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AGALOS Got the Shaft


alfalfa

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After moto-touring for 14 years, something had to have gone wrong...eventually.

 

These will help set the stage.

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Little tribute to Neil Peart

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Just now, XTreme said:

Gotta be a Beemer Breakdown in this! :classic_laugh:

How did you guess?  You been stalking me, boy? ?

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15 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Not exactly a rare occurrence is it Rick? :classic_laugh:

Not to spoil the story, but the bike in the picture has 120,000 miles on it.  Lots of hard miles.

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BMWs dont break, they just have Unscheduled Service Intervals (USI*) during ownership. :littleguy:

 

USI™ is a registered trademark of Fuckdown Corp.

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Ok, ok, i can see you are all chomping at the bit by the way you voted from my most excellent bike picture at the Continental Divide sign, so here goes:

We (AGALOS - see above) try to get together once a year and do something that either ends up epic, or EPIC.  After doing this for 14 years, it was bound to happen.  And, in this year of the kung fu virus, i guess this is a better time than any other.

 

I should have known by the number of illustrious idjits backing out of the ride (planning of which started back in March) that something would be amiss.  But, since i've never been accused of being too intelligent, i went ahead and set up this year's ride.

Originally, the plan was to head to just north of Elk City, ID to sort of finish the IDBDR (Idaho Backcountry Discovery Route - dirt roads thru a state) that we started a couple of years ago.   But, as the start day approached, mama nature started sending signs, which in hindsight should have been a clue.  This was our road into northern Idaho:

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Undeterred (another word for "stupid") we pressed on with Option 2.  We decided to ride the Continental Divide Route, a series of mostly dirt roads that run from Canada (eh) to Mexico (si).   As my brother lives in Montana, that was our pre-arranged meetup point.  Of course, as it turns out, since the only riders who actually went were all from SoCal, we could have just started anywhere.

 

 

 

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My 89-year old, covid-surviving mother (yes, i have one, Bruce) lives in Boise. I had plans to ride thru Boise on the way to Montana, and wanting to maximize my riding time, i decided a one day jaunt from SoCal to Boise was the only way to accomplish that.  its only 865 miles and i've done it once by motorcycle and three times by car.  I think i like motorcycle better, but not by much.

An early takeoff (4am) was set and the plan was to meet one of the other idjits about 40 minutes east of home.  I woke that morning at O dark 30 to a text saying "I dont think i will be able to have the bike packed in time in order to meet you".  No biggie, except this was from a guy who had all week to pack his bike?.

As i said, no biggie. For this kind of run, i actually prefer to be solo.  I can explore, stop when i want, drive my own pace, etc, etc.  Kind of the reason we ride motorcycles to begin with.  The upside is that my buddy, leaving later, chose to ride to MT instead of Idaho, which took him out thru Las Vegas, Mesquite and Cedar City.  So, why he was wilting from 120 degree weather, i was enjoying better temps that might have maxed out at 92!  Score.

 

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Lu's opinion on the temperature differences ?

 

while he was still nestled, all snug in his bed, i was experiencing no traffic, cool temps and this kind of scenery

 

 

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Being a mad dash to Boise, pics from this leg of the trip are few and far between.  I did find a new route along the way, stopping to take a shot in honor of Ghost Rider - Neil Peart

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The route from my home to mom's

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The new section, for those who dont like crowds:

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Going as fast as FLames can, we actually shaved about 17 miles off the Google Maps distance.  (mileage at mom's)

 

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The woman what welped me.  89, virus survivor (with NO hospitalization), with her 83 year old boy-toy.  He was hospitalized, but as you can see there were no ill side effects.

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Sample of mom's world famous chocolate cake and off to bed.  Part two of the ride north was scheduled for the next day - Boise to Stevensville, MT.

See ya, mom!

 

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with less than 400 or so miles to do to MT, I didnt have to take off early, but the heat of the day convinced me to eventually get going.  The route:

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Along the way, the overheated buddy from SoCal texted me his location and we decided to meet in Challis for lunch.

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He got there about 20 minutes ahead of me, but found a good little watering hole, the Challis Roadhouse.  With the Covid stuff happening, each area and each state seemed to have different takes on what you could or couldnt do.  Pretty much everyone was doing takeout for food, but this place was more along the lines of "we aint dead, so come on in and sit down and have cold one".  One of the guys at the bar turned out to be a pro rodeo rider and his very good looking mother was the bartender.  

Of course, the rider's name was Ruger!

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(sorry, no pics of mom :()

Ruger's been doing this insane stuff since high school and is currently recuperating from hip surgery.  I guess we found something even stupider than riding motorcycles.

 

 

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the GPS mount on Flames broke a couple of rides ago and i havent gotten around to fixing it.  Besides, i dont really like crutches like that, except for maybe following a BDR, or the CDR.  So, i let Lu ride, an adventure all on its own.  I'm not sure what skill you need to correctly use a GPS, but i'm pretty sure that skill is either missing, inverted, or broken in Lu.  But, we usually seem to have the most fun following his lead, anyways.  Lu is on the right, GT (from Nashville and now my brother's neighbor) is on the left.  This is in front of brother's main garage.

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some of the brother's acreage, looking west.  His shop is just visible on the left side of the pic.

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The gem of this little 10-acre piece is the shop.  The former owner built dragster motors, so he needed some elbow room.

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(brother has a bike sickness, which is contagious.  i'm not sure how many he has now, but it has hovered around 12 for quite some time. he is lucky in that his wife rides and some of these are hers)

 

 

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View looking northeast

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We had a great meal at the neighbors, lots of laughs and then finally off to bed.  I think.  I might have been overserved and am mis-remembering details.  But, who cares.

Next - mother nature tries to remind us that this is the year of whatever can go wrong, will............

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