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CRF250L Mile 949: California

Wasn’t sure where I was heading today other than up Highway 395. I had two days to get near Roseville near Sacramento for a talk at a moto shop. Al had recommended a ride up to Mammoth Lake and I wanted to check out Mono Lake which I’d read about recently in Mark Twain’s Roughing It.

First I needed to find a new o-ring for the Leaking Containment fuel bladder, or better still a regular red plastic fuel can. I’ve lost faith in the LC. It’s definitely the answer for occasional use, but not every bleeding day! I was getting tired of petrol splash. A rigid can may be more bulky but will be easier to lash down securely. Anyway, a guy at a tranny shop in Bishop gave me a seal and up the road a couple of Subways would placate the day’s appetite.

Just after I’d left Big Pine I remembered to deploy Plan B – untape the extra holes drilled into the air box to lean out the mixture. My immediate impression was a bit more induction growl and perhaps it was running better – hard to tell for sure as you always think that with more noise. But out of Bishop on the long climb from 4000 to over 8000 feet the L was indeed trucking along and headwinds notwithstanding, was touching 70 on the downgrades (all speeds are true, read off the Trail Tech not the under-reading Honda speedo).

By the time I got to Mammoth town I had some power loss but I’ll accept that – I wasn’t feeling so sprightly myself. Mpg at the servo clocked in at 58US or 70UK – that will do nicely. The snow barrier was only a couple of miles on at around 8500′ and to me was just your regular alpine scenery – pretty enough but nothing very Yosemite on this side at least. I swung back down to the 395 and continued north sitting at around 7000′, snuggly wired in to my Aero Kanestu vest. Where yesterday I could barely crack 40 now it was pulling up to 65.

Mono Lake was an eerie spot, if for no other reason than the wind had dropped out of sight. The strange tufa columns exposed after LA’s water department drained half the lake in the 1940s added to the ambience. I’m sure the Owens Valley was mentioned in Chinatown, set in that era just as LA started booming.

That’s the great thing about riding around the US of A; from The High Chaparral to Breaking Bad I’m as steeped in modern US cultural iconography as the rest of the world. It’s not unusual to find a place that’s in a movie, a TV series or mentioned in a great song. The fabulous theme from Chinatown itself is surely in that category.

Al had suggested I swing out to Bodie ghost town but I wasn’t sure of the fuel situation, having given my bladder a day off. Plus I don’t think I’ll be short of ghost town action on this ride. Instead, I filled up in Bridgeport where mpg was still a promising 58 and where they advised I head another 40 miles plus two feet over the border to Lake Topaz Casino, NV, if I wanted cheap lodging. I set the satnav but a few miles up the road a dirt track heading in the right direction caught my eye. Shall I, shan’t I, it’s getting late, WTH, let’s do it – satnav suggests it’s only an 8-mile detour.

There’s got to be a name for the sort of dirt you get up here in the high pine country – a kind of sandy loam that agrees very nicely with the L’s tyres. Soon I passed a parked up MAN overland truck – Germans to be sure saving a penny and having an adventure. Then up ahead I came to a flat grassy clearing and wondered should I camp – this nightly moteling is getting expensive after all. The place was on a pass, exposed and with little cover from the wind, but dry and with some firewood. I dithered and looked for a sheltered spot but then checked the satnav again: 8034′ – I don’t think so. It will freeze for sure and with only my flysheet for a tent I’d spend the night huddled against the chill. It will warm up somewhere sometime soon.

Down the far side of the pass there were still patches of snow and muddy ruts to navigate. I came across an even more idyllic pitch at only 6500′ plus tree shelter and snow to melt (above). And like the other place, there was not a speck of rubbish. Well it’s good to know these places are out here.

I carried on downhill through more mud and snow and rock falls and had a mini panic when at 8 miles it was another few miles of dirt. But round the ridge and riding along the top, down below I could see the road to Topaz that I was cutting around.

Pleased with my late afternoon adventure, I pulled into the casino which was no real bargain at $70. Plus it felt like the sort of place I’d want to take all the luggage indoors.

Next day I chose to forsake the Chevron and take off up over US89 towards Lake Tahoe, but soon regretted it when the two villages up the road weren’t serving fuel. Let’s see if the satnav can help. “7-11, Gardnerville Ranchos, 12.3 miles”. So it was, plus a quick snack and then over the windy pass into Lake Tahoe’s pine-rimmed bowl where the air was sharp enough to slice week-old tomatoes and the scenery redolent of a Redwood Creek poster.

I pootled round the east shore, past glittering Emerald Bay, ending up at a mate’s cabin out of Truckee, scoring a record 73US or 88mpg on the mpg-o-metre. Opened out airbox holes have fixed the mpg and power. Now I have to fix the air box holes.

Before I had a chance to do that, Christian insisted we go out for a burn up in the woods, him on his 950 Adventure. OK then. Unhitch the bags and off we go – me soon eating dust spun off his TKC as wide as my head. As before on the dirt, the Honda’s wide gearing was exposed and so was the harshness of my jacked-up rear shock (see this). Still, I’m not complaining – the bike is as light as a feather and the preload is keeping the loaded bike level. Too hard is better than too soft. Plus I’d just read on Thumper Talk that Hyperpro in the Netherlands have brought out a fully adjustable shock for the CRF (unlike Race Tech’s basic unit). So it’s there if I want it.

The little L was being hung out to dry by the KTM, but that 950 has got to be running five times the horsepower with only half as much weight and top-of-the-range suspension. A decent shock would sure improve CRF-L dirt riding at this sort of pace, but it wasn’t all bad; I was lucky enough to have a few days’ house sitting for Christian – a chance to reorganise and sort out that fuelling once and for all.

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CRF250L Mile 498: Into Death Valley

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You can tell from the picture on the left that today was going to be a good day. An empty road reaching across the high desert to a vanishing point in a distant mountain range. Winding my way through Titus Canyon to the other side of the hills, the land dropped to below sea level – Death Valley, where I’d turn north over more dirt roads and ranges to Big Pine in California’s Owens Valley.

Before that and still in Nevada, I popped in to Rhyolite ghost town which in the early 20th century managed to go through its birth–boom–bust cycle in just six years. Disappointingly, the crumbling gold rush ruins were all fenced off, making it less of a ghost town and more of a hazardous site.

There was a ruined school (left) and a nice-looking hotel amid some Joshua trees (top right) with a curvy, Spanish colonial-era facade. It would have been more fun to stay in than last night’s Motel 6, but clearly Rhyolite has had its day.

Titus Canyon to Death Valley
Just down the road was the turn-off for Titus Canyon which Al had recommended as a great way to slip into Death Valley. SUVs followed me in and initially the stony, corrugated track was not in harmony with my jacked-up suspension and road-pressure tyres. Some tracks are like that or just required acclimatising to, but soon the trail began to climb into the Grapevine Mountains where the colourful rubble glowed rich with mineral promise.

I came across the remains of Leadville, site of another brief episode of mineral mining madness in the 1920s; now just a couple of shacks and a heavily barred shaft penetrating the hillside. As has proved the case in similar places I’ve visited in Western Australia, the easily mined stuff usually gets cleared up before word gets far, and very often the best money was made providing services to the hopeful miners until they stampeded off to the next rumoured strike. In the UK or even Europe there’s no such tradition of mineral booms or ghost towns. A couple of centuries ago your lot was pretty much set from birth which must have made emigrating to the New World colonies in North America and Australia to chase riches all the more tempting.

It was all downhill from here to near sea level. A good chance then to stick it into neutral or turn off altogether and try to save fuel as I wasn’t sure how far I’d get or how much I’d consume getting to the next point, probably Big Pine at least 100 miles away (the satnav couldn’t calculate it on my dirt road route, despite fiddling with the settings and ‘avoidances’).

Titus Canyon is designated as one-way running west, as once it gets towards the end it’s bending left to right every 50 yards and narrows to about 20 feet wide – not enough for a pair of your typical local 4WD trucks to pass each other. Coasting down the box canyon bends, I took a strolling couple by surprise as they’d walked up from the mouth of the canyon for a look inside.

Out at the mouth, Death Valley (map) stretched across the horizon with the Panamint mountains as a backdrop (below). To the south lay Stovepipe Wells (fuel, though I didn’t know that then) and beyond that the salt-caked playa of the Badwater Basin; the lowest point in the US.

I first came here in the mid-90s and recall camping somewhere up the side of the valley; it was October but at 3am it was still about 30°C or 86. The Valley was a lot cooler today and there was now a smooth paved road running up the middle. Heading north the annoying wind was still in my face but I figured I’d risk a detour to Scotty’s Castle, expecting some naff, faux-medieval folly. In fact it was just the grassy, palm-shaded lunch spot I was looking for. There was a crude, concrete castle possibly housing a power house, but much more interesting was what looked like an Italianate villa built between the wars.

I was still in DVNP and asked the ranger how far Big Pine might be via the northern road. He wasn’t sure but in the end guessed it was less than 100 miles which was probably within my range once I’d used the fuel bag.

Coasting where I could, I turned off the paved Ubehebe Crater road (wish I’d gone to the crater now) and onto the rough dirt road leading up to Crankshaft Crossing. A sign said Big Pine something like 87 miles so I knew I’d make it. A dirt rider soon came the other way with a wave, and near the Crossing came another guy braving the gravel and washboard on a V-Strom.

Crankshaft was another place I recalled from 1995. Back then I’d scrawled ‘Yeah!’ under a ‘Pavement Ends’ road sign. The photo had been featured on the back cover of AMH3 a year or two later. Could you believe it, but it came to my attention that those rats at Aerostich went right ahead and made a sticker out of my razor-like roadside wit, an entrepreneurial snatch which helps keep Rider Wearhouse afloat to this very day. I’m not bitter and anyway a lawyer advised me that writing messages on highway road signs was not a valid basis to instigate legal action, unless it was being aimed at me by the sheriff of Inyo County. I’m over it now and for old time’s sake shot against an ungraffitied sign just up the road.

I knew there was a range or two to cross to get to Big Pine but I’d again underestimated how high it could get; my maps only show peaks and less often pass heights. It’s much more than I’m used to climbing in the Sahara or even Morocco. The ill-tuned CRF, gagging on too much gasoline croaked uphill, dropping down to 40mph at 7500 feet (~2300m) which seems to be a bhp watershed for the Honda.

Up ahead the wind blew a flurry if white dust and with it a familiar smell from schoolday chemistry. Rounding a bend revealed an old mine by the road. Rusted machines were subsiding into the fine white powder which I rode across raising another billowing cloud.

Finding a rock to perch the stand on, pale yellow rocks at my feet explained the smell: sulphur, above left). (Or for those that use them, the map also says ‘Sulfur Mine’). I’d never seen natural sulphur before; if only old gold mines had debris like this! Over there it looked like a prototype of NASA’s Apollo Command Module had fallen intact into the dirt (right).

Over the pass I dropped into the Eureka Dunes valley where the wind was whipping up the grains and hurling them south (right). Not a place for a drilled out airbox and anyway, I’ve seen my share of sand dunes. But taking advantage of the lee of a signboard, I tipped the fuel bag into the tank and then set off along that very rare thing – a freshly graded track!

That lead, by and by, over another range which turned to reveal the snowy Sierra Nevada to the west (left) and Big Pine at its feet. Not far away was the 14,505′ (4421m) summit of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous US and just 80 miles from Badwater Basin. How’s that for a ‘land of contrasts’?

I’m no expert but the people in Big Pine, CA seemed different from Nevada, a bit more prosperous and less out back. Once I worked out how to make the pump work, the news was rather poor: despite all the coasting and gentle dirt roading all I’d managed was 54USmpg (65UK). Clearly coming over the Panamints and Inyo ranges had been an effort for the Honda, but the way I rode I should have managed 65US. Tomorrow I’d have to deploy Plan B.

CRF250L Mile 358: “Which pump number, sir?”

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Let me tell you, I am meeting a lot of gas station cashiers. My UK cards can’t pay at the pump and out here if it’s cash you gotta pay first. So until I can guess the exact cost of a fill I need to trot back in to get my change. Two or three times every day…

Leaving Phoenix I had two days unavoidable road riding during which to pin down the odometre error and so establish true fuel consumption and so my possible range. Also, the bike had been brought back from Stage 1 mods (extra airbox holes, noisy pipe, smaller front sprocket) and with the quiet OE pipe refitted, the air box taped back up to but the EJK fuel controller still plugged in and unmodified, chances are the bike would run rich but I thought I’d give it a try as who knows, the ECU might somehow compensate. I’m not sure how all this stuff works.

Riding out of town, strong head/side winds sprung up and at only 73 miles the fuel warning came on. Already? We all know that feeling of tensing up to will the bike on while counting off the miles. I was convinced I’d not make the ten miles to Wickenburg and once I did, I made sure I filled up that Liquid Containment fuel bladder right there (it took 1.42 US or 5.3L). And one day soon I’d better run the main tank dry to see what it really takes – supposedly 2 USg or 7.7L.

I recorded an average of 57.1 US (68.5 UK – see this) on day 1, at around 55mph – the slowest thing on the road. Arriving in Kingman the winds were howling out of the southwest and riding the Honda was like piloting a hang glider into a gale. Drivers behind me kept their distance, but I actually felt a lot safer than in similarly strong cross winds on my XT660Z a few years ago in southern France. It was way too windy to camp and anyway parks out here are exposed and grassless – not really set up for ambient tenting. A chummy Gujaratti guy at a motel made me smile and gave me a deal.

Out towards Vegas next day I still had trucks breathing down my neck, but there was no other way to get north to Beatty. I ran dry on the freeway cutting through Vegas with the Honda showing just 100.3 miles, but all the signs suggested that was not an accurate figure even if empty was still empty. The F-L somehow reads speed off the gearbox – never heard of that before and surely reading accurately off a tiny gearbox cog compared to a big front wheel will take some precision, even if it;s all cheaper and tidier than a mechanical speedo cable.

The Trail Tech Vapor I’d wired in requires you to precisely measure front wheel diameter and fit a sender wire to the fork tube opposite a magnet on a rotor bolt to calibrate the speedo. It’s a system they claim is more accurate than GPS and on that day I was running the Garmin 62 GPS, a Garmin satnav and the Vapor – all up enough nav gadgetry to invade a small country.

I knew well from logging routes in Morocco that for a GPS track log to show accurate distance, the ‘pings’ have to be set very high – say every 2 seconds or 50m. Doing so eats up GPS memory and most are not concerned with measuring accurate distances, but that is the only way to do it with a GPS. Otherwise, with less frequent pings, the series of straight lines between the recorded time or distance points cuts corners and gives a shorter distance than true over a day;s riding, especially on a bendy track. GPS speed readings are not affected like this.

The road to Vegas had been straight enough and when the Honda ran dry at 100.3 miles, the Trail Tech Vapor showed 112.3 and the Garmin 62 was on 111.2, about 1% out. So the Honda odometre is 11-12% short on distance while the speedo (less important) is 8-9% under; both unusually inaccurate compared to recent bikes I’ve run. Relying on Honda data, my mpg would be reading 11% worse (assuming gas station pumps are all accurate of course – I’m not always sure they are).

Out of Vegas
The bike seemed slow but I’d hardly ridden it and assumed it was the strong winds and the load. But leaving Las Vegas, on a whim I tried 89 RON fuel instead of 87. As 95 turned west, I braced against cross winds and at times the Honda was rolling along at 65. The manual says use 86 RON or more, so it’s probably not octane but something occasionally made it run much better. Could it be Nevada fuel? Al had told me they put ethanol in AZ fuel (E10?). Who knew all the variables but I wasn’t making any mpg records today.

With one eye on the mirrors and the other on the speedos and passing ranges, up ahead a sign proclaimed ‘BROTHEL’ in big red letters. I’d arrived at the Alien Cat House, a roadhouse/whorehouse which it owner suggests (see vid below) is well suited to the socially stunted individual who spends too much time playing space games on his PC and likes his women sprayed green and with pointy ears.

Inside, past masses of pointy-chinned alienobilia alongside sexy towels, rough-looking guys slouched in the diner – I guess any passing holiday-making families get scared off; ‘Mummy, what’s a brothel?’ They reminded me of the sleeveless, Blunnie-shod, truckers from the Northern Territory and hadn’t dropped in to get an update on the chances of anything coming from Mars. Then I realised that just over the hill was the huge Nellis AFB or ‘Area 51’ on whose secret experimental activities the region’s UFO reputation is surely based.

On the counter was a copy of the local paper, the Pahrump Valley Times. Headline: a local guy got drunk, flipped and tried to strangle his girlfriend. As it happens a couple of days earlier I’d read that ex-Dakar racer Jimmy Lewis was doing a two-day dirt riding session the following weekend. (That’s his old Dakar BMW desert racer from ’83 below let, on display at an open day recently).

There had been some discussion about him versus what was claimed as themore promo-savvy Rawhyde outfit over the border. I considered about attending, like you do when you’re abroad and can get away with doing something spontaneous. It would be good to learn how to ride properly and I was bound to learn something, but I had the wrong tyres, no MX gear the CRF would get a hammering and it was $600 plus lodging. Maybe another time.

Out of the Cat House I tried 91 RON but battling the wind, in nearby Beatty that added up to an all time low of 42 US mpg (50.5 UK). Even my Tenere didn’t get that bad in similar conditions. And to cap it all the fuel bladder had leaked and everything reeked of gasoline.

Out on the street an old guy had a huge range of ex-military ammo boxes but no small fuel cans and Lou’s Hardware up the road had baffling stick-out spout cans. Over the road a semi derelict casino looked like a tornado had passed over it. My scavenger antennae twitched and out among the debris of fridges and furniture lay a 2 gallon can. I sized it up, unsure if I was breaking some local anti-vagrancy bylaw, but decided by the time I’d flushed it and filled it to find a leak I’d waste more gas. I was on the California border, a better can could be found I was sure. Until then I sealed the fuel bladder as best I could and perched it on the back where it could drip harmlessly.

Beatty seemed a bit beaten up and neglected, but no more so than your average South London high street these days. Generations of autos rotted in front yards, the old clapboard church looked a bit shaky and it seemed this town was only big enough for one casino to prosper. Shelling out too much for motels, that casino did at least have a Subway which became my sustenance on the road, a six-incher for lunch and another for dinner. Less than $8.

While I’m prepared to sacrifice bit of mileage from the EJK as others report, I need to get to the bottom of this fuel consumption. An FI 250 ought to do 65 US (80 UK) – that plus dirt lightness is why we make the compromise after all. Is a smaller engine more sensitive to large loads – me probably 110kg in all my gear + 25kg of baggage. Is it down to different fuel qualities from state to state? Actually, I don’t believe baggage or screen have any real aerodynamic effect at the speeds I go – they certainly didn’t on the XTZ or BMW in Morocco. Winds are a more likely cause, as Al had warned me, and maybe elevation too. But I think the bike is simply running rich, as with the noisy Q4 and opened airbox (but no baggage) it had run 62US on that day in the dirt. The fuelling is off for sure and our CRF-L man Rick R has all the answers on the EJK ‘black box’ under the seat. In the end I knew all I had to do was return it all to stock by unplugging the EJK, or less easily but perhaps more effectively, try to lean out the adjustable EJK to run with the stock pipe.

Plenty of time for all that. Tomorrow I will at last able to get off these truck highways and ride some dirt roads at my own pace and without battling the winds. We’ll see if that makes a difference.

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Mile Zero: CRF250L hits the road

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Only a week later than planned the Honda and I now are on the road for a month or more’s riding around the fabulous Southwestern USA. How long had that been on the ‘to do’ list?

The Magbags filled up without too much compression or compromise and of course riding it out onto the lawn the bike flapped around like a three-wheeled shopping trolley full of cement – just as do all loaded bikes at Mile Zero.

Yesterday I flew back from a talk near Tacoma where I met Tom Grenon, just back from Baja and with whom I KLR’d through BC and Yukon back in 2001 and where I confirmed what it is I like about deserts! The plane flew via SLC and across southern Utah and some place called the Grand Canyon (right) where I’ll be in a couple of weeks. But first it’s west to Vegas and Death Valley, the accessible corners of the Sierra Nevada and Northern California. Then maybe up to the BR Desert in northwest Nevada and down to southern Utah. After that who knows, New Mexico or maybe even Baja Mexico.

Tune in for time to time to see how it all pans out and how the bike and gear perform. Or see you on the trail or at the Overland Expo around 18 May, near Flagstaff.

Bismilah, as they say in the Sahara.

Next instalment.