Giving it Hell on the California Trail

Two weeks ago I did 240 miles up around St.Joseph, Missouri. I had such a great time I couldn’t pass up the chance to give it another go, so I went back last weekend and logged another 220 miles. I left at 10:30am...the latest I was willing to wait for it to warm up. Temps were in the high 30's the whole way there and I was running 70mph+ on the interstate. Needless to say, I was frozen when I arrived in St.Joe. I molested a hand dryer in a gas station bathroom for ten minutes and then I was off and running.

I noticed that there's a California Trail sign right there in the tiny town of Wathena where I stop to air up my tires. It's at the intersection of HWY36 and Treece. I hopped on there and tried to wind my way along the river. Topographically, the loess hills are tallest around the Missouri River Flood plain and that’s where the fun riding tends to be. The stark contrast between the hills and the pancake flatness of the flood plain are fun to look at on a topographical map.

I'm fascinated and a little fixated on the rutted roads up around the California Trail. I always thought of rutted roads as just an uneven road surface. But these roads have been rutted and cut into the landscape over generations. They look like cuts that the railroads used to make back in the day. They're taller than a 2 story house in some spots. I've only ridden through them with vegetation off the trees. I can't wait to see what those roads look like with full growth.

It had rained in St.Joe two nights before my ride. I didn’t realize that wouldn’t be enough time for the low maintenance roads that I enjoy so much to dry out. It was mostly dry, but my inexperience showed in the muddy stuff. I didn’t drop the bike, but I got mired in the mud a few times. I caught myself treating it much like driving in the snow….making sure to maintain momentum, not making any sudden course corrections, etc. There were a few roads that I opted out of because they just looked too muddy. I could blame it on my slick tires that need to be replaced or I could claim it was good judgment. But passing up what appeared to be some of the most entertaining "roads" because they looked a little too gnarly in their muddy state.....well, that didn't set well with me. I can't wait to get back up there to have at it again.

On the plus side, it wasn't overcast this time and I didn't feel lost at any point in the day. I don't think I looked once at the GPS on my phone and yet I was able to meander my way methodically up in the general direction of White Cloud. I'm finding the Map My Ride Android app to be very helpful for tracking exactly what roads I've been on. It does a much better job even than Google "location history" reporting. I'm learning that - unlike sport touring on a street bike - dual sport routes are examined and scrutinized after the ride.
We've got freezing rain here right now, so there will be no third weekend on the KLR. Womp womp. But my new Shinkos arrived this week, so that should keep me busy in the garage preparing for next time out. I also went out and bought some fork oil today. I was going to just drop those new Progressive fork springs in, but now I am thinking I may as well go ahead and change the fork oil while I'm at it. I've got a new rear shock spring that came with the bike too, but I'll need spring compressors for that job.

Burning Daylight on the California Trail

I took the KLR our yesterday on my second long day trip. I left the house at 9:30am. I didn't stop for lunch, only took my helmet off a few times, and I rolled in at the house around 6pm...about an hour after dark. A full day of riding and I logged 241 glorious miles.

I've been riding a little over ten years and yesterday was different than any I can ever recall in that I genuinely was lost most of the day. Not lost in the sense that I couldn't find my way home if I had really wanted to. But lost in the sense that I did not have an accurate grasp on where I was headed most of the day. I was "dinking" around just exploring the loess hills around the Missouri River. It was warm enough yesterday that I didn't need heated gear, but it was completely overcast. At no point in the day could I tell where the sun was, and that key navigational tool threw me way off my game. I pride myself on having a good sense of direction. Yesterday was the exception. I would pass things that I thought I had seen "on the other side of the road" earlier in the day. Discarded oil jugs in the road, huge black cows wading in a creek right by the road, or major roads that I thought I had "already crossed" earlier in the route.... these were all my clues that I was getting it all wrong, but I refused to listen....like the stubborn mule that I am. I would stop to check GPS, then take off again only to find that I had traveled 2 more miles in the WRONG direction. I was just out exploring, so there was no harm done. But after the fact it looked like a drunken monkey had planned my route for the day. See below....courtesy of a cool new app I downloaded called Map My Ride.

Finally, toward the end of the day, I figured out that I could use the direction of the wind as my compass. Wind was coming out of the South and in Kansas there's pretty much always some prairie grass or something vegetative blowing in the wind.

I was following the California Trail several times throughout the day. Up in this area around Wathena, Troy and White Cloud where I've been exploring (all north of St.Joseph and KC), there are these big deep "cuts" through the land where the roads have been dug deeper and deeper into the earth over generations. They look like "cuts" the railroad used to make and they can sometimes appear several stories tall. They're cool as heck to ride through because there's trees and vegetation growing on top and earth all around you. I think it kicks ten kinds of ass, and the area near the California Trail has lots of it. That's where I saw this gnarly tree.

I had a fabulous day yesterday. The only casualty was the windshield screws vibrating out and me having to remove the windshield and cart it home in my fanny pack. My Della Reese fanny pack saves the day again once again. I'm getting more comfortable on the bike. I'm getting more brave on the bike, which causes me to wonder when I'm finally going to "eat shit" on the bike. I'm getting a compass for the bike. The KLR has fully earned my trust at this point. I can flog that sumbitch from sun up to sun down and it doesn't flinch.