SoMD Adventure Riders Continental Divide ride 2012 (Execution phase)

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Welcome to the Southern Maryland Adventure Riders ride report for our Continental Divide trip. We have been planning this for quite some time so feel free to pop over and check out our planning thread.
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=735441

The players and their machines

1. Blaster11 (Bruce): R1200GSA
2. Dorito (Dana): F798GS (Twin)
3. EOD3MC (Dave): 990 Adventure
4. Joints4sale (Erik): R1200GSA
5. RFlagg42 (Eric): F800GS
6. Lakota (Marty): F800GS

Start point: Maryland
Time frame: 29 June - 22 July
Duration: 3 weeks (24 days)
Total mileage (approx): 8200 miles door to door
Direction: South to North, (Canadian border) maybe a bit further(Banff).
Accommodations: Probably a bit of camping and a bit of hotel, guesstimate about every 3 days hitting a hotel to freshen up.
Participants: 6
How to get to the start of the CDR: Ride!

Actual trip information
Departure date/time: June 29 @0900 hrs
Meeting/departure location: Wawa in Dahlgren VA.

The overall schedule



The daily schedule (This is not a hard schedule but just something to use as a guide so we can gauge our progress)



Feel free to follow us along on our trip.

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Ready, set, go!

Ding Ding Arriving!

Ready to go.......almost

MY brother and I just got done riding from Canada to Pinedale on the CDR. 90% of the road will be easy for those big bikes but the last 10% will be a serious challenge. Your best bet will be to keep them as lite as possible also in Montana be ready to deal with a 38% grade terrain, lots of slippery gravel roads, and some very technical rock climbing sections. Also your daily miles seems a bit optimistic, You will not be able to travel as fast as you want since a lot of CDR roads/trails are used by ranchers and you will have to travel slow around corners, unless you want to get wiped out by oncoming traffic. Which almost happened to us in Montana when a honda accord came flying around a corner at us in Bannack state park.

We rode dr650 with very minimal kit through all the tuff bits. We are currently doing the Utah back country route and will eventually make our way to baja then even further south. Enjoy the ride, be safe.

ps. Stop at the Wise River Club for some great food in Montana

I've been looking forward to this trip for quite some time and I'm glad to be taking it with the folks I'll be riding with. There are a few others who were going to ride with us that I wish were still going to, but that's life. I won't be taking my bike all the way back to Virginia Beach since I am moving to Colorado Springs this fall, so I am going to ride back down there and leave it in a storage room to make the move easier.

So, I'll be leaving this Friday as soon as I am able to sneak away from work, and I'll have about 2400 miles to ride before Monday afternoon.

First night I'll be staying in Bristol, TN with some friends. From there, I am going to head west to Nashville, where I will pick up and ride the Natchez Trace Parkway for its entire length. I am assuming this will entail much slower speeds, but I think I have the time for it, otherwise, I will eject early and set my GPS to fastest route.

Ultimately, I need to be in El Paso by Monday afternoon where a small shop is going to put TKC 80s on for me. The shop is a one-man shop run by inmate RPMMotorcycle and so far I have really enjoyed his blunt, no-nonsense communication regarding the work. I sent him a check ahead of time for the cost of the tires so that he would order them and guarantee they would be on hand.

We're meeting in Deming on Tuesday night, so I'll spend Tuesday riding from El Paso to the Mexico border and riding the first stretch of the CDR until I hit I-10.

Along the way, since I am participating in the Smoke Chasing Grand Tour, I am going to hit Barbeque restaurants in some states along the way: Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

Just checked the weather and it is expected to be hot, but not too hot, even though I have chosen to ride right through the heart of Texas

The route:
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/TtFN9rTWYx5bewTEh89CG9MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-1L7GaGequRA/T-cPW9JNmGI/AAAAAAAACRg/bzi3Qv9sKsk/s800/Route%2520to%2520Deming.JPG" height="278" width="800" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/104215032347645976213/ContinentalDivideRoute?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite">Continental Divide Route</a></td></tr></table>
Not sure how much I'll be able to contribute to the ride report along the way since I have decided not to take a laptop with me this trip. It will be quite the experiment and I may not know what to do with myself

Oh yeah, one more thing, I guess I better start packing one of these days....

Enjoy,
Eric

You guys sure have a ambitious plan miles wise. Your going to love the Gravely Range in Montana. Good luck to everybody.

Yup yup yup. Gravelly Range Road, and access roads, open July 1.

Looking forward to your report!

All of us are used to long days in the saddle and to be quite honest it is just a plan, so if we blow it it's no big deal because we have lots of time on the back end.

Hey bro... funny that I'll be in Bristol two weeks later... As for your route... (I know you said it) prep for warm weather riding. This is more for the lurkers than you but I wanted to share. During my warm weather trip West I was wearing jeans, danner (insulated) combat boots, finger-less gloves, and mesh bike jacket with climlite tee. Everything worked great, including the boots... the exhaust and heat from the road was killing my ankles when I wore sneakers one day because I was too lazy to throw on my boots after work.

I would store your Klim until you start riding North...


One part of riding I rarely talk about ... so Lance boxers or briefs? Neither. I am a huge fan of nylon PT shorts. I shop here. Keeps from getting Monkey Butt.

As I told Bruce, wish I was going. Work gets in the way. I'll be headed East 2 states above you. Crossing the CDR
this Tuesday. I found this blog from a CDR rider. Well Done. Well wishes all, I'll be lurking!

Oh and belated birthday high five

Hey what time yall plan on leaving Demming?
I leave the third from Houston and will be staying in Las Cruses. Hoping to leave around daybreak on the fourth for CDT.
Can't wait.
Hope to see you on the trail.

Tug

We are leaving out of Demming on the 4th probably between 0700 and 0800.

Alright, tomorrow is the start of the big adventure!!!! We will do our best to get updates done regularly and bring everyone along for the ride, tomorrow Nashville.

Free crash pad in Las Cruses !!!

Dan 575 740 4598

Lunatic....Thanks for the offer...I'll be sure to mention it to the others in the morning

Cannonshot...Thank you for the baseline to get the whole thing going...

I will be tracking you guys, so keep me updated with pics and videos if possible. I see JAX is already in Texas.

GOOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAAAAAAAAM!

How'd everyone sleep?

See you all at Wawa.

A bit excited are we ?

Just a bit...see you in a little while.

Cannonshot...Thanks for all the great work you did!!!!!!!!!