Adventure Motorcycle Blog

Today was a little different than normal because my bike needed some repairs and that was an adventure all to itself. We got up early, packed up the bikes and left the hotel around 6:30. We had to take the highway from Chama to Pagosa Springs. Remember, it’s dark, I don’t have a back brake and for shits and grins it was REALLY foggy and we had 3 deer and 2 elk jump out in-front of us on the way-that was fantastic 😑. The condensation was so bad we had to constantly wipe off our visors so we could see. Visibility was horrible, but there were a handful of clear spots and the terrain looked like something out of a movie. The mountains, streams, valleys and windy roads were just amazing. When we pulled into Pagosa Springs I pulled up motorcycle repair shops on my phone and Grand Venture LLC popped up so I called them. David answered the phone and told us to stop by and he would do what he could to fix it. As a reminder, my rear brake line had a failure where the rubber connects to the fitting. Right off the bat he told me he didn’t have a line for a wr250r, but he could probably fix it anyways. After a little recreational gps user error tour of Pagosa Springs we finally pulled into David’s shop. It had one single garage door, but was at least two car lengths deeps. There were multiple bikes. parts, tools and a heavily modified Jeep sitting in the back. Both David and Jeremiah met us outside, greeted us and were two of the friendliest guys out there. Couple minutes into conversation you can tell those two eat, sleep and enjoy the adventure motorcycle lifestyle. David fixed my bike by taking an 18 year old brake line from his personal Honda 650 and making one small bend in it. It was the right length, same fittings and hooked right up. Who would of thought? He also worked a small oil leak I had going on and changed my oil. The entire time he was working on the bike all four us were just BSing about riding and Jeremiah and David showed us their heavily modified bikes. While there, JP from MissionWildweness pulled up in this ridiculous 4Runner and it was probably the most built up off road Toyota I’ve ever seen. We started talking bikes and turned out JP has a Tenere 700 which is the same bike I have in order plus David has one sitting out front. He has an interest in my bike and might be interested in buying it off me once the trip is over. When the bike was fixed we all took a pic together and then David and Jeremiah suggested we all ride down the street and have breakfast so we did. David jumped on the Tenere 700, cracked the throttle and pulled quite the vertical wheelie and Jeremiah jumped on the KTM. Hands down David’s shop is a top tier repair/customer shop and I’m lucky he was in town. At breakfast more riding stories were exchanged and David suggested we take a difficult scenic route to get us back on our trail system. The trail was called Wolf Creek Pass. Matt and I decided we would take the route, do a little site seeing and get back on the trail. Well, 20% of that trail was a bitch and personally the hardest trail I’ve ever been on. The water crossings were fun, the moderate trails were exciting, but the super steep, rocky, loose gravel and cliff drop off to the immediate right was kinda scary. There was one spot I laid my bike over and it started to slide backwards just to show how steep it was. We took all my luggage off , walked the gear up and then finally got up that section. There were step ups in an already vertically challenging obstacle and there were no doubt some tense moments. I had cracked my wind screen in NM, but this trail claimed it and it’s actually still sitting up there somewhere. All in all it was a great learning experience. Still amazed on what that little wr250r can do with a few modifications. Matt and I have done quite well on the hard legs of the CDR, but this particular trail had a section that was well beyond our skill level with loaded down bikes, but slow and steady wins the race and we eventually completed it. From there we traveled to a town called Del Norte, had lunch at a brewery, talked about the crazy trail we were just on and had some beer. After that we headed north again. These trails were all dry gravel and fast with switchbacks and hills. It was so fun to hit those at speed. We eventually ended up at another campground up in the mountains and it great. There was a stream down the hill and maybe 9 spots total.