Britman had his Valk on more Fire Service roads than Smokey Bear!!........
The worst had to be Tusquitte Rd., north east of Hayesville, NC. Including 3 stream crossings
. I came down it years ago and emerged on to black top where a large group of about 100 HD's and choppers were turning around. I had so much dust flying off the bike it looked like I had been thru a flour mill. I wrote this up at the time but lost the word doc in a PC crash
I still have about an ounce of fine dust in the tail light assembley on my ST 1300 after riding Parsons Branch Rd in a drought about 4 years ago.
Also rode Keebler Pass on the ST. It certainly wasn't as well groomed as these phtoos show it.
http://www.houstonfreeways.com/modern/2007-07_04_kebler_pass.aspxMy road diary - Monday July 10th 2005
I was planning on doing laundry and kicking back once I got to the Gunnison Inn http://www.gunnisonlodging.com/gunnison-inn.htm in downtown Gunnison but the weather is too good to pass up an afternoon ride so I head for the Kebler Pass which runs west from Crested Butte, another picturesque mountain town. Hwy 12 leads to Kebler Pass; 9,980 feet; a rise in elevation of about 1,300 feet from Crested Butte. After riding about 2 miles out of town the black top ends and now I’m on a pretty good dirt road. I had ridden a few forest roads on my Valkyrie but this is my first off road experience on the ST. I soon find out that if I keep out of the small potholes I can chug along at 20 – 40 mph past groves of the tallest aspen trees I’ve ever seen. I’d like to be able to recount encounters brushes with wild animals, close gravel encounters of the sliding kind but the whole 30 some miles passed uneventfully. When I reach the end of the dirt road it is with some relief only for that moment of relief to be dashed as the dirt road starts again. Now I hope I’m on the right road. It would be a real pain to have to back track. Off to the east the rain clouds are building again and I reckon I’m in for another dousing. After another few miles I’m back on blacktop and heading west to Somerset. I can see orange lights strung high above the road in the distance. Nearing them I see they are attached to the conveyor of a coal mine situated next to the road. This area produced 13.27 million tones in 2005.
The wind has picked up again with the smell of rain in it. This isn’t going to be a cooling summer shower the wind has a bite to it like the air from a freezer when first opened. The rain gear is on again and now the wind is really blowing. I hope that when I turn south in Hotchkiss towards Crawford the wind will be at my back but it’s a side wind after all. Blowing the rain horizontally across the road. This is the hardest rain of the trip and the onboard temperature gauge registers 44F. I’ve slowed to about 50 m.p.h. due to reduced visibility and now there’s 2 large pigs appearing from a farmyard to the left. These aren’t the usual variety of pink skinned pigs these are HUGE Wessex Saddlebacks. Striking looking black pigs with a white belt, which includes the front legs, around the body. If I had been on the scene 5 seconds later I’d have been up to my ears in bacon.
