Planning for our next adventure has been underway for a while now. We will spend a month in the Four Corners this summer.
We got Triumph Tiger adventure bikes for this trip and because we often encounter gravel while camping. We both got 800cc triples (3 cylinders). Jaron has an xCa (dark green), while Julie has an xRt (orange) which was easier to lower. You may be asking yourself why the hell we needed these. Well, when Julie started reading about scenic routes and tent-friendly campgrounds, a lot of them are on rough roads and were being ruled out. And you can’t get to Chaco canyon without going on 5 mi of gravel roads, so it was out. So we decided to get the right motorcycles for the job and got them in March. Julie is calling hers the Tigress, because orange. Jaron has still not found it necessary to name his. We’ll see.
The bikes themselves needed some preparation. Julie felt really strongly that we needed locking gps mounts. Our gpses are for our BMWs and we didn’t want to get additional ones. I figured that Garmin only made one form factor in that size and we guessed at the equivalent models and bought accessories for those. And we found the power supplies that went with the aviation version of the gps. Jaron built a mounting point for his where he wanted it using a half-inch dowel. Jaron also installed additional power ports on his motorcycle using the new soldering iron. We got my bike lowered when I bought it, but it was too low and scraped constantly. At my break-in service, I had it raised half an inch, but it still scraped too much. So I took my bike to a motorcycle seat specialist in the DC area and he took an inch out of the seat. This removes cushioning, but he sculpted the seat to my ass, and it’s still very comfortable. He’s been doing this for 50 years and people apparently come from California to see him. So now that I had an inch from the seat, we could raise the suspension back up an inch. Julie’s seat is 29.5″ high, while Jaron’s is 34″. This also required adjustments to the adjustable kickstand. Modifying the seat also changed the ergonomics of the handlebars and caused Julie’s shoulders to burn from the reach after riding for 1/2 an hour, so we played around with that. We also had to outfit the bikes with offroad luggage. Soft luggage is better for falling down more often. Youtube has been our friend. Jaron also has gas & water tanks, since some of the campgrounds we want to go to don’t have water.
We decided to ship the bikes and fly in after considering riding to NM and towing them ourselves. It’s almost 2,000 miles, so if we rode there, we would pretty much have to turn around and come back as soon as we got there. If we towed, gas alone would be $1000 for my truck and it would take 5 days each way. 1 to rent the trailer and load, 3 really sucky driving days, and 1 day to unload and return the trailer. So it wasn’t cost effective and would take over 1/3 of our vacation.
Shipping the bikes has really been the only majorly stressful part of this process. Julie had heard several different recommendations for the motorcycle shipping company HaulBikes. They don’t require you to drain oil or gas or disconnect the battery, they ship enclosed, and they allow you to ship your motorcycle luggage attached to the bike, and their price was competitive. So we sign contracts for a discounted round-trip and plan for the pickup window three weeks before the date we arrive in Albuquerque, NM. Great, right? Then they squeeze another hundred bucks out of us to guarantee the arrival date. THEN they want another 3 weeks because they are busy and behind. That conflicted with our plans for off-road training and visiting my dad (who lives on a gravel road), so we compromised and said we would drop the bikes off at the terminal 4 weeks before our arrival date, which still gives them more time and eliminates another leg and coordinating pickup. And guess what? They delivered our bikes 9 days later. 🙄
In January when Julie started looking in to a lot of this stuff, the only Triumpth dealership in Albuquerque was closed. The shipping company said that they had a contract with Harley Davidson, so we were planning to use them as a staging ground and were kinda not looking forward to it. After off-road training in May, when we needed minor repairs that we didn’t have time for what with the new shipping schedule, Julie looked again for Triumph dealerships in the southwest and found one in ABQ that had only been open for 5 weeks. So we were able to change our destination address so that we can deal with the right people. I am hoping to avoid storage fees by getting work done on the bikes before & after our trip.
So now our bikes are in Albuquerque being repaired and they will be ready for us to pick up when we get there. Jaron is getting beefier tires to match Julie’s after his adventures in WV, we are getting Barkbuster handguards that will be less likely to break, and we are both getting upper crash bars that will hopefully protect our turn signals. Cause I hate teplacing turn signals.
We did offroad training with Zacker Adventures, which we highly recommend. We had been looking for off-road training all spring, but everything was full thru August. Then a weekend trip with this company was advertised through our BMW dealership but it was also too late in the summer for us, so Julie contacted him and was able to set something else up for us in May. After we had both dropped our bikes the first time, I remembered to give him our liability waivers. Training was at a campground in the Shenandoahs. There was a more permanent resident at the campground who was really distressed at Julie’s struggles. He whooped and hollered as she improved. He came over to help me pick my bike up and asked me if I was ok when I went down (he was less concerned with Jaron). It was very sweet and chivalrous, but I also appreciated being treated as a normal person by the off-road trainer. We did a lot of slow speed drills, learned that our bikes balance themselves and that all we have to do is not fuck it up, learned how to maneuver while standing up, and we did a nerve-wracking water crossing twice. It was a lot of work, but also hella fun and super valuable.
It’s been interesting, the difference between Jaron’s & Julie’s approaches to learning this. Jaron immediately wants to jump straight to the most difficult scenario, whereas Julie would like to work her way up. On our visit to WV, Jaron got to do that and said that he learned his limitations. He went out alone, and fortunately one of Daddy’s neighbors heard him go down and came to help him get his bike back to the road. It was muddy and he completely lost traction, and this is what prompted Jaron to switch to TKC 80’s, which are 60% off-road, 40% road tires, aka “knobbies”. He previously had TKC 70’s, which were 40/60. The knobbies feel bumpy to Julie at slow speeds and when leaned over in turns, but they bite right in to the gravel and don’t slip around. They do say that your tires are the most important part on your bike.
We have also been researching routes, campgrounds, and things to do. Not planning — researching. Since Julie does not have room for 7 books, she is consolidating all of this info on google maps. We literally have one reservation. The rest we will play by ear. We took our ship painting down to put up these maps.
Google My Maps is awesome, it allows me to add notes and everything, so we will know which campgrounds have water and which ones don’t. It would only let me put 10 routes in per map, so that’s why there are so many. Jaron is downloading all of this info in to our gpses.
Four Corners Places
AZ Central & Western
AZ North
AZ South
NM Northeast
NM Northwest
NM Southeast
NM Southwest
Speaking of room, we each have 120 liters of storage space inside our luggage. We also have day bags, and Julie has the waterproof tool roll which will go on her passenger seat. The camping gear takes up one 40L bag, plus we each additionally have our sleeping bags, sleeping rolls, and camping pillows. So camping gear takes 50-55L of space total. Julie has the only locking case — everything else is roll-top. They take some figuring out to open what with all of the clips and straps. Julie is a little paranoid about security, but it’s also been my experience that nobody messes with my bike. I left a computer in an unlocked saddlebag in downtown DC once and it was fine…
Oh, and gear. Jaron read that in the desert, you need zip vents instead of mesh gear. While it works great for hot weather at home, apparently mesh will completely dry you out in the desert. Jaron has totes adorbs matching jacket and pants. Also, because you fall more often off road, there are purpose-built boots that, among other things, help prevent you from breaking your ankles. During off-road training, we realized that my road boots were not up to the task. It’s hard for Julie to find motorcycle boots because there are not many made for women, most of the womens boots are not functional, and the men’s boots do not come small enough (size 4). Also, those calves. We finally found some (men’s) 5’s for me. Here are my off-road boots compared to my road boots, which are already pretty hefty.
Aaaand boot socks.
We activated Julie’s 2010 Spot beacon for this trip. Here is the shared page where you should be able to follow our progress for the last 7 days. It’s not showing anything right now, but it should populate as it receives update from our beacon. Fortunately, Spot now has an “S.O.V.” option — Save Our Vehicle. It specifically lists motorcycles, so yay!
Finally…Julie needed some flair on her all-white desert off-road helmet. Jaron says he will pick up flair along the way.
So…yeah. It’s been a project. We didn’t plan anything for our 14th anniversary because we’ve been so wrapped up in this trip. And it’s been hard getting ready to be out of the office for 4 weeks. But it’s gonna be awesome.
Leave a Reply