By Yermo.

A little later this year, I will be embarking on another cross country trip this time off-road along the Trans Am Trail. This is something completely new for me and, at first glance, seems like a difficult and treacherous fools errand. As is the case with most efforts involving the great unknown filled with unnamed risks, I have no way of knowing what I'm getting myself into. How doable is it? How dangerous? What should I prepare for? Will I sink up to the frame in mud? What that I fear typically doesn't happen? How bad are the river crossings and mountain passes? Is the mud in Oklahoma after a good rain as bad as I fear? What about the people I'm likely to encounter? What about critters?

To try to get my head around these and countless other questions, I've been trying to read as many road reports and other material as I can find about the trail. Not unlike the great Deadhorse Alaska Trip of 2010, much of what I've read is contradictory. It seems like every other ride report about the Trail involves some bike falling down the mountain resulting in a nasty trip to the hospital to deal with bones that are sticking out in the most unnatural ways. How do you ride 50 miles in the dirt with a compound facture anyway? I keep thinking I should bring a winch along.

For every horror story, there's another one that makes it seem like a cakewalk that doesn't require much in the way of preparation.

There may be some wisdom in not doing any research and just going to see what happens. "Step One - Get Map. Step Two - Leave." Andrew Pain would say. 

But when embarking in a new direction, I like to prepare myself at least mentally. I see it as being something different than planning. Once I leave, there is no real plan, it's more of an "intention". But I would like to be reasonably prepared, so I read what I can find. 

Some time ago, I came across this blog article written by a man named Michael Murray about his experiences riding the Trans Am Trail while filming a documentary. It was one of the more complete and upbeat descriptions of the trail I've read. That led me to a How-To DVD he produced called: 

Adventure Motorcycling on the Trans America Trail 

At $24.95, it was an impulse purchase. I was hoping to get a better sense for what I was getting myself into beyond what I had already read online. The DVD is in an interview format where three riders who've done the length of the trail answer questions about their experiences and provide suggestions for others who are interested in riding the trail. I was hoping for something a bit more detailed but it turned out to be a relatively basic overview. It would have made a great starting point and I wish I had come across it before slogging my way through all those ride reports. Much of what I read in those ride reports now makes more sense having seen the DVD.

I do, however, find something about the interview format compelling. Hearing someone conversationally describe their experiences over photos and video seems to make it more engaging, more infectious somehow, than just reading a ride report. Even though it's a basic overview, it did contain some valuable insights for even this relatively late stage in my preparations. They make a number of good suggestions and I'll watch it again with a notepad in hand. For instance, while I'm not much of a hiker, after hearing them describe an incredible waterfall, I think there's going to be some real hiking to do. There are other places to stop along the way as well. Did you know Morgan Freeman owns a blues club? Neither did I, but it's now on my list of places to go see.

Strangely, listening to these guys talk about their trip was the first time I've looked forward to the trail. I hadn't been conscious of the fact that there's a big part of me that's been dreading this adventure. If there's no dread, then it's not an adventure. If it's not an adventure, then there's little chance of a story. I find myself wondering what stories will unfold for me Out There, if any.

If you're pondering the Trans America Trail and don't want to read endless disjointed ride reports or watch countless youtube videos but still want to get a feel for what you're in for,  the Adventure Motorcycling on the Trans America Trail DVD is a solid starting point. 

Michael reached out to me on Facebook and kindly offered to answer any questions I had about the trail. Very cool. As Josh once said, "There's something about motorcycle people ..." and he's right.

By Yermo.

And so it came to pass that we embarked on another trip to ride that famous road in the Smokey Mountains as we have now done as a group four times and I have done at least 12 times. In many ways. it was a trip similar to the previous ones but there were also stark contrasts.

There was the pre-trip preparation. Each time it's a mad dash to get everything done. I left plenty of time but I began to feel rather poorly and tasks that should have taken part of a day took days on end. Oil needed to be changed, tires needed to be replaced, brake fluid needed to be flushed and there were a host of other tasks needed to get both bikes ready. I take this very seriously as friends of mine would be riding these machines.

It took me forever to get this work done. It was as if the bottom had dropped out from under me and I was moving through molassas.

But if you can't go fast, you go slowly. Being sick for the duration of my time on this hapless rock, I've learned not to hold my goals too tightly and keep my expectations flexible. But now, with this flaky restrictive diet of mine, it's so much better than it used to be but I do still have bad days. Back in the day, it was much worse. I rarely planned anything because I could never rely on how I would feel the next day. I never got to the frustration phase as this was all I had ever known. As I get older, lessons learned from those times are serving me well. With great sadness I watch as my friends, who have been rock solid healthy their entire lives, are now facing similar challenges but without the perspective to let their expectations go. It's a very difficult thing to feel your way through. I would not have thought a lifetime of illness would have an upside but it does. I sometimes wonder if the the Buddha had been ill his entire life. It would explain a great deal.

There was the day of leaving.

This year would be slightly different. Instead of rolling down in one big group we went in separate smaller groups. It's easier. So Duncan, Bruce and I reprised our roles and rode down together. There's a peace that comes from riding with brothers you've been riding with for decades. 

 There were surprises! At a Starbucks in Front Royal, Duncan noticed a bike but failed to notice the sticker.

Joel and his dad John, it turns out, booked a room at Deal's Gap for the same week we were to be down there. They kept is a secret as a surprise. We all had such a great time two years ago when we met these two and have stayed in touch via Facebook and on this site since then. 

So now we were four. Riding with Joel is a pleasure. He had already ridden a couple hundred miles so it turned into a pretty long day for him.

We met up with Joel's dad, John, along with Rob and Josh in Wytheville. And, to our surprise, Sean, who we met last year, rode down from Maine and joined us the next morning. He did 1011 miles in the rain to make it down in time. Mad man.

Now we were 8 bikes which represented the largest gathering of Miles By Motorcycle bikes to date.

For the rest of the ride down we broke up into three groups. Bruce, Duncan and I would go as one group. Rob, Josh and Sean decided to do a longer loop through the Blue Ridge Parkway which added some significant mileage. Joel and John went to meet up with a friend and would be joining us at the Gap a couple of days later.

We arrived at the Gap earlier than we usually do and the week continued as it usually does.

My beloved Blue K100RS "oil burner" had a shock issue that could not be repaired before the trip. Bobs loaned me a new but much less capable and shorter shock which would let me take the bike on the trip. It unfortunately severely affected the handling and I was finding it quite challenging to go through the Gap on it. Bruce, who was doing more of the scenic day rides, offered to let me use the guest bike which is a turning beast in the Gap. It was very kind.

There were day rides.

There were beatiful vistas under sunny skies. 

There were touching moments. Not only had Joel and John come down to surprise us but it turned out that Wednesday was Joels birthday.

Two years previously, I had taken both of them through the Gap and helped them with their riding. It's something I really enjoy doing. I figured we would probably do more of this. I wanted to do something nice for them, so for Joel's birthday I ordered a pair of Sena SMH10 helmet communicators. Yun is responsible for getting me into these things. The last thing I thought I wanted was to have some more voices in my head, but, it turns out, they completely change riding for the better. And for training, coaching or "consulting", they are invaluable. When Joel and John first arrived, the first thing Joel said to me was "You're an expensive friend." Thinking exactly the same thing I had been , he and John had picked up a set on their way down! "Damn, I was afraid you guys might do that. Bummer!". 

Rob kindly bought the two units off of me so it worked out in the end.

There was lounging around in front of our prison cell, bad coffee in hand.

I still get a kick out of the license plate on the Ninja.

There was the Tree of Shame which waits ever patiently.

This year we all managed to disappoint her.

There were strange contraptions to be seen.

There were stark reminders of what can happen when you ride beyond your skill.

(She's not flipping me off. She's holding up her injured finger.) Initially, I thought she had taken the thing off-road but then I noticed the damage and realized she had crashed pretty badly. Her injuries were minor but it could have been much worse. 

There was disappointment handled with grace.

Joel had bought the bike the week before so he could make it on this trip. It's an older machine and suffered an intermittent ABS fault. I ended up riding this bike pretty often as a result so Joel could ride the 'S. 

There were storms. Wicked wicked storms.

During one of these we got pelted by the worst hail I have  ever ridden in. 1/4"+ sized hail. Even through my Transit Suit it hurt. The poor guys in textiles had it worse.

The most beautiful moments at the Gap are always right after a storm.

There was swag. "So Yermo, when are you going to have some swag like baseball caps for M-BY-MC?" Sean had asked some many months earlier. So i put in some effort and got some M-BY-MC swag.

Want swag? It's available here.

There were group dinners at Fontana Lodge. I, as usual, look completely deranged.

And there were bikes. On this trip, I got to ride a KTM Motard, a Ninja 1000, a Triumph Speed Triple, a BMW R1150R, and a BMW R1150RS in addition to riding my own two bikes.

James, the Mississippi pushboat captain, had also made arrangements to be at the Gap at the same time we were. He let me ride his Motard, which is essentially the motorcycle equivalent of a go-cart. These super light dirt-bike like road machines are by far the fastest through the Gap. I had never ridden one before. "If I total it, I'll replace it." I told him. I should probably have asked how much the bike cost before making that offer. The thing was a blast but took a while to "get".

Riding all these different bikes in such a short timeframe enabled me to learn a few things I don't think I would have otherwise. "To see, you need contrast." I always say. More on that later.

There were moments of silliness. As always the Harleys would show up but they were in significantly smaller numbers this year. I noticed one bike, which turned out to be a customized Suzuki, that had a diamond plate (i.e. steel) seat. "That can't be comfortable." I said to the guy. "It's not bad." he replied. I had to find out for myself.

No front brake. Effect lighting. Metal seat. There's no way to take this seriously. No, I didn't ride the thing.

There were UFOs.

There was waiting. "Delays are proportional to the square of the riders involved."

Seeing Rob suited up and ready to go patiently waiting for the rest of us was a common sight.

In an apparent attempt to see what it felt like, Duncan would, on occasion, be the one waiting.  

There were birds. They were angry.

Then they were friendly.

There were interesting very knowledgeable people to meet. This included humbling moments where I learned that I know very little about things I know a great deal about from building fires to riding.

Doug, the crazy goldwing guy, and his wife rode out on our last night there. I had talked to Doug a couple nights before and had wanted to follow him through the Gap. He only rides it at night and is the owner of the UFO bike above. The way he is able to ride that beast of a bike is truly impressive and I sincerely doubt that I have much of a chance of keeping up with him. I had hoped to learn something but the scheduling didn't work out.

Just because someone rides a super sport bike and is dressed in full race leathers does not mean they are fast.

Just because someone rides a Goldwing, or even a Harley, does not mean they are slow.

Books. Covers. This theme would repeat itself a few times.

Duncan, who is a big fan of old two strokes, had  been talking to a guy who seemed like he knew what he was doing. I made some comment about wanting to follow him figuring I'd have an easy time keeping up with someone on an antique two stroke.

Books. Covers.

It turns out he was an old 250 GP racer and may very well have been the fastest most competent rider I've talked to down there. We walked over to the guest bike and he looked at the tires and was able to accurately tell me about the bike and the riding style of the rider. I did not konw that tires could communicate so much. I have much to learn.

There were sunsets, beautiful sunsets.

While the others went on longer riders, I typically stayed at the Gap. For the first few days, I was quite miserable. Whatever had been bothering me the week before came back with a vengeance. By Wednesday it started to clear up and I began to feel better. So instead of venturing far or pushing myself, I mostly helped a few people with their riding. Because Joel's bike was giving him fits and he wouldn't be able to come back to the Gap for a couple of years at least, I spent most of my time with him riding his bike while he rode the 'S.

The Gap is such an incredible place for training. From a practical perspective, motorcycling is all about cornering. There is no place that I know of where one can practice cornering more effectively than at the Gap. It's the reason I go. To practice.

Racers will tell you to practice on a track. But cornering on a track doesn't translate well to cornering on the street. The Gap has some of the most challenging technical corners anywhere. Because it's not a major thoroughfare commuter traffic is very light. Because there are so many motorcyclists, people clean the corners so there's almost no gravel or dirt anywhere.

What I find some compelling about the Gap is that the corners there are much like the kind of cornering you might have to do in an emergency situation. It lets you explore, in a street context, the limits of what you can comfortably do on a motorcycle. I have learned more by practicing at the Gap than anywhere else.

It is also a great place to teach someone how to become a vastly better motorcyclist.  

"Yermo has an interesting approach to coaching. Instead of focusing just on what a rider is supposed to do, he focuses on the feeling of the man machine interface and how the rider is feeling internally." Doug had explained to his wife. His memory is clearly much better than mine.

I worked with a number of riders during the week. Slowly, a picture began to evolve. Each rider knew roughly what they needed to do. They knew to grab the tank with their legs, to remain loose on the handlebars and to look through the corners. Each rider could do this flawlessly some of the time. But each rider would lock up at different points.

The Sena's allowed me to ask questions like "How are you feeling?" as they worked through the 318 turns that make up the Gap. 

The whole point to a motorcycle suspension is to keep the tires in contact with the pavement. But as the motorcycle leans over it starts to ride up on the side of the tires where the suspension, since it's an up and down thing, is less involved and the flex of the motorcycle, a side to side thing, becomes more important. If the motorcycle doesn't flex in response to the road, the tire will have the tendency to skip or "chatter".

A big part of that flex comes from the fact that the front wheel can turn side to side. Now imagine grabbing onto the handlebars with a death grip and your elbow locked. For one thing, if you try to turn the bike you fight yourself since your attempt to push on one side of the bar will be met by the resisistance of your other arm. It's absolutely classic, "Suddenly the bike didn't want to turn. It felt so heavy." is what a rider will say when they deathgrip. Additionally, by deathgripping the bars in a corner, the ability of the bike to keep the tire in contact with the road surface is reduced. You can force even a sticky tire to skip if you deathgrip enough.

Now consider a rider who can corner comfortably in some circumstances and not others. There are a variety of different corners in the Gap. Some are easy. Many are not.

Joel could do most right corners easily but not lefts. Duncan could do sweepers easily but not the super tight corners. "My bike is best for sweepers, not this tight technical stuff." he would often say.

I would follow riders through or I would lead. I'd ask questions like "What do your hands feel like?". I'd use the analogy that even when the bike is leaned all the way over, you should never have more pressure on the bars than you would have holding eggshells. I would ask them to pay attention to the feel of their hands. "My hands hurt." is a classic sign that someone is deathgripping even when they know they are no supposed to.

And then it hit me. We tighten up our hands and arms to express our tension, our fear. You come into a corner too hot, or maybe there's some obstacle, it doesn't feel right and you become afraid. You immediately grip the bars tightly completely unsettling the bike and making it so much harder to turn. You run wide in the corner or worse, you crash.

Fear expressed as tension makes people crash. Fear expressed as tension is probably the biggest impediment to riding a motorcycle effectively.

"Learn to express your fear, your tension, through your legs." I would say. It's a truly amazing feeling to be able to lean a motorcycle over into a corner and grip the tank with your legs to the point your muscles are screaming and to feel the bike glide through the most challenging corners near effortlessly.

But there is a problem. From an evolutionary psychology point of view, human beings begin to freak when leaned over more than 20 degrees. This is why, when a rider first learns to lean a bike, they always feel like they are leaning so much further than they actually are. To this day, I always feel like the bike is leaned further than it is.

"I have no feeling for how far this bike can lean." John had said.  Duncan had said the same thing.

 If you fear that the tires won't stick or that you're near the furthest lean angle you can handle, you will experience fear. This fear will get translated into tension. The tension will be expressed through your arms and hands and suddenly the inability of the bike to go around the corner becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy confirming your fears that the bike can't do it. 

But, as long as you have a good suspension and good tires, bikes can generally lean much further than one would think. In general, if you aren't hearing hard parts scraping the ground the bike can lean further. 

Audrey, when I was working with her, had said she was comfortable leaning a bike because she had ridden with me so often. That gave me an idea.

Words are merely a starting point. When instructing, we focus of what we do, not how we feel. Communicating the internal feeling is the hard part. In motorcycling, in my humble opinion, the feeling is far more important than the what we do. You can learn to ride a motorcycle very quickly as the Motorcycle Safety Foundation courses prove. But, what you cannot learn so easily, is how to avoid letting your fear turn into a crash. If you see gravel in a corner from the middle of the lane to the outside can you comfortably turn tighter even though you are startled? What does it feel like to be startled? What does the bike feel like when you are startled to communicate to you that you are upsetting it's balance? 

Rob rode Josh's Speed Triple. This thing is beast, as Yun would say. It has a super tight suspension and is wickedly responsive. Coming back Rob used a brilliant and very insightful analogy that would occupy my thoughts for the rest of the trip. "That front end is so awesome it's like a chatty little girl telling you about every little thing that's going on in it's day non-stop. It communicates so much about every little thing, a fire-hose of information."

Josh let me ride it. Josh had just bought the bike a couple weeks earlier. It was quite the compliment to be trusted to go through the Gap on it. Thinking about Rob's words I paid attention to my own reaction to the bike. It didn't feel right to me. "It feels like the front tire is low." I would think. I had ridden Rob's Ninja 1000 earlier and felt the same thing. Rob proved to me it wasn't the tire pressure. The bike felt unlike anything I had ridden. Communication. It took me quite some time, maybe 200 corners, before I began to understand that I was misinterpreting the feel. What the bars were communicating to me about the road surface, about the position of the bike, about it's handling ability, were causing me to be afraid. That fear, even though I knew better, was getting translated into tension. I could feel it in my shoulders and arms. Because I was misunderstanding what the bike was telling me, I was causing it not to handle well.

The right words were communicating the wrong emotion to me.

It took a while but eventually I was able to force myself to release that tension and express it through my legs and suddenly I got it. The bike started to flow through corners effortlessly chatting at me the whole way.  

I've been riding long enough that I know how to do this for myself, but how do you talk someone through that fear point? How do you show someone that it's not the bike but that it's something they are feeling that's causing tension?

It seems to me the only way to do this is to put them on the back of their own bike and show them, two up, going through the Gap.

I took Joel, Duncan and Bruce through. 

"I had no idea this bike could lean this far." everyone would say. It takes a great deal of trust and some practice since both pilot and passenger have to work together smoothly to negotiate these corners. I don't understand the mechanism but tension in a passenger seems to also affect handling in corners. Maybe it's just empathy, me being able to feel their tension and becoming tense myself. 

After a run through on the back of his bike, Duncan got on the 'S and suddenly he got it. Duncan was riding with a confidence and smoothness through the Gap I had never seen. "Damn that was fun." he would later say. Joel had a similar breakthrough after passengering.

I rode back to the resort with Bruce on the back of the bike.

Coming back there are some really challenging downhill corners. Duncan's bike doesn't decellerate on it's own like the 'S does. In one corner, I got startled as I was about 1/6 of a lane further out than I wanted to be. The bike shook and became a bit unstable for a split second.

"Was that you hitting the brakes?" Bruce asked over the intercom.

"Nope, that's just what it feels like when I get startled and grab the bars. The bike becomes unsettled.".

Communication, feel and fear. The shake, that lack of confidence, is not the machine telling you that it can't do it (in this context, there are certainly others), but instead it's telling you that you are doing something to unsettle it.  

We got back to the Gap Resort and Duncan had the biggest smile on his face. 

We decided to go out again, this time with Duncan on his own bike. I was saddened when he started to report that it didn't feel right to him. "On the 'S, I could do these corners easily but on this it just doesn't feel right." he would say implying that it was a limitation of his bike. "But remember we did these corners easily two up." I would remind him. The 'S is actually a less competent machine when compared to the K1300S. The 1300 is "sport mode" is communicative while the 'S actually masks more of the road surface. So the 'S feels more planted but is actually less planted than the K1300. "The K13 is such a fantastic bike." I would tell him. Honestly, I have ridden it several times before but it wasn't until this trip that I really understood how to ride it well. Such a great machine.

We went out and back but he still wasn't getting it on his own bike. At the resort, I looked at him. He was tired and normally I would not recommend it but I said, "Let's do a half run, out to the Gravity Cavity and back". I had a feeling.

We went out and it was clear he was still struggling. My heart sank. We talked a bit at the Cavity and made our final run on the final day back. Looking back I made some suggestions about his body position to get him to unweight the bars. I noticed the corners were getting but a bit tight and I was leaving him in every corner. The K13 is the most powerful bike in the group by a wide margin. It's easy to become afraid of the throttle since you can, with easy, break the rear wheel free. But that is mitigated by the traction control system on it. Could his fear be of the throttle. "Try this." I said as I was leading, "The tires will stick. Roll on the throttle a bit quicker."

There was silence and then a "This is starting to feel better."

"Roll on the throttle a bit quicker as you start standing the bike up." I told him.

"If I do that I'll run into you." he said as we were both leaned into a long left hander. I looked in the mirror and to my shock there was Duncan's HID headlight filling the mirror. "Holy shit" I thought as the bike got wobbly because I was startled demonstrating what I've been talking about. We picked up the pace and ran at what Rob and I would call a typical fun pace when we ride on our own.

"Oh this is fun" I hear over the intercom. We had the best run of the day. "Smooth is fast." Joel had said and he was right. When you get it, there's a rythmn, a flow to the road, which almost feels like a dance. It's a wonderful feeling. It's not the speed that matters. It's the flow, the smoothness. When you do it right fast becomes very very slow.

We rolled into the parking lot and you could just see that man and machine had learned to communicate. Duncans smile was infectious.

Of all the trips to the Gap, that was by far the best moment, seeing my friend get it and just clearly having a blast like I have never seen before. I can't wait to go back down to the Gap with him.

Bruce and I would talk about the day later. "So many things from the motorcycle seem to apply to a wider range of things in life." Bruce had said at one point and he's right as I've seen. 

When I was a little kid, the old man, a physicist, once explained to me some intractable problem he had worked on as part of this Phd thesis. I was single digit years old and no longer remember the details. But what I do remember is the general idea of mapping physical systems onto imaginary spaces and back again to produce useful results. As a programmer who builds great abstractions as part of writing software, I have made a career out of this.

For me, given the wreckage of my past that I attempt to come to grips with as I navigate the wider world, the motorcycle is in some ways my imaginary space. It is a place where I can by analogy without all the emotional baggage and scarring safely contemplate my being  in motorcycle terms and then, later, map that onto my relationship to the world. It is where I mediate. It forces me, just through the sheer desire to survive, to get out of my own head and to contemplate how I interfere with my own being.

And so it was on this trip. So many different bikes. So many feelings mis-communicated which are scary, cause tension and interfere with the fun you want to be having.  The same can be said for words in human relationships. So often the feelings understood through words aren't what are intended. Similarly to the way we tend to suspect the machine and not our understanding, when the feelings produced by words cause tension, we suspect the speaker instead of our own emotional reaction. Fear causes tension.

And tension makes you crash on motorcycles just as in human relationships.  

I am guilty of this both on the motorcycle and with people, but I'm working on it.

As is the case with any week long trip involving a dozen or so people, there are countless stories and if I tried to tell them all I'd end up writing quite a tome. There were times that were gut wrenchingly funny. There were times that were uncomfortable. There was a clash of cultures of the type I have always feared. There were moments of beauty. There were breakthroughs. There were moments that made me ponder what it would be like if this thing that I do here becomes more popular and whether or not I really want that. There were storms. There was sunshine.

It's not that I was disappointed, but I found it amusing that for all the people I lead through the Gap using the Sena SMH10's, all the while saying "That looks good ... go deeper into the corner ... more throttle ... the bike will lean ... " etc. etc. not a single person asked the question I was waiting for the whole time:

"Yermo, how can you see what I'm doing?"

I had a breakthrough in my own riding on this trip as well and can't wait to go back to practice some more. 

And then that sad moment came that we always hate ... the 570 mile ride back home. 

 Here's looking forward to next year. It is such a pleasure and privilege to ride with you all.

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Rob posted into the forum that he wanted to do a weekend off-road riding and camping trip at the Peters Mill Run and Taskers Gap trail system in the George Washington National Forest. We've been street riding through that area a number of times and it's simply beautiful so I was imagining a peaceful and entertaining weekend of riding along wooded hilly trails maybe involving some mud since it had been raining so much.

Peters Mill Run Trail near Edinburgh,Va. It's 6 miles between points 1 and 2. 

(This is an example of the GPS track support I've been for the  maps system I'm working on for the site, now with waypoint markers. Soon you'll be able to create your own maps of rides. More on that later.) 

The coming Trans Am Trail trip involves so many new things for me. It's a new bike, completely new gear and new equipment. I'm forcing myself to be humble and approach it all with the eyes of a beginner. It seems silly, but when you've been riding as long as I have, habits form and even minor changes in your routine can lead to mistakes you wouldn't normally make.You become distracted by the unfamiliarity of it all and nothing is smooth. For instance, over the weekend, I would forget to zip the tankbag closed half a dozen times. I never make that kind of mistake. But it's all new and your attention is dominated by this newness. You have to be humble and give yourself the time it takes to let the feeling of unfamiliarity wear off. The only way I know to do this is actually use everything. I certainly don't want to be leaving on a big trip with unproven and unfamiliar gear.

I was talking to a friend, Robert, last night about this very topic. As we get older we get more set in ways of doing things. It's not that things become harder to learn but we get more used to the expectation that we are good at something. That causes us to hold on to what we know with a tighter grip and prevents us from venturing out to something new and uncomfortable where we may not know what we are doing or worse may seem like we're an idiot. "Embrace this feeling." I suggested. "You will have to learn new things constantly so get used to this feeling of not knowing what you're doing and embrace it. Get used to it. Learn to be in this place so that when change happens you can adapt more fluidly." I am practicing what I preach because I seriously do not know what I am doing with this off-road stuff. 

There's also the fact that I, as an off-road rider, am completely unproven. I'm concerned that I simply don't have the experience I need to react correctly when the surprises and Bad Things happen. If I have a nasty off somewhere Out There far away from help, it could be bad. So I know, being humble, that I need lot's of practice with everything. So when Rob suggested a weekend of camping and trail riding, I thought it'd be an excellent time to do a trial run of the big trip. I decided to pack the bike as if I were going cross country. On my beloved Blue Bike, I know where everything goes, but here, on this new bike, with it's limited space and completely different luggage system, I had no clue. I would have to come up with a new way of packing and organizing things. I also knew, going away for a weekend, that things I had overlooked would be highlighted. For instance, riding off-road, you tend to ride with the face shield up which exposes your face to the sun. I've never had sunburned lips before. Unpleasant.

So I said I was in. It's been a while since I've been camping. Rob suggested, since this was the first significant off-road ride, that we take the bikes in his truck. If we break either bike, we'd have a way of bringing them back. This made sense to me since I figured things were more likely to go wrong on our first outing. He also offered to pack a bunch of food, tools and supplies. It was very kind.

So I set about getting the last gear I thought I'd need and started the task of figuring out how to pack it all. I knew space would be more of a premium than it is on my Beloved Blue Bike, but I didn't realize how much of a premium that was.

The Beloved Blue bike has lockable hard luggage which I love. I once swore I would never travel with soft luggage again. Soft luggage sucks. You can't lock anything on the bike so when you stop someplace you have to haul it all in with you. But, when going significantly off-road, weight is a real problem. All the hard luggage systems I could find for the DR650SE were pretty heavy, not to mention very expensive. So I opted to go with a highly regarded soft luggage system made by a company called Wolfman. It's completely waterproof but ends up being nothing more than some stuff sacks you can mount to the bike. They seemed much larger than they actually are. I found getting even a subset of what I would normally take into the bags a real challenge. But I'm pretty good at packing light, so I managed. Saturday April 27th, 2013 came and lugged all the gear out to the bike. All in all it wasn't too bad. 

The resulting setup seemed pretty solid although I was concerned about the amount of stress on the yellow bags. It became clear that for the big trip I would definitely need a top bag if I was going to carry clothes and food.  This was also going to be the first test of my new adventure riding suit. I hadn't had a chance to replace the foam hip pads in the pants with more substantial armor but the rest had been upgraded.

So off I went on this little bike and rode the 50 some odd miles to Robs house. It was a very windy day. I've been considering using the DR as a trainer but after one significant gust hit me broad side and unsettled the bike significantly at highway speeds I'm reconsidering whether that's a good idea. On slower back roads, the bike is actually a joy to ride, but it does not like highway.

I arrived at Rob's within minutes of my projected arrival time. He already had his DR, Yang, in the truck and ready to go.

I had briefly considered suggesting that I just ride down to the campground but I talking to Rob is always enjoyable so I opted not to mention anything and we, with the help of his son Kevin, loaded my DR onto the truck. This was the first time we had done this kind of setup and there were a few small mishaps but after some futzing we got the bikes secure. Next time, I'll remove the luggage from my bike.

Marking the moment of departure, Kevin took a photo of the two of us. Note the M-BY-MC baseball cap. (You can get one off the stuff page)

In order to make it here on time, I had to get up wickedly early, by my standards. I was already pretty tired. The ride on the highway had taken it out of me. Luckily Rob had already decided a Starbucks stop was in order. We think alike in many ways.

Rob has this ridiculously comfortable huge truck with a huge amount of space to carry stuff. It worked well as a Mother Ship. We stopped in Edinburgh, Va, which is just down the mountain from the trails, to grab lunch and get the necessary permits. It's a beautiful quaint little town. There's a very nice Italian Bistro there that's quite nice.

We headed up into the hills to go look for the campground. The scenery in this area is just beautiful. Route 675 out of Edinburgh which winds it's way over the mountain to Lurray is a recommended street bike run. It's a twisty gorgeous mountain road. 

We went into where we thought the campground might be but after some ways decided is was unlikely that trucks with trailers would be going this way. It turns out that we had gotten onto one of the so-called OHV, for Off-Highway-Vehicle, trails. It looked like it'd be fun to ride.

We reviewed the map and realized we were in the wrong area. The campground was on the north side of Peters Mill Run instead of being at the north side of Taskers Gap. It was about an 8 miles drive which took us down into the valley we've ridden on street bikes a number of times now, but this time I was actually able to take some pictures. 

We wound our way up this twisty little mountain pass road that eventually turned to gravel and found the campground. To our surprise, the campground was not nearly as "unimproved" as we had expected. The spots were arranged as is typical of National Forest campground and the privvy was imaculate. There was no shower nor running water. I find not having a shower in the morning highly unpleasant but I also realize when we're camping in the wilds that's going to happen fairly often on the TAT trip so I better man up and get used to it. We got camp set up pretty quickly because we wanted to go ride. We had seen the entrance to the trail system nearby and were itching to get going.

The trails here were marked OHV-EASY, ATV-EASY, ATV-DIFFICULT and ATV-VERY-DIFFICULT. I wasn't really sure what this meant but I thought, quite reasonably, that we should start out on the easy trails. Again, I wasn't confident about my riding ability offroad and the bits we had seen from the truck were already starting to look a bit challenging, but clearly fun.

I had considered, for a moment, taking the bike with all the gear on it but decided, in part based on Robs suggestion, not to do that. It turned out to be a fortunate decision.

So off we went. It took all of about a quarter mile to realize I wasn't in Kansas anymore. The trail, which was just wide enough for a jeep in places, was wavy with moguls. Seemingly after each mogul there was a mud puddle.There was loose dirt in places. Some puddles were a good size, many many feet long..

There were even places where water run-off was traveling down the length of the trail removing any sense of traction. These always seemed to occur in the most inopportune places, such as next to steep dropoffs.

All this I expected and, as it turned out, was doing fine on. I was firmly within my comfort zone but I was getting tired very quickly. I had not slept much the few nights before and it was showing. It was also clear that riding in these conditions was wickedly physically demanding. Off-road you stand up on the pegs so as not to get bounced around too much. You use your legs as shock absorbers allowing the bike to move beneath you. But it's hard on the legs and I was gripping the handlebars too tightly.

After a while as I was starting to get really tired, we stopped for a break.

We joked about the relative condition of our bikes and gear. Rob had been in the lead and charged into mud puddles. His bike and suit were covered in mud.

"This is what an Irishman looks like off-road.", he joked. Then looking at me, my suit largely untouched he said, "Now that's what a German looks like. You could eat off that suit." Fortunately, for Robs state of mind, this did not last long. 

Rob had been watching me ride for a bit and said, "Now I get to return the favor of the coaching tips you gave me on street riding.". It turns out that Rob has vastly more experience in this kind of off-road riding than I do. He suggested that while standing up I grip the frame of the bike with my legs. That allows you to free the stress on the handlebars and lets the bike do whatever it's going to without your interference. It was good advice. It took me a while, as I say to many people, to translate the words into the feelings one experiences on the bike. I kept trying to grab the bike with the upper part of my leg like I would on the street bike but it just wasn't working. Then I figured out that I could get some pressure on my ankle and calves. Basically, I would grab the bike with the lower part of my leg and suddenly, despite the increasingly difficult terrain, it became easier.

At one point, I caught up to Rob just as he entered a puddle and I got showered in mud. It took me two or three more time, because I'm a genius, to figure out he was doing it intentionally to even things out. So much for my clean suit.  

What I was not prepared for, as the terrain became more difficult. was the rocks. These were not little rocks. Imagine a fury brought down on a granite landscape breaking it into razor sharp blocks of sizes ranging from pebbles to boulders and then leave them strewn in piles all over the path of travel . You can't ride over this stuff. I know you can't. But we did anyway.

This was hard and left to my own devices I would likely not have attempted it. At one point we came up this steep hill simply covered in loose mini-boulders and large rocks separated by ruts all conspiring to wreck my sorry self. Once around the corner and starting to head up the hill there was no stopping. I tried my best to find a way up but hit one of the rocks, my feet flying off the pegs the bike pitching violently to the left. I put a foot down pushed the bike a bit and got deflected and headed straight for the boulders on the left. I managed to recover and start careerning to the boulders on the right. Somehow I managed to keep the bike upright while the rear end did a bouncy jig all the way up this crazy hill. NUTS. How I didn't fall down I don't know.

At the top of the hill, which Rob had done with ease, he said, "I turned around and saw you weren't there and thought, 'This isn't good. I broke Yermo!'". We both laughed. It was at this point I told him, "You know, I've never done anything close to this difficult before. Not even as a kid." He was surprised. It turns out that when he thinks of off-road riding, this is what he was imagining and had thought I had done this before because I had used the word off-road. I told him I had been imagining nice little trails in the sunshine like what I did as a kid. I think he felt a bit bad at that moment realizing that this, for me, had been a complete beyond my comfort zone and possibily ability trial by fire. "You're not the kind of person to point the sled downhill and see what happens, are you?" he joked.

Nope. Even as a little kid, when I came up on an obstacle, even if I had watched someone else do it, I would get off my bike and walk it. I would plan my route. I would ponder. I would come up with places I could bail if I needed to. And then I would do it. Carefully. The idea that I raced into these blind corners, got surprised by this incredibly difficult terrain and did it successfully anyway made an impression. I wasn't terribly scared but I was feeling a bit out of my element. But I've been in this headspace before and I know what it feels like. At this moment, I felt exactly as I had at the Superbike School. I guess I've made some progress because I was able to stay out of my own head and do it all despite the fact that if I stopped and thought about it I would think it impossible.

We both agreed we must've made an error and that this must've been the Difficult Level trail. We looked at the map again and in my shock I exclaimed, "You've got to be kidding me!" It turns out we had been on the easiest level of the easiest kind of trail.

I was dumbfounded, I couldn't imagine what a "difficult" trail might look like. 

Regardless, we continued to traverse this challenging terrain for a number more hours and I became more and more comfortable as this unfamiliar terrain became more familiar. I hardly noticed when we headed back down the hill that had nearly taken me out.

 It was fun the way a good workout can be fun, but I was working because I was here to learn. I had not expected these lessons but they were very valuable. Rob was having a blast. If I had had a better understanding of what I was in for, which neither one of us really knew, I may have opted not to go, which would have been tragic.  

There were some truly beautiful spots along the way.

I even remembered to ask Rob to take a photo of me to prove I was there.

We took a longer break. The white gallon water jug that Rob suggested I get, which you can see mounted to the bike in the photo above, turned out to be a life saver. "I don't want to ride these trails at night." Rob said. That makes sense, this terrain with all these boulders, would be terribly difficult in low visibility. It was difficult enough in daylight. So we headed back to the campsite. On the way we encountered a truck that had gotten itself stuck. We stopped and looked to see if there was anything we could do, but there was nothing. They assured us they could get help to come out so we headed back to the campsite.

Rob had brought a grill and a bunch of food which included huge steaks. He offered to cook dinner. I suggested that I should build the fire. I tried to find some wood but the woods had been picked clean. Next time we'll bring firewood. There was one small stump so I took my machete and proceeded to chop a good section off of it. It was really tough wood and it took forever. "I'm playing." I said looking up at Rob who was looking at me quizzically. He cooked dinner. I gathered more twigs and branches.

We ate a meal fit for kings.

We then tried to build a fire. This was reminiscient of camping with Ian in Idaho. Nothing would burn. Even with pretrochemicals nothing would burn for quite some time, but eventually we managed to get the fire started and began talking about the day.

We revisited the topic that I had never ridden anything like these trails before. "This is at least an order of magnitude harder than anything I've ever done on a motorcycle. I mean I hit rocks and the skidplate hit before the front wheel could reach ground on the other side. I didn't know that this could even be done and left to my own devices I don't think I would have done this." I said. He talked about the off-road riding he did. The topic moved to risks. He talked about his times as a kid taking risks, jumping off rooftops, ridnig beyond the limit and injuring himself, sometimes badly. He doesn't seem to fear pain and often said he has a very high pain tolerance. His stories also involve tales of many other people. That contrasted with mine that were mostly alone. It's interesting, when talking to Rob you get the feeling you are talking to someone who is not alone, his mind occupied with stories of so many other people. Despite the incredible differences in our backgrounds, there were dozens upon dozens of times over the weekend where we would end up thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time, but in this one areas key differences between us came to light.

I've often said, in order to see something, you have to have contrast. To know yourself is not what's important. What's  important is to know how you are different from others around you and be able to articulate it. We talked a while longer. During the day Rob had often said we should invite the other guys out here. I kept replying that I couldn't recommend anyone to come out here. It's just too difficult. People would hurt themselves. This dynamic played out in our conversations quite often. Then it hit me.

"You're a tempered, 'what could possibly go wrong' kind of guy, right?" I asked. "Yea, that seems about right." he replied. "Well, I think I now see that I can be described as a 'How could this possibly go right?' kind of guy." He laughed. The more I thought about it the more it makes sense and dominates my thinking. I look at a task, like going cross country and I immediately see all the ways it could go horribly horribly wrong. I look for one path in which it has the best chance of going right. Rob on the other hand, if I were to venture a guess, sees all the ways that things can go right and if they go wrong he knows he can deal with it. It's a different perspective and leads to radically different conclusions based on the same information. Contrast.  I'm not implying the Rob is wreckless. Far from it. I wouldn't travel with him if he were. He wears top gear. He's careful. He values rider education and is a constant student.

But his risk/reward calculation is different than mine. I suspect this may be part of why, when asked to describe him to a friend once, I replied, "He's what I would have been if I were successful." I see too many ways things can go wrong. This dominates my thinking and my life and I still think it holds me back. "I'm not afraid of falling." Rob said many times during the day. I am afraid of falling. I take riding as seriously as I do because I'm afraid of falling because I can't imagine falling without hurting myself irreparably. For me there is only one outcome to falling and that's being left in a wheelchair, or so I feel. This is in stark contrast to the others who I've seen fall many times. They get up, brush themselves off and go on.  

So Rob when describing the weekend, focuses on everything that went right,  how much fun he had, and how he would do it again immediately. I focus on how treacherous it was and how easily it could have been for it to go wrong. I mean you should have seen these rocks! Razor sharp edges on a field of pain far as the eye could see and we were riding over it on two wheeled vehicles at a good clip. Many times we wondered how the tires had not been shredded. But we rode the same ride at the same speed.  And by the end of the day it's not that I was uncomfortable, it was just that I was constantly aware of how much falling down would hurt. Sitting at the campground the Fear set in as it often does when I exceed a limit. I guess you could say, Rob seeks the positive and I seek to avoid the negative. But this probably makes us good travelling companions as we offset each other.

It's interesting to see how subtle differences in a persons experience become a basis for how they form. I sometimes wonder how I would have grown up differently had I not be so sickly and weak as a kid. Maybe I would more like Rob, not fearing the fall. But I was sick and weak and when things went wrong they went wrong for days and sometimes weeks. It's why I never did drugs. I didn't want to take the risk. I was too broken as it is. This fear still dominates my thinking, but to a lesser degree. At least I don't let it stop me completely. Well, at least not when it comes to motorcycling. 

We tended to the fire. The log that I had so carefully chopped refused to burn. We did everything but it would not burn. It even prevented things close to it from burning. It provided us hours of entertainment as we attempted every conceivable way to get this damned log to burn but it was to no avail. "We should patent this." I joked since clearly we were in an unburnable forest.

Rob headed to sleep and I stood by the fire contemplating my day looking skyward to see if I could see any shooting stars from the predicted meteor shower. It was a bright moonlit, clear and piercingly cold evening. I pondered my day and thought more about my relationship to risk and how, despite my best efforts, it still dominates so much of my life. Today was a good day. I did things on a motorcycle I never thought I could do. I also now have a first hand understanding of why off-road riders make the choices they do. This terrain was tough but I was looking forward to the Taskers Gap trail system the next day where we hoped the trails would be easier. Certainly, they wouldn't be harder than what we experienced today.  I don't know if I could ride a harder trail.

I went to my little tent and crawled into what, to my shock and horror, was a damp and largely frozen sleeping bag. It was COLD, but warmed up eventually.

Once I managed to fall asleep, images of the trail and the sounds of the Mighty DR Yin dominated my dreams.

Written by Yermo. 

For the last many months, I've been spending the majority of my time developing software for the site. It's been an all-encompassing effort, which is why I haven't been writing. I have this naive wish to turn Miles By Motorcycle into something cool that we can all use to plan trips, organize rides and tell the inevitable tall tales that come up along the way. It's turned out to be so much more work than I ever imagined. It's almost May and I've been at this since last July. It's coming along, albeit slowly. I've installed portions of what I've built on the site and it sort of works. There are still too many bugs and missing features. The site runs way too slowly which I'll have to address soon. At the present rate, I wonder if I'll get it all to be "good enough" before I run out of money later this year. When that happens, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'd really like to be able to continue this effort, but I'll need to find a way for it to generate some money or maybe get investors.

As far as software projects go, I've enjoyed this one more than I've enjoyed any other, but it's challenging me in ways that I'm ill-prepared for. My achilles heel is that I'm not visual, I'm conceptual. I can do the abstract data models and backend software and protocols and all the rest of the stuff under the hood that people typically think is technical and difficult. But I can't make it look sexy to save my sorry life. At least, if this thing ever takes off, I've got things set up so that if someone who knows how to do sexy better than I can comes along, they would be able to help with the visual work. In the meantime, I'll try my best on all these fronts and continue to make slow progress. 

Despite all the shortcomings on the site, I've been getting lots of encouragement and most riders I talk to seem to like the idea of the site. I'm close to having most of the features built that I want. For the last few weeks, I've been building the mapping system that I've been talking about for ages. My hope is to get everything built and basically working, including the road-tagging mobile app, before August when I intended to use it.

Because in August, I'm  leaving on another big trip.   

It was many years ago on our very first trip down to Deal's Gap that Ian and I met Francios. He rode a Suzuki DR650SE, which for the uninitiated is a so called 'Dual Sport' motorcycle designed to be a 50/50 compromise between riding on pavement and playing in the dirt. It does both competently but like most compromises does not excel at either. He had modified it extensively and mostly I remember the big gas tank he had on it. Towards the end of our trip, so many years ago, he invited us to a nice a nice dinner in Knoxville, I think it was. I remember thinking that he, like so many crazy Canadians we've met, could ride like nobody's business and on the way to dinner he had to slow down repeatedly for us to catch up. After all, our premium European sport touring machines were no match for a piss-ant little dual-sport on knobby tires. That made an impression. At dinner, topics ranged across the spectrum of motorcycling. At one point he started talking about the Trans Am Trail. I don't remember if this was the first time that i had heard about this trail, but it was the first time that I can remember thinking, ominously, "I may have to do that some day." It's an off-road route from Western North Carolina across the continental United States to the Pacific Ocean in Oregon. It goes across the Smokies, into the Great Plains, through deep Canyons, across deserts and over the Rocky Mountains, all off-road. There are photos of the trail that are simply stunning. But, I confess, it sounds like a ridiculously difficult and treacherous trip. There are countless obstacles and hazards along the way including rocky river crossings, small paths along steep hills, mud, endless fields of mud and other threats. Most of the road reports I've read about the trip involve serious injury and riders falling down mountain sides. 

But it's one of the "Big Trips". Deadhorse, Alaska is one. Patagonia in Argentina is another. The TransAmTrail is one of these trips. 

Francios suggested a small bike was definitely best suited for such an adventure. He had done some sections of the Trail, but not all of it. The conversation moved to other topics and thoughts of the trail faded. I had always wanted to come back and take them out to dinner, but the years ticked by and the opportunity never arose. 

The thought about the trail recurred some many years later, before my soul snapped and I left for Alaska. I even went so far as to get some of the maps to study, but I dropped the idea and it faded from my mind once again.

I don't remember who it was, but back in Septemeber, someone, I think it was probably Duncan, posted a photo to Facebook of a rider on the Trans Am Trail and he captioned it, "So who wants to do this?". I thought little of it until friends started chiming in, "Sure, I'm in!".

It was one of those pivotal moments where the decision is made before you're even aware of it. As if it were past tense, I knew I was going to go. In a way it  makes sense to do it this year. I still have the funds and the flexibility. Once I have to start making money again, it's unlikely I'll be able to do anything like this. So if I don't do it this year, I probably won't get to do it unless my fortunes change, which is unlikely.

So I announced, boldly but unconvincingly, that I would do the trip this year. 

Yun talked about going. He's a good friend who's gotten heavily into riding in the last year. Unfortunately, his schedule doesn't work as he would only be able to go through the middle of the summer which, based on what I've read, is really not the time to go.  

Unexpectedly, Rob, who went with us to Deal's Gap last year, said he was up for the trip. It was clear he was very serious. Life is conspiring to give him just enough time, during the right part of the season, to do it. In the last year, we've ridden together quite a bit and I have the feeling that of the new people I've met, I could do the trip with him, which is saying quite a lot. It's a tall order to travel far by motorcycle together. It's an even taller order to do it off-road through the hard parts with someone you haven't known extremely well for decades. Both he and I have had difficult trips that didn't go as well as hoped and don't want to repeat them. Personalities matter. Attitudes matters. Perspective matters. Risk tolerance and a whole host of other factors, matters. Most of all, getting out of your own head matters. If you go and do something difficult, something you've never done before, you have to let go of ego. You have to do the trip at the trips pace.

"If we do this thing, I don't want to be on a schedule. The trip takes what it takes." I would say as we discussed the trip. "Absolutely. I want to stop and look at things. If we make it only half way and run out of time, so be it. No goals." That was key for me. Being the CTO of a relatively large networking company, at least larger than any I've been involved with, Rob has lived deadlines, obligations and stress. He knows what it's like to be where the buck stops. He knows what it's like to be in that place where choices are made for you by outside forces and you have to respond not at a time of your own choosing. He's done the mega-long days week-in and week-out. Do this for enough years and it shapes you. I've often wondered if I'm really "entreprenuerial". I've helped found companies. I've helped build businesses. I've created and launched products, but, because nothing I've ever done has been all that successful, "two-bit loser entrepreneur" I sometimes joke, and because I'm singularly averse to promotion, I've always felt like somewhat of an imposter, a fraud. Interestingly, talking to Rob has changed that. After many conversations and so many valuable insights that he's shared, I've come to realize, "If you have the scars of an entreprenuer, then you are an entreprenuer." Valuable lesson learned. I think this concept can be applied elsewhere as well. He did a hell ride to Alaska as a younger man, just like I did, except that he made it and I didn't. He doesn't want a hell ride. If you have the scars of the long distance rider, then you are a long distance rider. 

Another key thing about Rob, despite being one of those annoyingly rock solidly healthy balanced and well socialized individuals, he understands how to interact with those of us who are more broken. Like Duncan and Bruce, he's not the kind of person to push you when your health or psyche are failing you. Unlike many others out there who are in it for themselves and value their own enjoyment above the people around them, he believes in team. If I get sick, and I will, we'll stop and wait. That is Good.  

The decision was made. We will do this trip. It will be long and likely the hardest travel by motorcycle that I've ever done. Because I'm sick, it'll be even more challenging with all of my flakey dietary restrictions and unpredictability.  We're going to try to camp in the wilds two out of three nights which presents it's own challenges. There will be rain, wind, hail, mud, river crossings, treacherous passes, insects, wildlife and likely angry farmers. There will be mechanical failures. The possibility of injury looms large. But we are going. And we will be leaving sometime late August or early September. 

We will travel off-road for approximately 4500 miles across the Continental United States.

(note very cool map. Note that it is created with my in-development mapping code. Now say "ooooooh. aaaaaaah". I feel better. Thanks.) 

I will likely travel back across country after meeting up with Ian. I'll visit Bruce either on the way out or the way back or both.  

This trip has some added complexities. First, I don't have a motorcycle nor any gear appropriate for off-road travel. This means I'll have to buy a bike, equipment and a full seat of riding gear for off-road use. Secondly, it's been over 20 years since I've done any real off-road trail riding. I'm not entirely confident that I have the skills anymore. I may be a modestly accomplished motorcyclist, but this is all a completely new context and I must approach it all with the eyes of a beginner, otherwise mistakes can be made and Trouble(tm) can happen. The most dangerous motorcyclist is someone who rode years and years ago and comes back into it thinking they know what they are doing. Be humble. Take it slowly. Re-learn.

So in the intervening months, there was much agonizing about what kind of bike to get. I absolutely wanted to get something fuel injected with heated grips. This implied a BMW. I read up on everything under the sun. I thought what I would need for a trip like this was an "Adventure" bike. These are machines designed for world touring. Technical machines. I thought fuel injection was a necesssity since we'll be going over passes that reach 12,500 feet. Carburators, being mechanical devices, can't compensate for the change in altitude and bog down at higher elevations. In addition, I hate carburators like the plague. Evil devices designed to inflict frustration and pain.

So I test rode every bike I could think of. We all went to the International Motorcycle Show and sat on every kind of adventure bike there. We pondered. Rob liked the Triumph or the Yamaha Tenere. At one point, we both thought the BMW Sertao was the right bike. But it was crazy heavy. 

Sometimes to figure out what you want you need to contrast it again what you know you don't want. So, on a whim, I sought out a very low cost "dual-sport" bike to sit on. The one I chose, because it happened to be close and I had read was highly regarded, was Francios's bike, the Suzuki DR650SE. It was a non-starter for me. No fuel injection. "It has a carburator? In this day and age? You've got to be kidding me!" I said aloud. No heated grips. Puny alternator. Yet it was very inexpensive and there was something to it. It was tall, but not too tall. It was light and narrow. I could flat foot it, which in my mind was a key requirement. "To solve a problem, sometimes you have to decide what wants you need to let go." I've said I hold on to my wants loosely. Could I live without fuel injection? Could I do the trip on this bike? I had really wanted a BMW partially because I thought I have so many good contacts of incredibly knowledgeable people in the BMW world that I could get lots of help. Maybe I could even get Bob's BMW to allow me to host a post-trip event.  If I do the trip on a non-BMW, that option is unlikely. 

So for the next several weeks, I tried to find a suitable BMW. There's a bike called the X-Challenge which is very similar to the DR in size. It's heavier but equally off-road capable. It's a dual-sport bike, not an adventure bike. Milner, another friend who's in the forum, got one and had it shipped across country. A decent machine that I thought would fit the bill, but I couldn't find one. I considered the F650GS which is more street oriented and I thought I could use it as a trainer.

I also considered that if Rob and I got the same bike it would offer an advantage. We could share knowledge and parts. In my mind, it just made sense. Rob seemed to think it was largely irrelevant and suggested I get whatever bike I was happy with. Still, I think riding the same bike offers more advantages than disadvantages especially when things go wrong.

I looked for a while longer and finally relented. I could not find a BMW that I thought I could reliably do the trip on. Either they were not dirt oriented enough or they were just too big and heavy. There's a big difference between riding a fire road and trail riding, and I would find out later that there's an even bigger difference in "true-off-road" riding, but that's a story for another time.

I read a lot more and finally settled on the idea of at least trying the DR650SE. I think it was Yun, or maybe Milner, who forwarded me the link to a 2009 DR650SE up in New Hampshire. It was clean with low miles. I forwarded the link to Rob because we had been talking about it. A few days later, as I was still agonizing, he told me he had ordered it and it would be shipped down in a couple of weeks. That settled it for me. DR650SE it was whether I liked it or not. A short while later, Yun or Milner, forwarded me a link to one for sale locally. It was also a 2009 and it had only 419 miles on it. "Done." I thought. No shipping. No having to get it through inspection. 30 day warranty.

Audrey gave me a ride up to Frederick where I picked the bike up. She was busting my chops a bit as I was mentioning that I had some reservations about Japanese dealers. I could hear her think, "BMW snob." But the Japanese vendors I've tried to work with have left me feeling like there's something missing. It always seems to me that they are not there to support you. They just want to move product and take your money. And that's exactly what it turned out to be. Even Audrey saw it as they were unable to answer even the most basic questions about any of the bikes they were selling. The dealer knew virtually nothing about the DR at all. "It's made by Suzuki. It's a DR650. That means the engine is a 650." Yea, thanks. Every time I've had a question about a BMW over a Bob's regardless of the vintage of bike they could tell me what it excels at, what it's deficiencies are, exactly what recalls were needed and done, what types of issues I might encounter during my intended use, things to watch for, history of other riders who had the same bike and what issues they ran into, suggested modifications, third party vendors they have relationships with that can do custom work, etc. Mattigan at the parts desk is an incredible wealth of knowledge. There's a certain pleasure I gain from working with people who really know what they are doing and take an interest in it beyond it just being a job. Do something you want to do, something you want to be good at. Don't just cash a paycheck. If you are there to help me for the long haul, I will pay more. It's only fair. For these people, selling this Suzuki, it was just a job, so many dollars. BMW snob? Honestly, not really. But the bike I ride is about more than just the bike. I rely on the people behind it. That's why I've been able to keep my beloved Blue Oil Burner running for the last 21 years. With a Suzuki, I know I would be on my own.  

Since it was a used bike, they did at least let me take it on a test ride. That changed everything. It took me all of a quarter mile to realize this was the bike for the trip. Of all the single cylinder bikes I've tried, even the BMW's, it was by far and away the smoothest. It's crazy light. It's dirt simple. That latter point made feel ok with the fact that  I knew I was on my own with it. There's nothing on this bike I would not be able to do myself. The bike has been made the same way since 1996 so there's a ton of serviceable, if not superbly engineered, after market parts for it. Rob had the exact same make model and year of bike. It was crazy inexpensive but I confess it feels remarkably solid. I was very surprised how much I liked it despite having virtually none of the key features I thought I needed. 

So I bought the beast.

There's a series of videos by some crazy Canadians documenting their offroad excursions. Amongst the bunch is one DR650. They named their DR the Mighty DR because it was quite capable.

Shortly after I got my DR, Rob got his and came by for a visit.

His is white, mine if black. The bikes named themselves. Meet the Mighty DR's Yin and Yang.  

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the bike as is is not ready for the trip. As you can see there's no place to store anything. Also, the gas tank is very small at only 3.5 gallons. The headlight is not very bright and there's no plug for charging electronics. Fortunately, mine already had the skid plate. I thought these plates were a bit of an affectation, but my opinion on that subject would be violently changed for me. The bike is fairly tall and I had considered lowering it so that I could use it as a trainer. I know quite a few people who want to learn how to ride and if the bike were a bit lower it could serve that purpose. I would also learn that a lowered suspension is a serious liaibility. Rob kept saying that he was going to raise the suspension on his. I didn't understand why.

So I did a bunch more research. One thing that I understood all too well is that I know virtually nothing. I also know there is a tendency when you know nothing and you're going to embark on something difficult, to make the attempt to guard against too many eventualities. Since you have no experience, there's no way to know what kinds of things might happen. I've seen guys carry spare tires but never use them. How likely is a tire to get shredded? Guys put guards over the headlight. How likely is a headlight to get smashed? From personal experience, I know levers break in even the smallest falls so have spare levers to bolt on is key. There are engine guards available? How likely is that? So I just don't know. I decided to take a middle ground. I imagined trail riding on dirt, mud, gravel and sand. I imagined the kind of riding I did as a kid. So I decided to prepare the bike for that.

I would need to carry equipment so I ordered a rear rack, side racks for soft luggage. I opted for soft luggage instead of hard luggage to keep the weight down. I got a tank bag. I got a guard for the headlight in addition to some driving lights. I got a tool tube which goes under the seat on the left to put tools in. I got a BMW style power outlet for it so I can plug in the electronics I already have. I got a used motorcycle GPS. It's waterproof and mounts nicely to the handlebars. And I got a thermometer. Misery is usually less miseralbe when you can put a number to it. I also got a huge gastank for it in addition to a center stand. I figure changing tires and oiling the chain is easier with a centerstand.  I also picked up a slightly lower seat made by Sargeant. 

A couple of days of wrenching and forcing parts that don't quite fit together to fit and it was done. 

I confess I like the way the bolted on parts make the beast look a bit meaner than it did stock.

The next task was to figure out what kind of gear to get. As anyone who's spoken to me knows, I am a big believer in protective gear. Since I had nothing suitable for a hot off-road adventure, I needed to get a complete new set of gear. This meant an off-road helmet, gloves, jacket, pants and boots. This turned into another round of agonizing and I explored every vendors offerings I could find. I even attended a special event up at Bob's to look at all the latest gear coming out. The M-BY-MC crew made a special trip up to Revzilla in Philladelphia, PA. Revzilla is another company filled with people that live and breathe motorcycling. You go there and you can just feel that the people that work there want to be there. It's not just a job to them. We are big fans of Revzilla. They rock. They are also greatly technical. Their website is simply fantastic and the product videos they put together are great. 

I considered every suit under the sun. I don't do heat well, so I know, riding in August and September, heat was going to be a bigger problem than cold. After much more agonizing, I settled on the Alpenstar Cape Town jacket. A nice woman working for Revzilla pointed out they do not offer matching pants but that a wide range of pants from other vendors can be made to match. I picked up a pair of Olympia mesh pants. Audrey kindly sewed the zipper so that the Alpenstar jacket now matches up nicely with the pants. I settled on the Alpenstar Scout II boots. A pair of Revvit off-road gloves and the Arai XD-4 helmet.

The Alpenstar jacket came with foam pads instead of real armor so I upgraded the armor to their latest offering. It included chest plates which I would learn is key. The boots have serious shin guards and as Rob pointed out, after he posted some gruesome photos of shin injuries, they are a requirement. Apparently a common injury in off road riding is having your feet some off the pegs and shattering your legbone. Ouch.

Not having any experience with any of this gear, I didn't really know if it was going to work out. I made my best guess and was going to have to live with it.

So the time came to take the Mighty DR Yin for a test ride. My intention had been just to take it for a 30 mile or so street ride. I got on it and immediately felt like I had been transported back to an earlier time in my life riding trails. It took just a few turns and an instinctive, "I wonder what's at the end of this promising looking no outlet road." for me to find a system of trails. I spent the next few hours getting the DR quite dirty. These trails were far more technical and difficult than anything I had done as a kid. I overcame obstacles on this bike that I would never have considered even as a little kid. "You live your life backwards." Duncan would always say.

Interestingly, within about 10 minutes of going offroad, a branch hit me square in the chest on one of the chest plates. It was a very slow impact so even without the protector it would not have hurt, but I found myself wondering if this might be foreshadowing. 

The cliche "It's like riding a bicycle." came to mind. I had no trouble handling the bike. I had no trouble climbing hills. In this stretch of time I intentionally found and overcame every obstacle that I could imagine I might find on the trip except a deep water crossing, or so I thought.

I would learn the error of my ways and come to understand a new context I had not considered.

Some time after I declared that I was confident in my offroad abilities having done more technical riding than anything I did as a kid, Rob suggested that we do a weekend camping trip in Taskers Gap in the George Washington National Forest. It's a series of OHV and ATV trails. "OK, sure. No problem. I'm up for some trail riding. It'll make for a good shake down run and let me get some experience travelling with this new bike and gear."

Acronyms matter.