225 Miles In Two Days

[MoparMan]

Took off on Saturday morning for a wheeler ride. Rode off my driveway and up the mountain into the North Coeur d'Alene drainage. Made about 90 miles on Saturday mostly road riding in an attempt to get lined up for maximum trail riding on day two.

We ended up camping on an old road that was pretty badly overgrown. This road must have been important at some point in the past because every corner had some sort of signage on it. Of course looking at what's left now I'd say that was a good long time ago.

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/9040/leavingcamppz4.jpg

Let me clarify...my riding partner slept in the road. I set my Clark up the drainage a bit on an old skidder trail.

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5630/clarkpy8.jpg

The creek was literally less than a stones throw from my hammock. Really helps a fella go to sleep what with the babbling brook and all.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/9610/clarkandcreekcv5.jpg

We retired early, got up at 05:00 made some breakfast and took off for some trails. This is where my picture taking stops for a while, because the dust was horrific, I wore a dust mask most of the day, and didn't really want to expose my camera to the moon dirt we were riding on.

We went southwest about 20 miles until we hit pavement. Turned around and headed north again. We stopped for something to eat about 10am just over Hayden Lake

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/2286/haydenviewes2.jpg

Dropped one riding partner off at my place about 1pm on Sunday, and his brother showed up wanting to go out...soooooo I dumped my tanks, and camping gear, topped off the bike and we went back up the mountain. We had a couple beers and some dinner at the Happy Hermit just outside of Lakeview Idaho. We made it down to Lake Pend Oreille just in time to watch the sun go down.

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/1829/pendoreillesunsetwy8.jpg

Got home about midnight with over 225 miles on the odometer.

[gunn parker]

HI
That sounds like fun, we would not be allowed to ride up in the hills of Perth.

[l1ranger]

great pictures man, sounds like a good time. I haven't ridden in several years now

[MoparMan]

great pictures man, sounds like a good time. I haven't ridden in several years now


We try to make at least one long distance trip a year. This was our second for 2008. We tried to make a run over the Magruder Trail in June and got stopped by the incredible amount of snow (3' just 5 miles in). Since we got shut out we came home a couple days early. That left us all in a position of strong negotiation with the wives for a weekend trip in August.

It's real nice being able to ride right out of the house. No truck, no trailer, no worrying that both are going to be unmolested when you get back to the parking lot. Just load up with gear and gas and GO!

Trips like this kinda make my wife crazy becuase we don't really ever have a plan except to ride in until we run out of gas top off the tank and ride back out the next day. It's our backyard so getting lost is out of the question and being somewhat loose with the schedule and plans makes it loads more fun.

We're already pouring over maps and looking at possibilities for next year. I think we're going to try for 400 miles in 5 days next year. The biggest issue is resupply of gas. I can carry enough fuel for 400 miles but it makes the bike zero fun to ride, so resupply logistics are on the top of the to do list.

[Cannibal]

Fuel caches?

[MoparMan]

Fuel caches?


Maybe, the only real problem with caching fuel is what to do with the empty containers once we're fueled up. More than likely we'll have to just make sure our route takes us through a town every 200 or so miles.

Not a huge deal really because in Idaho we can ride on paved roads as long as the speed limits are 50mph or lower. So a quick 10 mile run out of our way for fuel and maybe a nice lunch isn't really a bad thing.