Day Three of the CCC trip

Dano says:
I almost got a good nights rest, but I had Sir Snore a'lot (Nimec) under me in the bottom bunk-bed. I peeked outside and found that it was a glorious day and I was eager to hit the awesome roads ahead of us. I showered and got loaded up to go. "Hold on partner", said Uncle Dude in his calm, relaxed, on vacation voice spoke. "I need some breakfast and coffee before I hit the road". Ok, says me. We all order something to chow down on and warm up with. It was then that I found out that Uncle Dude's schedule is dictated by his stomach. A man after my own stomach..haha. I have no idea how he stays so thin, must be a tapeworm. Moving on, Utah Hwy 12 is a motorcycle delight, it must be ridden to understand. So many sights, views and twisties for miles. I almost felt bad for going more than a mile at a time without stopping for pictures,

but we did stop at a few great spots to grab some. If we had stopped every time that one of us in the group wanted to shoot a picture, we would have never gotten anywhere. Along the way to Torry we had a few run ins. You have to love open range roads, yes either cattle drives or cattle on the side of the roads. I got to hear the boom of the Staintunes again as I rounded a corner(at a slightly elevated speed) and had to grab brakes for a black cow on the road. Between the two big V-Twins booming along the cow made a fast exit into the woods. It still was a wake up call to me.....slow down(but the roads are empty and fun as hell, sweepers begging to be ridden hard) and keep the group safe. As I railed a few corners down the way, I got the chance to dodge some cow patties in the road. Wow, that's NOT what I want to do, eat shit as I wipe out on cow shit. Time to SLOW down. At one photo stop,


Bucket noticed that the clutch cable on the Sprint was fraying, great! I called MrBiff to start the ball rolling on finding a cable for us. He also got in touch with TheMoke as I didn't have his number. I also called Cheapbastard to help in the cable search. Major props to ALL that was involved and helped procure a cable for us, Nicene and BobW....you are great guys. So we tell Bucket to do as much clutch-less shifting as he can do to save the cable. Off we go.

I remember stopping once just west of Torrey and trading bikes with Hockey. He wanted some of that FiddyOne. At the gas stop in Loa,(after the high speed pass, haha) he expressed his fun with an ear to ear grin. With some "spare" gas bottles filled up and the tanks topped off, we set out to run Hwy 72. Wow, what a nice piece of road too, freshly coated and sealed.
It was a perfect day, wonderful roads, temperatures and awesome sights. Then it happened, we rounded a hill and you could see the road laid out in front of you for miles....and there it was. The perfect top speed bomb run road.

I surveyed it for about half a second and said it would be worth the ticket, next thing I know the RC51 is being pinned in each gear. I knew that If I didn't jump on it that I would have a few bikes passing me. Funk that! At 8,000 feet you lose a little power, but I was still able to hit a "Pass Go and go directly to Jail" speeds. It was awesome, at least I didn't get passed right? Well we hit our home for the next few days....Interstate 70. We stopped in Green River for gas and lunch. Subway it is, but we get hit up by a couple of young barefoot dirty, smelly hippies. I went inside and scarfed a sammich, then kicked the tires as we still had miles to go to make Grand Junction that evening.
I wanted to make it to a bike shop to see if we could find a similar clutch cable. The rest of the ride to Grand Junction was filled with open roads and Nimec doing the "Flying Cross" with his new throttle lock installed. Chad's actions earned him a new CCC name later because of this. He couldn't find that certain speed to just cruise along, no... it had always seemed to be a few mph faster than the rest of us. In doing so he weaved in and out and around us to go by doing the Flying Cross, than he would slow the bike down and retake his place in the group.

At the Spotted Wolf canyon we pulled over to take in the amazing red rock scenery. I suggested that we do a photo shoot with the awesome backgrounds.































We didn't make the bike shop in time, it was closed up, damn. Off to the hotel, we get settled in and Hockey and I decide to do some parking lot wonder work on the Sprints clutch cable. We roll over to Lowes and buy some aircraft cable and a few crimp sleeves. We pulled the old frayed cable out, threaded the new one in and crimped the aluminium sleeve on to secure both ends. The temporary fix is awesome and worked great. Hockey and I rule, damn awesome roadside mechanics. Time for a beer, time for dinner. Applebees's here we come. We walked over to dinner and stumbled back...whooo hoooo. I called it quits early, and sacked out.


David says:
Who knew the store next to the cabins would have such awesome food. I ordered a breakfast sandwich that was quite tasty until I spied Uncle Dudes plate of Eggs Escalante. The Dude knows his way around a menu. We hit the road after that for one of the nicest days of riding I think I have ever had. The scenery was amazing, the weather was beautiful, the roads were in great shape, (except for the tar snakes that continue to rattle me) and the company was to say the least "entertaining". At one of the picture stops I ask Dan if he wanted to take a break from the 51 for a while. As we were pulling out I stalled the Honda. It happens, new bike and all. Well as I'm trying to get her started again everybody pulls out and leaves me. Every time I hit the starter, nothing. I check the kill switch, the kick stand I even cut the key off and back on, nothing. Finally I put the old girl in neutral and she fires right up. By this time I am pretty far behind so the way I see it there's only one option. No worries Mark I shifted at about 8500 and didn't get it much past 130. That's about how fast I was going when I caught and passed the group too. That'll teach 'em to leave me. Dan did say later he thought I may have stretched the chain while I was on it. WTF does that mean, you calling me tubby? Leggy got a turn on Speedy and enjoyed it thoroughly. I don't think you could've wiped that grin off with a shovel. As you can see from Dans photos Spotted Wolf Canyon provided a pretty good backdrop so we all took a turn getting our picture taken. I generally hate having my picture taken but I figured I wouldn't get many chances like that so I relented. I even had Dan take one using my cell phone so I could send it to my wife which turned out to be great timing because she said she was missing me terribly when she got it. At one point we were just cruising through some easy sweepers and enjoying the sights when I heard the RC open up. I don't know if he down shifted or not but I went down two and hammered it. Uncle Dude was between us and he generally doesn't ride all that hard but he had a pretty good handful because for a while I wasn't sure if I was going to catch either one of them. By the time we rolled into Grand Junction Buckets clutch cable was on its last leg. After striking out with the local shops Dan and I decided to go all shade tree on it. I took less than $8.35 in Home Depot parts to put something together that would make it to Cheaps house without another worry. Then off to find some food. The waitresses weren't nearly as nice as the ones in Escalante but they did keep the Crown and Cokes full so they managed a good tip anyway. Day 15, 5447 miles so far.


Bucket says: Well what can I say, I was sad to be leaving the waitress from the diner behind, but hey, you break a few hearts when you're on the road. Here we were heading off again into the wilderness, fn awesome. The roads were brilliant the temps were good and the scenery was amazing. I was in another country with mates I had only just met a few days and the night before and riding motorcycles, nothing beats it. As mentioned above at one of the stops I noticed the clutch cable fraying rather bad and I thought not again. I had a clutch cable go on the top off Bathurst Mountain(Australia) once before and had to ride down the mountain and into Bathurst without a clutch, not a big fan of this situation. With a bit of advice from the fellas it was clutch less shifting and all was fine. I love the road trips we do in Australia but this was just amazing, I couldn't get over the sheer size of the cliffs and canyons. I remember as we were riding up to Spotted Wolf canyon thinking "Where the f#*k does the road go". From a distance you couldn't tell, I couldn't pick if it went around or what, then BAM, we were riding through the middle of this massive canyon. Brilliant. Lots of photos taken up the top looking down. When we rolled into Grand Junction we had to move the motorcycles from around the front of the motel to the side, that's when I felt the cable pop, there was two strands of wire holding it. We had to decide what to do over a few beers, then the maintanence crew rolled into action. Hockey and Dano came back with some cable and crimps and within what seemed like minutes it was fixed. Thanks fellas and to all who were involved in having a new one waiting for us at the rally, you know who you are. Another fine day.


miles traveled for the day=285

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