Crazy ride, crazy weather, crazy people. Awesome.

Time to play catch up! After leaving Panguitch, Utah, it was once again time to layer up and get ready for some cool rain. The road to Esperanto was fairly uneventful, but beautiful. As the elevation was climbing, Freya was having a noticable drop in power. Nothing real serious, but I was sort of expecting it. Since she isnt fuel injected, and high elevation air is thinner, she was running too rich (more fuel, not enough air, so less combustion).

I made a quick call to Ski and Dennis just to confirm the suspicion, suggestions, and risks associated with running very rich. The elevation I was at was only 5000 feet, and Freya was set up to run slightly rich at sea level. The road ahead had a 9000 foot pass. I've heard horror stories associated with running very rich, and didnt want anything terrible to happen (which is, anything I cant fix by myself).

So I'm pulling in to get some lunch, and somebody in a truck saw me, whipped around and jumped out of their truck. A crazy looking greybeard with motorcycle clothing and tattoos. He was the owner of the only motorcycle shop within 200 miles. I asked if he had jets for carbs, he said probably (?) and told me where his shop was. After lunch, I found the most badass shop/garage I've ever seen:

Yup, thats a carpeted driveway. HOW COOL IS THAT!?

Covering the sides are cut up tires that The Doctor has changed, and then labeled with the country or place that the rider hailed from. Take a look, its just about everywhere imaginable. Since the road I was on is well traveled, for good reason, people from all over the world ride it, and not a lot of people can carry spares like a Uralist. In fact, we all know bikers who dont properly prepare or even bother to learn about their bike. The best quote I've ever heard from a bikers (BMW) mouth is "I dont need any tools, I got a Triple A card". Thats a Hong Kong no shitter!

The Doc let me rummage through his stuff to find jets, but there werent any main jets smaller than 160! I run 130 mains!! I did find some slow jets size 40, so I spent the 15 minutes and installed those. At the time, I was running 45s. I knew it wouldnt do much when riding at speed, but its all I could do. My only other option was to loosen an air fitting to my airbox, and kind of throttle or crack it open, which would let raw unfiltered air get to my engine. Could work, if its dry and not dusty, but I really wanted to avoid it.

Heres the Doc himself, a true road warrior. Story is 30 years ago his bike broke down here, and there werent ANY shops around. So he stayed and made one. I had to admit to him how envious I was of what he has and what he's done. Living the dream. If you're reading this, Doc, thanks for your time and keep on rockin.

Doc gave me all the advice he could about the road ahead, and made double sure I had his card in case something happened. "youre gonna go down to the desert, and then up to some snow. Watch your ass brother". It was time to baby powder the ballsac and go on the attack. 10 miles down the road, I saw the descent, with an dark angry cloud heading the same way:

Pretty daunting, menacing, and beautiful. I took a moment to perform a quick check of all systems, mounted up, and said "bring it ON!" as Freya sprang to life. Purring like a kitten, then roaring like a tiger.

Descending through narrow slits in the canyon, the storm certainly brought it on. First, the rain, no big deal. Then the hail, marble sized and lots of it. Then the wind, harshest wind I've yet to encounter. Rain was sideways, the wind blowing me all over the road, it was a fight. The narrow two lane road has maybe 1 foot of shoulder, and its either a solid rock wall waiting for you to scrape it, or a sheer cliff trying to bring you all the way down. I got to the top of this leg, take a look:

Neither wind nor rain nor hail could stop the Iron Swan, but it was a physically and mentality challenging fight against the elements. Freya 1, nature 0. Okay nature gets half a point.

Now for the ascent to 9000 feet or so. All twisty and uphill, most of the time Freya was bouning between 2nd and 3rd, pulling me along at 30mph. I was careful not to keep on the throttle and flood her, every one in awhile going to neutral and letting her burn off some of the fuel. It was pretty grueling, and yes I was talking to her the whole time. Finally, the top:

The most fun thing I did while letting her cool down was throw snowballs at her. The snow would hit the engine and explode into steam, not only looking badass but sounding awesome! We then started the descent, which was a welcome change.

I thought I was done meeting crazy people for the day, haha, gladly I was wrong. I was at a gas station chillin out, and a random stranger pulls up next to me. We start talkin, and I get invited to a cabin to meet other people and hang out. I'm so glad I did, as the group was hands down some of the coolest people i've ever met. Hopefully if they're readin this I'll get some pictures emailed to me (HAHA). Of course, Freya gets all the attention:

We hung out by the campfire, drinkin it up and having a blast. Everybody had a top notch sense of humor and I could be close friends with any one of 'em. Meeting great people and having a great time, completely randomly, is one of the reasons people do big rides like this. Night set upon us, and it was time to eat!

BBQ chicken with rie and vegetables cooked Dutch Oven style. DELICIOUS! By the way there were also dudes there, but somehow I didnt get any pictures. Weird right? HAH!

The night was long with all the beer pong and playing around with a tiny little bunny rabbit chillin out with everybody. The bunnies name was Peter (classic) and he probably felt like a baby kangaroo since he spent most of the time in somebodies pocket, nibblin on grass and licking your hand.

All in all, it's going to be difficult to top this day. Great ride, fantastic people. For the record though, I am NEVER playing "slapa-da-bag" again! If you dont know what that is, don't worry about it.

Happy Easter :)