What is it about mechanical things that move us?

WASN'T that long ago, I had some requests for more aircraft photos.  There is a major facility nearby in Tuscon, at the Davis Monthan airbase, that parks thousands of aircraft in the dryness of the Arizona desert.

I have yet to see this immense sight firsthand, but will do so hopefully on this trip.

Meanwhile, I will pass along some from my own collection for your viewing pleasure.

Cheers

CF-5 Calgary

F-86 Sabre Great Falls MT

Sea Fury Calgary

Canso (Catalina) North Sydney

Tiger Moth Calgary

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?

Gnat (I think) Calgary

Twin Beech

Sea Bee Calgary

Hurricane Calgary

Harvard (Texan) Southern AB

Antonov AN2 Romania

F-104 Starfighter Greece

Martin Mars Skaha Lake water bomber

Sopwith tri-plane Calgary

Venom Calgary

CF-86 Calgary

Bell 47 Calgary

S-51 Calgary

AVRO Lancaster Calgary

Silver Dart repro.  Baddeck N.S.

CF 101 VooDoo PEI

Tracker PEI

Argus PEI

X Roads

Apache Trail

RIDING in the SW extends our otherwise limited Cdn riding season by months.  Geography dictates that we, in Canada, regardless of which part of the country you live in, will ultimately have to store the bike away and deal with shoveling snow and winter tires.




Having ridden in Baja over the years and now at my home in Arizona, certainly allows a lucky guy like moi, to smile a little wider, dream a little bigger and experience something that most motorcyclists can't.


 

Tortilla Flats

Take yesterday for example, it's just above freezing back home and worse, my previous home in Alberta already has fresh snow.

Coming into Fish Creek

I, on the other hand, have ridden old US 80, saw some incredible vintage aircraft privately owned in Buckeye, ridden the back way to Gila Bend, and most recently forayed into the Superstitions once again.

 

Apache Trail heading NE

Riding the Apache Trail in reverse and daytime looks far different than the first trip through a couple of years back.  Apart from the twisty road and spectacular scenery, no photograph can do justice, descending into Fish Creek along a single lane, rutted, clinging mountain road leaves me in awe.  Sure there are rougher trails around, I mean you could drive a sedan (very gingerly) through here on a dry day, but there may be no prettier sights in all of Arizona than this short historic trail. From mid November 90 degree heat to the coolness of the valley, where a rather long rest stop in perpetual shade posed no hardship as far as I was concerned.

Cave at Fish Creek

From this point eastwards, you travel on decent gravel road that today was deep in sand and pea sized rock.  Steering a bike on surfaces such as this can be tiring and treacherous.  When in the back country I stand on the pegs much of the time.  That allows me to see farther ahead and in country where turns and hills are often blind, its an advantage.  At the same time standing lowers the center of gravity and is helpful for negotiating rough roads.



The AT this time around had far more and deeper gravel, and the stutter bumps were literally all over the place.  These are generally caused by traffic braking and accelerating from corners and in fact often extend clear across the road leaving no smooth surface.  Taken too slowly, you are prone to continual rocking, too fast and you may be skipped clear off some embankment to the depths below.  Finding the right combination of throttle opening, weight distribution and balance are key for riding these stretches.  Its no wonder that often after a long days back country ride, I am bushed!  Sore arms, legs and back...

Pushing 60, I take longer to recuperate after a day cow-trailing. 

Bordering the Apache river much of the route, the typical bleakness of the desert is broken by the sheen of reservoirs and the odd wake of a speedboat out fishing for bass. Of course the recreational uses of such a waterway is a mecca for boaters and campers of all types.

Just before the trail ends at highway 188, a few miles outside Roosevelt, you'll climb up and by the dam of the same name.  No point in a history lesson here, its pretty easy to look up.  The bridge spanning the outlet from Roosevelt Lake is quite spectacular and seemingly out of place here in the Arizona desert. 




I lingered little, after all I was here 2 years ago, but today I wanted to find a little used Jeep Trail farther up 188 that would cross the range back to Highway 87.  My guide book calls it the Four Peaks Trail, and I was anxious to cross it.

Roosevelt bridge

Apache Trail, take two.

A couple of years back I did a trip that included the Apache Trail (see CB issue #290) as its return destination.  It was a Sunday, started out cool, much of it was blacktop and ultimately I ended up with a nail in the rear tire, just outside the summer village of Roosevelt.  There at a pull out while taking photos, I met 'Fred' who helped me out with a can of slime and an air pump.  That fix got me back to the outskirts of Apache Junction, from where I was forced to call in the Cavalry.  Not the US cavalry, but Bob, the UK transplant cavalry!  Alas, the slime had given out and I was still 50 freeway miles from home.  Not the most satisfying way to complete a ride.



I will admit that my ride inbound on the A-T, was less than stellar, as I fretted the entire way about the tire, after all... Slime as well as all the other road fixes are really designed for tubeless applications.  The XT of course, is tubed front and back.  Besides the obvious worry of the tire, the whole affair had delayed my return and it was already dusk when I rode out of the desert and through Tortilla Flats.  Something else this small trail bike is not known for is it's after dark lighting.  No Baja sized million candlepower searchlights here.  Barely enough in fact to outshine a flashlight!

Since that trip, I have wondered what the Trail would be like in daylight.  My very brief foray into the Superstitions, had in no way satisfied my curiosity about this Apache hideaway that I had read so much about in my younger days.  I was determined to explore further into the past...



While looking around for a destination loop ride, I explored several ideas.  The 350 is, ummmm, barely tolerable, okay... let's face facts, it's not a freeway motorcycle.  Droning along on the off road thin and skinny seat, with the engine turning 5000 RPM to get me 55MPH, for miles on end, is not exactly my idea of a w/e in New Orleans during Mardi Gras! 

By their very nature dual purpose bikes have to be a compromise, and in my case I needed something light weight, road legal to ride the back country and with an acceptable level of "pain" vs trailability. (Yes I know that's not a word but as you'll find, I've had to make some new ones up as I go along.)  I was still living in Calgary with the east coast just an idea that really hadn't germinated.  My insurer wouldn't insure my DR200 that I had left here.  I was driving down and could transport a small trail bike on my home built rear rack if needed and a bigger dualie, like a DR 650 or the very rare XT 600 would have slightly better comfort and highway traveling power, but would certainly have been a handful on the back road into Crown King (see CB issue #278).  Ultimately I will need to make other plans if I want to increase my radius beyond a hundred miles., now that I am no longer driving my own vehicle down here from Alberta. That poses a handicap for my visits.



For this return to the Superstitions, I thought it would make the most sense to spread it out over a couple of days.  In that way I would not be hurried in the good stuff (the actual off road riding) and would tolerate the 55 mph drone it would be necessary to do, traversing the city.  To reach the east end of the city (or anywhere) I am pretty much forced to ride 90 minutes each way on freeways like I-17 and 60.  Don't get me wrong, Phoenix, like most large US cities, has an excellent freeway system allowing one to, if not exactly transport oneself instantly, Star Trek style, to get from here to there rapidly and safely without having the time consuming stop and go of city streets. 

In any case, I was headed for a re-run of the Apache Trail but this time with time on my hands and several Jeep trails to explore.



Having picked up a copy of Charles Wells, "Guide to Arizona Backroads and 4-Wheel drive Trails" (which btw lists the CK back road as "difficult"), from the Glendale library, I was looking at not only riding by the Superstitions... but through them as well.  Getting intimate so to speak.

Route planned would include traversing the area in both directions on roads ranging from loose gravel on the A-T to steep climbs and narrow rutted trails on the 4 Peaks.  I'd do it mid week, before the Memorial Day long weekend, and as it turned out, the temperature was expected to be in the low 80's, instead of the low 70's I'd been having.  Once you get up into the hills, it would get cooler in any case, as it certainly did.



Let the games begin.

Yup... it's soapbox time once again...

YOU gotta wonder if civil servants and politicians have to pass some type of test or something?  Surely there is, at the very least, a multiple choice questionnaire or open book quiz of some sorts, isn't there.

I'm serious.

There's gotta be something to qualify (and I use this term loosely) people that make laws and rules and enforce them isn't there.  And what about all this talk about being environmentally friendly, going green, easing gridlocked rush hour traffic, creating parking spaces in the downtown core...

Anyone?

Is there not some test for these imbeciles??

This from my riding friend in B.C. (British Columbia for my American friends) recently arrived at my mailbox:

BCCOM Update – Oct. 24^th, 2013

Snow Tires:

 

BCCOM has received a number of e-mails about some RCMP officers that have been enforcing BC's snow tire law to the limit. It states that all motor vehicles must be equipped with either snow tires or chains to drive on most of BC’s highways from Oct. 1^st – April 30^th. Which is now, being applied to motorcycles without regard to actual weather or road conditions. This effectively bans the use of motorcycles in BC during that period (58% of the year)

 

We thank all of our members who have written in about this issue. Please know that BCCOM has taken the first steps to contact the Ministry of Transportation about this issue.

 

 

HOV LANE: Burnaby – Vancouver Border

 

Please know that BCCOM , along with our legal council is looking into changing what is now, a dedicated bus lane (Cassiar and Hastings) into a full functioning HOV lane that allows motorcycles as well. 

Yup... you read that right.  Our National Police force, responsible for much of Canada's highway and towns, those same guys that repeatedly tasered a Polish man,

(Robert Dziekański (April 15, 1967 – October 14, 2007; was a Polish immigrant to Canada whose death on October 14, 2007 was a homicide.^[3] He was tasered five times by the RCMP at Vancouver International Airport...

Full details of the incident became public because Paul Pritchard, an eyewitness, made a cell phone video of it. The police initially took possession of the video, refusing to return it to Pritchard. Pritchard went to court to obtain it, then released it to the press. The final inquiry report released Friday June 18, 2010 concluded the RCMP were not justified in using a Taser against the Polish immigrant and that the officers later deliberately misrepresented their actions to investigators.) 

stuck in a Vancouver airport, because he was threatening these four body armored, radio equipped, armed, trained professionals, with a "stapler"!! That's right a cheap office stapler, not to be confused with the deadly "staple gun" in my tool box... 

That one and the same police force is now ticketing motorcyclists on B.C. roads because they are not using snow tires or chains?!

WTF!!!  Are you for real?  Checked the calendar and it ain't April fools.

This is even harder to believe than my ongoing battle with the City of Calgary parking authority about encouraging motorcyclists to ride their bikes vs driving the sedan during summer months.  My suggestions of opening city property to park bikes or allowing more than a single bike to occupy a metered space, fell on deaf ears.  Then when they introduced the ticket dispenser, a test program of which they ran during our winter months, when I pointed out the folly of that idea, their answer was "well we didn't think of that" then to "afix the (paper) ticket to my windshield or place it on the dashboard", then after my pointing out many of us neither had windshields or dashboards... they then suggested I and all my friends, park in pay lots, as their solution.  

Thanks Big Brother, for looking after us sub humans too...

Just to prove that lacking common sense is not limited to Provincial or Federal authorities, I was told by my insurance company that I was "only being charged insurance for 7 months... yes," he said, 
"I got 5 months of insurance ... for free!"

I'm still looking for the turnip truck I fell from...

Thanks!

When Holly mentioned  'blogging' about my European motorcycle trips, instead of sending out tedious emails to 50 people, loading up photos at internet joints, taking hours frustrated by poor quality signals or equipment, I thought I'd give it a try.

C 70 bought via E Bay in Phoenix, 2006

Well... I see I've passed 20,000 page views this week and I thank you all for that.  If you find this of interest, amusing or inspiring... please pass it on to your friends and invite them to join in the fun!

Dr. N.

Sprint 955 RSi bought this year in PEI

"You must be nuts to want to do that"

You know, sometimes I have mixed feelings riding down here in the desert.  Much of the time, even though I am on "public roadways" I may see no one all day.  Take yesterday for example.  I found an interesting loop road SW of the city searching for interesting roads via google earth.  I am partial to mountains, lakes, dams, canyons and anything containing water.  There is a petroglyph site and small lake/reservoir known as Painted Rock.  

To get there you have to be on pavement most of the way, but once in the hood, it's about 60-70 miles of varying (easy to very rough) gravel roads.  I saw some bush campers but only passed 4 bikes coming in the other direction (1 woman) all younger riders on big dualies.  They had trucked out and were only a mile into their ride.  Even google maps are unreliable so not sure GPS would help here, but maybe I will try it next year.  I'd need a power source and of course the tiny battery in the bike is near dead all the time.  Hence the kick starter... 






I learned long ago that simpler is better.  I specifically targeted an air cooled, kick start bike when I was shopping down here several years ago.  How many of those do you think have been built over the last twenty years... not many. 

 



My choices were the old style KLR 250, but it was liquid cooled and pretty rare.  Then there were early DR 350's and of course the XT I bought.  All scarce as hen's teeth.
 
Riding with someone else poses it's own problems, but of course the big thing if you have company is the "murphy" rule.  Which btw, works both ways.  The 'what if' factor always lurks in the back of my mind.  



 Yesterday's ride was pretty warm, hi 80's low 90's, but as long as you can find some shade and drink lots of water, bearable once moving.  

I eventually, close to civilization (?) came across a lone p/u coming from a side road, and he helped me out by at least pointing out to me that the gas station in Hyder would be closed by the time I got there.  


That meant a detour of some 20 miles to get to a station at Sentinel that may not be open!.  By that time it was too late to try the route I'd bypassed an hour earlier to get me to the glyph site/lake.  I came at it from the other end, but it was getting dusk by then (around 5pm) and so... I did what dual purpose bikes dread... took the interstate home.  

So near and yet so dark!

While chatting it up with the two geezers at the Sentinel gas station, by the proprietors own words, it's...

 in the "middle of nowhere", they want to know why I am asking about back roads.  He says... "you'd need a dirt bike back there and then you'd be nuts to ride it!"

Fair enough... I've been called worse.

Now as you guys know... these dual purpose bikes are not Wings and let me say it was a long drone much of it in the dark with cars flying by at well over the posted 75mph.  My speed was a more sedate 55mph.  The good news, tada... the bike worked fine, engine pulled well, and my fuel mileage was still between 75 and 81 mpg.

By the time I got home at 7 pm, my ass was like a piece of tenderized steak, my eyeballs were strained and my hands were buzzing like a soup can full of bumble bees.

Surprise surprise!

MY plans yesterday went awry.  After careful consideration I had chosen a route back into the Superstitions, criss crossing several jeep trails.  As they say... 'the best laid plans'...

I postponed that ride for later in the week, after all it's a very long days' adventure, deciding to take advantage of the warm weather and head in a totally different direction.  Turns out, I knew the route, (Deb and I had come this way headed to Baja in '98) well at least some of it.  It took me 45 minutes just to get to the west end of the suburban area.  Stop and go traffic when you are crossing the city can be tiresome, and this was no exception.  I wasn't dressed as heavy as I would normally be riding in Canada, but still had some off road gear on.

It was also my first ride since having the carburetors apart and I was curious to see how the bike performed.

After passing the young city of Surprise, on Bell, and crossing El Mirage Rd (just a block from Sunflower resort, where former MiL Nadia has her winter home) it seems Surprise continues for miles and miles.  My first time here on bike, in January 1998, there was nothing much beyond Grand Avenue other than desert!

Crossing a dry wash, I was finally out of the city, time was just past noon.  Sun Valley Parkway, is a wide, divided wonderfully paved and virtually empty of traffic, blvd that skirts the White Tank mountain regional park.  I don't think I saw more than three or four cars and a couple of bikes heading north into Phoenix and no one passed me as I headed to Buckeye.

After crossing over I 10 the road narrowed and memory kicked in.  The Buckeye airport that I remembered had an A 26 Douglas attack bomber dating to WWII as gate guardian.  It's still there!  On the extreme north end of the airport, I found a hangar complex and U-turned to investigate.  The gate was open, there were no signs warning of dangerous dogs, unexploded ordinance (we are very close to both Luke and Barry M. Goldwater military bases after all) nor nuclear waste.  *more on this later



What caught my eye was a silver pair of old birds, just inside airport property, sitting there in the desert sun, catching some rays.

A Douglas C-47 Dakota, and a PBY Catalina... what we knew as the DC-3* and Canso amphibian.

Interestingly enough, the Cat is actually a Canadian Vickers built Canso!!!



I parked the bike under the shade provided by the massive starboard wing of the Cat, umm... Canso, dismounted and spent the next hour taking pics.
 
After running into the local handy guy/mechanic who filled me in on some of the many aircraft stored on site including a whole convoy of military trucks, I even got a tour of the hidden gems stored tightly in a massive hangar.

Outside there was a flying Fairchild C-119, the twin tailed flying boxcar that provided yeoman service for dozens of years to both military and civilian flying transport, another A-26, a CP-121... what we called the Tracker maritime surveillance plane, one of which sits at CFB Summerside as gate guardian, a beautifully restored and flying Grumman Albatross, and a pristine and flying, B-25 Mitchell medium bomber.

 

The exact same type although later mark, of aircraft that Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and his hand picked, volunteer crew flew off the carrier Hornet April 18, 1942 on the famous and historic, Tokyo raid.

 



Inside the hangar was a perfectly restored Beech twin, two Piper's, (Bird Dog spotter from war fame) a Stearman and even a Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber, among others.

The entire collection is privately owned by one Mr.  Hans (don't laugh you) Lauridsen.  Pronounced: Hance Lord sin. *I flew in a DC-3 belonging to Pacific Western airlines on a regular scheduled flight to Fort Mac in the early days.  The type was also infamous as the AC-47 gunship, flown in Viet Nam, possessing such firepower that the VC named the plane Dragon, later taken on by the Air Force as "Puff, the Magic Dragon"  from a song by the same name.

As most of you know... I love old airplanes nearly as much as bikes... I could have stayed all day, but I was taking up time from the mechanic's duty and still needed to find "Old U.S. 80" for the rest of my tour...