Same Bike, Different Rider

My friend Ray had been looking for a Triumph Tiger adventure bike for quite some time. Since Brian had one of them, and was not riding it much, I had been trying to get the two of them together for awhile. Brian kept waffleing about selling it because he wasn't really ready to give up the idea of riding. Finally, Ray made him an offer he couldn't refuse. He offered to buy the bike for a bit less then Brian was asking, with the agreement that Brian could borrow it back whenever he wanted. Kind of a win-win situation for both sides. So last week Ray and I went on a two-day 665 mile ride over to John Day, Oregon where he got to spend some quality time on the Triumph to see how well he liked it. We did the usual great roads of Central Oregon that I have ridden quite a few times, but never get tired of....smooth, curvy roads, awsesome scenery, and almost no other vehicles. A plus this time was good weather, as it often gets pretty hot over there in the summer. Here is a pic of Ray with his new ride:

You can see the same bike when Brian owned it in the post before the last one. Of note is the fact that it has about the same mileage as my year- old Z650RS (11,700 miles), even though it is a 2008 model. That shows how little Brian rode it. (Kind of also shows how much I ride!) And here is a pic of me with said Z650RS and my home-made matching helmet paint job.

When we went to dinner in John Day, we chose one of the few places within walking distance, which was turned out to be a bar populated by the locals. It was pretty noisy inside, so we went out to the patio in back for a post-ride beer before we ordered something to eat. One of the local guys and his dog followed us out and proceeded to entertain us with his life history and philosophy. His name was Jerimiah and I forget the name of his dog:

The patio was enclosed by a fence and I suppose it was the outdoor smoking area, but there was a sign on the fence that said "no marijuana smoking". The locals had a way to get around this restriction and still participate in the party going on in the patio. This pic shows how it was done:

Yep, the woman went outside and got a ladder to peek over the fence while she smoked. She had a lot to say, and about half of it was f-bombs. It was quite the entertaining dinner hour, and when we eventually ordered somne hamburgers they turned out to be really good and reasonably priced. Here is Ray and I in a selfy with our after-ride beers:

So the bottom line is that Ray dicided he liked the bike and I had another fine ride on the good roads.

Not Quite The Ride We Planned

I found out about a ride that a group of friends from the PNWmoto forum put on every year around the first weekend in May and decided to join them. They head for Kamiah, Idaho where they all stay at the same motel and gather at some bar in the evening after riding local roads. I made a reservation and invited all my riding buddies to come along. Only Big Mike took me up on the offer. Came the weekend of the ride and there was rain predicted all along the route for all four days of our planned ride. Both Mike and I postponed to the next week when better weather was predicted and we could choose to only ride on week days. One reason I was especially interested in the route was that I could include a road that Carolyn's nephew, who lives in Idaho, had said was super curvy. It is highway 14 to Elk City, and is a dead-end paved road at Elk City. It would take us two days to get to Kamiah because we chose to include some good roads in Eastern Oregon that we had ridden before. One of these roads was a paved forest service road between Heppner and Ukiah. There was a sign just outside of Heppner that said the road was not maintained, but we didn't think much about it. Not too long afterward we came upon a slight bit of snow on the road and stopped to take a picture of what we assumed was a unique opportunity to see snow on a road in mid May.

Then we went a little further and there was even more snow:

And finally it got really bad. There was a single car track that had got down to bare pavement and that allowed us to get through. During the process, though, I went over a small patch of snow and came as close to crashing without actually crashing as I have ever done. The front wheel was sliding and I was going down, but I think I got back to clean pavement and caught enough traction to be able to force it back upright.

The rest of the day was uneventful, but the next morning Mike was not feeling well at all and reluctantly decided not to continue. He ended up staying in the motel another night and had his wife come a get him with a U-Haul trailer for the bike. He had not eaten for two days and was weak and slightly feverish and in no condition to ride. I continued on, being a bit more cautious riding alone. Just shortly after I started out I came upon a herd of Buffalo that must have belonged to some rancher. There were quite a few of them and not what you expect to see in Oregon:

They were heading towards me so I waited and this fellow got pretty close:

When I got over into Idaho I was impressed with how green everything was and all the creeks and rivers were raging with Spring snowmelt. There was some beautiful scenery:

I did ride to Elk City, and the road was pretty curvy, but what Carolyn's nephew didn't mention was that the pavement was pretty broken up, so that much of the ride I was searching for smooth routes rather than blitzing the curves. On the way home, I planned to spend one night in Walla Walla, but on my way there I went through Lewiston Idaho and decided to take a little detour and ride the Old Spiral Highway again. I think this is my favorite road of them all, and I have ridden it and written about it before in this blog. I had ridden it uphill on my way to Kamiah and this time I was going to do it downhill. At the top I met a couple of Canadians who had trailered their sport bikes down and were riding many of the same roads that I had just covered in the past three days, including the road to Elk City. They were brothers-in-law and friendly types and we had a nice conversation, during which they asked me my age (being an obvious old guy). When I told them I was about to turn 82 they were impressed that, being in their 50's, they might have another 30 years of riding ahead.

I choose a place to stay in Wall Wall using Booking.com from my phone on the way there. I was looking for a place close to downtown so I could walk to a place to eat dinner. When I navigated to the address, I saw nothing that looked like a motel, or had a sign. I went by the address again and still no clue, so I called the number and got a guy who said he would stand out on the curb and flag me in. Turns out the place was an old converted mansion that is in a neighborhood that probably will not allow them to identify as commercial lodging. It was a real cutsey place with a wine tasting theme and lots of outdoor spaces with a hot tub and lounging area. Being an old mansion, it had very high ceilings, which meant there were lots of steep stairs to get to my second floor room, and lugging my gear up there after a full day of riding was no picnic.

So it was a bummer that Mike caught the flue or something and we didn't do the ride together as planned, it still turned out to be a good ride for me on some of my favorite Good Roads.