranges, this time the Sawtooth Mountains. Very impressive stuff.


Before getting to the Sawtooth, I had to ride along a road that had been blocked the day before due to the wildfires. Just as I got there, they had re-opened it. There was still some smouldering tree trunks about 10 metres off the road as well as smoke everywhere. I think I was pretty lucky that I wasn't around her yesterday.


I'd seen a truck around that had Hotshots written on it and had thought that it was a coffee van. Later on I saw a heap more of them and realised that they must have something to do with fighting the fires. I've since found out that they're the best of the best firefighters. A bit later on I saw a tent city where there must've been 100+ tents - mainly 2 or 4 person tents, but with half a dozen marquees as well. I think the process over here is to evacuate first without waiting to see if they're going to burnt be out.


Throughout the day there were a few signs saying "Look for Rocks", then followed by "Don't Stop". Now, I've been riding a bike for the past few days with the only company being my incredibly fine singing voice. So what happens when I see "Don't Stop"? Two songs pop in my head that end up haunting me for the rest of the day. The first is the Jacksons' "Don't stop 'til you get enough", followed by MC Hammer's "Can't Stop This".. I know, it's the not the same, but it's what happened. Might have to look at using my iPod on the bike I think.


Today was supposed to be a 225 mile day, but of course, my fine navigating skills came to fore, so I did 260 miles. I really have to stop riding with my head up my arse and start looking at road signs a lot better.


I'm in Ketchum tonight which is the town that Ernest Hemingway lived and later committed suicide. Turns out one of his daughters also committed suicide here - nearly on the same day as his death. Other than that, Ketchum and nearby Sun Valley, are just about full on ski resort towns. Pretty amazing looking place - like most that I've seen, but there seems to be a lot of 'money' here. Along with the standard array of SUV's, there is a lot more Porsche Cayenne's and 911s, BMW X5s and 750s etc. For a town of 4500, it sure has a tonne of restaurants. This place must be huge in winter.


Enough for now.. cheers, Marty.

Ramblings of a tourist - First 5 days in the US

OK, seeing some food over here is making me sick. I've just watched a thing on TV for a pizza hamburger! It's supposed to have 2500 calories and 144g fat!!! Christ on a bike! Also, the big news seems to be about a salmonella outbreak in eggs. Something like 550 million eggs have been recalled/destroyed. Enough of that, it's time to catch up on some mail.

Let's see.. I picked up the bike on Tuesday from the rental company. The guy who runs the show seems like a top bloke - loves a laugh and can understand what I'm saying - which is a bigger deal than you think. Now I know that I'm not the clearest speaker in the world - hell, even people in Aus ask me to repeat the odd word now and then. But I swear that most people over here think I'm speaking another language. I have to hold back on a lot of slang.. I confused the bejeezus out of a shop assistant in Macy's in San Fran when I said "No thanks, I'm just having a squiz".. I think he was worried I was about to take a leak!

Speaking of San Fran - that was an experience. I got about 3 hours sleep the night before I flew out of Melb and got another 2 hours on the plane. So about 5 hours in 48 hours. I got into downtown San Fran ok (somehow managed to catch the right train, and even get off at the right station), but I must've zigged instead of zagged as I ended up in the one area that I've since found out is the place not to go. It's an area called the Tenderloin. There was a cop car on every corner and more homeless or unemployed people than I've ever seen before. I thought I was going to get rolled about every 200 metres. I must've looked like I was straight off the turnip truck as I was wandering around the city with all my bags. I was pretty happy when I found a cop and he pointed me in the right direction. Turns out if I had've turned right instead of left, I would've just about ran into my hotel. Instead I managed to walk for an extra hour. Saw some interesting stuff.. one bloke must've been a pimp - big black fella (6 foot 6 or so) dressed in a bright red suit with a red hat as well.. I nearly fell over. Another bloke yelled out "hey, don't I know you".. then "you look like a good fella", followed by "well, eff you mouther effer" when I ignored him and kept moving. Welcome to San Fran. One thing that surprised me is the amount of homeless people begging in the streets - even in the middle of the 'nice' area. I've not seen anything like it in Aus. By the time I finally found my hotel, I was bathed in sweat as it was overcast and humid - and the fact that I'll break into a sweat if it's warmer than 12 degC. I was ready to flake it.

The rest of the arvo, after I cleaned up and had a nanna nap, I wandered around the city and even managed to find a coffee shop that served a pretty good latte - even if their small = our large coffee. I think I passed out that night rather than slept.

The next day I was intending to take a bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge. Was all keyed up for it, but my left hip and knee were really playing up from the walking the day before. Decided against taking a ride - which I'll probably regret, but I didn't want to screw up my knee for the rest of the trip. Instead I checked out Lombard street - the 'squigly' street.. my knees hurt just looking at it.. well, they weren't that flash after walking up the hill just before it. Here's an online pic of the street - I haven't got mine off my camera - plus these are probably better than what mine will look like. Pic of Lombard Street Pretty amazing.. cars were really crawling down it. I thought Dana St was steep.. pfft.. For the pushy guys - it's supposed to have a gradient of 31.5%!!! I reckon there would be huge chunks of San Fran that I wouldn't be riding around if I lived here.

After that I went to Fisherman's Wharf - didn't really think much of this area as it's full on touristy and people were everywhere. I'm not a fan of crowds and touristy stuff (ie. t-shirts, magnets, etc etc), so yeah, no big surprise there. Jumped on a trolley car to head back into downtown. That was much easier than the walk to get there in the first place.

Next was a trip to a motorbike accessory shop - jumped on a bus which was OK. However, getting back, I got on the wrong bus which ended up taking me back to the Wharf!! buggerit.. and that's where the bus stopped as well. Oh well, jumped back on the trolley to get back in town again.

Did some window shopping in town.. Bloomingdales, Macy's, Ferrari shop, Old Navy, etc etc.. Full on mall stuff..

So, next day I flew to Bend, Or. I sat next to a lady who's about to relocate to China with her husband who makes/sells rock climbing equipment. She said that Redmond (the town where the airport is) is a tiny town, but that Bend is much larger. I asked her what tiny meant to her - 20,000!! She's originally from Chicago - so I guess perspective is everything. 10 years ago, Bend was a town of 30,000. It's now at 87,000. Huge growth. The mountains surrounding Bend still have snow on them - not bad considering it's still summer here. It's a really nice town - well, 'downtown' is - where all the restaurants and some trendy shopping is anyway. Tonnes of bikes, of the pedal variety, everywhere. This is supposed to be the best town for mountain biking in the US. Looking around the mountains around town I can see why.

Oh yeah.. unless you have a monster truck or a huge 4WD, you're nobody in these parts. Unbelievable.. about every 2nd car is an SUV of some type.

So.. back to Tuesday. Picked up the bike and went for a quick blast to a lake about 50 miles away which was pretty cool. Nice to be back on a bike after so long - I reckon it's about 4 months since mine broke down. The FJR1300 is a pretty nice ride.. tonnes of grunt. Will hit 100 mph before you know it. Overtakes much easier than my 800.

The next day, the rental guys go over my accommodation for the trip and to check how I went the day before. I get a wad of maps of the 4 states that I'll be travelling through, plus a couple more for the National Parks that I'll be riding through. I also get a Blackberry with email and GPS. Pretty nice thing, and nice to have from a safety point of view. Each day, I get sent a list of suggested things to see, where to get gas (no, not by eating beans) and some hints on how to get to my hotel each day.

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Map - first day of riding

So, first day on the bike was Wednesday - and it's going to be a stinker. Some places were expecting to have record highs.. so I wasn't looking forward to riding in it. In the end I think it got up to 100 deg F (38 deg C) in a few places. Welcome to summer. I was struggling with 25 degC in San Fran on Sunday when I got a bit sunburnt. I reckon I would've swapped for a 10 deg C in Ballarat at times - esp when I was just a pool of sweat in my riding gear. First day up was a 300 mile (480 km) trip. First 100 miles and I reckon 200 bikes were going the other way.. I got a sore arm waving at them all - just about everyone else waved back which is pretty cool. Everytime I stop for a break, just before I start I keep repeating to myself "Stay right, stay right". I think I only strayed left once. Some nice roads that are all in really good condition - nothing really outstanding until I got to a few places that were twisty following a river gorge. I think it was on one side of Hell's Canyon. Stayed over night at a B&B in Joseph which is a small (900 odd people) town surrounded by mountains - like everything around here. When I rocked up to the B&B, the owners weren't around, but there were about 4 wild deer roaming around the front yard. Again, I don't have any photo's of the town, I'll have to take some when I head back through here at the end of the ride. I have to try to stop more often. During the day, I was feeling a bit of pain on my left calf. I checked it out and it turns out I've been burning it against the frame, which for some reason is stinking hot. According to the owner, it's a Yamaha thing and because it's so hot, it's making it worse. So now I've got a nice burn blister that I need to wrap each day. Such is life.

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Map - second day

So, here we are at today - erm, that's Thursday for me. Expected to be around 260 miles ( by the time I'm finished I've done nearer 290) In the morning, I'm once again greeted by several deer roaming outside the window during breakfast. The owner says it's nice to have them around, but that it's pointless trying to grow anything that flowers as the deer think they're delicacies. The day is going to be another hot one - turns out to be between 85-90 deg F (32 deg C). Head out of Joseph and there's no-one on the road which is awesome. I stop at a look out over Joseph Canyon which is supposed to be pretty good. There's a guy here on a Honda cruiser that got a flat and there's several other riders milling around the back of his bike. He's got a flat and is trying to use some of that inflating goo to pump and seal his tyre without any luck. I tell them I have a compressor to see if that helps - turns out the compressor I'm carrying doesn't work.. Good for me to know, but not so good for this poor bloke who's only just started his ride. I have a chat to some guys from Canada and Sacramento. One older lady asks if I go to school here or in Australia - I laughed a bit, but was happy to hear it :) The group is pretty interested to hear what I'm doing - one bloke wished he had the time to do it himself. I have to leave the guy, whose mate has already headed back into town (30 miles away) to get some more help.

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Map - part of the awesomeness that is Rattlesnake Grade

The next 30 miles are absolutely fantastic - twisties everywhere on perfect roads with no traffic. Can't ask for anything more. Come into a town called Lewiston and manage to get lost for at least an hour and a half. I kept having to stop, check the GPS, then check a map - all the while I'm getting stressed and pissed off, hot and sweaty. Somehow I manage to get out and end up heading out the road that I originally thought was the wrong road. Could've kicked myself.

Screaming along, erk, I mean travelling, at 80, I roll off for a bit because I'm staring at some incredible views when I notice a black car parked on the other side of the road. I didn't think much of it until I saw the red and blue lights. Turns out the Idaho State Police get black Chrysler Charger's as patrol vehicles - something I would've been pretty happy not to have known. Also turns out that the speed limit where I was is 65 mph. He seems like a nice cop (I hoped) and informed me that I was doing 71 in a 65 zone and did I realise that I was going that fast. I honestly answered "no, I was too busy looking at the scenery" but didn't tell him that I thought I was going faster. Once I give him my licence, he seemed a bit more interested in having a chat about what I was doing and where I was going etc, rather than booking me. Anyway, he goes back to his car, I guess to check out the rego on the bike, and comes back and says to take it easy and stay safe. I said "No fine?", and he just repeated to take it easy and be wary of when the road slopes down to back off a bit. I was pretty happy with that.

The wind has been blowing a gale and I reckon I'll wear out the right hand side of the tyre just by going in a straight line because I have to lean into the wind to stop being blown into the other lane. It turns out that there's been a heap of bushfires (wildfires?) along this way today and it's all the local news seem to be reporting. Some more hills, some more perfect roads, and some incredible rivers that follow the road. I had to laugh as I saw the speed limit drop to 45 mph and a sign saying "Rough Roads ahead". I reckon the roads were about normal for our back country roads that we do 100 kmh on. But I guess they have their standards - and I do prefer theirs - the roads are smooth as and seem pretty grippy - so far.

I'm staying in McCall in Idaho tonight, which is a forestry, mining, recreational, and skiing town. There's a huge lake as well. Very picturesque. I'm going to get some photo's tomorrow - I think :)

I think I'll wrap it up for now, if anyone is still reading this - well done. Next time I think I'll use the blog thing I set up and post some pics - if I've taken any worth posting.

Cheers, Marty

oh yeah.. for the Mars girls "It's FRIIIIIDAY !!!!"

6 days to go....

Just so that I get a few people off my case (you know who you are), this is where I'm intending to keep a few notes and photos of my trip to the US.

After spending two nights in San Francisco, the main part of my trip will be a 15 day motorbike trip in the northwest and throught the Rockies (basic route I'll be taking) and then I'll fly to NYC and pretty much just bum around for 12 days before flying back home.

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