Friday to Durango...just barely!

Friday morning dawned with the bluest skies, and the promise of a beautiful day. I slowly reassembled my luggage with all of my newly washed clothes, and figured out what little bit I could send back in a flat rate postal box to lighten my load. I'd shipped some hiking shoes out there, and sent those back, along with a short and long sleeved t-shirt, my disk lock, the yarn I'd bought, along with some ambitious knitting needles that never were used. I gave the bike a quick wash in the garage and loaded it up.

I wasn't expected in Durango for anything before supper, so my departure time was flexible enough that Adair and I went for breakfast downtown, sitting outside and watching magpies steal butter off the table next to us. I didn't leave until about 11:45 (and felt bad doing so, because Adair had locked her keys inside her vehicle...stink!) However, I didn't have any locksmithing skills, and I did have an appointment in Durango, so I had to leave. For the first half of the day, the bike seemed to run ok. Still a little on the wheezy side, but actually better than it had been when I'd taken it up to Glenwood Springs (before adding the fuel stuff).

The route I took went up to Carbondale, and over through Redstone on 133 to Delta and down to Montrose. There was everything from a mountain pass (McClure) to big open valleys, to rock faces along a river bank, to high desert scrub. In one part, the road was closed, and the directions of traffic were being diverted onto a gravel road to skirt the construction. The road was rough enough, I had to stand on my footpegs while riding across, and while doing so, I heard a clang against my gas tank, but wasn't sure what it was, until I got back on the main road and sat down. My EZ-Pass had been jounced off the velcro tabs holding it to the windshield, and there was no way I could have gone back to get it. Boo! (At least I'm not planning any trips that would need that any time soon.)

Once in Delta, I stopped to change from my black textile riding jacket to my white mesh jacket, and was very happy to have that option, because it was stinking hot going through there (and anyone who thinks dry heat is the way to go can kiss my toe.) A few miles down the road was Montrose, which is pretty much where the fun starts for the last 100 miles to Durango.

Well, the last 100 miles to Durango would be fun if your bike wasn't suddenly seized by a mysterious illness. While going through town, the bike started acting peculiar, with hardly any power unless I kept the rpm pretty high. I had to stop for gas anyway, and hoped resting it for a few minutes might help whatever kink was there to get out. Drank a bottle of water, put in the second half of the bottle of fuel treatment in the newly filled tank, and got back on the road. If there was any grade at all, the bike would start to slow down to the point I'd have to downshift a couple of gears and rev it up to get any kind of power. The elevation at Montrose is 5806, which shouldn't have been high enough to give my bike any problems, since it had gone up McClure Pass earlier (8763) without too much of a problem. I figured I'd push on until it wouldn't go any more, since there wasn't anything I could do to fix the problem, and just had to keep the bike in the 6,000 to 7,000 rpm range to go forward.

Once in Ouray, at 7792 feet up, I thought I might get a few dirty looks for violating their noise pollution ordinance, because even though I was only going 25-30 mph through town, you could hear the engine revs from several blocks away. After Ouray, the biggest and baddest mountain pass was yet to come, in the shape of Red Mountain Pass, with sheer cliffs along the outside lane of the highway. Almost like magic, a Subaru appeared in front of me. From Florida. Florida only has curves in entrance ramps to the interstates, so any curve that requires skill simply baffles a Florida driver. Which means they drive very slowly through anything with a mild bend, which tends to make it hard for me to keep my bike in the rpm range it needs to be. Rawr! What's even worse, they refuse to pull over into any of the 'slower traffic move right' lanes, and I can't get around them until a bonafide passing lane shows up on a fairly level stretch.

I finally pass them, and a nice open stretch shows up, where I can make some time, but then a gradual grade appears. I try to keep it revved enough to maintain my speed, but even with the throttle twisted completely open, I keep losing power. Downshift and throttle? Still losing. Downshift and downshift to first gear. I've got the throttle opened all the way up, and the bike has slowed to right about 30 mph, and I'm in a 45 or 50 mph zone. I was about to think I'd need to start looking for a place to pull over, when suddenly the bike acted like it had been kicked in the pants, and the speed started building until I was going 60 mph and still pulling. I upshifted some, but started losing power again. It ended up with me going through the pass in 1st gear at about 30 mph, running between 8k and 9k rpm. The bike starts the redline at 11k, and by the time I crested the pass, my temp gauge was creeping into the red (what a shock!)

Once I got over the hump, though, I was able to let gravity help out, and kept the bike more in the 6k range, in about 3rd gear. Even with that, though, the bike continued to surge and lunge, and it was wearing me slap out. When Silverton came into view, I saw someone on a dirt bike at a garage attached to a Conoco, and thought about stopping in there, but decided to try to push on. The next curve had the first grade starting up the next pass, and the bike was still fighting me. I though it might have had a clogged air filter, or gummed spark plugs to make it run so horribly, and when it was still bucking when I was trying the next hill, I pulled over into a parking area, and headed back down the hill to the Conoco.

I rode around to the back where the shop was, walked inside and told the guy I might need some help on my bike. To my dismay, he told me he didn't know the first thing about bikes, and wouldn't even know where to begin to look for anything. Hiawatha! It was 4:30 by then, and I had told Jo I'd be in Durango between 4:30 and 5:00. Not gonna happen. I was so tired at that point, almost to the point of shaking, and with the disappointment of him not being able to help, I had to fight tears for a couple of minutes. I took the seat off the bike to see if it looked hard to get to the air filter, since I knew the general area where it was. Yeah, it wasn't like in a car where you spin a wingnut and pop it out.

The Conoco guy did offer encouragement that the next pass wasn't nearly the climb that Red Mountain pass had been, and he also pointed out that the extreme heat of the day also caused the air density to be considerably less, so not only was the bike having to deal with less oxygen from altitude, it was getting a double whammy from the heat. He suggested if I wait until it got dark, and cooled, I'd probably make it ok. It was only another 50 minutes or so to Durango from there, so I decided to wait a few minutes to rest and gather my wits again, and just push on. At 5:00, I got back on the road, and was able to wrestle the bike up the pass. There's a nice view at the top, so I pulled off to get a shot, although the bike didn't much want to start back up once it was time to go.

Finally got it cranked, revved it up, and headed DOWN the mountain (hooray!). I still had to keep the revs up over 7.5k rpm in order to maintain speed, and when I finally got into the outskirts of Durango, I was so glad the ride was almost done. I decided if the bike was going to do that in the mountains, there was no way I was going to put him through that again, since I'm only half way done with my trip...still gotta get home, and thought it not prudent to flail the bike up the mountains again. Plus, it wasn't fun to have to ride it like that.

By the time I pulled into Jo's driveway, at 6,500 feet, the bike was running way worse than it had in Aspen at nearly 8,000 feet. There were already a dozen bikes lined up from other riders coming in from various neighboring (and not so neighboring) states. I was pretty disappointed about it, but went ahead and told Jo I couldn't ride the next day. She told me they had room for me in the 'chase vehicle' that would be following the bikes, so I'd still get to go on the run, just not on two wheels. Ah well, at least that would give me the opportunity to get some decent pictures while not having to deal with a cranky and finicky bike at altitude.

About 20 minutes after I arrived, the last two of the group showed up from Tucson, and we shortly headed out to dinner in town. It was pretty cool to finally get to meet the people behind the posts on the BBO website. Of the group, I could probably identify half of them by sight (pictures posted on the website), and the other half I knew by screen name only. There were bikes mixed all the way from a Ninja 250, to a KTM 950 SM, to a Honda Shadow ACE 750, to a BMW K1300S, to a Volusia.

On the website, I often read (or lurk) more than I post, and similarly, I try to listen more than I speak, so supper was interesting, sitting between someone who'd served in Iraq, and someone who'd gone through a snow shed too fast last year. I was tired, so I wasn't contributing too much, and still bummed about the non riding that would be going on. I was definitely thankful I'd made it that far, and trusting God to provide to get me home, even with the bike seeming in such horrible shape. I finally hit the rack around 11 Friday night, hoping my (inevitably tired) snoring didn't keep my two roommates up.