2015 Transam Trail Days 9-11

First order of business is a special thanks to Rob Munach (AKA Bowling Shoe Rob). I have no idea how I missed him on the list of my first post.

Rob patiently took me trail riding a few times, waiting while I wrecked time and again, taught me the ropes and advised on my bike purchases and maintenance.

He also served as a great advisor while I was troubleshooting problems and deciding how to gear up. He also put me in touch with Dave at Combustion Cycles and mailed me screws that fit my carb bowl for trail side tuning. Thanks Rob!

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Day 9, 8/26: In the Groove
Odometer start: 9270
Odometer finish: 9492
Miles: 222
TAT Mile Marker: 631

I wanted to milk every last bit of the hotel stay. Not only did it cost $88, it had AC and a real bed. It was cold, in the high 50’s when I woke up around 6:30. I went to the breakfast area and relaxed for a bit, watching the news on TV (gasp, me? News?) and salivating over what I normally think of as inedible food. I finished the last blog post and published it, snagged a banana and two packs of oatmeal for the road, packed the bike and departed about 8:00. It was probably low 60’s when I left so it was chilly when riding. I donned my rain gear to block the wind and made way to the trail.

Riding was quite easy. Mostly paved but a decent amount of gravel roads. One section had occasional deep ruts, deep enough to be a potential major problem. The trick is that they can lurk in the shadows ahead, nearly invisible while you are riding a preceding sunlit section. Then, as you hit the shade a 10′ long, foot-deep muddy rut suddenly appears in front of you. The first two times nearly sent me off the road so I slowed significantly when in question of the upcoming surface.

A little on the road surface itself is in order. My pre-ride impression of the trail wasn’t quite accurate. The pictures people post when on rides are of the interesting parts. If you ride 100 miles through corn and then come across a cool scene, you post a picture of the cool scene. Then ride another 100 bland miles, see a cool something else and you post a pic of that cool something else. The reader can tend to fill in the gaps mentally such that there’s an image of hundreds of miles of cool stuff rather than hundreds of miles of casually nice with two cool stand out scenes. I’ve done enough of this stuff that I know this but I wad expecting a much higher percentage to be non-paved.

The trail is 4,000 miles. If it were 4,000 miles of stream crossings and gnarly rock beds, you might average 15 miles per hour when riding, 5 when you factor in rest breaks and crashes, take 800 hours of ride time to complete, averaging 6 hours per day of ride time and take 3-4 months of full time riding. Technical trail riding on Brushy Mountain, Rob and I will ride maybe 20 miles in a few hours on smaller (faster) bikes. That’s not what this is.

The TAT in the east (NC, TN, MS, AR, OK) is mostly paved and has off-road highlights each day. In Tennessee think in terms of 90% paved, 9% gravel, 1% technical enough to cause me to pucker up. The paved sections were very nice, scenic back roads. Lots of forest, agriculture and a little rural residential. Now and then there’s a state highway that runs at 55 mph. The gravel were the same types of zones: forest, ag, rural.

North Carolina and Tennessee were very nice. They had some cool river crossings, some good intro technical to test my chops with a heavy/loaded off-road oriented bike. By the end of Tennessee I was barely starting to ride gravel turns less like a on-road rider on this big bike. Tennessee was mostly very, very rural areas. Lots of people I talked to had rarely, if ever, been out of Tennessee or even much out of their local area. Pretty much all agricultural employment. They are awesome people; they are very helpful, friendly, and always take time to chat and answer questions. They don’t just answer your question like they are in a hurry. They will spend time to offer more to help you out, ask questions, give advice. They aren’t in a hurry like we often are in the cities.

Ok, so not all of them are nice. I’ve been flipped off once, yelled at several times and buzzed by a pickup truck. Rednecks can get bored and the novelty of my coming through can be tempting entertainment. I’ll put up with that because the good more than makes up for the bad.

But I digress, that should give a good sense of the surfaces I’m riding. 90% paved, 9% gravel, 1% technical. 70% scenic rural, 20% nicer than rote rural, 10% really enjoying the view and having a hard time keeping my eyes on the road.

Mississippi, at least what I saw, was similar to Tennessee but the farms were HUGE. Crop fields many miles on a side. Huge, specialized tractors. There was a different scale; this was clearly Big Ag and they are feeding A LOT of people. By then end of Mississippi I was riding gravel at 40 mph in the straightaways and 20 in the corners, double what I was doing in North Carolina.

After riding hard all morning and hitting Mississippi, I stopped at a local BBQ joint. I spent several minutes taking off motocross boots, body armor, etc., walked to the door and found it was closed. I was incredibly hungry so I just beelined to a Pizza Hut I passed a few miles back. Again, normally inedible food that made me salivate. I was hungry. I rested for an hour and reviewed maps, finding a damme Lake with a campground for the night and then walked to Piggly Wiggly for food supplies.

I hit the road hard, really hard, to finish up and park at the campground about 4pm. As is often the case on weekdays I had the whole campground to myself, and it was a nice one.

I stayed by Sardis Dam, a 117 ft high, 5 mile long, 1,200 ft wide dam built for flood control. It was a well manicured recreation area.

I quickly pitched camp, heated up ravioli for dinner, hung my hammock by the lake and read for 3 hours. Before going to bed I called Denise to chat for a while and crashed, dead to the world.

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Day 10, 8/27: Another Awesome Campground
Odometer start: 9492
Odometer finish: 9756
Miles: 264
TAT Mile Marker: 888

I woke up about 6:00, made Oatmeal and watched the sun rise. The hammock even went up again. These are the kind of highlights that are most memorable from my adventures.

The first half of Arkansas was also large farms but I was on a highway flying at 65 mph for most of it. The scenery was 95% boring and 5% interesting. I jammed the throttle open and pretty much burned through my rear tire. A note on tires. This bike is considered a “dual sport” which means it’s capable of on- and off-road riding. The tires you run are also dual purpose and I chose ones that lean towards getting good miles on tarmac over optimum grip in sand, gravel and rocks. I got over 2,000 miles on the rear tire. Doesn’t sound like much, but I could pretty much ruin an aggressive off-road tire in two days on the highway at speed.

My odometer reminded me it was time for an oil change. The trail went right through Baitesville, MS, and right by an auto supply store. In I went, bought a filter and oil, and they loaned me a drain  pan. In and out, quick and easy.

I stopped for lunch at a local BBQ joint that has been open since the 1930’s. The inside was small and all tables were taken. Two guys invited me to sit at their table and kick my feet up.

The two guys struck up a conversation and, as I expected, knew the area well. They suggested a great place to camp which I committed to memory.

I blew down the highway fast as a bat out of hell, arriving at Greers Ferry Lake Campground about 4pm. I picked a site, signed in and set up the tent. Noting that I needed a rear tire bad I shot into town and parked at a McDonald’s for a snack and WiFi. A few calls later and I had a tire on the way to the Honda dealer in Russellville, AR. It will be in either Friday or Monday. Well, I’ll hope for Friday but if I have to wait for Monday, the Ozarks are a great place to hang.

Back to camp, hammock up, read until dark, call Denise, go for a walk and check out the boats at the marina, and crash hard.

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Day 11, 8/25: Rest Day in the Ozarks, Oh Yeah!
Odometer start: 9756
Odometer finish: 9790
Miles: 34
TAT Mile Marker: 888

I can’t tell you how much I was looking forward to a day off. Man, it felt unbelievably awesome to get up and not have to pack up camp.

Quick meal, a walk, and then in the hammock for an hour of reading.

About 8am I went out and hiked all the trails in the park. Short but nice and the excercise felt great.

Checked out the dam. This site was dedicated by John F. Kennedy at his last public appearance before his assassination in Dallas.

Next up was a tour of the fish hatchery, one of about 80 in the US. The damn is around 170 ft high. The lowest level of water runs 44-56 degrees year round. Water is fed out of the bottom of the dam into the river below creating a cold water environment that supports trout. Hence this is a rare opportunity in the southern US for trout fishing and quite a tourist destination.

This water is also fed into the fish hatchery which raises around 1,000,000 trout annually.

Next I hit the Collingwood Trail, another short but pretty hike.

The trail ended at the Little Red River with trout fishermen a plenty.

I worked in some gear repair today. My tent has a wall that is attached by taped seams to create a vestibule area. The whole thing has been coming apart as I use the tent. I repaired about 4 feet of separated seams today. With a 12 hour cure time this is slightly tricky. I need to get this done or the tent is going to fall apart around me soon, not to mention bugs are getting in all night.

There is also some abrasion on the liner behind a pannier, again. So, I grabbed some bits of webbing from Walmart to patch it up and protect it better.

My tire came in today so I’ll be back on the road tomorrow, gladly making my way across the Ozarks, sort of looking forward to Oklahoma because it means I’m nearly in Colorado, but not expecting to fall in love with the scenery. More huge farms, 650 miles of them. Roads on 1 mile squares, I expect a ton of gravel and a ton of stops and starts. If I get top bored I’ll bail to a highway, but I do want to ride the TAT so I’ll feel pressure to stay the course. We shall see how it plays out.

One thing I can say is that I genuinely love all of nature. I really enjoyed driving across Kansas and seeing the rolling hills give way to huge, open prairie land as I gradually came up onto the Colorado plateau. So, while it may seem like a horribly boring place to many people, I will revel in it, to a point. After a while I’ll be ready for a change in scenery.

Thanks for reading!