To
all,
The
bike is broken so I’ve now got some time to tell the whole story
so far!
The
flight from the UK was great, lots of leg room and good food! We arrived
in New Orleans at around 7:00 p.m. CST (which is six hours ahead of
UK) and went out for food and beers.
We
met Sam the next morning as planned and drove north through torrential
rain to Madison, Mississippi, arriving around 5:00 p.m. It rained
4 1⁄2 inches in a day! Sam was great and his house was beautiful.
The bikes looked great and after the paperwork, his Italian mother
cooked us great pasta and meatballs.
Day
1: Tennessee
We
set off at 7:00 a.m. and Sam rode the first 100 miles with us. The
navigation went really well and although a lot of Day 1’s route
had been tarmac’d (paved) the scenery was excellent. Sadly we
soon figured out that 12 hours a day on the bikes was going to be
the norm. We saw some amazing wildlife and an incredible diversity
of people from Quakers (who look like a film about the 18th century
with no power or tools) to the U.S. "redneck" in his 6 liter
V8 truck complete with gun rack and dead animals. Quite a serious
variety! The highlight of the day was the slippiest river crossing
in the world. Sam said one of us would come off, and in true form
a little over exuberance saw me drinking more than I had bargained
for. Typical.
We all slept well that night, crashing out by 9:30 p.m. (around 3:30
a.m. UK time).
Day
2: Mississippi
Immediately
the scenery changed and became far more swamplike. The heat rose to
around 95 degrees and the humidity was 100 percent. Sweating became
the norm and we all drank like fish to stop dehydration. Wishing for
water was one thing, but when we finally got it, it wasn’t exactly
what we’d been wishing for! All that rain took its toll on the
state of the trails and tracks. Mud became the order of the day and
plenty of it! Riding a bike through slippery/sticky mud is no fun
in that heat, and boy did we suffer. We had to keep the speeds up
to get our daily 250 miles done in the light and the riding became
quite exciting…
We
were too busy congratulating ourselves on our excellent time keeping
to notice the "bridge out" sign. Sad really. Amazingly the
bridge was almost fixed, and the only part we couldn’t ride
was the six-foot high concrete wall to get us up on to the part finished
other side. Clearly there was a simple solution to the problem. Pretend
we were the blue team on a management team building course! If we
sweated before, we certainly sweated more during he construction of
our mk1 bridge jump ramp. Four pieces of 12 foot planking, two 2-foot/sq.
lengths of rolled steel joists, a mallet, some old rotting wood, and
3 liters of sweat saw it complete. I got to go first and after a brief
period of air time touched down on the new bridge and squeezed passed
a large crane at the other end. Jon jumped next, followed by Stef.
We were now 1 hour behind schedule, and suffering from heat exhaustion
and mosquito bites.
We
were quite pleased with ourselves though, and when the next "bridge
out" sign came along we quite fancied our chances. The bridge
was not there. The bridge when finished was going to cross a ditch
40 feet across and 30 feet deep, and there were steep tracks down
to the center of the ditch. The problems were based purely around
the consistency of the mud it was knee deep gloop. If we wanted to
save time we had little choice but to have a go. To cut a long story
short Jon was fine, Stef looked like a moto x star as he shot up the
other side of the bank on his back wheel! I bogged down, got within
2 feet of the top and slowly slipped 20 feet backwards and collapsed
under the bike in knee deep gloop. Typical.
My
next attempt was more successful and we were soon moving along at
a good pace. As we pulled into our motel for the night we marveled
at how a 400-acre casino site could exist in such a desolate place.
I
gambled .25 cents that night, smug in the knowledge that if everybody
else won 125 percent of their stake like I did, the casino would collapse
(obviously I then spent my $1.50 on food, but you can’t have
everything!)
Day
3: Mississippi/Arkansas
An
early start saw Stef navigating for the first time. This means that
he takes the maps and road book (detailed directions) and leads us
as quickly as he can along the route.
Coming
out of the fuel stop Stef shot off like a torpedo out of a tub. After
10 minutes my wrist ached from constantly wrapping my hand around
the throttle and trying to open it further, the bike was flying along
and had begun to get the floating feeling which comes from riding
a dirt bike very fast over loose gravel. The steering becomes strangely
light and the bike jitters and kicks from left to right. I wasn’t
happy.
However,
that was easier said than done. Another ten miles saw us hitting some
really hideous mud and often the way the bike was pointing had little
to do with the direction it was going. My boots were full of swamp
water and mud and we had already had tough morning when our next 200-yard
water crossing loomed into view. A quick wade up to the knee level
showed that a bike crossing was clearly not going to happen. A quick
map session showed a possible way around to the north and plan was
formed.
Stef
was having problems. He had commented earlier that he had found this
trail particularly hard. I propped my bike against a tree and ran
back through the heat and sweat haze to find Stef sideways as usual
with a huge 4 foot rooster tail of watery mud being ejected from his
back tire as he fought with another pool. Hmmmm… nothing wrong
here.
I
walked back to my bike and headed further on down the trail to find
a different story with Jon. He had gotten tired fighting the trees
on his huge 640 and tried to ride the center of the trail. At 30-40
mph he had tried to lift his front wheel over a short puddle by opening
the throttle on his bike. The rear had slipped out and the front plowed
into the puddle. This puddle turned out to be the perfect shape to
trap a 21-foot front wheel and had a vertical back wall. Jon when
head over the bars hitting a previously broken collar bone on the
screen, wrenching a previously broken wrist, and hitting his balls
on the wing mirror as he passed overhead.
He
looked a little annoyed but O.K. and we traveled on to lunch in a
little railroad, cowboy style town. At the petrol stop I noticed an
unhealthy flow of liquid from his bike’s lower front fork region.
Initial worries of brake failure were soon dispersed by a little logical
thought. It was clear that John had blown both his front fork seals
when hitting the back wall of the pool. A KTM dealership was needed!
A local Honda dealership provided us with the information we needed
to order the parts and was quite happy to do the work if we stayed
in town overnight. The parts could be couriered to us in the morning
to save a 140-mile ride over to the KTM dealers in Fayetteville.
Jon
asked the shop assistant if she knew where there was a motel with
a bar nearby, after all it had been an eventful morning. Her reply
wasn’t good news
Assistant:"Bar"?
Jon:"Yes,
a bar…"
Assistant
(with accent):"There’ll be no bar around here, this
here is a dry county."
Jon
looked at me, I looked at Stef, and Stef looked at Jon.
Later
that night in Clinton over in the next county as we sat down to a
Mexican feast (normal sized meals without pie are just not available
in the states), we reflected on how close a call we had had. We could
have been stuck in a dry country for the night!
Day
4: Arkansas
Dry
roads and beautiful mountain scenery coupled with miles and miles
of winding trails saw us all at a lunch stop by 11:00 the next morning.
We were at Oark Stores. It was truly remarkable place. The type of
spot that you want everyone you know to visit because it’s such
a unique experience. The great food, the single track dirt road that
led to it, the photos n the walls the hand written menus on paper
bags, the smell of barbecue meat oozing from the walls. You really
need to visit it yourself and find a piece of the America you see
on Wild West films is still alive and very much kicking. We stayed
until 1:00 p.m. eating the customary huge amounts of food and chocolate
pie (it’s rude to refuse food this good and this cheap!)
The next day I split from Stef and Jon to visit an old friend in the
hills of Arkansas. Seven acres of beautiful forest and a home built
wood house is as close to paradise as I’ve seen in a while,
I ate great food (not fried, pasta!) had a few beers, and slept like
a log wishing I could stay in this fantastic place longer that a single
night.
As
it turns out I seem to have more than my fair share of wishes come
true this trip. As I rode down Stacy’s drive I got 200 yards
from his house and tried to change gears. My clutch lever pulled straight
in and my bike ground to a halt. A quick clutch cover removal showed
that the head of the thrust shaft had snapped of! I’d never
heard of this happening before, and was a little upset. But what a
great place for it to happen! Life’s tough…but not around
here!
p.s. Internet opportunities are few and far between, this could be
the last for a while!
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