Death Valley - Day 2 - Inside the Park

[LA-DUC]

Now inside the park. Lots to see.

Artist Palette



Badwater Basin

Shameful constant texting thanking the wives and girlfriends for being so cool as to let us live this lifestyle...

The ever elusive Death Valley packing peanut. They move quick but I managed to catch one at rest. I dislike most people - most of the time.


Good random photos to fill the space...

Dietrich's ride...talk about being prepared. Is there any gas in there? Lmao. Black powder coated forks...yumm.


David's ride...my favorite black SC...so well appointed.


LA-DUC's ride...gold dust woman will ruin your life.


This busload of Chinese tourists wanted me to tell you that Death Valley is the bees knees. Totally worth it. So much better than going to Europe.


To all our favorite peeps - Happy Holidays and PLEASE - Ride safe. Post more pics as we like reading ride reports and don't think we see enough of them in this section of the site.

[rapete]

Once again, superb pics!

[RudolphHart]

Originally Posted by rapete

once again, superb pics!

+1

[debby]

Awesome! Keep it coming. Death Valley is on my bucket list.

10F and the roads are all iced up here today, so no riding for a while. Even those Belgian dudes wouldn't want to ride here today, lol. Need more pics!

Debby

[aeolian]

Nice job guys. I have to make it out there myself someday.

[Talon]

Originally Posted by LA-DUC

Post more pics as we like reading ride reports and don't think we see enough of them in this section of the site.

LA-DUC, I totally agree. Thanks for posting this. Sounds like you guys are having a blast and with some beautiful scenery based on your pictures.

Keep it coming. We definitely need more ride reports!

--Talon

[dietrichpfeifer]

Hey! What about the Day 2 love? (Was actually day 3 for me...)

Here are my notes from the trip, sorry it took me so long to post up and if any pics are repeats:

This trip was too good to pass up with lots of roads I had never been on...BUT I was/am broke from being out of work for a little while. I got a new job that started the Monday after the trip, so a couple odd jobs, a donated spare rear tire from Kip (Primo) and a bit of coaxing and I was in!.

Packing for bike trips is an interesting exercise, especially in December, on a Sport Classic. On multi-day trips I always end up thinking of my bike as the "pack mule" by the time I get done. I bring tools, spares (regulator, bulbs, etc), clothes, music, camera, food...it's crazy, but I'm usually glad I brought most of it. I have a love/hate relationship with my tank bag. I hate how it blocks the wind when the temps are good, but love to scrunch down on it when it’s cold or I need to tuck-n-cruise. The loaded GT would bite me a bit down the road...

The first leg of my trip was just a simple blast across the desert on Friday to get to LA with a pit stop to visit a friend in Palm Desert on the way. I left around 11am to stay in the warmest time of the day. It’s about 4 tanks of gas from my house to LA-DUC’s place.



Arriving to the LA area around rush hour and you are thankful for the ability to lane split the hoards of slow or stopped cars on the freeways. I arrived safely and just on time for dinner and a couple drinks.

Then an unusual thing happened to a guy who has been riding motorbikes over 30 years….when leaving to crash for the night (don’t say that!) I started my bike, swung a leg high over the rear bag of the pack mule and all that momentum, coupled with the motor skills of an unemployed, inebriated middle aged guy and the next thing I knew I was wondering where the sidewalk went. Crash, bike on it’s side and me rolling on the ground. F$%#&^@#. We quickly got me upright. Broken clutch lever and fairly bent but usable shift lever. Luckily DGJ had a spare lever and in a matter of minutes I had it replaced. (Thank you!) He wouldn’t let me try and bend the lever back for fear of having it break clean off. We both had been there a couple times before. I could shift it, but not as cleanly as I would like for the next 800 miles, so I snuck a crescent wrench the next morning and gently tugged it back out when nobody was looking. Good as new!

We had some coffee and hit the road. It was mellow, and the traffic light. I love traveling like this on a bike, where I have no idea what route we’re taking, but trusting and following others and all the roads are new. Although the weather forecasts had our weekend and paths as mostly clear, we skirted the edge of some pretty mean looking clouds. A quick stop to add layers. I always feel like I’ve been “knighted” when donning my balaclava…haha



Something about riding at this time of year is just spectacular. We decided it’s the low winter sun that just lights things up a certain way and the crisp air keeping most views crisp.





Now it probably looks like all the roads were straight, but that’s just because that’s the only time I can take pics while riding at 90 MPH. Speaking of which, doing that behind a tank bag is hard to do! Every time you lean back to put the camera away, etc. you are back in the wind blast with no hands and it about blows you off the bike (I lock my throttle with a thumb screw). One time while chasing the guys, camera in hand, I reached down to bump the grip to correct my line and I accidently hit the kill switch at 90 MPH. It took me a second to figure out why I was thrown forward against the tank bag…then figured I would just hit the switch back on it should fire back up, right? Oh, it did start back up, with the throttle locked, and that surge of power almost threw me off the back! I was alternating between laughing and saying “shit!” in my helmet for the next few miles, smiling all the way. You can’t plan this kind of adventure.



As the guys mentioned, the planned gas stop station was out of gas. Crap. That is also the strange thing about travelling on a bike. Luckily in America there are stations almost every 75 to 100 miles. Just far enough apart that you can get caught out. I forgot my small MSR gas bottle from REI that we used on our ironbutt ride and almost turned back for it when leaving the house, but thought…”Nah, I won’t need it”. A quarter of a gallon would have got me 10 miles. We were out of gas about 6 miles from the next station. It’s a very nice sound hearing a Sport Classic with Termignonis cruising at speed across an empty desert getting closer and closer. Sounds like an old war plane…with a gas can strapped on the back.



The lunch stop was superb after kicking dirt on the side of the road. Another one of my favorite things about bike trips…finding all these cool and very tasty places to eat! Sometimes I’m surprised at such good places seemingly in the middle of nowhere and I often find myself trying to find spots like that in the city, but it’s not the same.

[dietrichpfeifer]

Can you see the road out in this one?



A note about our brush with “the law” when we got to the lodge. The ranger was a really nice guy and cool about it. I especially liked his approach. “We got a call about 3 Ducatis….these wouldn’t happen to be the Ducatis they were talking about are they?”. He was doing his job. We were polite. What I don’t understand is the people who make the calls. I imagine them as someone who never had a childhood, who has never had fun, and it just seems like such a miserable way to live your life. I had another encounter like this on my way home, but minus the follow up from a LEO. Just a grumpy looking old man with both hands gripping the wheel parked behind me at a gas stop, his old lady apparently taking note of my license plate, or so it seemed. Everyone I ride with rides with care – and by that I mean we all try our best to make safe passes, not act like jerks on the road towards other motorists, we just do our own thing. I try to ride in a way everywhere (city, country..) that if other motorists just go about their own way they will never have to budge, make corrections, or even know I was there. “You were going pretty fast when I passed you…”

Elevator to heaven at the ritzy place we didn’t stay at…funny to see this kind of place in the middle of Death Valley, but hey, I guess people gotta sleep and drink somewhere:



Couple more pics from the sites the next morning:

Badwater Basin, full of table salt:


…and apparently really bad water:


Artist’s Pallet, naturally occurring colors (not counting LA-DUC out there on a little hike):


I always find myself getting a little forlorn on “ride home” day. Don’t want it to be over. Still had a few hundred miles to go to get to Phoenix and start a new job the next day though!



The ride home was fairly painless. Gas, go, gas, go, gas, pee, eat, go, gas, pee, go, gas, go….haha It was a lot more cloudy than I was hoping for. I hit light rain a couple times. Heading into Las Vegas area there was a small mountain pass that I was NOT expecting. Thought I could hold out for the next 50 miles to the next gas stop, but as the elevation got higher, the snow line closer, the temperature LOWER, and I passed a sign that said “CAUTION: Winter Storm Advisory Drive With Caution”, I finally pulled over to bundle up. Luckily the pass was short, but it’s always fun to be riding with snow banks on the side of the road and for sure ice on the pavement.

Always getting home I am trying to make time. One of these days I’ll plan it way ahead, only go a couple hundred miles a day for the home stretch. Never seems to work that way. When traffic was light I cruised at 105. As eagle eye as I could be on day three for roof bars and parked cars ahead. Then it got dark. For some reason I was in the zone. The road was perfectly paved, with awesome little reflectors that made it feel like the old Atari video game Night Driver. Not sure why the cars where all parked, or so it seemed as I passed them all at nearly twice their speed. Why they put on the brakes for a high speed sweeper when they have twice as many wheels and twice as much light as I do I’ll never know.

It was fun. Had to back track for gas once to make sure I could get to the next, and last gas stop of the trip.

Strange thoughts go through your head out on the road alone:

“That engine light has been going on and off the entire trip. Like it always does I guess. But what if it finally shuts down out here. No other cars for miles. Nearest town is hundreds of miles. Oh look it’s off, must have fixed itself…see it just needed a good road trip. Nope, on again.”

“That chain must be under a lot of stress at these sustained speeds…”

“If I go off the road here at this time of night they probably won’t find me for days….”

Usually all of those thoughts are met with a bit more throttle…and motoring on.

Thanks for the trip guys! (And Stephano – if there is any way I can get the time to get your way I would love to do it, that part of the country has been on the list for a while now.)

My round trip route:

[DGJ]

Nice writeup D!

This summer we MUST go to the northwest.

[greggers]

Originally Posted by dietrichpfeifer

Thats a pretty nice looking beer selection for the middle of nowhere! You remember the name of that spot? Looks like an awesome trip, I'm curious to see how touring like this is on a Sport. I did my first reasonably long trip on a bike earlier this year when I moved from LA to Marin, but that was on my Royal Enfield before I got my Sport 1000. I should have taken more pictures, did Highway 1 most of the way, with a brief detour through the mountains to get past part of the road that had fallen into the ocean ()

Thanks for the post!