MI-2-LAB2V

My god! Yall are dragging a tw through all that? That poor bastard

Steve300xcw said:

My god! Yall are dragging a tw through all that? That poor bastard

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landen300 won the Small Engine award for riding the TW200!

Like did he loose a bet, or was taking the tw a dare or something? I'm just having a real hard time understanding why somebody would do that

No bets lost.
The whole trip was his idea, and riding the TeeDub was the plan all along.
We’ve been talking about it for years. Then put it on the calendar about 2.5 years ago and have been working towards it since.
Crazy it’s over!

Well then props for that

Allrighty, now that I'm in front of a computer I'll spend a minute typing out my 'trip report'

The groundwork is that landen300 toad one of the guy's 20' enclosed trailer out there with his (Lando's) superdoody. That truck and trailer will stay out in Vegas till February, then we'll go out to KoH and use the bikes and sleep in the trailer.
There were 6 of us riding, and one buddy came out to drive the truck/trailer from location to location. He was an absolute rock star, he'd have waters and snacks and fuel and stuff all set up for us at each intermediate location throughout the day.

Day 1 - We left the hotel in Palmdale right at 7am and did maybe 15 miles of surface streets till we got onto the dirt. Ok, holy crap, California is a giant dump. Like literally, full of garbage. Is there not a better place than anywhere that pavement meets dirt to dump your old Little Tykes toys and broken washing machines? And how much extra effort does it take to dump a jetski 25 miles from pavement vs. at least just leaving it in a parking lot?
With that over, we got into the trails, the first 68 miles were shared between the Hard Way and the Easy Way. There was a nice mix of fast smooth, whoops, big gravel, small climbs, big whoops, a few bigger climbs, etc. I think we ended up in Kramer Junction for fuel, then headed back out. Just East of Kramer Junction is where the Hard Way and Easy Way split. The Hard Way was going to be another 98 miles, the Easy Way 43 more (I might be off a few miles here....) Anyhow, we decided to take the Hard Way. So off we went, up North to the F22 crash site. Made a stop off at that, then headed into the climbs of the HW. This is where the group got wadded up pretty quickly. I had crashed pretty good on one of the rocky climbs right after our fuel stop but before the split of HW/EW and banged up my left elbow and ribs pretty bad so I was hurting. My confidence was certainly down, so I took a side sneak around the first big climb. That got me to the second big climb, which I took a few stabs and then bailed. So three of us ended up bailing on that second climb route, and skirting around, but that broke up our group into 3 and 3.
The two groups soldiered on individually, we weren't able to get radio communication due to no line of sight.
There were some nice rock gardens, and a bunch of cool sights to see along the way, then we got to the last set of ridges that would get us into a dry lake bed. I was last in line and got super wadded up on a bit of trail and by bike ended up down in a ravine. I sorta decided that since I ultimately needed to be down on that lake bed, and there were indeed tire tracks in that ravine, I was better off just dragging my bike down the ravine that trying to get it back onto the main trail.
I believe I made the right decision, or at least that's what I'm telling myself. I got that bike down to the lake bed with a few extra scratches here and there......but in one piece.
Once we all met up on the lake bed it was determined that we were all out of water, and probably had another 50 miles of the Hard Way. So we bailed and took a route back past the F22 site to where the HW and EW split up, joined back up to the EW and rode to the hotel.............Day 1 done.

I worked way harder than I needed to, but I got the TW through all that...correction, the TW got me through all that. If time weren't so much of the essence with this event, it would have been just fine - and it was fine anyhow. We finished both days in the daylight and still did what we wanted to do. I just realized watching the guys in front of me with their asses on the seat going over stuff I had to stand and work/earn my way over that I was going to be a lot more beat at the end. At least I weigh less than my bike does, so I feel like it appreciates that. Everybody I talked to was like Hell Yeah Brother, except one guy before we even started that basically said I was doomed to fail in every way. I had a blast, and suffered less than I anticipated the last 2 years of talking about this. I'd totally do it again, but probably with a different bike just to see what it's like. Enjoyed every minute of the last 8 days, even the drive out.

Ok, here's Day 2:

We left Barstow a bit earlier, probably 6:30. The ride officially starts at 6:30 and I'd say 2/3 of the bikes were already gone. Anyhow, we had some dirt basically as soon as we left the hotel parking lot, then got into some road and whatnot for a bit.
More of the same as far as a good mix of fast sand, fast gravel, deep bottomless sand, small whoops, BIG whoops, gnarly rocks, weird moonscapes....
Basically you'd be riding something and think 'dang, this is awesome' and it'd be over. Or 'dang, this sucks, I can't take much more of it' and it'd be over. So that was kinda kewl.
We stuck to the Easy Way basically the whole time. We were wanting to hit up Red Rocks Canyon outside Vegas and figured that if we weren't being very mindful of time we weren't going to make it.
My license plate fatigued during one of the big long whoop sections and fell off. My buddy actually saw it fly off and stopped for it.
There was a section of big gravel whoops and washes that were a killer. I used every bit of the travel that bike had to offer, as did all the other guys. Couple times I wasn't sure I was going to pull off a whoop/wash but somehow always did.....
We made it to Sandy Valley NV about 2:00 and had a lunch (provided by the organizers).
Got going again and had 50 miles left the easy way, 70 the hard way.
Most of those 50 miles were a big 4-lane wide gravel road that occasionally had a giant tire-eating wash across it.
We took the Hard Way option of going up Red Rocks Canyon. Once we got to the 'good stuff' I was pretty gassed. Some guy offered to get my bike up the first section, which I gladly accepted. Once through that I managed to pick my way through the other stuff bit by bit. We got into some snow, which was kinda fun.
Anyhow, at that point we just had to go down the back side, and then get through the park and into town. I was so beat up that I honestly couldn't even lean my bike into a corner. I was over it.
We made our way to the hotel, 220 miles for the day.

landen300 said:

and suffered less than I anticipated

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Pain is inevitable.
Suffering is a decision.

JayMcJay said:

Pain is inevitable.
Suffering is a decision.

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Guess I made the right decision and didn't suffer? I describe myself as longsuffering.

landen300 said:

Guess I made the right decision and didn't suffer? I describe myself as longsuffering.

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You totally made the correct decision.

When I was picking myself up from that first big wreck, once I made sure nothing was actually broken on me I had to say out loud "I'm in pain, but I'm not suffering".
Sometimes if you tell yourself that, you'll believe it.

Here's my plate, after I stomped on it a few times to flatten it back out.
Pretty beat....

The one tab that's completely gone is still stuck to my bike.
The other one had one of those little LED license plate light bolt thingies through it.
That got loosened up with all the vibrations I guess and then it slid out of that groove.
Oh well.

Some of the rock garden in Red Rocks Canyon.

And a shopping cart in the middle of the desert, MILES from any pavement, let alone store