Imnosaint
Adventurer
It’s a term used in the touring community, one that speaks to the benefits of motorcycle riding, of which I am a constant patient. There’s more to support this notion, research supporting positive effects of riding of lowering blood pressure, increasing endorphins, and the fact that the riding position itself is an open yoga pose is enough to make one feel better. It does for me.
It was under this premise, along with the news of clear PET/CT scans indicating I’m still in remission, where I hopped on the ailing Explorer and rode to Southern Utah for some therapeutic celebration, not realizing at the time that my bike was doing much worse than I.
I stopped at the Kolob Fingers, part of Zion Canyon National Park, a part that is overlooked by many tourists due to its geographically impossible connection by motorized vehicles, so one must be willing to hike. On this particular day, the road was closed about five miles in, so I was not able to get to the higher, more scenic displays of Kolob, but it was still a comfort view, none the less, of Navajo Sandstone along with the Entrada and Kayenta formations.
The Tiger Explorer was running rough with a disconcerting front-end vibration over eighty miles per hour. During the Kolob visit I checked things out to see that the front tire was beginning to scallop where tread blocks wear diagonally causing a vibration when the bike is rolling. There are a number of influences that can create this phenomena, all of which I just didn’t want to bother with.
I made my was to St. George where I visited an old friend and mentor and then on to Inn Santa Clara where I always have a remarkable stay. The following day I had breakfast with another great friend at George’s Corner, went to Ivins to cut a podcast after which I took a ride up through Snow Canyon.
My first experience as a freshman and Dixie Junior College in 1980 was their annual Sandblast at Snow Canyon, a social mashup of new students with the existing student body with burgers and games and red sand in your shoes. Snow Canyon has been hallowed ground for me ever since and on this particular afternoon, the sun, clouds and breeze painted and reinvented this magical place for me once again.
Nudging me out of my moto-bliss was a small pool of fluid that had accumulated on the left side of the front tire. Fork fluid was leaking past worn seals on the left tube, explaining the scalloping tire. The fork was failing, tweaking the tire’s contact patch just enough to make it wear funny, and eventually enough to make me take my life in my hands in limping the Explorer three hundred plus miles home the next day.
That evening at the Inn, my son, Chris, and grandson, Jon, joined me for Chris’ birthday dinner. I am spoiled in the love and cohesion of my family.
Temps were in the low thirties the next morning, making my ride back to Bountiful on the shiver-side of comfort, heated gear not withstanding. I decided to forgo the freeway route given the Explorer’s Achilles’ heel, taking me instead the backroad to Hurricane, the new Highway 7.
The sun was making the day’s debut by illuminating Pine Valley Mountain and her red hills, highlighting her high dew point on top.
This is my favorite time of day to travel, bike or car, and in this area the payoff of such an early departure is the color and contrast of the area’s iconic geography, but the feeling goes beyond what I can see. Behind the wheel I’m along for the ride, a pasenger at the controls, but still passive in the temperature controlled cabin, surrounded by cupholders and caged like an exotic bird.
Behind bars is much different. I’m connected at all points; feet, knees, pelvis, arms and hands all of which transmit the road, the air, the light, and the sensory onslaught to my core (corps?), connecting me to the motion, direction, satisfaction, fun, fear and purpose of travel. That convoluted sentence fails to adequately explain it.
In Hurricane I picked up on Highway 9 and rode that twisty byway through the Virgin’s late Fall change into Zion.
I picked up Highway 89 at Mt. Carmel Junction and had a squirrely ride up Utah’s old highway to Nephi where I stopped for fuel. So far so good. The approach to the gas station was over a bit of a curb, enough of a bump to collapse the forks, bend the front rim and compromise the tire’s bead, instantly deflating it.
I keep an air compressor on the Explorer and filled the tire back up to pressure despite the bent rim, and theorized that if I could avoid any more abrupt bumps, I could still possibly make it home. The downside to this strategy is there’s no backroad to Bountiful, I’d have to slab it on I-15, meaning freeway speeds so I wouldn’t become a hazard to the cages zooming by and to myself limping my old Triumph home.
I pulled off the Interstate every five to ten miles to check the tire’s air pressure and after the third check seeing that it was maintaining pressure, I decided to b-line the rest of the miles home, through Happy Valley, over the Point, through the Salt Lake Valley and up between the Wasatch Range and the Great Salt Lake to Bountiful without incident.
Digging into the Explorer I found the fork tube seals had failed on both sides, not to mention a few other issues soon to be healed as I prepare for next Summer’s big trip to the Arctic Circle.
It was under this premise, along with the news of clear PET/CT scans indicating I’m still in remission, where I hopped on the ailing Explorer and rode to Southern Utah for some therapeutic celebration, not realizing at the time that my bike was doing much worse than I.
I stopped at the Kolob Fingers, part of Zion Canyon National Park, a part that is overlooked by many tourists due to its geographically impossible connection by motorized vehicles, so one must be willing to hike. On this particular day, the road was closed about five miles in, so I was not able to get to the higher, more scenic displays of Kolob, but it was still a comfort view, none the less, of Navajo Sandstone along with the Entrada and Kayenta formations.
The Tiger Explorer was running rough with a disconcerting front-end vibration over eighty miles per hour. During the Kolob visit I checked things out to see that the front tire was beginning to scallop where tread blocks wear diagonally causing a vibration when the bike is rolling. There are a number of influences that can create this phenomena, all of which I just didn’t want to bother with.
I made my was to St. George where I visited an old friend and mentor and then on to Inn Santa Clara where I always have a remarkable stay. The following day I had breakfast with another great friend at George’s Corner, went to Ivins to cut a podcast after which I took a ride up through Snow Canyon.
My first experience as a freshman and Dixie Junior College in 1980 was their annual Sandblast at Snow Canyon, a social mashup of new students with the existing student body with burgers and games and red sand in your shoes. Snow Canyon has been hallowed ground for me ever since and on this particular afternoon, the sun, clouds and breeze painted and reinvented this magical place for me once again.
Nudging me out of my moto-bliss was a small pool of fluid that had accumulated on the left side of the front tire. Fork fluid was leaking past worn seals on the left tube, explaining the scalloping tire. The fork was failing, tweaking the tire’s contact patch just enough to make it wear funny, and eventually enough to make me take my life in my hands in limping the Explorer three hundred plus miles home the next day.
That evening at the Inn, my son, Chris, and grandson, Jon, joined me for Chris’ birthday dinner. I am spoiled in the love and cohesion of my family.
Temps were in the low thirties the next morning, making my ride back to Bountiful on the shiver-side of comfort, heated gear not withstanding. I decided to forgo the freeway route given the Explorer’s Achilles’ heel, taking me instead the backroad to Hurricane, the new Highway 7.
The sun was making the day’s debut by illuminating Pine Valley Mountain and her red hills, highlighting her high dew point on top.
This is my favorite time of day to travel, bike or car, and in this area the payoff of such an early departure is the color and contrast of the area’s iconic geography, but the feeling goes beyond what I can see. Behind the wheel I’m along for the ride, a pasenger at the controls, but still passive in the temperature controlled cabin, surrounded by cupholders and caged like an exotic bird.
Behind bars is much different. I’m connected at all points; feet, knees, pelvis, arms and hands all of which transmit the road, the air, the light, and the sensory onslaught to my core (corps?), connecting me to the motion, direction, satisfaction, fun, fear and purpose of travel. That convoluted sentence fails to adequately explain it.
In Hurricane I picked up on Highway 9 and rode that twisty byway through the Virgin’s late Fall change into Zion.
I picked up Highway 89 at Mt. Carmel Junction and had a squirrely ride up Utah’s old highway to Nephi where I stopped for fuel. So far so good. The approach to the gas station was over a bit of a curb, enough of a bump to collapse the forks, bend the front rim and compromise the tire’s bead, instantly deflating it.
I keep an air compressor on the Explorer and filled the tire back up to pressure despite the bent rim, and theorized that if I could avoid any more abrupt bumps, I could still possibly make it home. The downside to this strategy is there’s no backroad to Bountiful, I’d have to slab it on I-15, meaning freeway speeds so I wouldn’t become a hazard to the cages zooming by and to myself limping my old Triumph home.
I pulled off the Interstate every five to ten miles to check the tire’s air pressure and after the third check seeing that it was maintaining pressure, I decided to b-line the rest of the miles home, through Happy Valley, over the Point, through the Salt Lake Valley and up between the Wasatch Range and the Great Salt Lake to Bountiful without incident.
Digging into the Explorer I found the fork tube seals had failed on both sides, not to mention a few other issues soon to be healed as I prepare for next Summer’s big trip to the Arctic Circle.