El Matador's and Desmolu's most excellent adventure. Writeup Finished!

[DesmoLu]

Alright, looks like its my turn!
So El Matador mentioned the pads, but what he failed to articulate was the look on Slag's face when we arrived in his garage, begin to strip off our gear and a couple of Maxi pads fall out of Matador's pants onto the floor. Note, he had taken these out of the wrapper - they looked almost used. The best part? Slag doesn't say a word. Just smiles.

That night in Ft. Worth we got to sleep with the comfort that we do not have to go anywhere on a Monster the next day. It is glorious. We even get to do laundry and put on CLEAN clothes for the first time in over 3 days. Clothes not caked in sweat and the rain of 4 states!! While we wait for Swampduc to arrive with the truck and trailer, Slag takes us out to lunch. Yes, only Slag will take you OUT to lunch when you are staying at HIS place. Damn generous guy he is!

(please note that as I am writing this, El Matador just accidentally ziptied his toes together. this is what you get when you keep a lot of zipties around the house)

Our plan is to leave Ft. Worth around 4pm and roll into my mom's house in New Mexico around 2 or 3am. Naturally, this plan is completely thrown to the wayside when we leave Ft. Worth after 7pm, miss our exit and take a nice 2 hour detour towards Oklahoma City. The detour puts us through a few of the characteristic west Texas towns - you know the type - the type of towns where Quentin Tarentino movies take place, the type where the cops prey on passers by for revenue so badly that the State had to pass a law capping the amount of money they can get from speeding tickets. Of course, we get pulled over. Its a nice speed trap coming into one of the W. Bumbmake the beast with two backs, TX main streets where the speed limit suddenly drops from 70mph to 25mph and the sign is strategically tucked behind a bush. Luckily, the cop just checks us out and since we "seem" like decent folk, lets us off with a warning.
"It was the Platypus," swears Swampduc, gratefully petting the furry creature on the seat next to him. He swears by the luck of the Platypus.

At 2am we are barely arriving in the thriving hot spot of Amarillo. We pull in for breakfast at a truck stop, the only place in town that looks open. This was a bad idea. Heavy breakfast makes for sleepy drivers. It's Matador's turn to drive and I am in the passenger seat keeping him company so Swampduc can take a nap in the back. Somehow we get the brilliant idea of having a sing-a-long to help stay awake. We are used to each other's terrible singing and don't think anything of it until it hits me, "Oh God, that poor soul is back there having to listen to this!" I think we climaxed with our Joe Cocker rendition of "A Little Help from My Friends" complete with all the "WAAAAAAAHHHH." It is bad. Real bad.

In the wasteland of Eastern New Mexico, all the gas stations are closed. We literally coast into a truck stop at Clines Corners on fumes. The sun is rising over Santa Fe when we enter the city and damn Slag is sending us texts saying "Greetings from Ouray!" - how the hell did they get there so fast 

When we finally turn into the road that leads to my house, the boys are relieved that the trip is over. Until they see the road. Our private road is a mile of dirt holes!

We collapse into bed at 7am and don't move again until the afternoon. I want to take the boys for a ride up to one of my favorite mountain twisty roads but by the time we mobilize, it is getting late and the weather has started to turn to a desert summer storm. Time has a habit of passing that way every time I'm home in New Mexico. I sit outside on the porch, enjoy the sound of the hummingbirds and nothing more, smell the wind from the cotton woods, munch on something fresh from the garden and then damn, the day is gone. So by the time we pull up at the base of the mountain to fuel up the wind is furious, blowing the bikes around and kicking up all kinds of painful things at us. The mountain pass I was planning on taking has a couple of steep and narrow parts that would be a bit too easy to just get blown right off the cliff, so we decide to forget the ride and just spend the evening prepping the bikes for DITR.

That plan is also foiled when my mom gets home from work and offers to take us out for Margaritas! Delayed bike maintenance occurs in the midst of New Mexican food coma.

Bright and early the next morning we meet the rest of the NMMR crowd at a *very* local joint for breakfast on the road to Colorado. The site of over a dozen Ducs rolling into this small town hole in the wall gets everyone off their seat. I am almost certain that they have posted a picture of our group on their wall at this point. The highlight of the meal is that the menu differentiates burritos between "handheld" and "smothered" (as in chili). As you can imagine, the "handheld sausage" jokes were endless. When we arrive in Durango we are still making "bet you are still full of that handheld sausage from earlier, eh? was it spicy?" jokes.

Matador has made the incredibly generous offer to drive the truck and trailer so that Swampduc and I can ride up with the rest of the crew. As we pull out of Durango and the road starts to look like this:

he is regretting that decision.

Pics don't do the road justice. For anyone who hasn't ridden the Million Dollar Highway, DO IT NOW. Stop everything. Your kids don't need a babysitter. Your boss doesn't need to approve. Just drop everything and go ride this damn road:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_550

When you do ride it though, make sure that your clutch isn't being finicky. Pulling out of the Silverton fuel stop, I had nothing but play in my clutch. After fiddling with it for a few, it seemed ok and since the entire group was gone, I just said screw it and tailed off after them with DucMouse who'd noticed my look of horror and stayed behind with me. Just as I pull out, my Matador has come back to check on me of course - what a hero. Now, clutchless downshifting isn't really something I had learned to do. I'm still a bit of a newb with less than 10K/2 years under my belt, no track time, and no elevation changes aside from 4 or 5 awesome hill country trips a year. Needless to say, an 8,000 ft descent of switchbacks into Ouray with a playful clutch was one hell of a rush.

When we finally pull into the lodge in Ouray everyone is admiring the view and getting to know one another. Everyone except for Matador. He doesn't say a word, just jumps out of the truck, unloads the S2R and gets his ass up the 550 pass as soon as he can!

[DesmoLu]

Yeah about that. I have these things called balls.

MINE!!!! 

[DesmoLu]

To further illustrate just how bad our singing is, in response to our sudden burst out into a rendition of Elvis's version of "You've lost that love and feeling," my computer just committed suicide. Yes, it actually leapt off of the couch into hopes of an early hard drive grave.

[Porsche Monkey]

 

[swampduc]

 It's Matador's turn to drive and I am in the passenger seat keeping him company so Swampduc can take a nap in the back. Somehow we get the brilliant idea of having a sing-a-long to help stay awake. We are used to each other's terrible singing and don't think anything of it until it hits me, "Oh God, that poor soul is back there having to listen to this!" I think we climaxed with our Joe Cocker rendition of "A Little Help from My Friends" complete with all the "WAAAAAAAHHHH." It is bad. Real bad.

The Horror... the horror...  <rocks back and forth>

[El Matador]

That ride up and down 550 was amazing. There is a set of curves coming into Ouray that are some of the most glorious turns I have ever ridden. My version of heaven includes those curves attached to the dragon and riding them all day long. I'm counting down the minutes until we  can do it again 

My little solo adventure took me about a half hour. I had not really ridden the S2R1K without a pillion, so everything was amplified. The bike was amazing, it felt so good. I wasn't going insanely fast, just a comfortable pace, but goddamn that bike is fun, even with the 30% power loss up at the mountains. Sadly, I had to head back because it was going dark, fast. I headed back into town and we went out for dinner at a small english pub where guiness and bangers and mash were had. I finished getting acquainted with everyone and the platypus took some naughty pictures with the girls


Paging Ducmouse to post up pics

The NM and CO crew are awesome, We had a great time but we were too tired to hang out. Around 9 we went into the room for a "nap" and didn't come out until the morning.

[Porsche Monkey]

 

[El Matador]

We seem to be losing interest here  Well we're almost done anyways....

We awoke in the morning better rested than we had been in over a week. If you've never been to Ouray it'll be hard for you to understand the utter epic-ness of the place. It truly is as though god had reached down from the skies, pointed his finger at it and commanded: "Thou Shalt Be Awesome". Truly.

The mornings are incredibly cold. In August, the temperature at 9 in the morning was around 50 degrees. That is, until the sun rises over the mountain. When this happens, you feel every single ray of light hit you and warm your body. It is an almost religious experience.  While I was off having a religious epiphany, the rest of the crew got suited up and left for the gas station. We quickly did the same and found that the rest of the group had already left. all of them except for Ducmouse and Plumber.

So the four of us it was, since Mouse had been here before, she was leading, and we took a very nice, calmed ride through some spectacular scenery. The only problem was that I had been riding a very nice calmed pace on a new bike for over a week, so I was itching to really let her out. Nevertheless, I wasn't about to leave them behind, especially not with Lu riding with them as well. (Whenever I ride with her, I go into protective mode.) So we continued this ride through some awesome canyons and twisties for a couple of hours, planning to intercept the main group at their stop.

At one point we got on a road where we wouldn't have to turn for about 50 miles. This road was like riding through the grand canyon with the most inviting 100 mph sweepers I have ever been on. I couldn't resist. I took off and behind me Lucrece followed. Due to some sprocketing errors, Plumber's bike was limited to about 85 mph, so they started falling behind a bit. The road was glorious, but I kept it in check for Lucrece. I was only taking the curves at a respectable 90/100, which was hard enough, the scenery was so beautiful and otherwordly that it was hard not to stare at the lines of the canyon all and run off the road.

Eventually, nature started calling. I picked up and told it to go make the beast with two backs off and wait until we stopped later. But it was not to be denied. It kept calling like a late credit card collector. Things got bad, so I decided to just pull over and get it over with. The womenfolk on the forum will probably not understand, but there are few things as satisfying as taking a good long piss. By the time I was done, I  heard the unmistakable sound of a v-twin railing it through the canyon walls. I expected Mouse and Plumber to show up, but to my surprise, kingbaby and Beemergeek showed up. Just FTR damn that beemer is make the beast with two backsing fast.  Eventually Mouse and Plumber show up and we take off, but not before taking some pics:





Kingbaby's yawn here tells all. He is obviously displeased at the lack of speed all this "standing around" implies.



Mandatory picture with the platypus:



Getting ready to go:



Kingbaby and Beemergeek take off at warp factor 11tyb and I follow them for the first three corners and sadly have to tell my right hand to back off. Soon enough...

[El Matador]

We pressed on and about 10 minutes later we stumbled upon the rest of the group in Gateway having lunch. We Stopped and had some well deserved refreshments as well.



There were some amazing cars as well as bikes there, A GT40 and a Vanquish IIRC.

Well on the way back we got separated again, a part of the group went to do another ride and the other was going back to Ouray. I really wanted to ride with Kingbaby so I decided to head back to Ouray the way we came. At first, we were all following Zaster and his wife, who was riding pillion. For those who don't know him, Zaster is a very experienced rider and was setting a very nice moderate pace. I felt comfortable following him and is one of the few riders who I trust to lead Lucrece. I make i sound like Desmolu is a bad rider, Let me assure you that she is anything but. Nevertheless, the way I felt when I came over the hill and saw her lying in the ground after her accident is not something I ever want to feel again, so I've become a little protective of her.

All of a sudden Beemergeek blows past us. Godec follows suit. My right wrist twitches in anticipation. I tell it to calm down. I haven't finished trying to tell myself that I don't need to go faster when Kingbaby takes off after them. Damn. I look back and motion Lu to follow Zaster. I give in to the Dark side. Those 90 mph sweepers on the way over turn to 120 on the way back. I'm having to pin the throttle completely to keep up with Kingbaby's 1098s. This is the first time that I really felt the effects of the altitude on the horsepower; but I didn't care I was having a blast. That ride back to Ouray was the most fun I'd had since the dragon. When we finally stopped I couldn't wipe the shit-eating grin off my face.

Here is Keith's version of it:

I second that.
 I wish you could have been with ElMatador & DesmoLu for the Colorado leg.  Saturday from Gateway back to Ouray was a blast.  Beemergeek & Goduc took off on the group, I stayed in front for a while then could no longer hold back, aaaand off I go. After a few corners I see a headlight in my mirror    must be the bull fighter...BINGO. I back out for a bit, he locks on, we pace up to the other two (very skilled riders on water-cooled four valves).  I'll let him tell the rest in his novel, but will say if anyone knows how to ring out a 2 valve (on a road that looks more like a video game), he does.   

Yes part of why I'm quoting is to stroke my ego 

All too quickly we reach Ouray  But we had the night and hanging out with the guys to look forward to 

This is how we looked when we got back:



We were ready for some cigar and hot tub for sure.

[Porsche Monkey]

Keep it coming buddy   Wish I was up there with ya'll.  I am very very jealous.

[DucMouse the Mighty]

That ride up and down 550 was amazing. There is a set of curves coming into Ouray that are some of the most glorious turns I have ever ridden. My version of heaven includes those curves attached to the dragon and riding them all day long. I'm counting down the minutes until we  can do it again 

My little solo adventure took me about a half hour. I had not really ridden the S2R1K without a pillion, so everything was amplified. The bike was amazing, it felt so good. I wasn't going insanely fast, just a comfortable pace, but goddamn that bike is fun, even with the 30% power loss up at the mountains. Sadly, I had to head back because it was going dark, fast. I headed back into town and we went out for dinner at a small english pub where guiness and bangers and mash were had. I finished getting acquainted with everyone and the platypus took some naughty pictures with the girls


Paging Ducmouse to post up pics

The NM and CO crew are awesome, We had a great time but we were too tired to hang out. Around 9 we went into the room for a "nap" and didn't come out until the morning.

i never got any pics, i was cameraless yet again    i wana say those pics of the Platypus were on Mojos camera...


very nice write up

[somegirl]

We seem to be losing interest here  Well we're almost done anyways....

You could learn from Scheherazade - one installment every night.



Anyway we're still paying attention, good stuff.

[kingbaby]

I have no idea what he's talking about 

Speed limit is 40-55 through there, we might have broken it a couple of times 

Remember the first rule of fight Club:  never talk about fight club  


Seriously, I do agree with everything you said about Ouray & that unbelievable road.
I am so glad you chose to ride bike in with me also. 

Keep up the great story...The audience is on the edge of their seats.   

[dusty]

 

[justinrhenry]

 [moto]