Robin: Hello everybody, I'm Howard Stern.

Travis: I'm the voice of TV's How It's Made. And I'm NPR.

Robin: And this is the Tim Clark episode of the Riding Obsession podcast.

Travis: Today we'll be talking about one thing. Only one thing. Just this one thing. Tim Clark's epic ride from Wisconsin to California, the Pacific Northwest, up into Canada, through the Rocky Mountains and back.

Robin: This episode of the Riding Obsession podcast is sponsored by the Ugly Apple Cafe of Madison, Wisconsin, where they use local overstocked produce to offer a quick, tasty breakfast.

Travis: Disclaimer, I'm sleeping with the owner. She's my wife.

Robin: TheRidingObsession.com is always seeking sponsors for this podcast. Sponsors are given three focused mentions toward the start, middle, and end of their designated episode. Their contributions are put towards bettering the program's content and recording equipment, which clearly we need more of. I'll take this opportunity to promote our next group riding tour, which is coming up real quick, folks. Scheduled for late summer this year, it's dubbed the Trip Sevens Tour. Seven riders will cover seven states in seven days, starting September 1st of 2018. It's a twisty sport touring getaway of epic proportions, and we hope you'll sign up. More information about that tour is available via the website, TheRidingObsession.com. Visit the Group Tours link, which is anchored under Events in our navigation menu. Yeah, we only got two spots left, so I'm hoping to get that booked before the middle of this month, otherwise I've got to cancel rooms. I'll do a quick recap, corrections. The only thing is this. I should probably mention we did record a podcast last month, but it was a VODcast, as in videocast, and you have to visit our YouTube channel to watch it. Google TheRidingObsession YouTube or type our ugly URL into the address bar, and you'll figure it out. So, on to the good stuff, meaning Tim's tour from Madison to Cali to Canada, and back. Tim, the show's yours, man. Travis and I, we're here to grin and ask what happened next. By the way, Tim, who is that with you?

Tim: This is Sylvia with me.

Robin: Hello.

Tim: Hello, Sylvia. Sylvia joined me for a good part of the trip. Well, some of the best part of the trip. Psst, the best part of the trip. Of course.

Travis: The best part. California, super cool for motorcycles.

Tim: You can just edit that over there, and stick in, yeah.

Robin: Got it.

Tim: Very consistent boyfriend.

Robin: Tell me a story. Tell me a long story, and I'll drink beer, and I will cheer you on. Oh, my goodness. All right.

Travis: We got the pictures up.

Tim: What I'll do is just kind of go through pictures. I mean, started up with the bike just way heavily loaded.

Sylvia: It's really not a good visual of the fully loaded bike, though.

Tim: Yeah. It's hiding.

Sylvia: That's a great visual of a sparkly, clean bike. Where are these photos? What am I looking for?

Travis: Go to Google. Does your Chrome automatically sign you in?

Robin: Yeah.

Travis: Then go to your photos, and then you'll have a notification that you've been shared an album.

Robin: Is that like Google photos?

Travis: Go to Google.com. Click the apps button on the top right, the squares, the nine squares. Go to photos. On the top left, you should have a notification that an album's been shared.

Robin: Hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm catching up here. Sorry. No problem.

Travis: Robin Dean knows how to do internets.

Robin: All right.

Travis: Google the... I'm a programmer. And then apps.

Robin: I think I found it. Tim Clark added 190... This is going to be a long story. I'm looking forward to this. Well, it was a long trip. Okay. We're back. I've got a photo of your bike here. You tell me when I'm moving on to the next photo, and I will. This is beautiful.

Tim: So this is just how she looked nice and sparkly clean after we did all the prep to get ready for this. You know, the new shock, the shakedown trip, all that silly stuff. Maskimoto bags. Yep.

Robin: Serious gear.

Tim: Loved them. Yeah. So go ahead to the next one. This is... You know, most of it was fairly uneventful. I went across the plains on a motorway, and...

Travis: This looks like the old Windows XP default background. Like the rolling green hills. Yeah.

Tim: And so I get bored really fast of the interstate, so I kept bouncing off of 80 on my way out there. And this, I think, is Highway 38? No. I have no idea what road this is. But I did find a curvy road in Kansas.

Sylvia: The only curvy road in Kansas?

Tim: Yeah. Or... No, this is Nebraska. Sorry. Yeah. Well, I don't even know where I'm at. So this was the first full day. You know, the Friday before I made it out to kind of a couple hours into Iowa. But fairly uneventful. Set up my tent next to some drunk people.

Travis: Well, not really. Was that like a state campground or like a KOA or something? Or Jim's pitcher tent?

Tim: Yeah. It was a state park. It was pretty small and pretty much abandoned. And I just picked my campsite with my earplugs in. And that was probably a bad choice. All right. So one of the big things that I had issues with through the whole trip was the front end of my motorcycle. When I put the brand new tires on and started riding, everything felt a little weird. I was getting oscillations and bouncing and wasn't quite sure what it was. I thought I had a bad tire. So I last minute, I swapped out the brand new tire for the old tire and just figured I'd sort it out on the way there. And during that last minute wrestling, I pinched a tube and it didn't finally go flat until I was in Ogallala.

Sylvia: Say that again?

Tim: Ogallala.

Robin: Ogallala.

Tim: Ooogalala.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: So it's like five o'clock at night, still 95 degrees, screaming side winds. And I'm going, it was one of those stretches where I was actually on Highway 80. So I'm going 75 miles an hour when the front end starts getting really, really twitchy. So I bail off on the off ramp. And by the time I'm halfway down the off ramp, I'm on the rim. And I don't know if you've ever had a front end flat. It's like riding in deep sand with just one tire. It's very unsettling. Made it off the off ramp, pulled off to the side, hit a gas station, rode on the rim, so kind of killed that tire. And while I'm on the side of the road, with the front wheel off, a big, big biker comes and rolls up. Yeah. Big Harley guy on big Harley, you know, looks like you're one percenter. And he gets off his bike and he's got a pistol on his hip and the whole deal. And he, uh, he offers me a Gatorade that is still a little bit cold and helps me change the tire.

Travis: This is like what, like Western Nebraska or Eastern Colorado?

Tim: Yeah, this is still Nebraska. Yeah. Pretty far west, almost to the border of Colorado.

Travis: We know what that's like, but I think, I think our listeners and readers will know what it's like to break down in the middle of nowhere in Western Nebraska on like the second or third day of a trip.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah. I, I was really close to just stopping and saying that's it for the night. Where do I put my tent? But I ended up pushing on. Did you just fill it up or did you patch the tube? I patched the tube. I had a spare tube on the bike. So I patched the tube before I put it away, put the fresh tube in the tire and pretty much right away got on, on the Facebook and on Adventure Rider looking for someone who's got a spare tire that I can pick up in Northern or Northern Colorado somewhere.

Robin: Nice.

Tim: And it only took a couple hours before someone chimed in. It was on the North side of Denver that had a tire that had 2000 miles on it. It had been sitting in the garage for a couple of years and said, hell yes, please, please. Oh, I drove to his house and changed the tire. So kind of the, the photos here, you know, you got the picture of my bike on the rim and then a nice little pinch flat and then the sunset was just unreal coming in. And I didn't even see any mountains that night. So I just saw this wonderful glow coming up over these, um, this wind farm. I think you need to zoom up a little bit to actually see the wind farm.

Robin: That is beautiful, man.

Travis: Yeah. It's like, it's like super hazy in the West. So you just have this glowing sky and darkness to the East.

Robin: Yeah. And that is, the blades on those are huge. We just saw a couple of those being trucked down the expressway. They are massive.

Tim: And the photos I put up here with one exception, I don't, I haven't done anything to edit them. That is straight out of the camera. What I saw. Wow. Hashtag no filter. Yeah. Yeah. So then the next picture is my bike in the sun and then the dirt road that I'm looking down and that one is an Instagram filter.

Travis: Hashtag Paisley or whatever it is.

Tim: Yeah. Actually I think it was Snapseed or one of the other programs. I was experimenting a little bit early on in the trip when I had energy to do so. So then the next picture is the, the fresh 705 on the front end of the bike as I'm getting gassed up and getting ready to go up into the mountains. The bike's still clean. Yeah. Hey Tim. Yeah.

Robin: If you want, I think you can share your screen. Are you scrolling through the images on your own? Yeah. See if you can share your screen and then we can actually look at what you're looking at.

Tim: Oh, let me see if I can figure out how to do that.

Robin: There's a, if you mouse over the actual video section, there should be a two, like a square on top of a square diagonal and it'll say share screen I think.

Travis: Yeah. Or the, the three dots menu circle and then click that.

Robin: Yeah. Share screen. Did that do it? Yeah you did. Now I see me on your screen. So if you switch to your browser where you're looking at your videos, then yes or yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim: Yeah. All right. Right. So yeah, I'll just kind of pop it up in here and do it this way.

Robin: Nice.

Tim: Yeah, there we go. So there's the bike and I'm still fussing with the clicker settings because things still aren't feeling right. Then this kind of last minute we added the shock and didn't have time to put the springs in the front. So I just, you know, cranked the preload down and said, it's going to have to be good enough, but nothing was quite right. But the guy that I got the tire from told me, you know, when I told him the route that I was thinking of going, he kind of pointed me down this Canyon that was really fun, but you know, rained on me the whole time, but yeah, man, it was pretty up there. So this is where that road kicked me out of onto highway 14. And you can see it's a mountain, the mountains.

Robin: And did you, did you put the recorder on the same thing that you're pounding? No. Good man.

Tim: Just take it. No, no, no, no. Sorry. My, my little clicky on the keyboard here.

Robin: You're fine. You're fine. That's awesome. And look at that sky, man.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: This happens to be one of my favorite pictures. You don't doubt it. Look at that.

Tim: Yeah. So this is outside of Craig, Colorado. I had really wanted to push through, but because of the delays with the tires and the rain, and I also, you know, had a couple of gravel road diversions, of course. So the bike is starting to get a little dirtier, but not quite as dirty as it's going to get.

Robin: What's that as much as you wanted to get, huh? Yeah, definitely.

Tim: And got dirty on this trip. So this is a point of interest along the highway that I found it interesting as a place to camp.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: So this was me not really following the rules, but I was too tired to push on. So pulled over, set up in the weeds and, you know, listen to the coyotes for a while and played with the camera, of course.

Robin: That's amazing. Just stars beyond. Wow.

Tim: Yeah, I'm getting a little bit better with these night photos, kind of enjoying that. So what I'll do is I'll set it up for a 30 second timer and during that 30 seconds, I will very briefly swing down my headlamp to shine on the plants up front to get them to pop out like that.

Robin: Nice.

Tim: All right. So this is the parking lot that I camped in. Yeah. So this is my third full day on the road. Yeah. Whatever. Was the day that I was going to go to Dinosaur National Monument. It was the big, you know, one of the big things that I was really excited about was going down that Jeep road on the south rim of the Yampa River. And it was gorgeous. But before I got there, I ran down a couple of trails. It was my first true off road, you know, getting out. You can kind of see, I don't know if you can even see my mouse.

Robin: Think about the listener. Think about the listener every time you change photos. Describe what we're dealing with here. This is beautiful.

Tim: So what you're looking at here is I followed a little two track off the highway where I had to actually pull the barbed wire fence gate open right through and then close it again behind me. I'd done some research. I knew this was a public road, but a lot of the public land is leased to the ranchers. So there will be gates up, but they won't have no trespassing signs or anything indicating what it is a lot of times.

Robin: Yeah, nothing says do not enter.

Tim: Exactly. And I was surprised by this gorgeous little canyon. So I left the little side road and came up to the edge of this cliff to look over the edge. And it was just this beautiful little canyon, rocky with little scrub trees out there and the sage clinging to it. Nice.

Travis: And this is, you said, outside of Dinosaur. This is northern Utah. This is still in Colorado.

Tim: The Dinosaur National Monument straddles the border. And I believe it is actually in Wyoming as well. But I might be wrong on that. But it is directly south of Flaming Gorge. So I am still not in the monument yet. This is a side road that I thought was a shortcut.

Robin: I know this. I have seen the video on this. This is in the Instagram account.

Travis: So this is like the bike parked next to a washout on a cliff and then you are just in gravel and sand with a bag on the side.

Robin: Bottom line, Tim, just know that when I saw this video, I wasn't laughing with you. I was laughing at you.

Tim: That is totally appropriate. So the week before I did this trip, there was a big group ride in Dinosaur National Monument. And the track that those guys took, I thought was this track. It actually ended up being a two-track a mile east of where I was.

Sylvia: When did you find that out?

Tim: Oh, I found that out like a week or two later. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of messaging back and forth with those guys. Like, wow, that place really sucked. Oh, we didn't go there. Yeah, this is a little stretch called Calico Draw. And it started out as a nice two-track and it just kind of devolved into you're riding up a canyon. There's a little dry gulch. And even in the photo, it doesn't look like it quite so much. But the bike is parked in absolute mush.

Travis: And you can see like the front wheel is buried up to the rim.

Tim: Yeah. And I just dug a trench up and down that track. I made it a little bit more than halfway before giving up on it and just dropped the bike once. But I think what happened is there's a rock kind of just below the pannier in the picture. I think that I clipped that and it kicked me a little sideways up into the bank of the slope. Really? Which started slipping down back into it in an uncontrolled way. And I wasn't able to recover back when I got back down into the ditch there. So that bike is so heavy that it's like what you do is you stop, you take a breather, take a walk off to see if anything's going to get any better any further down the track. And then take a bag off to try and help make it easier to lift. I decided I was going to try and push on. I pushed on another couple hundred yards, quarter mile at most, before I realized it was not going to get any better. It was actually, it was getting to where both sides of the wash were as narrow as that wall on the right. So there was really nowhere to go. So this is where, this next picture is a nice little shelf of rock that I found that I could actually maneuver and turn the bike around.

Travis: Yeah, where you're not in like the soft squishy, it's like hard, hard sandstone.

Tim: Yeah, it just, that soft stuff just sucks all your energy out. And this is still early. This is still like nine in the morning and I've got a lot of riding ahead of me. So I didn't want to burn all my energy on this one part before even getting to the monument. I was looking at 40 or 50 miles of Jeep road. So this is the view. I almost feel like we should post up the slideshow so people can see what I'm talking about.

Robin: Oh, I'm going to post these images in the actual podcast page. So yeah, Tim is working on making sure that he describes what we're looking at so that you can hear and imagine it. But on the actual, I will download all of these and I will upload them to the server so that you can actually see them in a slideshow format for yourself. They are, they are the epitome of majestic.

Travis: Yeah, this is like sprawling canyons and Greenland or the dirt road going through it. That looks like so much fun, man. Yeah, it is. I could, I could do that on the NC no problem.

Tim: Yeah, there was another section of sand into this and it's this red powder sand that is super slick. It was like the fesh fesh kind of stuff. Pretty close, pretty close. Very, very lightweight stuff that it doesn't offer any resistance under the tires. Oh, nice. That's great.

Travis: It's like water almost.

Tim: Yeah, this is the first view and it opens up and I'm just starting to see the river valley and the canyon below and it starts to look a little bit like a mini Grand Canyon. Wow. And wow. First overlook.

Robin: Okay. Yeah, there it is. That is beautiful.

Tim: I am sitting on the edge of what is nearly 800 plus feet of cliff and looking down at the river below and it was just gorgeous. I spent a little while just hanging out, took some pictures, just took in the view. It's amazing. This is a little horseshoe bend.

Travis: Yeah, it's a really tight there through this. You can see it like really winds and bends through.

Tim: And that river, it's really hard to keep the proportions in mind, but that river where you're looking down there is like in the bottom center of the photo is about 60 feet wide or wider. Nice. So I actually took a selfie.

Robin: A couple of actually sitting on the side of the edge of this thing before the incident. Yeah.

Tim: Yeah. So like fluffy clouds and you can see I'm already sunburning. How can you tell days that I had sunscreen? It's that white stripe right under the sleeve of the top of the shirt. Yeah. Yeah. It's difficult to get the settings right and set it up on the little mini tripod I had and then in 10 seconds run over to the edge of the cliff but not over the cliff and then turn around and smile at the camera. Priority detail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take care of that step. That one's the important one. Okay. So what you're looking at here is a narrow section of canyon where you've got the cliffs rising up pretty high and a soft sandy road right down the middle. And this was thought was a road to an overlook or an actual spot where I could get to the river. Turned out it was private property I was on right here and I had missed two very small signs.

Travis: Did you end up backtracking or?

Tim: Yeah, I did. I did. I went a little bit further to where I could turn around again and I saw the rancher with his horses and kind of gave him a wave and turned around. Sorry man, you know, just didn't didn't encroach upon your personal space intentionally.

Travis: Yeah, it's definitely like a beach of a road. Like it would suck like if you were just in like a like a stock XJ or a little SUV that sand would be a would be a pain if you didn't have like you know 33s and and good tires. I imagine on a 500 pound loaded down on dual sport tires.

Tim: Yeah, I am essentially on street tires that have a little bit more ambition. And you can see the little curve in that left hand track. Yeah, that's where I lost control.

Robin: Yep. Oh, bike down, bike down.

Sylvia: Much better idea as to how loaded that bike was.

Tim: Yeah, we're sitting on the saddlebag and the back tire is 10 inches off the ground.

Travis: Yeah, all the way is, you know, 30 inches above the axle.

Tim: Yeah, and I was here for probably 45 minutes because I was I was tired. This is about 35 miles of Jeep road in dude, really? It's 9095 degrees. And I'm running low on water. And my first attempt to pick the bike up. She just moved sideways.

Travis: Oh, this just slid to the sand.

Tim: Yeah, it was a little disheartening. I mean, just like your story of trying to pick up the big one.

Travis: Oh my god, just slides.

Tim: Yeah. So what I ended up doing, I looked around for everything. I looked for a log that I can lever the bike up with all sorts of silliness. I ended up taking all the bags off, digging holes behind each tire for the bike to drop into. In order before I could get this thing up.

Robin: Pre-rut.

Tim: Yeah. Wow. So there she is finally on her wheels.

Robin: Everything's fine. There was never an issue. This bike is now upright. That's where it was before. We're gonna go.

Tim: Yeah, and of course, I got video of this. Both of those fun events where I fell over. Yes, I burned through a memory card while I was out there that day. It was just so beautiful. There were so many interesting parts of the road where you'd have a drop off on either side. And then be on this ridge line with a descending left hand corner, all sandy. And if you were looking forward, the road would just kind of drip, dip down and disappear from you. And you were looking out just a mile out across the canyon. So this is amazing. It was it was some stunning sites. Yeah. I know there's spots in the videos where I'm like, Oh my god, wow. Look at that. Talk to myself or the cows. I talked to the cows. Moo. Like, you're gonna stay there. You're gonna move. You're gonna stay put right in front of me. So I chased down quite a few of these overlooks. So it took me a long time to get through the monument. I hit the monument at about 1030. And I didn't get out of there until 738 o'clock.

Robin: Good grief.

Tim: And I ended up having to cut off some of what I wanted to do. Because I was running out of water.

Robin: Yeah, I mean, better safe than sorry. Come on.

Tim: Right. I went in with my full Camelback, 64 ounces of Gatorade, an extra one liter bottle of water. And I drank all of it down to that one last bottle of water. And I was by. Halfway through that, and I was rationing it every stop. I would let myself have a sip.

Robin: This is the first time I'm inspired that we need to write our article. I've been waiting to write about this topic. There are a few different motorcycle friendly beacon systems that if you activate, they are received as this person's not in distress, but they are lost and need assistance and they don't know how to get, you know what I mean? Right. I think for the kind of balls out riding that only you do in this format.

Tim: Well, I do need to say I did have a beacon with me.

Robin: Okay, nice. Okay, good, good.

Tim: I didn't have any of the ones that have any other like check in, I'm okay messages. I only had the rescue link, which is call in the helicopters right now. I've got problems.

Robin: Okay, sure.

Tim: No, there's no other button. It's just SOS. Come get me.

Robin: Yeah, big. It's it just says big insurance premium.

Tim: Yeah. But nice thing is it's got a external antenna. It's the highest power GPS beacon that I think you can get without being military. Okay, so I mean, it's a good, it's a good system. It's just you lose all those social aspects of having your friends and family be able to track your progress.

Robin: Okay, gotcha.

Tim: So this is Echo Park. This is a horseshoe bend campground. And you're looking at one big rock spire in the middle of this horseshoe bend. And I think they call it steamboat rock. And it was just a beautiful little spot.

Travis: There's Rocky River Gorge, you know, panorama, you bend around with this flat iron kind of up in the middle there. I bet I bet my rock crawler or my rock crawler, my rock climbing buddies.

Tim: Oh, I'm sure they would dig that. Yeah. And this is the view climbing out where looking back along the ridgeline on my right, like way off in the distance is where I started this ride.

Robin: That's road ridden down there. That's road ridden.

Tim: Correct.

Robin: Okay, wow.

Tim: This is climbing out of the valley, coming up on the ridgeline, trying to make it down to Vernal, Utah. Wow. To find a place to camp. And well, honestly, to find water was my big priority at this point. But I did take some time to take more pictures because it was beautiful. This is one of the things that I heard from the locals. What you're looking at here is this red clay rock and sand that when it rains is slick.

Travis: Yeah, I bet that's just total garbage when it's wet.

Tim: Yeah, they were telling me that no matter how tough you think your SUV or off-road rock crawler is, this road is impassable when it's wet.

Robin: I don't know, man. Jeep is making their oil pans out of plastic these days, so that's pretty genius. Maybe they can make it. I'm going to get another beer. Keep talking. I'll be right back.

Travis: Right. Yeah, no, that's sort of it. I bet that's, I mean, it's probably a little worse than the Wisconsin clay, but like, you know, the Wisconsin clay when it's wet. Oh, yeah. And it's just, it's just your tires and loads up. Yeah, just, it just doesn't matter how aggressive your tread is. It will pack and you'll just slip slide. Yeah.

Tim: So for the majority of this ride through the monument, like all the way to Echo Park campground, I saw one other vehicle and nobody else. But once I got to the campground, I started seeing cars.

Travis: Oh, nice. Well, cars like campers or did you see like some, some four wheelers and some jeepers and stuff?

Tim: It was mostly jeeps, but you know, a well-equipped Subaru can make it down this road.

Travis: In the dry?

Tim: Yeah, from the west side, you can come down in pretty much any high clearance vehicle.

Travis: Okay.

Tim: So, and you know, the Echo Park campground is about 10 miles in from the west side, as opposed to the 35 or so from the east side that I came in from.

Travis: Oh, okay.

Tim: So most of the traffic comes in this way. It's, it's about maybe 10 miles down to the campground and then it's this beautiful windy paved road.

Travis: Okay.

Tim: Yeah, it was, I was really planning to do some mischief on the way. There was a ridge, I think it was Pine Ridge Recreation Area or something like that, that would basically shortcut from one part of the monument to another, down a very, very hairy, scary descent. But that was the bit that I decided I was going to skip because I didn't have...

Travis: Yeah, didn't want to pick up your 500-pound bike.

Tim: Oh, no, not again. Yeah. What is that? What you're seeing is just the sunset as I'm coming down this ridgeline. Really? Are we still in Cali? We are in Utah at this point. We're in Utah.

Robin: Okay, that does not surprise me.

Tim: Did cross the border while I was on the bench road. So I'm right outside Dinosaur, Utah.

Robin: Nice.

Tim: Yeah. And it's one of those, you check in with everybody, send out some messages, send some pictures, let everybody know you survived the day, grab some food and some water, and then head off for the next campground. I keep getting lessons not to trust my GPS when I let it route. Because it took me down a ranch road that was supposed to take me to a campground outside of Vernal. And it ended up dropping me on a ridge. And it was getting really sandy and rocky. And of course, I had had enough sand for the day. And I get to a point where I've got to stop because I'm looking at a descent of about three or 400 feet of deep sand.

Robin: Wow.

Tim: At probably a 30 degree slope.

Travis: I said, Oh, yeah, like proper, proper dirt bike stuff. And you're on a loaded.

Tim: Yeah, yeah, it was. It was all ATV track nastiness.

Travis: And all chewed up and loose.

Tim: Oh, it kills you when you're looking at it at the GPS. And it says you are a mile away from the campground. You cannot make that mile. So I ended up doing another 20 miles before I made it to the campground, because I had to backtrack and find the actual highway to get there. Yeah, I have a bad habit of pushing way too late at night. Yeah, in the dark, kind of exhausting myself. But I had a very aggressive schedule. Let me think. So I had from this point from Vernal, I had two days to get to Folsom, California. Although the original thought was to get to Sacramento to pick Sylvia up from the airport. And that didn't happen. Yeah. I'm constantly seeing these wonderful, twisty side roads. Squirrel! Yeah, this one, this particular squirrel is called Sheep Creek Geological Loop. It's catchy, right? Yeah. It rolls off the tongue.

Robin: It's funny. That's the name of. Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Hey, what the, shut up. Sorry, my phone started going off on me.

Tim: All right, you're under control now?

Robin: I'm under control now.

Tim: All right, so this was a photo taken on one of the hairpin bends on a descent. I'm kind of going down into the canyon directly behind where the bike is in this photo, and it was just another beautiful day in Utah. Just another distraction. Twisty roads, wonderful fun, up and down, and it drops you into this little almost slot canyon. It's beautiful. Where you've got rock walls 40 feet apart from each other. It's just super cool. I feel bad because I didn't take a picture while I was going through that bit, but it was pretty.

Robin: You know, I kind of wonder what geological force put that in place. I mean, that's not always going to be glacial. People will see something bizarre in the landscape and think, oh, well, of course, glacial activity was glacially glacial in a glacial manner that was glacially. It's like, that's not.

Tim: Yeah, a lot of this area, you know, is fault line driven mountains. So all of these were like folded from tectonic forces. So that I like. You'll see some rock formations that are almost bent into horseshoe shapes.

Robin: A little bit of Fantasia action, huh? Fantasia, you know what I'm talking about?

Tim: Yeah. So this time actually, it dropped me off into Wyoming for a brief amount, kind of like run up to Evanston and then take a turn south, get back into Utah. And I just picked up a salad and had a little picnic in this beautiful little spot here. And you can see the high mountains that I'm heading towards. This is the High Uintas in eastern Utah. And I had to stop and layer up here as well because I was going above 10,000 feet.

Robin: Okay. Yeah, I remember that. I remember that feeling.

Tim: Yep. Yeah, where it steadily gets colder and colder. You know, I started the day infernal. It was, you know, 85 degrees. And here it's about 65.

Robin: That'll get you if you're going at speed, if you're on any kind of paved road, too. You'll feel that. Like, that's cold.

Travis: Yeah, even in June at that altitude, it's still cold.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: Oh, yes. Yeah. So this is Mirror Lake in the High Uintas. It's just a scenic loop that I'd always wanted to go to but had never had. So the lake itself is above 10,000 feet.

Robin: Did you find that it was easier to ride across that lake than the soft sand that you had been dealing with before?

Tim: No, didn't even try.

Robin: Okay.

Tim: Just, you know, just curious. Yep. Just went and hiked around the path for a little ways. Took some pictures. Actually ran into a couple that wanted me to take pictures of them. And I told them only if they take pictures of me.

Robin: Nice.

Tim: Yes, I do have a photo of me. That's a good shot, man.

Robin: You look good.

Tim: All layered up. Yeah. And I definitely could feel the altitude. I would get winded just walking up there. And it was a beautiful, beautiful ride. And sadly, I had decided that I was going to skip Salt Lake City, that I was hoping I'd have time to visit some friends, but it just wasn't. The choice was between going to Salt Lake City and going to Mirror Lake. So I chose to do the scenic.

Travis: Yeah, because you have beautiful pit toilets there.

Tim: So yeah, this is the campground for the night. This is southwest of Provo. A couple hours southwest of Provo. This is the Little Sahara Recreation Area is where I camped. And it is well-named for it is sandy. So again, got a nice little spot where I found a platform campground where I couldn't even drive a stake into. So my tent is actually tied to the picnic table to keep it from blowing away. And I tried to sleep without the rainfly on that night, and it got stupid cold. And I was lucky that I had the rainfly in the tent with me. I wrapped up in it. That night. Yeah, it was pretty. I went on a little walkabout in the morning, and you'll see some of the sand.

Sylvia: You realized you were sleeping halfway through.

Tim: Yeah, I didn't think too much about that.

Robin: For all of our listeners, there is... Hold on. I've been very respectfully quiet this whole time. For our listeners, there is Podcast Tim, and then there's Rough and Tough in the action, Tim. And I can see Tim's face. I've had arguments with this man. They don't go well. But I've seen Tim. I can picture you right now with this, and you're like, I bet you I can wrap up in this. I'm gonna wrap up in this. And you're like, not gonna stop me. Hey, you know, you have a sleeping bag. I don't care about the sleeping bag. I'm wrapping up in this. I'm gonna prove myself I can do this. Slept like a baby. Yeah, that's pretty much how it went.

Sylvia: Like a shivering baby.

Tim: I don't know. I had all of your stuff in one pannier, all my stuff in the other pannier. You forgot about it. I forgot about it entirely.

Robin: Yeah.

Tim: So your sleeping bag was on the bike that was all of like 12 feet away.

Sylvia: Yeah. So you use a rain fly instead.

Tim: Yeah, I couldn't make it.

Robin: Yep, I know. I get it. At any point did you think, if only they made a product that was like bedding for campers.

Tim: Nope, nope.

Sylvia: Fluffy, comfortable, warm.

Tim: No, I just said what's within reach. Saran wrap.

Robin: This will do it. Really, really would.

Tim: So yeah, when I pulled up here, it was so disheartening because most of the campground was in sand. So I had to go through sand to get to the campsites. So that's why the first picture is my bike at the pit toilet because it was actually gravel and I could park the bike. I was going to hike in across the road from there into the sandy campground. But once I did hike over there, I found a path that didn't lead me into too deep a sand.

Travis: Oh yeah, it's dunes, man.

Tim: Yeah, so this is me going on a walkabout through the sand dunes before loading up and getting on the bike and going through Nevada.

Travis: Yeah, don't want to touch that on a loaded adventure bike on dual sport tires. You'll be past your axles in a minute.

Tim: Oh yeah, this stuff is, you need paddle tires, you need a wide track ATV. Beetles. Beetlejuice. And then I... I finally broke down and bought a toothbrush because I didn't have a brush to clean my chain with. It's getting pretty bad. So I stopped at a gas station and bought a little pink toothbrush. I had other options for colors.

Travis: And you know the pink ones for your chain.

Tim: Not to mention the fact that it ends up black. Yeah. So this is Delta, Utah and I ended up having lunch at a cafe sitting down with some of the local ranchers and hearing them bitch and complain about the Mexicans. And it made me laugh a little bit because I could just kind of lean over to the right and look into the kitchen and yeah, it was just a bunch of nice Mexican ladies. I'm like you just ignore these old white boys, don't you? But they were nice. They were funny. They were chatting about all sorts of local stuff. Like who stole the tip jar from the local subway. These crimes of high consequence in Delta, Utah.

Robin: In the news, a change jar taken from a local piggy bank.

Travis: Somebody parked slightly over the line at the deli. Yeah.

Tim: Yeah, this whole day I didn't take many photos because it ended up being really hot. It was okay until about 3 in the afternoon and then it started getting over 100. And the hottest I saw, I'm not entirely sure I can trust my dash but I estimate it to be around 115.

Sylvia: Back up. We know you can't trust your dash.

Tim: I know I can't trust the dash, yes. Because my dash read 98 degrees and when I got to the next town in Fallon, Nevada it dropped to a nice 94 and the local bank said it was 104.

Travis: Dang, man. You have to see where Honda actually puts their little temperature sensor on the bike.

Robin: Right in the exhaust.

Tim: I swear this bike is so goofy with it. It's almost like it's saying, it's not that bad, go ride. It's not bad. You're good. Because it will be 40 degrees and the bike will say it's 50. Or it'll be 100 degrees and the bike will say it's 90. It's like the bike's saying, don't worry about it. It's good. Go ride. It's hard to trust. This is Fallon, Nevada on highway 50. This is where I'm still struggling with where it was 104. I'm struggling with the settings on the bike. I completely unbolted the fork. And retorqued the triple clamps and the axle and reset all the clickers and preload settings on the fork to try and get things sorted out and it still wasn't feeling right.

Travis: The highway was still bouncing and jumping.

Robin: Was it like springboarding? Was it trampolining? Like we're up and down and up and down before it finally settles after one bump?

Tim: No. It would follow every bump in the road and transmit it directly to my hands. Ow. It felt like I had original work. But if I hit something big it would suck up the bump. So it would feel okay with really nasty stuff like off-roading it felt fine but riding down a regular road it felt unsettled and it was always moving it felt uncertain around corners and the old new-ish front tire that I had gotten for free was cupping really badly really fast. Wow. I think that that tire when it gets old it does not hold up to the heat well.

Robin: It melts fast. Yeah, that makes sense. So if the compounds shift around each other a little bit they start to become eraser heads.

Tim: Yeah, so we're looking at most of the time these Shinko 705s they wear really long but this went from being okay to not okay at all in about a thousand miles. So I had already been on the phone with a motorcycle dealer outside of Folsom, California excuse me and was trying to line up some shop time to have a talk with their mechanic so I did not make it that night to Folsom or to Sacramento to pick up Sylvia. Wow, Tim.

Sylvia: The airport for hours.

Tim: Tim Clark. Yeah. No, my sister picked her up. Nice. But I didn't get there until 10.30, 11.30 California time. Yeah, it was definitely after. Yeah, it was crazy late.

Robin: Did you two stay with your sister while you were there?

Tim: We stayed there that night and the plan was to stay there the next night as well and have a full rest day. Well, we were worried about the heat going across the Sacramento Valley the next day so we ended up doing the little vampire run across the Sacramento Valley.

Travis: Oh, did it at night?

Tim: Yeah, but we waited until after my nephew's musical dance performance.

Sylvia: Yeah, man.

Tim: It was really awesome.

Robin: Which was spectacular.

Tim: It was so good.

Sylvia: He's an extremely talented young man.

Tim: Yeah, so we got good friends.

Robin: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Because now Sylvia's in the picture now and Sylvia's awesome so I have to ask. Sylvia, during the vampire run, were the stars out and were you looking up a lot?

Sylvia: It was exciting. That was my first, you know, that was the start of my portion of the trip. It was at night. Temperatures were perfect for me. I don't know if we want to get into this part but I have MS so there were some other factors that played into our planning.

Robin: I think it's incredibly important that they hear that, that they know that you troopered to do this.

Sylvia: It takes some extra planning. I don't do heat so anything above, say, 80 degrees is extremely problematic especially with gear added. And I am a believer in full gear so yeah, above 80 is a problem so knowing full well that it was going to be hitting probably 100 through the valley, we definitely needed to plan for trying to hit cooler temperatures. We also had a backup plan based on a test trial run Memorial Day weekend that got us a little stuck unexpectedly with some above 90 and extreme humidity on our trial run Memorial Day weekend, Wisconsin and Michigan that caught us off guard. We used that opportunity to pre-plan for some emergency situations in this trip and had some of the emergency ice packs that you actually break Like a chemical reaction ice pack? Yeah, the kind that you break. So we planned ahead and had some of those which are good for any kind of first aid kit so we had those in mind but we also then like Tim said, switched the schedule so that we traveled that hottest part that we thought of the trip at night through the valley so that we didn't have to, so we could avoid that particular situation Blow dryer on two wheels Yes! Yeah, it turned out, it worked out really really well, except that I didn't get to see Napa Valley during the day.

Robin: Listen to that wino!

Sylvia: Yeah, something to go back for, right? Yeah, yeah. I had to see parts of it the next day Hey, being healthy is obviously very important especially the first day of the trip so it was nice so yes, I believe I saw some stars. I was just excited to be starting the trip Yeah, it was nice This hotel, the first hotel that we stayed at, Chardonnay Lodge in Napa was super cute. This is actually at the hotel They had little gardenettes, outdoors in between some of the rooms that were cute, and this was right in front Yeah, and this is your typical horseshoe style motel, courtyard Individual entrances outside, and then this was in the front I love the old London style telephone booths. They had this one set up with a miniature seating area inside of it. You couldn't really sit in there but it was miniature style Just this cute little gardenette area to sit out at I love roses. They had a cute little rose garden out there roses blooming and such Just adorable to me, personally So I would love to go back to Napa Valley and spend some time there Of course, being the wino, like you said that I am Actually take some time to stop at the wineries and do some tastings

Robin: It takes one to know one a little bit mid-winter

Sylvia: I get it That was my first day, night kind of a thing I enjoyed it

Tim: There's going to be a little jumping around in the photos here because we are syncing two phones, two cameras into the timeline here Some of it is in a lot of order So this is us actually riding down through Napa and Sylvia taking a photo over my shoulder

Robin: Yep

Tim: And then this is in the courtyard trying to load to give her a little more room She was really wedged in the back on the passenger seat

Sylvia: He had it a little easy heading out there the first week load the bike however he wanted, but then by the time I get there I need a little leg room and I'm kind of leggy Not super tall, just a little leggy So needed to make some room and put some things try to put some things on the bottom He was making some adjustments while I was out enjoying the view, courtyards taking some pictures

Tim: Part of the shakedown run that we did to Michigan that I discovered was that my riding pants the waterproof ones were pretty much a no-go above 80 degrees They did not flow enough air so I was packing my second set of riding pants the waterproofs and the mesh because I knew I would not survive the desert riding in the rain pants So we ended up with a fair amount of luggage and we were really doing the glamour camping I've got the camp chair I've got the cot We've got air mattresses for the both of us It worked really well This is the spot where we first popped out and saw the ocean after coming up over a mountain road that was just a rollercoaster fun

Sylvia: Twisty and windy and probably just spruce What did your dad call it? I can't remember They were not the redwoods but some kind of deciduous evergreen type Some variety of pine that was just huge big round, big trunks Where are you here? Just hitting the coast of California

Tim: An hour or so north of San Francisco where we hit the coast Maybe a little bit further north than that and just ended up at this little old gift store, general store

Sylvia: And it was that style of store where it's the general store, old wooden floors the old cabinets that stock the supplies and things like that It was really cute They had a little deck outside and then a little picnic table in the parking lot area A couple people on bikes You can see an old BMW is the little red bike behind Tim's there

Robin: Was it a K75 back there?

Travis: Yeah, it was like a flying break K75, K100, RS

Robin: I just caught that I just thought it was Tim's big ol' fat bike like shit all over and he's got a bike on his bike because he might need a bike when he bikes to the bike

Sylvia: Yeah 20-something-ish kid was riding it He's actually the one that's taking the picture Chatted with him for a while He was originally from New York Was out there and I can't remember the name of the guy that he and the company that he works for Race car driver, basically

Travis: Open wheel style

Robin: Oh, that's Travis's territory

Travis: So for like an Indy car driver? Not Indy Does he work for Penske? Or like sprint cars?

Sylvia: Yeah, it sounded like a privateer operation Bigger than sprint cars More um Road America type But open wheel?

Travis: Pro Mazda or Indy Lights or something? No Not that many

Sylvia: Yeah, probably more along those lines

Travis: SF2000

Sylvia: I can't remember the race car driver's name If I could remember that it would probably help

Robin: But yeah

Sylvia: He's not like a full Indy driver I just know it was open wheel Anyhow That's the kid that's taking the pictures Cute little place, ran into a couple of other guys on bikes that were a little more local to the area Like Longer Been there longer This kid was a transplant from New York 4 or 5 years ago Super cute place

Robin: In New York though, they say New Yoke Did he? He didn't really have much of an accent

Tim: I think he was more in the Rochester area Steamed hams Hahaha

Sylvia: I had to make sure he got the Yeti with the flag in the background

Tim: Yeah One of those great old wood carving ones Squatch Squatch So good to be down at the ocean

Sylvia: It was cool, the temperature had dropped It was like 70 degrees

Tim: in full sun Breezy and comfortable It wasn't very far down We found a beach access We hiked down to Hahaha

Sylvia: I'm a little excited I kind of like the ocean A little bit Tim kind of captures that

Tim: Yeah So For the people that can't see the photo It's hands out in front Fingers splayed out Head up, mouth wide open Screaming

Robin: Oh my god

Tim: And the next photo This is what she's looking at It is just beautiful It's just this little protected cove There was one lady sunbathing and one couple walking their dogs down there And us Strip off the riding gear

Travis: Is that you and your skivvies Tim?

Tim: Yes it is

Sylvia: Oh yeah I didn't care that my shorts were mesh

Robin: For the viewers For those listening right now Tim only wears a banana hammock

Sylvia: Come on now

Tim: Hey chafing is an issue

Travis: It kind of looks like that Sasquatch from a little bit ago It kind of does dude

Robin: Oh my god You nailed it Don't run I'm running off into the woods

Tim: So yeah We spent a good amount of time there I would have gone swimming But the water was pretty cold Was Probably 55 degrees Oh my gosh If that So I was You could stand out on the surf for a couple waves And then you had to get out It was just freezing your feet

Sylvia: Oh but the driftwood It was so fun I found a surfboard I found a piece of driftwood That made a great little surfboard It was just a lot of fun And the fam

Tim: This is the photos that are out of order So this is at The event with my nephew

Robin: Alright So

Tim: So So That night That first night we hit the coast We camped in a Campground called Richardson Grove It was a redwood grove And I don't think either of us Thought to take a picture while we were there

Robin: You do have a picture I'm sorry

Tim: I threw this Slide show together pretty Short notice So Yeah It was beautiful It was the first night camping in bear country And we weren't quite sure How serious to take it So we had everything loaded up Into the bear box

Sylvia: First campground I've ever been to That had a bear box Actually in the campsite itself What is a bear box? It's a big wooden box On a stake That's actually In your site And it's got a

Tim: A lot of them are steel or steel lined It's a hide box Like a secure room

Robin: Yeah

Tim: Usually like the one that we had At our campsite was about a foot deep And probably like Three by three cabinet Wow So and usually there's a Latch that bears aren't Able to open

Sylvia: You can have an opposable thumb

Tim: Yeah You have to have a hand that works

Sylvia: My hands don't always work

Travis: It's like to put your food in And anything that would attract a bear

Sylvia: Medicine, we put everything in there Jack stick, everything

Tim: We'd heard some horror stories So we took it as seriously as we could

Sylvia: And then that night of course Me and my paranoid gears Of my brain were working And swore I was lying there And heard sniffing I was waking up the night

Travis: And reckoning bears Yes

Tim: So next day This is us getting into The King Range National Forest This is the place that I really wanted To have our first night at but I couldn't get a permit To camp there They sell them out pretty fast

Sylvia: He wanted to be able to sleep As king of the mountain

Tim: Yep I wanted to sleep On a mountain overlooking the ocean

Robin: He did actually say that didn't he

Sylvia: No I did

Robin: Oh ok I would believe that he would say that though I know

Tim: So these are the kind of views that we would see I took Sylvia up One of these jeep roads Up into the mountains And it was some of the most aggressive riding It was the most aggressive riding I'd done with a passenger Plus luggage It was not easy In places It was kind of clench up and go Alright keep calm Keep calm It's just a big dirt bike

Robin: Nice

Travis: With 300 pounds Of people And stuff on it

Tim: So this was one of the Overlooks that we stopped at

Travis: Azure sky It's so deep

Tim: It's just gorgeous And you don't see hardly anything Of people In this photo here Where we're looking up the coast There is a little bit Of road

Robin: I can see it Cursor Is that where you came from Or where you going to

Tim: We didn't get that We didn't get that way

Robin: Sorry sorry I jumped in late

Tim: Yeah we ended up following this ridge line Around to the right After this This was as close as we would get To the ocean for a little while

Travis: So is the Pacific Coast Highway Down there over by the water

Tim: This is one of the sections Where the Pacific Coast Highway goes inland Quite a ways At this point we are about 20 miles away from the 101

Travis: Ok and that's inland You're that far north

Tim: Yeah it's not that far north It's an area of the coast They call the lost coast And it's very rural Fairly remote And has a little bit of Outlaw history to it

Travis: It seems like The terrain is not conducive To building roads

Tim: And we stopped And took some pictures And I missed some of this But it was very shortly After that We turned on The camera The GoPro And what was it a minute 52 seconds in 152 Saw a bear This was not just a sighting This was an encounter

Travis: Didn't you drop the bike With Sylvia on it

Tim: Well when we We come around The corner Because we had come around Two ridge line corners The bear had not heard us at all He was standing in the middle of the road With his head down

Sylvia: Sniffing a stick

Tim: What does a bear do during the summer

Robin: This stick smells like stick I found a stick

Travis: It's brown and sticky

Tim: Yeah So my brain My brain doesn't know what else to do But stop right here right now You come to an abrupt stop Sometimes it's hard to remember Oh yeah put your feet down You are on two wheels Yeah I did get my foot down Up against the We're coming on a downhill slope Loose rock There's a steep slope on the right Going up Steep slope on the left going down And thirty five feet Away from us Is a big black bear He pops his head up and looks at us And we're just frozen

Robin: Well they're fifty fifty They can either be like I'm coming at you I want what you got Or I'm a giant raccoon And I'm terrified of everything

Tim: And we were lucky that's what we got Oh hell no

Robin: Just sprinted away from us If you look at the front of your bike Be the bear And look at the front of your bike when it's running And just stare at it and be like I don't want any of that I don't want to get into that match

Sylvia: And then the helmet look And everything

Robin: Destro Destro on a wildebeest made of two wheels

Tim: Exactly Just an absolute I don't know what this is I don't want any part of it And we went back and looked at the footage And you can see when he turns around He's throwing up sticks and dirt Dust And when he hits the tree line He totally clocks one of them

Robin: Yeah

Tim: All the way up

Robin: Oh man that's rough Poor guy Poor guy what a loss Well you were fine you terrified the bear And went away Yeah

Tim: Get our composure And really absorb what the hell just happened Part of it was that it was just such a surprise

Robin: What am I looking at here I'm still looking at Sylvia And you looking at a camera You got 198 Photos We are an hour into this noise

Tim: Yeah I'm sneaking a selfie

Robin: These are beautiful

Tim: And this is Redwoods Yeah this is later in the day This is the Redwoods

Travis: Giant straight tall trees

Tim: Yep the Ladybeard Johnson Redwood Grove

Sylvia: Something like that

Tim: It was one of those ones where We had a little bit of time to stop And take a look around We didn't have enough time to see everything we wanted to see We went in Hiked around for about a half hour And then got back on the bike And headed off to dinner Which was a Mexican place

Robin: And then Travis who is totally interactive In this podcast was like And how was that Mexican dinner That you ate with your faces

Tim: We had a discussion over the Shady Harley rider That was broken down Outside of the road

Sylvia: The shady twitchy guy After going through the No he wasn't tweaking No just I just read I've been told I have spidey senses And my spidey senses Were on high high alert I would not take my helmet off

Tim: Yeah you know I saw a guy broke down outside of the road Garberville was the

Sylvia: Google Garberville Anybody listening Just google Garberville California That's all I'm going to say

Tim: We can talk about that later It was an interesting Adventure in it's own right

Sylvia: Yes the history Yeah

Tim: But I saw A guy broken down on the side of the road So I turned around and went to help And he didn't seem to want Anything to do with us

Sylvia: He kept I think he said at least Three times wow I'm really Surprised you sat And it was said in such a way To imply That he really was Surprised and not Thrilled That he was Apt to help I took that as an unwelcome sign And would not take my helmet off

Robin: Especially after

Sylvia: What Three miles out of Garberville

Tim: Yeah

Sylvia: Google Garberville And you'll know why

Robin: That's eerie man It is eerie

Sylvia: I just Went with that

Travis: Garberville See also Nowheresville

Sylvia: See also Pot capital Of the US

Travis: I think Tim was telling me about that Where it's like all the guys in Northern California who used to grow pot Before it was legal They're all like Super sketch

Sylvia: It used to be criminal But it's not criminal anymore But they all still have That whole criminal Protective Automatic weapon Gotta protect my shit

Travis: You ain't from around here

Sylvia: Oh my gosh You wave at people And they just glare at you Get the ass out of our shit But what's funny is You drive past a truck And there's this giant Pot plant in their front seat

Robin: Yeah

Sylvia: Could be a little more friendly So yes it was He was not very He did not seem very thrilled That we were willing To assist in any way we Could But he had been in contact

Tim: With a friend and he had someone Coming to get him

Sylvia: He had a cell phone he was safe Bye Yep

Tim: We out Found us a nice Campground up the I don't even remember what River valley it is Patrick Creek Is the name of this campground

Sylvia: Little fence you see there on the right There's a creek Beautifully soothing

Tim: Babbling mountain stream

Sylvia: Oh

Tim: Babbling brook

Travis: I don't know See this guy here This is Brock The California J

Sylvia: He wanted your nuts to add

Tim: Yeah he wanted my nuts

Sylvia: And me

Tim: Yep So there he is We watched him throw his whole body Into pecking through this little foil packet Of mixed nuts

Sylvia: I call him Hammerhead

Tim: It was so funny to watch

Sylvia: It's a Sterling J also known as a California J Very common

Tim: He was so bold that I'm sitting here six feet away From him and he's going after The food on the picnic table

Sylvia: Yeah he was so bold As to scold me when I went out It was our breakfast I went out to go eat them and he Scolded me from a neighboring tree When I started eating He was not happy

Robin: That's my getaway from my I want that

Sylvia: I took the pistachios And the cashews and I left him some peanuts Around the fire pit When we left I was polite

Tim: So At that point we were Back on the 101 We stayed on the 101 pretty much the whole Time for the rest of it Did we pick up a Bumblebee I think that he ran into Me while we were riding and he had just Been climbing on me and I've got this thing with bumblebees that I think they're fuzzy and I like to pet them

Robin: Ladies and gentlemen Tim Clark

Sylvia: Yes And he was so convinced That me I'm allergic well Most likely Allergic to bees

Robin: Okay

Sylvia: Took my glove off Picked this thing off With my fingernail Off the back of his jacket Because it was going up his collar Obviously don't want it to go down his neck Picked it off his collar and put it on his Glove so that he could pet the bumblebee And repeat the picture That's how Convincing he was Oh they don't stink I've not pet bumblebees all my life I've never been stung Okay here you go

Tim: Yep I had a friend for a little while We stopped to look at The wall of clouds Coming over the ridges

Travis: The fog coming off the ocean

Robin: That is my new Likely favorite photo of this so far That is absolutely Incredible right there

Sylvia: It doesn't even capture What we saw it was so Incredible

Tim: Seeing it in motion

Sylvia: At first as we were approaching this We didn't know what it was It looked like a ridge line A mountain line We couldn't figure it out and we kept getting closer That's Sorry

Robin: I love that song it's my favorite

Sylvia: It's just saying it's time for me to Take my meds I'm a little crazy So So As we got closer Are those mountains Is that fog are those clouds What is that It just lingered there for hours It was so bizarre

Robin: Low pressure zone of some kind

Sylvia: It was so odd But it was so cool and the pictures just never You can see part of it there It just never Captured It was so cool

Robin: So now what I'm looking at folks Who's listening if you haven't Completely abandoned listening to this yet Is this beautiful Beach grass It's kind of reflecting from sun That is coming from one angle But also deflecting Like just sort of a dull look From a lack of light in the opposite direction It's a very That is That's beautiful

Tim: And the wonderful thing about it is it's windy there And these grasses are dancing And you're seeing these colors Ripple across the grass It's super cool To see

Sylvia: A neat place to stop Was that the kissing rock place

Tim: Oh yeah that's the kissing rock

Sylvia: I don't know why it was called that

Tim: But we took the advantage We did indeed kiss at the kissing rock Or at least a rock that was near the kissing rock It wasn't clearly identified The rock we were supposed to be kissing at A little further up the road We stopped and got some food In the parking lot we found these two old Model Ts or Model As Look at that

Robin: Just go for a little cruise

Sylvia: Oh and this is in Oregon by the way We are no longer in California

Tim: And it was super cool This one on the right Has actually got wood spoke wheels

Travis: Yeah Which I mean if you build them right They're stronger than metal Yep

Tim: It was really neat So this is the view of this Spine of rock jutting out Into the ocean That the restaurant we stopped at The deck was looking

Sylvia: You can sort of see Folks hiking on it

Tim: Yeah you can hike out there

Sylvia: And walk on it which was cool We didn't

Travis: It kind of reminds me of Little Presque Isle up in the UP

Sylvia: Yeah Oh my favorite This was my favorite

Tim: We got to experience our Northwest wet rainy foggy Forest campground With the moss Covering the trees It was just beautiful And you could hear the ocean from where we were camping

Sylvia: And unfortunately I was in about The worst shape physically And in extreme pain Didn't know why yet Got some answers when I got back But it was still Just absolutely gorgeous My favorite campground of all of them We had to hike in Oh my god

Robin: The boot

Sylvia: Yes I didn't realize The boot I didn't realize my foot was sticking out

Travis: Yeah well it wasn't like Super You could hear the ocean in the distance But the moss just made the woods super quiet

Tim: Yes The mist and the fog

Sylvia: That's all you heard The ocean Didn't hear any other campers The restrooms Were right on I don't know 30 yards

Tim: A little further than that But yeah pretty close

Sylvia: Yeah It was awesome That was fun

Tim: Stopped at We found a lot of really cute places to eat Stop and eat Yeah I don't remember Some cafe along the 101

Sylvia: But Crabs Benedict I remember what I ate

Tim: Yes

Sylvia: Oh yeah Yeah Bad pain Yeah That was awesome

Tim: So we did get up to Port Townsend That night where we had our Hotel And as we're Pulling in There's a rainbow in the sky

Sylvia: Full rainbow

Tim: And deer grazing In the parking lot Of the Manresa Castle Yeah we stayed at the castle Wow

Sylvia: Now you're king of the hill Mind you We just pulled up I am in excruciating pain Like in tears Level 8 pain And then all of a sudden Take my helmet off and go Wow Unbelievable there are deer grazing And there's a full rainbow How much better can this get And I'm crying And about to check in To a castle

Tim: So this is a photo of the Manresa Castle And it was just an amazing old building

Robin: So my question is Are you allowed to take anything for the pain That would make it possible to Subdue and enjoy this

Sylvia: Yes And no Everybody knows what pain medication is like You take it and you're kind of Either knocked out cold Or you're in such a daze That you're not really You're kind of a zombie right

Robin: Yeah my college days say that Recreationally I was probably Column B

Sylvia: So don't really want to be doing that on the back of a bike Sure So yeah kind of waited till the end And it really was One of those things that was only the last It seemed to hit about Six o'clock every night Which was the odd thing It was kind of the same time every night Why? This is so weird And that was the Kind of what I ended up The pattern I ended up using When I got back to Discuss with my doctors And sort of come up with a partial answer That we are still working on Solving But yeah it was about six o'clock Every night And it would only be So the last few hours of riding Would be the excruciating pain And just kind of pushing through that But yeah Yeah I didn't want to There were some things I'd try kind of in between To ease it a little bit But yeah I didn't want to be I had some Tylenol 3 But didn't want to be Yeah Sloppy on the back

Robin: Yeah you didn't want to be zonked Right Travis you fool, interact sir I'm getting my third beer No that's fine

Travis: Tim and Sylvia are carrying this They don't need me for anything

Tim: I will be back in a moment So this is a night time shot Out of our hotel room Looking over the port of Port Townsend And Just kind of like Still experimenting with my night photography

Travis: The port at the end of town

Tim: Yep So yeah For the people that hadn't heard Everyone who was supposed to do this trip with me Bailed out So I decided it was going to be my own Personal photo safari And then Sylvia expressed An interest in coming along So we worked out how to make that Happen

Travis: So Port Townsend is in Washington State

Tim: Yes Yeah this is just to the east of Olympic National Forest So This is right along the Little island chains outside of Seattle

Sylvia: Oh and if you look Up on Rosa Castle M-A-N-R-E-S-A There are Tons of Links to stories about About it possibly being haunted If you're so Inclined

Travis: It's a spooky ghost

Sylvia: I sense nothing But you know I was I was kind of out of it

Tim: Yeah I got nothing I got nothing So the next day we caught the ferry Out of Port Townsend Across to Whitby Island I think is what it was called And it was just kind of a cute little town Not too remarkable Except for a section that Was called Deception Pass Super cool Yeah so this is A narrow gap between the islands Where the tidal forces You know the When the tide goes in and out The water changes direction underneath this bridge And it is going Really fast through there

Travis: Oh crazy so it's like If you were trying to boat it Depending on the time of day And the lunar cycle It would either go upstream or downstream And it would change direction

Tim: Yep It was a neat place to stop It was Really kind of sketchy because There was not a lot of room to be a pedestrian On that bridge or around that bridge If you were If you were on the path

Sylvia: The sidewalk You can kind of see the truck That's crossing the bridge right there And there's a very very narrow Pedestrian

Robin: Path

Sylvia: That goes on either side Of that bridge If you happen to cross When there's like a camper or a big truck With the giant trailer

Travis: That's drafting a lot of air No just the

Sylvia: Mirrors that are sticking out You got to be careful if you're on the side That's closest to the Highway You could get clipped by one of those mirrors

Travis: The total stand by me kind of thing

Sylvia: Oh my gosh It's scary

Tim: Curb to rail it was about 3 feet

Sylvia: Yeah It's almost single pedestrian pass

Tim: When the trucks would go across That whole bridge would dance You could feel the whole deck moving

Sylvia: I don't like that I didn't go very far It was cool though It was really really neat

Tim: That was a good

Robin: Diversion Quick distraction Instead of beer I'm going with milk chocolate Milk chocolate Milk chocolate on top of beer

Tim: You savage Carrot cake

Travis: It's basically just milk chocolate anyway

Robin: Yeah he's not lying He's right Everything's got to be flavored Flavor

Tim: Where we at? This is the last day Sylvia is with me We just got past Deception Pass And are at the border And the border Crossing ended up taking a lot Longer than expected and planned

Robin: Whoa

Tim: First because it was busy And there was They were advertising a 30 minute delay I think it took 45 To get to the booth Where we have the little Interview with the border guard And because it was hot And the design of that bike When it's running, sitting still And the fan kicks on It blows all that heat right on top Of me So I would shut the bike down And then start it up and move forward And And then shut it down And move forward And one of those times It wouldn't go into gear Of course it wouldn't start No it wouldn't go into gear And then I thought I'll turn it off, turn it back on Because there's a computer involved Because this is an automatic bike

Robin: Little ECU action

Travis: It's the dual clutch transmission Africa Twin

Tim: So yeah, you know, computer involved Like did you turn it off, turn it back on Basic troubleshooting Then it wouldn't start Yeah So we pushed it through the border Crossing

Robin: We should have had a GoPro on

Tim: Oh my god we should have

Robin: I just came to your country to give you this piece of junk Take it, go ahead Get it away from me Are you going to leave anything behind? Probably this What is it? It's a paperweight, can you not tell?

Tim: Lawn ornament Yeah So this is me jump-starting the bike In the inspection area Of the border crossing Where one of the guards Had waved us through and told us You know, work on it here You know, to get it jump-started And another guard Finally came along and said Why are you here? Do you have a tow truck coming? You know, if things go down here We don't have to worry about you being in the background And possibly getting shot Well

Sylvia: Thanks for the concern

Tim: Wait a minute, I'm in Canada

Sylvia: You don't shoot people

Tim: Sorry So I kept running I had my jump-starter with me So I got the bike started And it still wouldn't go into gear So I let the bike run long enough to charge up Shut it down And we were trying to figure out What the problem might be Ended up being something really stupid The sidestand safety switch Got clogged with mud and dirt Okay Little WD-40, cranked it up and down a couple times And we were golden Yeah, clean up, and you're off

Travis: This time Classic sidestand safety switch noise

Tim: Yeah, but we missed the flight

Sylvia: Oh It was three o'clock By the time we were leaving Here I remember that I was supposed to Be on my plane And on a runway At three o'clock We weren't even at the airport yet Yeah

Tim: We ended up a little over two hours behind schedule

Sylvia: Yeah

Travis: Well, too, because Tim, you had a ferry to catch The next morning, right?

Tim: No, that afternoon And I did make I did make the ferry One hour after I was supposed to

Travis: Oh, because you caught that there was a next ferry

Tim: Yes

Travis: But there wasn't a next flight

Tim: It really, yeah For Sylvia Nine o'clock that night to fly out

Sylvia: I figured out a way to get home Instead of the three p.m. flight I got myself Booked onto a different airline And a 10.30 p.m. flight So I got on an overnight flight And still made it back the next day

Robin: Okay

Tim: Yeah, and when I rolled up to the To the booth at the ferry The ticket booth, and I'm like I'm trying to get to Vancouver Island Like, is there anything you can do for me? And she says, oh yeah, they're about ready to button it up Get on there Oh sure, don't you know Yeah, and I was the last person To get on that boat It really was like There was no waiting It was like empty ramps, drive straight in Yeah, so Tim, if you can see the picture He had to jump off of that ramp Yeah!

Sylvia: Oh my god Look at that clean landing Woohoo!

Robin: Yup, yeah

Tim: So yeah, it's like That's poor I was the last person on that ferry Before they lifted the gates and left It was pretty funny And then I get out to Vancouver Island And I know I'm late I get on the island at 5.30 And I know I've got a 5 hour Minimum If I did not stop for anything Even gas It would take over 5 hours to ride the length of this island Wow And I got there at 5.30 at night

Robin: Oh no no

Tim: And there was no way that I was going to do it Without stopping Nope nope nope Nope nope nope So I once again did And I had a A ferry in the morning on the far end of the island And That I needed to be on at 7.30 in the morning So I didn't have a whole lot of options Well, first of all I know the night's going to suck So hit the fun road first

Robin: So

Tim: Yeah, there's this beautiful Provincial park Slash Indian reservation And one of these roads that I picked out Was just this little ribbon of road

Travis: Yeah, it's like a one lane

Tim: Yeah, it was like What is that, 4 meters?

Travis: Yeah, about that

Tim: Yeah, and it was just this twisty Windy roller coaster I don't think I even got to third gear On this road It was so fun though

Travis: Basically a bicycle path

Tim: Yeah And I'd run into like a truck pull And a boat on that road So you had to be on your toes For this And it's just this beautiful Temperate rainforest level Of forestation It was just perfect And then I continued the highway slog And this is You know, I'm taking a picture of course A lot of the times I would do A Facebook check in, I'd just take a picture Of me and my bike At a gas station where I'm stopping

Travis: Right by the sandy dump

Tim: Yup And I'm like, well, I'm Gonna keep going So, you know, this is sunset And we're getting pretty far north So this is probably 10 o'clock at night 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock at night And I'm still hours away from where I need to be And I was so tired We got on the bike at 9.30 in the morning Or a little bit before that And it got cold And I started seeing Animals on the highway So I bounced off to the secondary road And I went a maximum Of 40 miles an hour And stopped every hour to put my head down For 10 minutes To stay sharp enough that If I saw something at 40 miles an hour I would at least be able to slow down Enough to not kill myself

Robin: Yeah, I remember you telling me this I was like, that's just

Tim: I do not advise Especially when it's like I was cold I had everything, all my layers on I had the heated grips, the heated gloves The heated vest, all going full blast And I'm still cold Throw in a bowl So Here's me at the next gas station at 2.30 in the morning When I finally arrived in This is Port Hardy On the far north end of Vancouver Island

Travis: Did you camp in the gas station? The Chevron station?

Tim: The thing is, I was worried about You know, if I fell asleep Waking up in time to catch the boat Yes I stayed awake I hung out here for an hour and a half or so Went to a city park for an hour and a half Went to another park for an hour and a half And then they Finally let me in To where the boat was parked I got there before the ticket agents showed up So there's a photo of my bike In front of the boat With the nose lifted up And God knows how early in the morning 6am

Travis: Daylight's just breaking And you're way up past like 45 And it's right near the solstice The sun's coming up early

Tim: Oh yeah, I was looking at I was getting far enough north Especially at the far end of this boat ride We're looking at 5 hours at most of full dark

Travis: Yeah, so you were up At like 30 degrees or so

Tim: Yeah, so this was a The inside passage Ferry So it weaves in and out of the mountain islands Going up the coast And my destination was 15 hours up The coast In Prince Rupert, which is the last deep port Before Alaska starts So I Slept on and off I'd wake up, take some pictures Walk around Go back, take a nap Get up, eat some food Look around, take some pictures It was feeling pretty strong After that all day

Travis: Did you have a cabin or were you just sleeping in a Seat?

Tim: They were fairly comfortable chairs But yeah, I didn't have I didn't pay for the upgrade of anything So yeah, I was I was just camping out In the little viewing chairs So 15 hours just in a Chair Wow Yeah, it was Pretty enough to be interesting And not totally suck Is that your cabin? No, this is the bed and breakfast that I stayed in

Travis: The next day after He landed

Tim: So yeah, we got into Into port at 11.30 at night And I made it into the bed and breakfast And stayed over here This is the Pillsbury Guesthouse The Pillsbury Guesthouse Is the first Residential building built In Prince Rupert And the lady that Ran it was super cool She was 75 years old Had been doing this for 25 years Before that was a singer And performer And It was just like hanging out at your grandma's house

Travis: And your grandma used to work on Broadway Or whatever

Robin: But go on

Tim: So breakfast at this place was an amazing event It was me and Two couples who were In their 60s One couple was from England One couple from Montreal And they We got along really well Had a lot of good conversation And Colleen, our host Served us like a four course breakfast And then Performed for us

Robin: Yeah

Sylvia: It wasn't a strip tease, stop it

Tim: But she was Kind of an Edith Piaf Impersonator performer Which for those who don't know Edith Piaf was a Singer in France In the 30s and 40s And was really popular with The US and Canadian GIs During World War II So she had this whole Little thing where she'd speak In a French accent Partially in French And then she did three songs on the karaoke machine The private performance for five people Awesome And I'm enjoying it so much I didn't leave there until 11.30, almost noon It was so awesome I seriously would have stayed another day If I didn't really have the itch to move

Robin: And once again For our listeners out there When Tim Clark enjoys something like this He does it the way we should all do it I think that the world Has lost a certain edge About how you are to Go ahead and Even if it's freaky Or makes you feel weird That's a good sensation Go ahead and just sit straight up and down Perfect posture And then smile real big And just stare with really open eyes Like wow The whole thing I can see that going down I can see it No cynicism Just bring it in

Tim: It was an amazing thing

Robin: That is a character trait That is few and far between You get big props from me for that Thank you

Tim: Prince Rupert area And the next town over Port Edward If I remember correctly They're coastal Rainy city Towns, cities It's the kind of area where You almost never see the sun It's always wet and rainy Or just like on this day It was just kind of drizzle all day long

Robin: So it's England

Tim: Very much On one of my side Wanders I ended up at this old fish Processing plant that was Historically preserved museum Place And I pulled in just thinking I got to use the bathroom and maybe I'll poke around at their Old museum thing I never actually made it in there because I Ran into the Maintenance guy Of course And I talked to him For like 45 minutes I get as much History of the place I get history of him The area, the people around there Just so much fun to talk to He told me about the Barter economy And how If you've got a strong back You can feed yourself up there If you can handle the fact that you never see the sun He was a rugged badass kind of guy He was one of those guys That would go up to Alaska Do the crab fishing The old deadliest catch stuff He did that He worked for the Canadian Coast Guard for a while He welded for a while He did machine shop work for a while It is just kind of like What do I have to do to be paid?

Robin: He's classically trained Classically educated

Tim: Just the kind of guy that Will do damn near anything Can fix anything It was just a blast And I started to talk to him He went to school for Some wildlife related Schooling And he started I talked to him about bears And my concerns He's like, oh no, this time of year They're just starting to transition from eating Grass to eating berries You don't have to worry about them too much When they start Transitioning, when the salmon start running You really need to be careful And then He also recommended that I Take this side trip off of my planned route To a It's the Most frequent in the Continental northern US And Canada North America The most recent lava flow Years ago And these lava fields Just stretch on for miles and miles I just kind of Had it in the back of my mind When I started getting up there And started seeing the roads on the GPS And started looking at my map I actually see a loop That I can take here But there was one of the roads on my National geographic adventure map That said it was a restricted road So I started polling the locals At the gas station What does this mean? Have you been there? Have you seen this road? And one of the guys was like, oh yeah It's just full of potholes, you're fine Oh, okay So I went up and Went and saw the lava fields And This is I'm showing you some pictures of basically Just a rainy, misty area Of where I'm going And this is the lava field And it's just piles of jumbled Ash And it's covered with These lichens And it's also not very permeable And this is an area That's I believe this is A temperate rainforest area So a lot of water Some glacial melt And not very permeable Turns this into an almost Like 20 mile waterfall Going down this valley Wow And they call the area the drowned forest

Robin: Oh, that's beautiful right there You got the, I forget what that's called The weeping willow type tree

Tim: Yeah, I think it's a tamarack

Robin: Variety Yeah, and then You got all the water flowing underneath And it's just pure green water Yeah, it's that glacier

Tim: They call it rock flower It's the glacial stuff

Robin: Let me ask you this, Tim. Are we as far north As we're going to be on this trip?

Tim: Yeah, as far north as I'm going to be

Robin: Okay Go on

Tim: The road that I take That pops me out is the road that people Take when they're going to Alaska It's highway 37 That goes up to Hyder I believe is what's on the border

Robin: Well, here's what I want to do Because we are deep in It's late We're going to do a two-parter So we're going to close this one out And then we're all going to get back together And do part two of this series Because you'll be heading due south now, right?

Travis: I go east for quite a ways Before I go south He goes back to the Canadian Rockies Are we at the halfway point yet? Yeah

Robin: We're at the halfway point

Tim: Yeah, we're a little past halfway

Robin: Then I've nailed it That's what I'm trying to say So we're going to shut this shit down now Because that's how we do things here We swear And we say In fact, I'm going to let you Go back to the outline for Google For the closing sponsorship message

Tim: I'm going to have to figure out where I'm at here

Travis: Yeah, I think we lost Tim's video feed Did we? Oh no, it's just jumping now It's going between you and whoever's talking

Robin: Go to the podcast outline And then look for closing sponsorship message And it's got your name on it, man And I know I'm being abrupt

Tim: Hey, that's fine

Robin: But we're going to do another one We're going to do another one of these

Travis: And Robin's going to have to edit out a lot of me talking to Laurel While Tim's talking about something else

Robin: I'm going to leave it in, man I'm going to leave it in You did that to yourself, Travis I went into a separate room, I closed a door And I started doing a podcast You went to the grocery store And then got your car repaired

Travis: I closed my Skype feed But I can't pause the feed Right, I know, that's how that works Tim, closing sponsorship message

Tim: Alright, ready to go This episode of the Riding Obsession podcast Is sponsored by the Ugly Apple Cafe Of Madison, Wisconsin Where they use local overstocked produce To offer a quick, tasty breakfast

Robin: TheRidingObsession.com Is always seeking sponsors for this podcast Sponsors are given three focus mentions Toward the start, middle, and end of their designated episode Their contributions are put towards Bettering the program's content and recording equipment I'll take this opportunity to promote Our next group riding tour Which is scheduled for late summer of this year Dubbed the Trip Sevens Tour Seven riders will cover seven states in seven days Starting September 1st of this year It's a twisty sport touring getaway Of epic proportions And we hope you'll sign up More information about that tour Is available via TheRidingObsession.com Visit the group tours link Which is anchored under events In our navigation menu

Travis: And that's our episode for this round

Robin: Yeah, sorta

Travis: And that's our episode for this round Tune in next time for more discussion On all things specifically sport touring Or universal motorcycling as a whole And for more of the Recap of Tim Clark's Epic cross-country Multi-country Time zones adventure Possibly an interview In there as well somewhere Depending on how much time it takes us to get through the rest of the story It's an amazing yarn That we all need to hear For TheRidingObsession.com I'm Travis Burleson A.K.A. The voice of that guy from that show About making stuff Apparently

Robin: And I'm Shockjock Robin Dean Safe travels everyone