Trans America Trail... Part One

The fact that its been over two months since the last time I posted a Blog I thought I'd finally take the time out of my busy schedule to somewhat catch everyone up on whats been going on. I'm going to make it the short version, a lot has happened since the VW Bus trip ended and I could probably fill up a novel with stories. That's part of the problem I've found with writing a blog, what do you actually include? You can't possibly write about everything that happens so the hardest part for me is trying to decide what to include and what to leave out. It actually takes me longer to decide on what to write then it does to write it.

So way back on June 27th when Tina and Myself finally made it to Portland we left "Charlie" in a storage yard and jumped on a plane back to Florida so Dave and I could get started on riding the Trans America Trail. The TAT is a dirt bike trail that runs 4700 miles across the U.S., of which 4300 or so miles are dirt, gravel, sand, mud, lime rock, snow and just about any other type of terrain that you can imagine. You can read all about it here http://www.transamtrail.com/. The TAT starts in Eastern Tennessee and ends on the Pacific Coast in southern Oregon, it normally takes 3 to 4 weeks to complete, we did it in 22 days, which is on the faster end of the scale. I didn't carry a laptop and by the time the trip was over there was so much to write about I dare not even attempt it. But Dave on the other hand did keep up a blog and you can read about his side of the adventure here http://www.iwouldturnbackifiwereyou.blogspot.com/.

The TAT turned into 22 days of nonstop adventure, it was tougher than either I or Dave expected and sometimes making the daily 200 mile average took 12 hours or more. There were days we made 350 miles, and others where we barely hit 100. Riding a motorcycle takes a lot out of you to begin with, but when riding off-road it demands a huge amount from you not only physically but mentally also. I would love to know how many decision your mind makes in a minutes time while riding high speed on a dirt bike. Your just constantly watching the terrain in front of you and making a decision on how to handle it, it will wear you out. We battled fatigue, flat tires, crashes, rivers, rain, mud, mountains, bears, snakes, at some points each other and what I thought to be a wolf stalking me in the middle of the night, turned out to be a big white dog. But we made it, we rode the TAT! Quite an accomplishment in the dirt biker world.

Together we took hundreds of pictures so here are some of the honorable mentions...


Leaving Jellico, Tennessee on a rainy morning. It was a great feeling to finally pull onto the trail after months of planning and years of dreaming. Because we had to ride 600 miles on I-75 to get to Jellico we carried a fresh set of knobbie tires to put on when we finally hit dirt, but I decided to ride my tires for a few more days being my knobbies held up on the highway better than I had expected them too.

In case we lost our way we would always know how to get to Oregon, just follow the front fender.

I know this is hard to believe but at some point the State of Tennessee must have got smart and compared the cost of maintaining a dirt road monthly to just paving them and forgetting about it for the next ten years. So about 75 percent of the back roads are paved, usually just small, one lane roads with no yellow line. It was actually quite nice and a gives ample time to get adjusted to the physical challenge before hitting the tough stuff.

The first real spill that Dave took, we had been warned about how slick the bottoms of the rivers in Tennessee can get, but Dave had underestimated it and hit this one going about 20 mph. It looked like him and "Matilda" were sliding into home plate. We almost never got it back upright, I had to drag both my feet on the bottom to keep my bike from falling when I crossed.

This turned into a common sight for us, must have been 5 or 6 bridges that were out along the trail. Some we had to detour around and some we just made a makeshift bridge and rode the bikes across.

Another one of Daves spills, this one was fun to watch and I even got it on video, if Dave will ever post it online for the world to see. He hit it going about 20mph also and wiped out doing a complete 180, it was great! This was in Mississippi were a rice patty field had overflowed onto the trail.

A picture of "Roy", my trusty companion for many adventures. Never has left me stranded.

Welcome to Oklahoma! This is pretty much it for the next 700 miles or so.

When your riding a bike for 10 hours a day across Oklahoma you have to find ways to entertain yourself.

Took a break from riding the dirt bike to give this Oil Rig a try.

Not sure how this happened, but I suspect it was a Tornado. Didn't think about it the time but we probably should have checked to make sure there wasn't still a dog in it. Hope the little guy was alright!

To be continued...