Green River Utah

Post by **MojoScojo** » April 6th, 2011, 8:13 am

I'm back now. Long drive.

Do I bother posting a ride report?

Or are you all bored with the desert scenery?

Or since I don't ride my 500 anymore, maybe you'd all rather I just...

Post by **AlisoBob** » April 6th, 2011, 10:10 am

I'm interested... Who's group did you go with, and what were the highlights?

hoofarted · Post by **hoofarted** » April 6th, 2011, 11:08 am

Interested too - never get bored of desert scenery!

but I am curious as to why you're not on the 500.

Post by **AlisoBob** » April 6th, 2011, 11:17 am

hoofarted wrote:I am curious as to why you're not on the 500.

hoofarted · Post by **hoofarted** » April 6th, 2011, 11:59 am

The 500 is dead? No rebuild?

Post by **MojoScojo** » April 6th, 2011, 12:28 pm

hoofarted wrote:Interested too - never get bored of desert scenery!

but I am curious as to why you're not on the 500.

95 CR500 Steely

07 YZ250

hoofarted · Post by **hoofarted** » April 6th, 2011, 12:49 pm

MojoScojo wrote:
hoofarted wrote:Interested too - never get bored of desert scenery!

but I am curious as to why you're not on the 500.
95 CR500 Steely

07 YZ250

bah! What the 500 wont ST for you?

Is it possible that you need to AF?

YZ Scalpel --- to each his own, I guess.

Post by **MojoScojo** » April 6th, 2011, 1:03 pm

OK then. There is a local guy here (Paul) who has been riding dirt bikes since before I was born (I'm 41). He's presently 75. Every year for the last 12, he has put together a group of folks to go with him to the Moab area to ride. This year, since my dad bought his new KTM from him, he got invited and so did I. I couldn't turn it down, but it was going to have to be my only trip this year, and so I had to drop any ideas of maybe doing hoonfest again this year. Fast forward, last Wednesday I took my bike over to his place and got all loaded up in one of 2 trailers that were hauling 16 bikes down.

In all, there were 21 guys on this years trip. 12 driving from the Spokane area, 3 more flying down and the rest from California.
Ugh. What a loooong drive. There was some beautiful scenery out my window along the way.

The view out the other side wasn't so pretty...

We stopped at a Sizzler in Provo for dinner where we met with the guys who flew and Paul welcomed us all and gave us each a packet of maps of where we would be riding. After dinner we finished the drive to Green River in the dark. All told, we drove from 6:30 AM til almost midnight.

The next morning we hit the road again for about 30 minutes from the Super 8 in Green River. Gorgeous day for riding compared to what we had back at home.

Our destination for the day was a trail called Devils Racetrack. Oooo. Ominous...

Post by **MojoScojo** » April 6th, 2011, 1:21 pm

hoofarted wrote:bah! What the 500 wont ST for you?

Is it possible that you need to AF?

YZ Scalpel --- to each his own, I guess.

It will. It did faithfully for 13 years. I still have it. Still a solid ride. I may YZ/AF it someday. Who knows. For now, the YZ is the best bike I have ever ridden, and as such, is my ride of choice.

Post by **MojoScojo** » April 6th, 2011, 1:34 pm

Let me just say that Utah has some very surreal landscape. We were on the lookout for captain Kirk fighting with some lizard dude.

FINALLY! We get to unload bikes and RIDE!!!!

Did I mention I went along with my dad? He's 62. Still a lot of years of riding left in him.

What's this? Brian ready to provide free service?

Group photo and prayer. Paul is a preacher btw.

A gaggle of bikes nearly ready to depart. Look at all that ORANGE!!!

I felt like a freak riding some exotic. I mean really, a blue 2 stroke?!?! At least there was a 500AF there. See him on the right wearing the Dickies. 82 degrees out and this guy is wearing insulated Dickies... Amazing rider though. Then there's the nipple in the background that was supposed to be our point of reference for the day. I didn't see it again til I got back to the truck.

And off we go! That's Dad on the orange bike in front of me and Paul on the orange bike in back of me.

Post by **MojoScojo** » April 6th, 2011, 2:04 pm

From there it was a lot of road and dust up to the first real gather point worthy of pictures.

And the next stop.

Post by **MojoScojo** » April 6th, 2011, 2:18 pm

Our first long stop was at Dutchman's Loop. I was ready for it. Coughing up dust by then. See the helmetcam lense? I lost an hours footage to dust. Brand new camera, and I'm making trailside modifications to it to remove the lense protector.
Me

Dad

Brian

Stan

Carlos

View from on top.

Karl on top taking the last 2 pictures

Dad. Clearly enjoying the trip.

G FORCE · Post by **G FORCE** » April 6th, 2011, 2:31 pm

Great report and sounds like a nice ride. I also ride with my dad, who is 53, and it is something I will always cherish and remember. I'm glad to think he has a few more years in him after reading your thread. Thanks for sharing!

beekums · Post by **beekums** » April 6th, 2011, 2:56 pm

hoofarted wrote:Interested too - never get bored of desert scenery!

but I am curious as to why you're not on the 500.

Post by **MojoScojo** » April 6th, 2011, 3:53 pm

Just around the corner from there, we stopped for lunch. If you had come ripping around the corner out of control....

Steve. His first time EVER on a dirt bike. And people call me a sadist...

Good shot of Coeurd (hope I spelled his name right)

Devils Racetrack itself was hardly noteworthy as a trail. This was the worst of it.

None of the other riding on Day 1 was very noteworthy either. It was all about the scenery for me though.

We made another stop at the end of Devils Racetrack. There was a bit of a stream running through the wash there that was likely a volcanic hotspring as it smelled of sulfur.

From there we ran up a wash for what seemed like 20 miles. I'm sure it was only 5 or so, but it felt like a lot longer. I blew it there as Karl passed me and I decided to play tag with him but left the camera off. DOH!

Talk about an energy sap. Whew! We came to an intersection and stopped again to gather up. When Paul and his buddy Joe (another guy in his 70's) finally came rolling up, they looked hammered. Those boys can deal with the technical stuff handily, but brute forcing their way through the wash was a bit too much. On top of their age, both of them were dealing with other issues as well. Joe is going in for surgery of some sort this week. Paul was hit by a truck last fall while riding his street bike and is still healing. Tough old guys, let me tell you. at this point, a couple of guys volunteered to stay back and make sure everyone got back safely while the rest of us ran up another 6 miles of wash to finish out our planned loop. We got maybe a mile up the wash when we had our first mechanical failure. Coeurd got a flat. I'll get the video uploaded when I can. We all stood around and watched while he changed it. He's obviously done that a few times. We offered to help, but he was just like a machine. What was more impressive was that he found a perfect workspace and maneuvered to, and parked his bike on top of it like it was a trials bike. Did I mention this was a wash of sand about a foot deep in sand?

Where we stopped.

My gangsta pose. Actually, rubbing my left shoulder.

All fixed and back on track.

More view.

Went ripping through here so fast, I didn't even see the bridge.

And a beautiful sunset to end day 1.

Some hit the hot tub, and we all got cleaned up and went to dinner at the restaurant down the street from the hotel. Surprisingly good food for a spot in the middle of nowhere.

Post by **AlisoBob** » April 6th, 2011, 4:50 pm

MojoScojo wrote:Dad. Clearly enjoying the trip.

AWESOME!!!! ( x 249 )

2strokeforever · Post by **2strokeforever** » April 6th, 2011, 5:48 pm

looks like a lot of fun

Rooster · Post by **Rooster** » April 6th, 2011, 7:58 pm

Very cool!! What'd your Pop get - the 250 or 300? BTW, nice tank on the Zinger

. IMS?

Post by **MojoScojo** » April 6th, 2011, 9:11 pm

Day 2. Wow. Just fricken wow. This time we headed East to the Colorado border near Grand Junction. We also had a guide from the local BLM named Ruxsin. We're all _almost_ ready to go when our guide jumps on his bike and heads out. Instantly I'm thinking "This is not gonna be good." It wasn't. 5 riders were right on his tail. The rest of us were a little behind, not a lot, just enough though. Not 1/2 mile up the road and we're on singletrack. Pretty cool stuff too. Right on the edge of a ridgeline overlooking a valley but not so close as to be scary. Pretty soon, Karl, who was 2 riders in front of me pulls off at a nice viewpoint. He thinks there's something wrong as he was hauling ass and had not caught up with anyone. Everyone else pulls up behind and after a brief discussion we decide to continue on. Yeah. More time goes by, everyone starts feeling rushed and stressed. Pretty soon we come to another split in the trail. The guy in front of me chooses the road and not the singletrack and keeps going. Now I'm getting a real bad feeling. This is stupid. I continue on keeping the guy in front of me in sight as well as the guy in back of me. The guy behind me waves me on and so I go catch the guy in front of me. It's at that point he pops off the road and over toward the singletrack. I see another group of riders stopped on the singletrack aways ahead and so I look over my shoulder for the guy behind me. He's not in sight yet. So I turn off and look for the trail quickly and loop back to the road. Oh crap! the guy behind me just blew by and the next guy sees me but doesn't stop. I flag the next guys down and wave them toward the singletrack assuming they would catch the first 2 guys that blew by. Wrong. I probably made 2 mistakes there trying to make sure I kept track of where to go since nobody is waiting for the guy behind them. I'm too used to being the shepherd. I should have just been the sheep today. We had too many shepherds. Oh well, meanwhile, I've spun back around to the trail to catch them and am off down the trail. Yet another intersection. No riders. Ok. This has gone way too far. Time to stop and start rallying people back together. We now have 3 or 4 groups out on the trails. Not cool. We finally decide to bag it, head back to the truck, gas up and start over. Turns out, there was a haripin turn on the road that the first group took that you can't see unless you're looking for it. The 6th guy failed to pause long enough to be seen by the 7th. The first group was actually waiting about a mile down the road for more than an hour. Unbelievable.

The rest of the day went very well though with one exception.

Post by **MojoScojo** » April 6th, 2011, 9:12 pm

Rooster wrote:Very cool!! What'd your Pop get - the 250 or 300? BTW, nice tank on the Zinger . IMS?

300.
Acerbis.

Kuma · Post by **Kuma** » April 6th, 2011, 10:29 pm

Looks like an awsome ride.
and I like pictures

hoofarted · Post by **hoofarted** » April 7th, 2011, 7:27 am

Very cool!!! I hope to make it to my 70's and still ride with my kid! Were you anywhere near the filming location for 127 Hours? Funny b/c in the beginning of that movie, the main character is riding on a mountain bike (loser) - where I thought to myself - that looks like some bitchin' riding areas!

Post by **MojoScojo** » April 7th, 2011, 7:40 am

hoofarted wrote:Were you anywhere near the filming location for 127 Hours? Funny b/c in the beginning of that movie, the main character is riding on a mountain bike (loser) - where I thought to myself - that looks like some bitchin' riding areas!

No clue. Never even heard of it. I'll have to go look it up.

Devil's Racetrack