Steve Cole and Friends: September 2002 by Dave Dunn

(Click on pictures to enlarge them.)

A preface by Sam Correro: As far back as I can remember, I have always considered myself to have an "adventurous personality". On the evening of September 12, 2002, in Monitcello, Utah, I came face to face with Steve Cole. Now this was not serendipity. Steve and I had planned this meeting for 9 months. Arrangements had been made for me to be the guide across Colorado, using my Trans-America Trail. The Colorado Section is a four-day, off pavement ride, across some of the most scenic country in the United States.

John Clements, his wife, Trisha, and I would ride with Steve and friends. Trisha had a dual role. She rode her dirt bike on some days, and she drove the chase truck on some days. And on several nights for dinner, she was our entertainment guide. Thanks Trisha…..great job.

Now the Trans-America Trail flows from EAST to WEST, but don’t tell that to Steve Cole. He purchased maps and roll charts from Tennessee to Colorado and reworded and reversed and made left turns into right turns and vice versa. This was not an easy thing to do!!!  In fact, I told him not to do it, but he did. I reevaluated my "adventurous personality," and came to the conclusion that I should lower myself a notch or two. Steve was clearly more adventurous.

I had a wonderful 4 days with the 6 guys from California and with John and Trisha. Thanks everyone, we must all get together soon, for another ride.

When Steve Cole asked Dave Dunn, Jim Smythe, Dana Slater, Mike Casey and Dick Young to do a 5,000-mile dirt bike ridge, the only reservation they had was "Will that be too much of a good thing?" Inspired by the travels of Sidney and Bridgett Dixon, and based on maps developed by Sam Correro, Steve Cole did the remaining mapping and led the group from coast to coast.

East of Dove Creek, Colorado

They took off from Los Angeles harbor on September 7^th of 2002 and did 5,380 miles in 24 days. Thirty-five hundred of those miles were on dirt roads or trails, 1,000 were on narrow windy roads in national parks or on scenic parkways and the rest were getting to gas, motels food and the start and finish.

Charlie Grossman, a Nevada resident, joined them on Monday morning to guide them to the Bar 10 Ranch on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Motel.....Lake City, Colorado

Going, the riding was twisty, slippery, up and down with fast sections in between perfect. The first significant rain in two years had passed through the day before and the conditions were fabulous. Before noon they were getting glimpses of the canyon.

The next morning Charlie led the riders out of the canyon, pointed them east, and said goodbye. The riders headed across a plane that seemed to go forever. The roads were fast and gravely, but the openness of the plateau, and the distant mountains keep things interesting.

Next morning was full of open forest roads and perfect traction for hanging the rear wheel out. The rain had made it impossible to find dust. By mid-morning they crossed a bridge called Hell’s Backbone and by lunch they were at Lake Powell. At the first substantial change in topography the roll chart pointed them down a road that was to follow a stream along an embankment. Steve started in and Dave followed. Within seconds they were in slow motion. Dave was sinking and Steve’s bike was already down to its axles. As they stepped off, they both sunk until the quicksand was above the brim of their boots. They couldn’t lift their legs. Over the next two hours all six riders got completely muddy as they drug logs, branches, and twigs to the scene and made roads on which they could drag the bike to firm ground. Blanding, Utah was the only place that Steve had allowed for maintenance. That half-day couldn’t have come at a better time. As Monticello, Utah approached, Steve had a rear flat, which he rode into town and fixed while we got acquainted with Sam Correro who had driven from Mississippi just to guide us for the next four days.

The riding out of Lake City, Colorado was easy with good roads, glorious scenery, no dust, but threatening weather. The riders were smoking down the roads putting a section a minute behind them when the lead bikes started to throw up rooster tails of mud. Huge globs of mud were going 30 feet in the air and their traction vanished. One by one the bikes found their way to the ground. The glue that had been passing itself off as dirt was so heavy those two guys couldn’t lift a bike without scraping mud of to lighten it. Once they got a bike up and going, the ditches on either side of the side of the road with weeds up to 7 feet tall were the only places they could find traction. The rode the ditches for the next ten miles.

East of Lake City, Colorado

Old Agency, Colorado

Hancock pass, where the riders crossed the Continental Divide, had a foot of snow and would have been impassable had we come through three days later.

From Victor, Colorado the riders gained altitude and were greeted by aspen trees just beginning to put on their fall colors.

Leaving Trinidad, Colorado we followed section lines through open space and crossed over the northwest corner of New Mexico then into Oklahoma.

On into Kansas and Oklahoma the farms got greener and there was more growing activity. Corn became a hazard as it become tall enough to make the intersections blind. More east the farms got bigger and the section lines fewer. Grasslands and rolling hills appeared and in the midst of them they passed through vast Grassland Preserve that showed what the plains were like before the sodbusters turned them to farmland.

John Clements

Cinnamon Pass, Colorado

Lula, Mississippi was Dave’s day to lead and he did get us lost more than Steve, but it really didn’t make any difference because once again the rains had the dust down and it seemed like they were regrading many of their roads and they were in perfect condition for two wheel drifts in the corners. You could get loose and lay it over like a water skier on a very long rope. Thank you Mississippi.

Sam had spent 15 years riding and researching the trails from him home in Madison, Mississippi to Oregon. Without his research this ride would not have even been considered. Sam would guide the riders for four days and his maps would guide them from Colorado through half of Tennessee. He make the maps available just to promote the idea of keeping the roads as natural as long as possible. The only problem Steve had was that Sam’s maps went from east to West but the riders were going west to east. Steve overcame that by researching every turn and intersection along the way at a cost of about three times as many mapping hours as it took the riders to actually do the ride. Sam would lead the riders to avoid pavement and to the most beautiful trails, national parks or landscape features available. Every morsel of trail was hand picked as if Sam had pre-run all of the states by helicopter.

The geology of North Carolina is absolutely spectacular but it has definite ideas about where and how it wants you to go. It was cold, the road was twisty and the clo8uds were on the deck. Visibility was often limited to 3 or 4 bike lengths. Where speeds were posted 55 they could often only make 15. Their tail lights were so dim you had to strike a match to see if they were lit. The riders had the constant fear of being hit from behind and of running out of daylight. The smallest change in body position let water in so there would be none of that. At 7:30 they had a brand new, by far, "Worst day ever on a motorcycle." The fact that the boiler at the motel was broken and they spent two hours schlepping bags between rooms in search of heat was insignificant compared to the joy of being off of the motorcycles that night.

Summary

With fresh bikes and strong riders, the guys rode every day like they were 10 minutes from the truck. They didn’t hold back to preserve the equipment. Combined they went 30,000 miles. The repairs amounted to one clutch cable and one rear sprocket.

Was there too much of a good thing, and what was the most compelling aspect of the ride?

• Jim said, "No two days were alike" and "We were so busy that nobody had a chance to get bored."
• Mike thought that every day was memorable and that experiencing the people and texture of Americana first hand was the most far more valuable than he ever anticipated.
• Danna thought that most guys from California would drive a half-day trip out and a half-day back to experience any half day we rode on our trip, well maybe not our four half-days in the rain.
• Steve thought that the quest was a powerful magnet that pulled the riders through some difficulties, but it was the riding itself that made every bit of the trip exciting; finding so many great people along the way was icing on the cake.
• Dick thought that every state and every hamlet and every hole in the wall café and every farmer who gave us directions were wonderful.
• Dave’s theory is that most people just feel their surroundings, but dirt bikers interact with them systemically. They’re risking that their knowledge of the laws of physics will get them and their bike through the next hazard; they’re fully engaged physically and mentally and moment by moment they can dial in their own degree of difficulty or excitement.

Favorites

• Restaurants – were Rino’s in Trinidad, Colorado; Oark Cofe in Oark, Arkansas (Drunken Chicken); and Angel’s Lunch Box in Viola, Tennessee.
• Waitresses – They were all charming.

___________________

A note of closing from Sam:

Steve Cole wanted to ride his dirt bike from the Pacific Ocean in Southern California to the home of Sidney Dickson in Maryland. He did that, and he did it with gusto. He is a lucky man to have his friends that wanted to share his dream. Ride on Steve!!!

www.transamtrail.com

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