Saturday morning I awoke somewhere between eastern and mountain time zones.
Woody did not.
We had a wonderful night. When I arrived Woody was still at the shop so I was greeted by another rider on a KLR with Alaska plates. He shall forever be known as Dave not Mark or was it Mark not Dave? We sampled some left overs from the fridge along with a few things whipped up in the kitchen. Talk, bourbon and all sorts of treats were shared along with some fine tequila I decided would be better to gulp than sip.
Eventually we all came to, or at least woke up enough for me to get some of the things I had shipped to the shop and for Dave not Mark and Woody to go out for breakfast. When it came time to mount the tires Woody walked passed the tire machine into the dark shop to retrieve my TKC’s. He looked at me looking at the tire machine and said “you got your spoons, right?”
So Dave and I mounted my tires on the shop floor. It was fun, good practice and Dave gave me some excellent tips based on years of doing it by hand.
My only mistake in planning this trip was not planning enough time with Woody. There was so much to see and chat about but I only had a week and I came to ride. I also planned on visiting a REI for a pair of waterproof socks which I realized on the way out would be very nice to have. On the other end of this was the casual comment from Jim Bean that some of the group was getting together in Lake City that night. Before the big night I was thinking I’d get over to Ouray or Telluride Saturday. I wanted a little time to acclimate to the altitude and such before joining the group but by the time I found socks it was close to 3pm. Lake City was 247 miles away. 4.5 hrs according to Google.
This is where I absolutely love my GSA. 247 / 4.5 hours is 55 mph if you don’t stop. If you stop for gas, a pee, candy and a soda for 20 minutes you now need to go 60 the rest of the time. The same bike I am going to ride in the trails is the one I can count on going at least 300 miles between stops. I went “door to door” and beat the estimate by 20 minutes.
Sunset is late in Lake City and while it was close to 8:30 when I arrived it was still daylight and there was plenty of activity. I figured my first order of business was to get some food. As I rolled into town I noticed a rather rally looking bike; half unloaded with a rear tube on the ground. The rider wasn’t around but his buddy was; he looked a bit dusty from a big day on the trail. I found out they were all set so I went on for dinner. I wasn’t planning on cooking and I wasn’t even sure I was going to camp so I stopped at the first place I saw that didn’t look too fancy. I was to learn that there’s nothing fancy in Lake City. My kind of place.
After a quick bite I went for a ride down main street and out to the camping spots I thought Jim and his group might be in. I didn’t look too hard for too long before heading back into town. I stopped at the gas station / hotel office where the rally bike was sitting and found I could get a room at a decent rate, plus it was also a short walk to the bar. So much for camping. I unloaded the bike and went to the bar for a beer but not before taking a closer look at the “rally bike.”
Home built special. DRZ motor. A serious bike by a serious rider. NB the tube on the rear.
Iron Butt Riders will recognize that as would serious enduro competitors.
I left the bike wondering if there was an issue with tires and tubes. Turned out to be no issue; he left it like this as a beacon to a friend they lost on the trail. I took the very short walk to the bar and found the owner and his buddy ordering dinner. They were from Ireland and had shipped the bikes over with the plan of doing the Trans America Trail together followed by separate plans after arriving on the west coast. As I watched they ordered enough food for a party of four and a few pints of Guinness. It’s always good to see an Irishman in the United States order a pint of stout. I can’t stand the stuff so it’s good to find out that at least a real Irishman does. I suppose they may feel the same way when a Yank orders a Budweiser in Dublin.
We’re chatting away and I find they camped the night before and never stopped for any food while covering close to 450 miles of trail. That’s pretty serious and fits with the relief tube I saw on the bike. I was confirming what I was hearing when one of the two mentions their over all average for the day was 45 mph. On the Trans America Trail. He then reveals his mate is a two time Paris Dakar Rally rider and he was the current Irish National Enduro Champion and Romaniacs finisher. After I got my jaw off the floor I excused myself to grab my camera and a round of beers. We had much to discuss.
Irish National Enduro Chamption Michael O’Leary and Paris Dakar finisher Nick Craigie.
I asked Nick if he enjoyed the Dakar. He paused for a moment and said “No.” He said he enjoyed the experience and had no regrets but the riding itself was pretty brutal. He tried to describe it and all I could think of is the Iron Butt Rally is a walk in the park compared to the African Dakar. Here’s a quote from an article about the CCM bike and the rally:
‘The deep sand was really hard going and forced the bikes to drink fuel, we were using fuel at a rate of to 7km/litre which, sustained, would have dropped our effective range from around 450km to barely 300km. The organisers hadn’t allowed for this and set the refuel too far out. There was no borrowing fuel from another competitor – everyone was trying to conserve every drop they had.
‘Our Dakar could have ended there – as it did for so many – but we found a solution by the three of us CCM team-riders working together. We effectively pooled our fuel, putting it all in the one bike (Adrian Lappin’s) and he rode on to the refuel. There he filled every tank he had and came back, riding the course in reverse, to share out the fuel. It was a high-risk strategy – he could easily get lost, breakdown, crash, certainly not find us – but it was all we had. Fortunately he did find us, but it had taken four hours and an incredible 350 additional kilometres riding for Adrian.
‘And it’s at that point, at about 5pm in the late afternoon, when the Dakar rally changes. Dusk comes quick, and it’s pitch black before you know it. That changes everything. A distance that takes you one hour in daylight takes you four in the dark. You can imagine the navigation is a nightmare. At 6pm at night we calculated we had 450km to the end of the stage.’
The team ploughed on through the night, and even saw the dawn come up, before reaching the bivouac just as the first competitors set-off for the sixth stage. For the CCM teammates there was just enough time to refuel, grab a snack to eat and line-up to start the next stage.
‘We stayed together after that. It wasn’t easy and again we hit trouble with night riding. At one point Vinny Fitsimmon’s lights went on the blink. We were each on our own sand dune at the time. I stopped, went over to him to help, when I got back to my bike I sat down and immediately fell asleep. I only awoke when Vinny came over and kicked me, his lights now fixed. “If you sleep now you’ll never wake up,” he said.
‘That stage we finished at 4 or 5am’, says Craigie. ‘Then it was, within an hour or two, time to be starting on into the next stage.
‘We got two precious hours sleep that time, but it was essentially 72 hours riding non-stop – we just had to get to the rest day.
‘So many things would happen, were always happening. On that last stage before the rest day we found Si Pavey [also on a CCM], he’d had a horrendous crash and was just gaga with concussion. We stuck with him and got him un-gaga enough to ride his bent bike between me and Vinny. We got him to a checkpoint and told him to stay there until the morning; with the next day being a rest day he could ride-in in the morning and still be in the rally. That was day nine with 11 still to go!
‘Of course the rest day was anything but, we spent the day changing the engine in my bike, although when we got the motor home and checked it was fine, it would have done the whole rally.’
It was a wonderful evening hearing this and other stories about his experiences with the Dakar. We chatted for a bit until I finally left them in peace.
One of the joys of being on tour with nothing but the bike is the way it opens doors to conversations with new people. It can be a casual rest stop conversation with one of the largest cattle ranchers in Nebraska or hanging out with a guy named boots who runs the only licensed bar in Montana with only an outhouse for relief; if one is open to it there is the opportunity to connect with some amazing people. That night it was a two time Dakar rider and his mate both of whom were great guys to share a few beers with.
I went to bed delighted to have had the chance to hang out with Micheal and Nick while looking forward to what was coming next.
Next: First pass, meeting the gang and RIP’s