San Diego, CA - The Tire and Pants Saga

We left Vegas at 10 am on the 10th day into the trip (Saturday, October 30th). This was going to be fairly short day by our recent standards, only 400 something kilometers to San Diego.

An abandonned gas station in the Mojave desert, somewhere along hwy 15 between Vegas and San Diego

300 km later, we stopped in San Bernardino to pick up our new tires. Chapparral Racing is by far the largest motorcycle dealership I've ever been to, it's a freakin Walmart for bikers. Tons of bikes and gear on display. I actually had to take a picture, because the store is really impressive.

There was another section just as big as this, with thousands of tires. I didn't get a photo of that, though.

We also bumped into another bike from New Zealand there. Brian and Joanne have been travelling all over the USA on their BMW 1200GS for the past 6 months, and were just finishing off their trip in California. It's always fun to exchage with other travellers. Weather was great too, 30+ deg. C, sunny and dry. In Montreal, I'm a sweaty mess above 25 deg. C (humidity), but here 30 deg. C felt just right, especially after several cold days on the road.

We arrived in San Diego (actually, Chula Vista, which is the southern part of town, only 3 miles from the border with Mexico) just before 7 pm. The last 100 something km's were all 6 lane (in each direction!) highway, with up to 9 lanes in certain places. Everyone drives at 120+ km/h, lots of cars, and the many embranchments made the navigation a little difficult. I didn't enjoy that part of the ride (our bikes are a little slow for that), but the highways are impressive for sure. Even Toronto does not compare.

Our hosts in Chula Vista were John and Lisa. They are both members of a known motorcycle forum called Adventure Rider, which Mihai and I have been reading for years. The forum has a section called ''tent space'', where members can offer accommodation to other travelling motorcyclists. Since we needed a bit of time to do some maintenance on the bikes (oil change, new tires, chain and sprockets, etc..) and I thought it would be cool to hang out with someone local, I contacted John through the website 2 weeks before leaving Montreal (he had signed up in the ''tent space'' section) to see if he would be willing to have us over for 2 days. John and his wife Lisa gave us the green light, so here were were at their door step in Chula Vista.

Working on the bikes at Lisa and John's place.

California baby! Palm trees right at your door step.

The days in San Diego were fun, even if we were busy from morning till night, and ended up running out of time to explore the town a bit. We were complete strangers, and our hosts welcomed us and treated us like good friends and we had a good time hanging out together (thanks again, guys!).

We spent the morning of the first day in Chula Vista to shop around for the few items we were unable to score in Vegas. Mihai wanted to look for a new pair of motorcycle pants (a specific brand and model), since his current ones don't fit well (so baggy that he looks like he looks like a skater). It makes sense: you want to be comfortable in gear you will be riding in for several months at once. There are a few bike shops in the area, but none of them carries the brand. So no success on that day :/

The afternoon was spent installing new tires and chain and sprocket kit on my bike, and that was pretty much it for that day. Dinner with our hosts and we were in bed early.

John's Triumph Speef Triple. What a bike... love it.

Lisa's classic BMW R80. These are getting hard to find.

We started day 2 by servicing Mihai's DR. Everything went smoothly, until all there was left was the front tire installation at around lunchtime. For some reason, the bead on the damn thing would not sit no matter what we tried (sorry, getting a little technical here...). We wasted another hour messing around with it, and then took a break to go back shopping. We got back to Mihai's front wheel late afternoon, but again, no success and much frustration. Dinner and chit chat with our hosts, and we're off to bed.

We are now into our 3rd day in San Diego, and I've finally caught up with the blog. In the morning, we gave up and Mihai took off to a nearby bike shop to get his tire installed. However, an hour and 20$ later, the dealer didn't do any better than us the day before, so we're back to square one. At least it felt good to know that our amateurism wasn't at fault..lol. We will just leave it as is for now.

Getting back to the pants, the only shop that had them in stock is in Los Angeles (approx. 200 km north from here). Mihai would have got them yesterday, but most bike shops are closed in California on Mondays. Sundays are good business for motorcycle stores, so the employees get the following day to go out and ride. So at 11:30 am this morning, Mihai took off to LA to get the pants, whereas I finally had a few hours to write and post some pictures. Keeping this thing up to date will take some effort. Just like with homework back in the days, it is so easy to procrastinate. But I have to say, we have truly been busy so far and had not much spare time at all (except in Moab, where on the only quiet evening, I gave up on the blog in favour of whiskey..lol).

Tomorrow we will finally be in Mexico. The closest crossing from here is in Tijuana, but John has advised to us to go a little further east to Tecate. Apparently, the border post is much smaller and, unlike Tijuana, has little traffic. So the next update will be from somewhere in the Baja. Can't wait to be there!

Mihai finally returns from LA with DA pants. Alleluiah!

With Lisa and John, on our last day at their place. Do these pants make my ass look fat? lol

Random Thoughts:

Some of my buddies have previously visited the San Diego area and really liked it here, so once again I'll be leaving a place where I wish I had more time to hang out it in. I guess this will happening often during this trip... 6 months might seem long, but it is not considering how much ground we have to cover.

I'm in California and I have no swimming trunks. I went to a Walmart close by, and they only had three left over XXL pairs. Wtf?

We've had the best burritos in a long time, in a shop close by to Lisa and John's. Looking forward to more mexican food (I have my Cispro and Immodium pills and my E.colli vaccine taken, so hopefully things will not get too nasty ;)

Las Vegas, NV

We left Moab on the 8th day in the morning (11am, both of us are not morning people...). It was sunny, but pretty damn cold, so it was back to multi-layering and full blast heated vests and grips. The route we decided to take was cris-crossing several times through the Utah-Arizona border. The scenery was a little dull at first, but then got interesting again in Arizona. The low temperatures and windy conditions spoiled the ride a little, and by 8 pm I was fed up of riding, but we still had 300 km ahead of us. 

About 2 hours before arriving to Vegas,  it got really windy, and in a few places it was actually scary. We were getting shaken like rag dolls, and we had to fight against the wind to stay in our lane. Lots of butt clenching moments, especially when passing trucks, which added turbulence to make it even more fun :/

We entered Vegas around 12:30am. The view coming into the city from the mountains is pretty surreal. From higher grounds, the city appears like a huge pond of light in the middle of nowhere. Since we arrived there Thursday night, the prices of the casino hotels were already jacked up for the weekend crowd (rooms are much cheaper from monday till wednesday), so we had a booked a rather ordinary motel right around the corner from the MGM Grand. We had done close to 900 km on that day, so we were pretty burned out and passed out soon after.

The following day was mostly spent chasing after a few things we were still missing. Knowing that we would need fresh tires before entering Mexico, I had ordered two sets that were supposed to ship to San Diego. That same day I received a message from my contact there that the tires still haven't arrived. I then called the online retailer to see what's up, and the CR told me that they ship tires to CANADA only once a week, on Mondays! So they basically screwed up the order, and they were going to ship our tires to Montreal. I told them to cancel the purchase, got on the phone, and spent close to 3 hours looking for tires in bike shops in the Vegas and San Diego area. Finally I found 2 sets at Chapparal Racing in San Bernardino, which conveniently was on our way down South.

Later that evening, we took a little trip to the liquor store, had dinner at Hooters, and the hit the Strip to explore a little. No pictures from that night were hidden or deleted: we have to watch our budget, so we didn't explore any bars or clubs. And even if we had money to burn, I don't think they would have let us in, because our warderobe sucks...lol. We ended up walking around 15 km along the strip, before heading back to our room around 2 AM.

 

 

Belagio: the fountain show is impressive.

 

Enjoying the marble washrooms.

 

Cheesy, but still worth a picture.

 

 

 

Mihai and his favorite Quebecois star

 

Mihai and his second favorite Quebecois star: GSP

 

Random Thoughts:

 

Almost every gas station we stop at, people come up to us to inquire about our whereabouts. The loaded enduro bikes are definetely people magnets, unfortunately not chick magnets (yet?) :P. It's actually amusing to see the reactions we get when we mention that we're going to Argentina. I enjoy this gas station stardom. This is one of the many advantages of travelling on a motorcycle versus a car. The bikes trigger off conversations all over the place, whereas in a car no one gives a shit about you, unless you drive something exravagant or just cool, like a Land Rover Defender.

 

We've done a lot of riding by night so far, but will stop doing that once in Mexico. For one, because we will slow down our pace and adopt a more leisury one, but also because of road hasards such as dogs and vehicles without lights, and higher risks of encounters with crime.

 

Not much to do in Las Vegas if you are broke or on a budget. We don't gamble, so after one evening of walking around, we were ready to move on. Nevertheless, it is still very impressive and definetely worth seeing.

 

Vegas carries it's nick name ''Sin City'' well. The amount of advertisement for escort services (hookers) is astounding. There are people at every street corner or almost, trying to hand you out flyers for call girls. It actually gets annoying after a while. Drinking on the street is legit, and so is smoking indoors. What a contrast to some other places in the US where I've been, the so called ''dry counties'', where you can't even buy alcohol.

 

I was under the impression that I was hearing more Spanish than English all over Vegas. There is a very large Latino population, probably even majoritary in the area. All the signs are bilingual as well. Hearing and seeing Spanish all over the place will make the transition into Mexico a little easier.

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

Two days in Moab, UT

Day 6 was our first easy going day. We met up with Joe for some breakfast, and then headed off to Arches national park, which is only a 10-15 minutes outside of town. We were back at the hotel around 4 PM, and then just hung out for a while with our hotel neighbours (guys, if you're reading this, could you email me the photo you took that night, address is tarnowski.pawel AT gmail.com. Thanks.), sitting on the porch on some patio chairs, chatting and sipping on some local whiskey. Life was good.



The three DR's at the Balanced Rock in the Arches national park

 

 

 

 

 

 

On day 2 in Moab, we went to ride the famous White Rim trail. I had ridden this trail back in 2001 when touring the US on KLR's with my friend Raz, and this place completely blew us away. The scenery is just amazing, and until now it is the most beautiful place I've seen in my life. Being in the area once again 11 years later, I just had to ride it again. We actually hauled dirt tires all the way from Montreal just for that purpose.

 

It took us 6 hours to cover the 100 miles of the trail, and we had a blast. I actually enjoyed the riding more than in 2001, since I was on a lighter bike with better tires, and my dirt riding skills have also improved a little since then. Joe shot some really good riding videos on his GoPro helmet camera, so I'll eventually upload some clips here. Also, funny coincidence, at some point we encountered a Toyota Land Cruiser on the trail, and what do I see? A licence plate from my hometown back in Poland, Gdansk. I waved the truck down, and had a brief chat with the driver. They are heading to Argentina as well. For some reason it didn't occur to me to ask them for their contact info. I hope we'll run into them later again. I'd be curious to find out more about their adventure.

 



Installing dirt tires in the parking lot of our hotel, prior to riding the White Rim trail

 

Raz and I with one of the KLR's back in 2001. 11 years already...

 

Kicking tires during a break

 

HUNGRY Mihai

 

My favorite photo of the day

 

 This self-shot came out pretty good too

 

 White Rim trail scenery

 

Colors were particulartly stunning in late afternoon

 

 



Random thoughts:

 

For those riding dual sport motorcycles: the Shinko 244 tire is garbage. Mihai put a rear one on in Montreal, and 2 days later it lost all of its center knobs. Once again the ''you get what you pay for'' rule prevails, as that piece of shit was only 45$. Yes, it's a 50/50 tire not really intended for long high speed runs, but I would have expected accelerated wear, and not self-destruction.

 

We realized within the first few days of the trip that we just have too much luggage, even though we tried to optimize the packing before leaving. Some stuff will be shipped back home from San Diego before we cross the border into Mexico.

 

After a second visit in Moab, I just came to the conclusion that I eventually have to go back there for at least a week, with a lighter dirt bike. There is just so much awesome riding in the area... It left us wishing we had more time there, but the show must go on.

 

 

The First Days - Montreal to Moab, UT

Day 1: Montreal, QC  - Kitchener, ON - 633 KM

Last few days in Montreal have been quite hectic. We finally left from Mihai's place on Thursday, October 18th at 2 PM, having each slept about 2 or 3 hours the night before. Right away we got stuck in a massive traffic jam on the way out of town, a kick in the nuts goodbye from our city. It will definetely be nice to get away from the maze of orange cones for a little while. Although it was a warm 19 deg. C when we left, by the time we reached Kingston, ON, the weather turned foul: it got cold, rainy and windy. The riding was challenging, as the visibility was piss poor. We finally checked in in our ghetto motel in Kitchener, ON, at 2 AM.

Day 2: Kitchener, ON  - Joliet, IL - 773 KM

The second day started late, since we could get ourselves out of bed before 10 AM. After spending some additional time messing with the carburetor on Mihai's bike, we were back on the 401 only by noon. Soon it started raining again, and that continued for the rest of the day. If it wasn't for the heated vests and grips (in addition to the many layers of clothing), we would have been absolutely miserable. We crossed the border in Detroit, and finished our day in Joliet, IL.

The easy access to wifi has been very helpful so far. Since we were never sure how far we would make it on a given day, we would ride until about 7PM, and then stop at a McDonald's to book a hotel for the night, 2-3 hours riding distance further west.

 

Mihai re-jetting his carburetor in a parking lot in Kitchener, ON

 

 It was COLD. Looking like the Michelin man.

 

Day 3: Joliet, IL  - Grand Island, NE - 945 KM

Finally a dry day. It started off very cold (5 deg. C), but warmed up quite a bit later during the day. All in all a good day, even though the american mid-west is quite boring to ride. Long straight highways and agicultural land for hundreds of kilometers. It can be at times difficult to stay awake. The trick is to avoid large meals, and maintain a regular input of caffeine. We soon established that beef jerky and coffee/redbull is the perfect combo for these long days of riding.







Day 4: Grand Island, NE - Glenwood Springs, CO - 763 KM

Beautiful day for riding. More beef jerky and coffee every 250 KM (our standard distance between breaks). We arrived in Denver right before sunset, and decided that we would cross the rockies that same night. We began our ascent on hwy 70, up to 3300m above sea level. Although the weather was nice and warm in Denver that evening (probably close to 20 deg. C), an hour later we were once again freezing our asses off in the mountains, but this time worse than ever. Fortunately this lasted for only about 2.5 hours, until we reached Glenwood Springs, where we had booked our hotel earlier that evening.

 Roughing it in Glenwood Springs, CO

Day 5: Glenwood Springs, CO - Moab, UT - 320 KM

Another sunny day, although the strong wind made the ride a little annoying. This was a short day of riding, compared to the first four days. We made it to Moab in the late afternoon, and booked a hotel for the following 3 nights. As we were in the parking lot of the hotel, another rider on a DR 650 set up for travel pulls up. It turns out Joe has done a similar route to ours, but started in South America and made his way up to the USA over almost a year on the road. We later hooked up for a meal and some beers, and agreed that we would do some trail riding together over the next two days in Moab.

A word of praise for American highways. We rode over 2500 km of smooth interstates over the past few days. Total cost for toll roads: 1.10 USD (excluding fee to cross the bridge between Windsor and Detroit). Gotta love it.



Colorado - Utah state line

 

 Left my mark

 

Just like in the Lucky Luke comic books

 

Approaching Moab, UT

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As you can see, not that much to write about so far, as we just have been rushing to get across the States. Pictures from our two days in Moab will follow soon. Tomorrow we are heading for Las Vegas, so I'll find some time there to upload them.

 

Ride, Eat, Sleep

We've been on the road for 3 days now, and a little behind schedule due to crap weather on the first 2 days. Today was OK, cold in the morning (5 deg. C), but sunny and dry.

I'll update the blog on Monday with a summary of the first few days. We've been riding until midnight or later so far, so there hasn't been time at all to sit down and write.

Presently in Grand Island, NE, and we've covered 2450 km.

Surprise, surprise: we're late

Well, last minute preparations are taking longer than expected, and we decided to postpone our departure to early Thursday morning. Luckily the weather should be on our side on day 1, as the current forecast for is a nice 18 deg. C.

The first few days will be an ass endurance test, as we're planning to cover 3500 km in 4 days. We'll then spend 2 or 3 days in Moab, UT, which is one of the most amazing places I've ever been to, and a paradise for off road riding. If you've never heard about it, have a look at the photos under the following link.