Trans America Trail 2010
Dual Sporting from the Potomac to the Pacific.
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First Ride
On May 5th Ted and I rode our dual sports together for the first time. We ended up doing about 250 miles in 10 hours including lots of nice dirt roads through some national forests, an eventful stream crossing, and some bits of twisty tarmac.
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Drills
On Saturday Ted and I did the TWVT trail again but this time headed north and up into Pennsylvania. It was an excellent 280 mile day for me and even farther for Ted.On Monday Ted and I headed out to some of the construction areas around Ashburn to run some drills and just generally have some fun. Besides running some of the drills covered in the DSR DVDs it also gives us chances to test our equipment.
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Rich Lafferty Racing School
In order to get a good foundation to build our skills on Ted and I signed up for the Rich Lafferty Racing school in SE Jersery which I heard about through the NVTR mailing list.
Overall the school was a great experience but the communicating with Rich before the class could be a lot better, so caveat emptor or something like that.
Once we got out gear unloaded, Rich Lafferty did a quick inspection of the bikes and went into some explanations of body, hand, and foot positioning, seeing, breathing, and other topics.
After the talking part we did a little warm op loop which was on the tightest single track I’ve ever been on . This is the warm up OMG LOL.
Having miraculously survived the warm up loop we proceeded to work on balance and clutch control drills by doing slow races. Last one to the finish line withoug putting a foot down wins.
After the slow races we moved to a four corners exercise where we practiced … you guessed it cornering. This picture was taken at the very beginning of the exercise and before long the racers and competent riders where sliding and powering around the track with the associated sand clouds. Did I mention the tracks where all sand? Deep loose sand?
After the lunch break we headed out on another trail ride. The ride started off with deep sandy whoops lined with trees. That will dispel any post meal torpor in a hurry! But then Rich’s bike broke down.
The primary purpose of this trail ride was to work on some log crossings and a climb up a a steep hill made of very loose sand. I got stuck going up the hill the first time but made it up on the second try but just barely. All of the riding in the afternoon was on single track so I didn’t get any pictures as I was too busy simply trying to survive.
Rich giving instructions on the log crossings.
Ted approaching the log crossing.
Humble narrator and a log. (The prvious 4 pictures were taken by Heidi from the NVTR. Thanks Heidi.)
After working on the log crossings for a while we went off to do more single track. Ostensibly it was to work on whoops but I’m pretty sure it was just meant to kick my ass some more. I finally let the little WR take a nap in some deep sand as it was looking a little tuckered out.
All packed up and ready to head home. Good Times.
All of the pictures from the school are below
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Geeking Out
T minus 11. All systems are go.Ted and I have been doing more riding and things are looking good.
Right now I’m trying to figure out how much of a computer geek I want to be. Posting updates during the trip always sounds like a good idea while I’m sitting on the couch but after umpteen hours of thumping down the trail my enthusiasm for effing with computers will be pretty low.
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What did I forget?
Well here’s everything I’m taking other than the gear I’ll be wearing. Now what did I forget?
From left to right (roughly) you have:
- Thermarest pad
- Sleeping bag in compression sack
- Ka-Bar Machete / pry bar
- WD-40
- Radio Paradise – Kleen Kanteen
- Thermal Clothing (critical for Nevada in August)
- Empty Freezer bags (For road kill and sundries)
- Tube and tubeless tire repair kits
- 3 pairs of socks
- Convertible pants
- Tools (I’ll break out the specifics later – or not)
- Body Armor Heat Gear bottoms
- More bottoms
- Toiletries bag
- inner tube
- First Aid Kit
- Swim trunks
- GPS
- another inner tube
- battery charger for camera
- spare parts (2 filters, 2 master links, 1 spark plug)
- 1 Cotton Tshirt
- 4 Body Armor or Champion tops
- 2 tire / axle wrenches
- 1 good tire iron
- Wallet,Leatherman , iPhone
- Various charging and USB Cables
- Asus EeePC
- Kick stand pad
- Cable lock
- Rope
- Tubliss tire horn (for mounting tires)
- Insect repellent and Sun screen.
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Day 0
You can’t have a ride form the Potomac to the Pacific without paying a visit to the Potomac so after loading up the bike I went to the unofficial starting line.
Yes Virginia that’s the Potomac River.
First random encounter on the trail.
Ditto
Click.
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Day 1
For the first 4 days of our trip we followed the Trans West Virginia Trail down to Jellico Tennessee which is the start of the Trans America Trail. Each day’s trail is about 200 miles long. The trails are named in decreasing order to Jellico. So we rode T4 (trail 4) on Saturday, T3 on Sunday, down to T1 on Tuesday which ended in Jellico.
Ted and I meeting in Leesburg (Thanks fro coming to see us off TT).
Just in case of ....
GPS failure.
Our first water crossing. We did this on our first training ride but the water was about 8" deeper then. It went smoother this time.
Awesome views.
and roads. Not long after Ted and I got separated. I looked everywhere.
Not here.
Or here. Better head back up the road a bit to double check.
A small tree across the road. Not much of a tree but there is a 20' drop off on the edge to keep you honest.
A motorcycle did pass this way.
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Day 2
Wow, It seems we’ve done so much riding and seen so much since day 2 that I can’t remember much of it except that it was more spectacular roads through West Virginia with amazing views and that it was even better than day 1 which I didn’t think was possible at the time.
Saying goodbye to Dillon and getting ready to head out for more fun.
more fun.
Riding dirt roads with great views.
Give my regards to the Commonwealth.
The country is a lot bigger at 25 mph.
Make sure the place is open before taking off all your gear.
Random roadside attraction.
Ditto
Stopping for a break.
From the other direction.
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Day 3
Not to get redundant but uhhh yeah it was great. We were threatened with rain for most of the day but it never materialized and we only got about 4 drops all day.
Heading out again.
It threatened rain today but we only got about 4 drops.
It didn't.
Told ya.
More incredible views of the Appalachian Mountains.
and transcontinental highways.
Eject, eject, eject!!!
I tend to take a lot of pictures of the same scene but I can't tell the difference in them on my netbook screen. Oh well.
We're definitely deep into coal country now.
Shiny happy people.
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Day 4
The rain that threatened yesterday showed up today and we rode the rain, mud, and shiny rocks most of the day. It was fantastic and at this point the Trans West Virginia trail can only get a resounding two thumbs up.
Was it really necessary to pave this road?
The real fun started soon after stopping at this overlook.
Overlook.
Nature appreciation.
Fun.
Decisions.
Indecision.
Breaking out of the woods we were on top of the world at eye level with the rest of the mountains. I was cruising along admiring the scenery when all of a sudden I came to the realization that I was riding through a coal mine. LOL.
Coal mine super highway.
Near the end of the day the weather finally broke.
