--- In
DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com, "boulder_adv_rider"
wrote:
>
> Thanks for sharing, Jeff. Glad everyone is otherwise is "ok." It
> sounds like a interesting adventure. Any problems near Boulder,
> CO...let me know.
>
> As for the fractured ankle/hard bags...I'm not a big fan of the
hard
> luggage. Even my soft luggage when loaded can work an ankle.
Still
> my soft luggage will give vs. the aluminum boxes I just bought
> don't. Aluminum boxes are good if you're a commuter and/or worry
> about theft. I'm mostly off-road and working in the shadows, so
> doubt I'll keep mine.
>
Brian,
I must admit, I had some fascination with AL hard bags until I saw
them in action, and now I doubt I would walk across the street for a
set if they were free. Jeff Saline and I had had some conversations
about them and concluded that if the bike fell on you, you could be
badly hurt by them.
As a sidebar comment, it is amazing how one item in your 'pack-out'
can make or break the events. A set of Al metal bags added a full 6
days to the trip; two for medical, two for Kawi maint, and two at the
end of my trip to fix the damage done while riding with someone with
metal bags.
The hard bags were on John S.'s bike (I have Ortliebs) and they were,
as feared, absolutely brutal to the rider if when you fell down, and
your leg was trapped under the bag. John first fell down in a huge,
muddy puddle in central MT, no problem. Later that same day, as we
proceeded down a trail near Lava MT (Helena, MT) and the hard bag
pinned him underneath the bike against a rock. He described his
foot as being turned 180 degrees the wrong direction while trapped
under the hard bag while attempting to pass down jeep trail strewn
with baby-head boulders. After his second hard spill, and one for me
on my bike, in between his two falls. After John's second fall, I
began to ride his bike down the Mt, as well as my own; It was doubly
exciting for me to ride the same brutal stretch twice. Soon we
elected to spend the night on the trail as there was increasing
darkness and increasing rain, and increasing pain.
This little jaunt/incursion with the metal panniers would cost us
some 42 hours of medical processing and evaluation before being
released to 'keep the leg elevated, etc."
Days later, while attempting to cross the Great Basin of Central WY,
we left Atlantic City with firm ground, unknowing that the prairie
thunderstorms had dumped rain on the minimally graveled prairie trail
further down our projected path. In the low spots, it was dicey, and
finally, nearly impassable as we continued further into the Great
Basin. The bike's loaded up the front wheel, binding the fork brace
to the wheel with sticky, gumbo mud--making the bike impossible to
steer--and down it went with John, once again under the bike. I had
traversed this section of mud (almost) when I went down, only to look
back and discover that John was down as well. a 100 yd jaunt back to
him to get the bike off of him. Without help, he was not getting out
from under the bike. HINT: not a good place to be riding solo.
We had continued down this 'road' because we could see that someone
on two different bikes Mr D606 and Mr K270 did not seem to be having
much trouble. At least their tracks indicated progress.
After picking up John's bike, I cleaned the front tire, and attempted
to ride John's bike the rest of the way through the mess. His bike
did not have MX foot pegs, and with all the mud on the boots, nearly
impossible to stand on the pegs. I managed to get up some forward
speed, the front tire loaded up again, and down I went--trapped under
the left AL pannier--just as John had been trapped two time before.
I lay face down in the mud while my foot no longer formed a 90degree
angle but was a straight line from my knee to the tip of my toe. I
thought I had been electrocuted as the nerves in my ankle shot pain
to the top of my head. With all the force I could muster I wrenched
at the handle bar and pulled my foot free. John, some 50 yards away
was completely helpless to do anything--except watch in disbelief.
Well, we got through that mess, falling down several more times,
lifting the bikes and pushing forward; but now there are two injured
riders and it is starting to get dark--but, finally, we get back into
some graveled parts and continued on until we found some signage that
did not make sense, and followed the signage instead of the compass.
It turned out that the road was the S. link of a N. bound road that
was offset by three miles of E/W road. Our bad day, was about to get
worse.
We followed this road ~1.5 miles and it turned into the mother of all
quagmires and we decided to abort. Except the mud vetoed our logic--
filling the bikes with gumbo that was 4" deep inside the wheel,
packing the spokes full of mud, because it could no longer find any
space between the wheel and the fenders or swing arms. John's clutch
then 'blew-up' just as I escaped to high ground, just barely--knowing
that my clutch was now not the same as it had been the hour before.
In the dark, we set up camp, ate some noodles and hunkered down for
the night--knowing that ALEVE was our friend. About that time, the
wind began to blow--which is a good thing--as it dries out the mud.
The wind blew all night, giving us some hope of escape if we could
get some of the mud off of my bike.
It was a night of fit less sleep on huge lumps of sage and muscle
cramps that would make the mummy come back to life.
Just after dawn, I pulled out my tire repair kit and found the tire
patch stitch-er and the tire irons to be the best tools for removing
the mud. I, and John must have worked for over an hour to get the
mud off the bike before it dried and got to hard to remove. Even
with a blown clutch, we would still have to push it some to get it
loaded!
We ate some more Ramen noodles and formulated a plan. I was able to
accurately determine our exact position with GPS, and locate our
selves (through deduction) our approximate position +/- 1/4 mile
using the GDR strip map. We had seen one vehicle pass some 1.5 mile
away earlier in the morning, but not coming our direction, so we had
some hope that we would be able to get help--sometime in the next 24
hours if we could get back to the main road.
We sat down for a few moments and formulated an escape plan:
I wrote John S's name, the current lat/long, time of day on my arm
with a sharpie so that if I were hurt and incapicitated while trying
to ride out, some one would find the message on my arm. It seems
almost comical now that we should go to such extremes, but we were
really hurting and had not seen anything other than tire tracks--save
one vehicle in the distance--for nearly 24 hours. One dead bike, two
injured riders, one partial bike, yeah, it was looking a little
extreme.
We split up the food, divided the water (each had a full two qts of
water) and worked on a final solution. John had a Personal locator's
device that would summon the cavalry, but not yet--the following day
at noon if we did not get it figured out, or self extract.
Now, put it into action:
We decided John would walk to the next intersection and wait for
help; I would ride out based on the road conditions we experienced
the night before. Remember that wind that blew all night long, yes,
Mr. Wind was our friend, and there was only one dicey gumbo spot all
the way to the top of the hill. I rode back, got John and ferried
him to the intersection at the top of the hill, and left him there.
The rest of the road was going to be very soft, and a hand-full, as
it turned out. I only had one/two throat choking moment as the road
tried to take the bike away from me...but I gave it throttle and the
KLR gave me a break.
Some 23 miles more, I got to the black top, in time to see an oil
driller going in the direction I had just come, "Tell my friend John
I made it to the road alive." I must have been a sight, black
ballistic nylon riding suit, mostly brown with gumbo. It was hard
for me to believe that these trucks were driving those gravel roads
as soft as they were. The trailer was nothing but tires and more
tires. He hardly left a footprint. This same trucker would later
pick John up some 3 hours later and bring him to the hi way.
I went N, a mile, found a cowboy--the mayor, county commissioner,
fire chief and bar-tender of Sweet Water Junction, WY who would be
willing to rescue John and his bike--if I could be patient--as he was
in the middle of a major tire change on a stock trailer. When he
discovered where we were at, he said, "No wrecker would come out
there under those conditions--and he was/appeared reluctant to try,
but would come and take a look, maybe. If he had time.
"Would $3 a mile be enough?"
OK! That would be about right.
He told me of the shop to call, I placed an order for a KLR clutch,
etc that would be overnighted to the Riverton, WY Kawi dealer. They
said they would install it on a Saturday and get us back on the
road.
Things were looking up.
The wind continued to blow, and the retrieval was only partially
dicey! but doable, with a 4x4 pickup, and we did it. We got John's
KLR loaded and out of there--for some 60+ loaded miles to Riverton,
WY. Hard to believe what 20-25 mph winds for some 18 hours would do
to a gooey road.
John, at this point, realized that if he ever escaped this nonsense,
he was jettisoning his hard bags--which we did in Riverton,
substituting them for some $8 gym bags that worked just fine. After
having your leg trapped under those AL panniers, it makes you a
believer that you don't want that to happen again. It happened to
John twice, and me once.
After our Kawi sponsered repair, we continued our GDR from Riverton
to Rawlings, WY, via the highway, re-entering the GDR south of
Rawlings on the gravel roads. We elected to skip any of the water
crossings, and circumnavigated the 6 miles of jeep trails NW of
Steamboat Springs Lake. We still had fun, and soaked our ankles at
night with ice.
After that last fall down series John and I experienced in the Great
Basin, we counted the days that we did NOT fall down, and did not
fall down again until after I completed the entire ride--dropping my
bike in a rest area S of Albuquerque, NM during the egress home.
Fortunately for me, two nice men helped me pick up the bike without
having to strip off the gear.
That was the long way around to say again, I would not walk across
the street to get a free set of AL panniers. They are a leg/ankle
breaker just waiting to happen.
As a sidebar comment, the leading, lower edge of John's boxes
were 'square' and I have seen some that had a tapered, trapezoidal
shape that might be better. But for sure, those square-edged boxes
are a death trap--at least in our experience. John said he would not
trust them for use as hard bags for his local San Diego, commuter
bike anymore.
OF course, YMMV. But for two of us, we are convinced--NO THANKS if
ever offered metal panniers.
revmaaatin.