Blood, Sweat, and Broken Motorcycles

[Streakerfreak]

With Christmas coming up and no one to spend it with I decided to go riding for the holiday weekend. My plan was to spend all of Christmas day exploring the back country of AZ, but thankfully several other options fell into my lap over the next few days. As I was picking up a few bottles of Franziskaner Weissbier for Christmas Eve dinner at Clark Whites house when I get a call from Clark himself telling me to meet him up the road with a few other riders for a quick ride before dinner. Off I went for a few miles of fun in the dirt. All I had for a camera was my Android since my DSLR finally died while in Panama.

Little did we know, the roads on that side of Prescott were still snowed covered with thick patches of ice that stopped us in our tracks. After only a few hundred feet and an hour of pushing and dropping motorcycles we gave up and headed for dinner. All of us still enjoyed our little trip.

On Christmas Day, it was time for my solo ride. I had asked for route ideas from several other people who have explored the region extensivily, but in the end it was Scott Brady's route suggestion that seemed like the perfect fit for what I was looking for. I grabbed my phone and my GoPro. After reviewing maps and other data I knew I would not be able to finish the route without extra fuel and supplies so upon reaching Mayer, Az and the start of the dirt portion of my ride I filled every MSR bottle I could find. Thankfully, this gave me time to warm my frozen hands back up in the bathroom sink as it was 20 degrees on this Christmas Day in AZ.

A half mile later and I was riding on dirt heading for the little "town" of Cordes on Antelope Creek Road.

One of the difficulties I am finding at least in this area of AZ, is that the roads are always changing names or numbers. Sometimes they are marked with their forest service number sometimes they are not. Planning out a trip in this area does require extra checking the names and numbers.

This is me playing with my phone

Antelope Creek Road ends in Cordes and while logically the road in front of me should just be Antelope Creek Road, it was not.

This is where the road turns into Crown Kind Rd (259). The road to the left of me was 259 and the road in front of me was also 259. Not an issue, as I was planning on doing a loop and ending in this same exact spot. I just had to decide if I wanted to start the loop going left or straight. Since I had been riding directly into the blinding sun, I thought it would be best to give my eyes a break so I started the bike back up and turned left onto 259.

After a wonderful and relaxing ride I reached Aqua Fria National Monument where I was still riding blindly into the rising sun.

Not a soul was around as I rode deeper into the national monument which upon reaching this section the road is now called Bloody Basin which consists of breath taking vistas, forests, cacti, and switch backs. Bloody Basin road is very much doable in a high clearance 2wd vehicle which made this ride very relaxing instead of balls out single track riding.

I was averaging 50-60mph on these wide open forest roads, but with every turn I found something new to stop and check out.

I was having a blast and realizing this was turning out to be a great Christmas weekend so I continued to ride mile after mile, enjoying everything this area had to offer.

Around mid day I turned on to Cave Creek Rd (FR24) in search of Table Mesa Road (Fr41), but stopped for lunch and to empty all the MSR bottles into my 1.9 gallon tank.

After reviewing my maps I knew I had a few more miles to go to reach my next turn so I began my look out. The miles kept racking up and I started to realize I might have missed my turn, but I could not figure out where I was. That was until I started seeing signs for Tonto National Forest and my bike hit pavement. Uh, oh. I knew I was not suppose to hit pavement so I had to figure out where I was.

The next turn off I would check my maps. That next turn off happened to be Sears-Kay Ruins. Never one to pass up history, I hiked the 1 mile trail in full moto gear.

Not much is left of the site, but for someone like me I don't care. I love it none the less.
​

 

[Streakerfreak]

Once I realized I had gone way to far south and that I was just outside Cave Creek I had to come up with another route and forget about Table Mesa Rd (FR41). I just did not have enough gas to turn around. I began riding towards Black Canyon City where I would pick up the route again on Maggie Mine Rd. Leaving Fr41 for another day just gave me another excuse to come back out here again. After several highways miles I reached Black Canyon City and began heading up Maggie Mine Rd towards Mayer.

I did not get very far. A few miles up the road I suddenly lost all traction out of the rear wheel. I had picked up a nail and blown my tube.

Sure I should be able to fix this since I am going out into the backcountry on my own, but I just have never done this on my own and all my tools and spares had been stolen outside the Hassayampa Inn. Nothing else to do but call for help. Luckily, Clark White was able to head down in his 4Runner. All I had to do was wait.

I wasn't completely lazy though and did some other maintenance items while I waited.

A little over an hour later and Clark and James arrived to rescue me, but it was not to be. We could not deal with the blown tube with the tools we had, so it was time to call AAA and have it towed back to Prescott.

Thus ending a great riding day.

​

 

[Streakerfreak]

Christmas Day turned out to be one of the best rides I have ever taken, so I was able to convince Clark White to come along and bring James and Forrest along with him. Two days later I loaded my bike into Rexsname Tacoma and head to Star Island for a new tube in my tire. The group would meet me there about an hour later and I would lead them on the route I had taken, but this time the oppsite direction so as to not miss Table Mesa Rd.

Things were going great and we were having a fun ride.

Then the road began to become more and more difficult. My KLX250s just floated over the obstacles while Clarks GS plowed through them. James though was having a bit of bad luck on this ride. Actually, so was Clark who just kept losing everything. I guess my luck was with them this day.

A few mishaps and bike drops later James found himself out of control in the mud which landed him into some very thorny trees and brushes.

After this fall and several other mishaps James ended the day with a nice deep gouge under his eye, bent handle bar, a broken top box, and brake lever later an we were back on the road. That said, he did great on his street focused BMW. Our muscles were sore and we were sweating like crazy and while I can't speak for the others, I was enjoying this ride today.

Numerous, bike drops, lost parts and tools, a forgotten SPOT device, trail repairs, and general confusion caused our progress on this road to come to a crawl and we still had mile after mile to go. I highly doubted we would reach pavement while it was still light.

We were exhausted, bruised, and sore, but we kept on pushing our bikes harder and faster. We would all sleep well that night.

I am very thankful I had missed this road on Christmas Day. It was very quiet and had something gone wrong on this technically challenging road I would have been in a world of trouble. We did not see anyone all day until we reached FR24 many miles and hours down FR41.

The temps were dropping and we were all pretty damn hungry so we pushed on through the night.

I know James may have regreted following me on the road and I felt bad he incurred so much damage, but I very much enjoyed every mile of FR41. As the night wore on we all realized we were hitting the point we should not be riding any more. It was getting too late and we were all beat and hungry. It was best to cut the rest of the loop short and head straight back to Prescott before any of us hurt ourselves even more.​

 

[trailsurfer]

Great trip report Phil

 

[Streakerfreak]

Great trip report Phil

Thanks, it was a great couple of days.

 

[Redline]

 

[Haggis]

Quite a nice adventure (or is it mis-adventure?) you guys had. Good to see you posting up some of your travels again Phil.

 

[Streakerfreak]

Quite a nice adventure (or is it mis-adventure?) you guys had. Good to see you posting up some of your travels again Phil.

Thanks man. I figured since its been over half a year since my last trip report and that this trip had nothing to do with moving or work, that it was time to post again. I put a lot of miles on the bike each week both as a DD and an adventure vehicle, but rarely stop to document it. I will do my best to start doing trip reports again.

 

[haulindave]

Looks like a great way to spend Christmas . Would love to ride there . Thanks for taking us on the ride . :bike_rider: