Waking up today to a beautiful day is quite a welcomed sight compared to the threatening storm upon us last night. Clear blue skies towards Taos, that's a good sign.
Leaving Farmington/Bloomfield heading East on Hwy 64 is a nice ride mostly along the bottom of a canyon with rocky tree lined cliffs on either side of us, quite contrary to what the scenery was yesterday. Gas stops are far and few between once again but we like the adventure. At Chama we could see all the snow on the mountains that we have to cross over. We are already cold at this point with all of our goodies on.
Gas and lunch was at Tierra Amarilla NM, its a combo town where a couple of stores cover everything. The only gas that was available was premium and he was only taking cash as his credit card machine was down. No worries as we have cash for gas. Lunch was at a tiny Mexican joint across the street which had awesome deep fried home made Taco's. The warm Taco's hit the spot as we were cold.
The next 50 miles was awesome riding but even colder as we hit snow. We climbed over the mountain and pretty much ran hammer down. It was freezing ass cold and taking 1 glove off briefly to operate the camera/video certainly did not help at all. My hands spent a bit of time on the engine cylinders and heads to warm back up. That's one of the nice things about an Indian is the built in heater. The only down side is I still have to navigate the twisty up hill roads with one hand on the handlebars.
We plowed our way up the mountain with power to spare and with no one else in front of us, not 1 single vehicle. It was an awesome ride.
About 15 miles before Taos are a whole bunch of derelict ramshackle shacks with old hippy buses parked around them that haven't run for years. I would venture to say this is a community of still believing in the hippy flower power way. WOW!!!
About 10 miles before Taos is a development of Earthen homes built beneath the ground. And what was exposed above ground looked like the martians built it. We took a ride around on their dirt streets to check them out. This is living proof that the battle ship Gallactica landed on earth here. Even the street names were weird like Earthship Way.
Then just up the road a couple of miles as if that wasn't enough, there is another development of Middle Eastern/Mosque type castle homes. WOW, this is la la land. Welcome to New Mexico!!!
There are some WEIRD folks up here. Time to bail and get into Taos and find a motel to thaw out in.
About 5 miles before Taos is a deep gorge as though the earth just split right there. It was only about 1000 ft wide but gosh it was deep and looked like a mini grand Canyon, quite breath taking.
I'm really loving the 45 Chief and it pulled in an honest 43 mpg through the mountains. It handles so bitchin awesome through the twisties, up the mountains, rough roads and anything else I throw at it. I didn't have to drop down out of top gear once even up the steep curvy parts, it was hammer down all the way. I'm just so in ore with this bike. I also have a 1944 Chief which is exactly the same bike that is my tatty looking Death Valley off road bike. I'm going to give it a full restoration birthday and make it my upcoming around the world adventure bike. These are the perfect Indians for this sort of stuff. The US Government really screwed up in WWII selecting the Harley 45 as their main service motorcycle. The 1940-45 Chiefs would piss all over them hands down and that's a fact. If anyone should dispute it, bring it on.
Heather's Leathers seat is as comfy as it gets. Not even an inkling of a sore ass after hitting all the bumps on each days ride. Saddlebags are awesome too. Deep with plenty of storage space. Great job Wayne.
Wednesdays ride overnight will be pushed from Dalhart TX to Pampa TX. It's another 100 miles which will allow us to get into Brass Balls Bobbers 1st thing Fri morning to check in with Dar and his Navy bike.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Taos 1055
Kiwi and I are both writing on the blog each night. After comparing notes yesterday we discovered that even though we rode next to each other all day we had very different experiences. My blog will start with our city and the total mileage for the trip in the title line. We started a bit late today so it could warm up. When we checked dulce weather it was 32 degrees and that was our first gas stop. Rolled out of bloomfiel around 9:30 and had a great ride starting up the mountain. Very little traffic and sunny skies make bikers happy. As we came into dulce you will be happy to know that the gomez grocery was bustling with 3 cars in the "parking lot". Hi gaga! The gas stop was fun as most of them are. Shortly after the fire was dissed in the jugs a guy was on us talking about his 48 pan head harley. He had put his bike together much like dirty gurl since the only piece on his bike that was 48 was the motor. We had more in common than I thought. He didn't have a job just like me.: ) I put on my rain gear to try and stay warm but kiwi toughed it out with a full set of long underwear,a wool shirt,a fleec top,a leather jacket and a full face helmet. What a man! Love my mate. After 40 miles we stopped for gas and lunch. This is the last gas before Taos and we did not need any issues up on the mountain. We ate at the lobo cafe in Tierra amarilla. Mind you we did not have a lot of choices but we were told that we picked the better of the two Mexican restaurants. Who knew? We both had beef tacos that had home made shells. Not sure if the grease dripping was from the shell or the mystery meat. I hope root beer is a disinfectant. The next leg of the ride was very cool. For 60 miles up and down the mountain we never saw a vehicle in our lane and only 5 cars passed going the opposite direction. Surely the biker gods are smiling on us as the rain went south,the curves were sweeping,and the landscape was breath taking. For a while I thought I was built upside down since my nose was running and I am sure my feet smell. Then my nose quit running. I thought this was strange until I looked in my mirror and discovered that that which was molten was no longer. Ummmmm TMI me thinks but you get the idea about how freaking cold it was. We had a couple of laughs on the way in to town but I know kiwi is talking about that so I will spare the redundancy. We found a very cool Lille motel in Taos. As we pulled up ,the whole office came out to greet us with a plate of choclate chip cookies fresh out of the oven. Thank you lord. After they registered us they came out with a pile of towels for us to use while cleaning our bikes. I gave mine to kiwi. Dirty gurl don't do no damn cleaning towels. We're off for Italian dinner and then hot tub. These bike trips are for only the hardy! Texas tomorrow.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Farmington
Departing from the motel we cruised through downtown Winslow past yesterdays photo shoot of "Standing on the corner" and maybe a couple miles down the road stopped for breakfast. Usually we always find a crowd around our bikes when we return and engage in some good conversation. Fuel up at the Flying J and we r set to knock off our 300 miles for the day. Greg and I are able to focus on the job and know how to knock em off, peel off the 1st 100 and we are a 1/3rd of the way there. While 300 miles might not sound like much to some, we are riding all secondary back roads with some being very limited in maintenance and on vintage bikes. We also decided for this trip to not take a GPS so all of our travels are by paper map, old school baby.
Riding through the reservation is magical upon an Indian and the Indians absolutely love our bikes. It mazes me how many of them ride motorcycles and know and respect Indian motorcycles. One native saw our Indian at the breakfast stop and decided to come in and chat about his 1970's Indian dirt bike.
At Crown Point we had to search hard to find gas. We found a UPS driver who pointed us in the right direction. Out here it is not normal logic to find a place to eat or get gas easily. The last time I was through todays ride was 10 years ago and a lot has changed. Some shopping centers have sprung up as well as the odd new gas station which is actually on the highway and not down some dirt road. Power lines now cross the landscape. Schools, wow many many nice new schools now exist. I liked it better before, no power lines, no commercialization, just Indians and the countryside and me imagining the buffalo roaming the land in years past. It's harsh country and not much grows here at all. Even the odd chunk of grass or more like tusock struggles. The Indians have it hard. It's not like they were given prime land to do something with, it's just so baron and harsh and impossible to make a living off.
Cruising down the roads we have to pay attention as the animals roam free out here and we had to stop several times. Sheep blend in with the clumps of bushes on the road side which can be interesting. We also stopped for goats, horses, cattle, hawks, snakes (didn't stop for them), etc, all part of the reservation experience. I did give my love the the girls (sheep) along the way as it's the Kiwi thing to do.
Roads today were certainly on the lesser maintained list with several miles over some earth that continues to move. It's very active ground so putting down new smooth pavement would be lost in a short amount of time.
I like the 1940-45 Chiefs for their great handling and nice ride. It's the best of all the Indians blended into 1 bike. The spring frame gives a comfy ride while the leaf spring front end gives a nice ride, quick and precise handling which is handy with these hazards. 18" wheels is also key to its great handling. It's also an awesome off road bike should I ever end up going for a wild ride off road!!!
Both bikes ran flawlessly. Up until today we were both pulling in about 40 mpg but for some reason I was pushing upwards of 45-48 mpg even up hills and in 30+ mph side and headwinds. The high mpg occurred all day long even at the 8,000 ft elevations we were running at. Maybe it's the Joe Gibbs Driven Racing synthetic 50wt oil in it. I really like this oil. Another nice side benefit of this oil is when it is very cold out in the morning the bike is still easy to kick over. If it were conventional 50wt petroleum oil it would be like molasis and hard to kick over. I'm just in awe at the mpg. The speedo on this bike is spot on for speed and mileage and I"ve checked it against the mile markers just to double check.
Farmington is set amoung all the dirt hills with dirt and dust blowing in the winds. We'll be glad to be out of here. Mind you we settled on a motel pretty quickly as a huge storm was just up ahead of us ready to dump it's load. Man it was black and nasty looking. About 40 miles back we experienced some big drops so we fitted ourrselves with our riding gear. It was the 1st test for it so it it was nice to know it will fit over all of our riding gear. While checking in at the motel we had to convince the motel clerk to keep it under the small entry way roof which took an act of god. We explained to her that our bikes weren't Harleys and that the big poobah at the pentagon wouldn't want to know the Coast Guard bike got hail damage on her shift. It worked.
Greg and I both like to get up early and get rolling. I like to take pics along the way and have learned to do a lot of them while rolling down the road at speed. I even got some cool video of the bike rolling down the road, wheels turning and with the speedometer in view. Just gotta figure out how to upload it, help anyone??? Left hand throttle makes the picture taking so much easier as my right hand remains free to use the camera easily. Greg gets a bit panicie when he's behind and I'm taking pics or riding with no hands so he led the 2nd half of the day which left me free to goof off behind him, riding with no hands which did get a bit tricky with sudden cross winds but since there isn't anything else going on out here I might as well goof off. A properly built Indian will have perfect balance with the rider leaning a tad to the left to make the bike move left and likewise to the right which this one does. Dam we did good. I'm lovin' it a lot.
Fri morning we will be at Brass Balls Bobbers in Olahoma City to do an oil change and say hi to Dar and see his Navy bike build.
We plan to leave here tomorrow fully suited up for the stormy weather.
Riding through the reservation is magical upon an Indian and the Indians absolutely love our bikes. It mazes me how many of them ride motorcycles and know and respect Indian motorcycles. One native saw our Indian at the breakfast stop and decided to come in and chat about his 1970's Indian dirt bike.
At Crown Point we had to search hard to find gas. We found a UPS driver who pointed us in the right direction. Out here it is not normal logic to find a place to eat or get gas easily. The last time I was through todays ride was 10 years ago and a lot has changed. Some shopping centers have sprung up as well as the odd new gas station which is actually on the highway and not down some dirt road. Power lines now cross the landscape. Schools, wow many many nice new schools now exist. I liked it better before, no power lines, no commercialization, just Indians and the countryside and me imagining the buffalo roaming the land in years past. It's harsh country and not much grows here at all. Even the odd chunk of grass or more like tusock struggles. The Indians have it hard. It's not like they were given prime land to do something with, it's just so baron and harsh and impossible to make a living off.
Cruising down the roads we have to pay attention as the animals roam free out here and we had to stop several times. Sheep blend in with the clumps of bushes on the road side which can be interesting. We also stopped for goats, horses, cattle, hawks, snakes (didn't stop for them), etc, all part of the reservation experience. I did give my love the the girls (sheep) along the way as it's the Kiwi thing to do.
Roads today were certainly on the lesser maintained list with several miles over some earth that continues to move. It's very active ground so putting down new smooth pavement would be lost in a short amount of time.
I like the 1940-45 Chiefs for their great handling and nice ride. It's the best of all the Indians blended into 1 bike. The spring frame gives a comfy ride while the leaf spring front end gives a nice ride, quick and precise handling which is handy with these hazards. 18" wheels is also key to its great handling. It's also an awesome off road bike should I ever end up going for a wild ride off road!!!
Both bikes ran flawlessly. Up until today we were both pulling in about 40 mpg but for some reason I was pushing upwards of 45-48 mpg even up hills and in 30+ mph side and headwinds. The high mpg occurred all day long even at the 8,000 ft elevations we were running at. Maybe it's the Joe Gibbs Driven Racing synthetic 50wt oil in it. I really like this oil. Another nice side benefit of this oil is when it is very cold out in the morning the bike is still easy to kick over. If it were conventional 50wt petroleum oil it would be like molasis and hard to kick over. I'm just in awe at the mpg. The speedo on this bike is spot on for speed and mileage and I"ve checked it against the mile markers just to double check.
Farmington is set amoung all the dirt hills with dirt and dust blowing in the winds. We'll be glad to be out of here. Mind you we settled on a motel pretty quickly as a huge storm was just up ahead of us ready to dump it's load. Man it was black and nasty looking. About 40 miles back we experienced some big drops so we fitted ourrselves with our riding gear. It was the 1st test for it so it it was nice to know it will fit over all of our riding gear. While checking in at the motel we had to convince the motel clerk to keep it under the small entry way roof which took an act of god. We explained to her that our bikes weren't Harleys and that the big poobah at the pentagon wouldn't want to know the Coast Guard bike got hail damage on her shift. It worked.
Greg and I both like to get up early and get rolling. I like to take pics along the way and have learned to do a lot of them while rolling down the road at speed. I even got some cool video of the bike rolling down the road, wheels turning and with the speedometer in view. Just gotta figure out how to upload it, help anyone??? Left hand throttle makes the picture taking so much easier as my right hand remains free to use the camera easily. Greg gets a bit panicie when he's behind and I'm taking pics or riding with no hands so he led the 2nd half of the day which left me free to goof off behind him, riding with no hands which did get a bit tricky with sudden cross winds but since there isn't anything else going on out here I might as well goof off. A properly built Indian will have perfect balance with the rider leaning a tad to the left to make the bike move left and likewise to the right which this one does. Dam we did good. I'm lovin' it a lot.
Fri morning we will be at Brass Balls Bobbers in Olahoma City to do an oil change and say hi to Dar and see his Navy bike build.
We plan to leave here tomorrow fully suited up for the stormy weather.