Navajo sand roads, shultz pass, home.
Corky decided he'd take the pavement home, so we loaded up our gear & checked out of the motel. We made a stop at the local McD for a hearty breakfast, & there noticed Kim's shift lever was wobbly. It was a long lever he had modded for his bike, but the shaft hole was a little bigger, & he had ground it down & bent it some to fit. It worked ok for the first few days, but those clutchless powerstomp downshifts must have taken their toll.
Ready for an early breakfast! A beautiful day, bright & cold.
Tom is a wealth of useful & useless information.. he had read somewhere that honda shift levers would work with a klx. Guess what Tom carries on long adventure rides? Right!! a honda shift lever! He unwrapped it & Kim held it up to the klx.. looked like it would fit. He took the old lever off & slipped Tom's lever on. Perfect fit!
The lever in place, & our breakfast complete, we headed out of page into the reservation. The first 10 miles or so were easy paved roads.. they climbed some, which made the morning cold that much colder. I shuffled my hands from the bars to the radiator & engine cover to warm them. There wasn't much traffic, but there was still a lot of wind.
Then the pavement ended, & we found some deep sandy roads. We had about 40 miles to do on this road, then likely more of the same to tuba city. After about 20 miles, it was wearing on us. Kim voted for us to cut over to 89a by the Gap, & neither Tom nor i wanted to vote against him.
Early & cold.. fast in the sand.
stopping for a break.. we found some firm road to stop in. We had to keep our speed up in the deep sand.. if you went slower than 45, you would wallow too much. I tried to keep it in the 50's & occasionally got into the 60's. but then some deep sandy wallows or some rocks sticking up would scare me into a lower speed. I bottomed out a couple of times going through a deep hole.
another break.. there was a traditionally dressed navajo woman in the background tending the cows.
Following Tom in the sand.. last stretch before going to the Gap.
I think the main reason Kim wanted to go to the Gap is he thought they might have some cool moto gear on sale..
We really only did about 60 miles in the sand.. it just seemed longer. It was only about an hour & 1/2 to cameron, so we decided to go there for lunch.
This was my last still photo. The closer we got to home, the faster the horses went, not wanting to stop. We stopped for gas in Flag, but nothing else.
But we did decide to take the shultz pass road through the mountains before we got to flag. Revived from our hearty lunch, we made the turn back onto dirt about an hour or so after cameron.
Now we were on a mission to get home. Our last dirt road behind us, we zipped down the highway toward oak creek canyon.
Going down oak creek canyon..
I turned into the dairy queen about halfway down the canyon, in case anyone wanted a break or an ice cream, but Tom just waved & honked his horn as he passed me. Kim stopped, but didn't want to go in or get off the bike, so away we went, on the road home.
Going home is definitely one of the highlights of any ride. We always have fun when we go riding, but we also seem pretty glad when it's over. Our own bed, chair, tv, home cooking.. all the things we take for granted are there to welcome us from our distant journey.
Tom kept on hwy 89 to prescott, Kim & i turned off toward the village..
My total on the gps was 830 miles. We had cut a few of the miles off, especially on the last day. No one was thrilled to do 100 miles of sand, so we took the shortcut on pavement.
But we had no major issues.. no injuries.. no crashes. It was a fun ride & one i'd like to do again.. maybe swinging toward the grand canyon on the way home. I was happy with my gear setup.. i washed my inner moto gear every day & hung it on the bike. It was dry by morning or sooner. I brought a single change of clothes & wore them every night for dinner & for breakfast in the morning. I can heartily endorse the roto pax gas can. It swelled a bit with expansion, but was sturdy & gave me plenty of fuel. The bike was great. The bigger front tire was an asset in the deep sand on the last day, & it didn't hurt the rest of the time. I'm going to run with it for a while.
I liked the ease of the helmet cam. The high res is nice, too, but takes a fast computer & connection to make use of it. It's the contourhd cam.. only been out a couple of months. it's easy to turn off & on, holds 2 hrs of video on an 8g card, & charges on a usb port. I got all the videos posted here, plus a lot of others on a single card. I just charged it at night in the room.
I'm still not sure of the value of video clips on the ride reports.. some of them are ok, but they tend to distract from the report. They take more time to view.. a glance at the stills & you can read on & get it over with. Long video clips just bore you & wear you out. Plus they're a lot of work to upload.
I also like my bag setup. The single tank bag by moose is functional, holds a lot, & has a big drink pocket on the outside. I usually bought a 1 qt. gatorade & put it there. That & my insulated bottle in the bag gave me enough fluids for the ride. All my clothes fit into the right pannier over the muffler. Tools, jumper cables, first aid, chargers, & other misc stuff fit in the left pannier over the gas can. It took me less than a minute to unfasten the bags from the bike & take them into the room.
I was also glad i took the mesh jacket.. it was pretty hot the first couple of days, & got cold the next 2. The fieldsheer jacket i have has a rain overjacket, which makes it plenty warm in cooler weather. The rain jacket fits into a pouch in the back of the jacket.
The ride is over, everyone went home.
End of Day 4.
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