Category: General

Planning and Preparation

The original idea for Ecuador was born while talking with my friends Ayon and Vijay. They had been travelling internationally on a motorcycle recently and somehow we got talking about Ecuador, Peru and Columbia. A little bit of research on the Internet showed that Ecuador was probably the easiest of those destinations, especially with a few companies in Quito catering to Americans who want to rent bikes or book adventure riding excursions. We contacted a couple of these companies, and some of this was simply sending a message on WhatsApp, but then decided to book our rental bikes with the biggest of them – Ecuador Freedom Bike Rental.

Ayon was the first to book his flight tickets to Quito and Shobhit & I followed suit the next day. Mahesh joined in on the plan a few days later, but Ayon decided to cancel his tickets and instead take his family to Ecuador later in the summer. So eventually it was just three of us – Shobhit, Mahesh and me. Shobhit booked a BMW G310GS, I booked a Yamaha XT250 and Mahesh booked a lowered Suzuki DR650. Interestingly these reservations were made on Saturday Jan 21st 2023, while my employer announced layoffs on Monday Jan 23rd, 2023. Thankfully I was not impacted, but the timing for such events always ends up a little surprising.

A month or so before the trip, the Freedom Bike Rental guy emailed us saying that the XT250 is out of service and is going to be replaced with a Hero Xpulse 200. The DR650 was a bit tall for Mahesh, so I ended up riding it for most of the trip, while Mahesh took the Hero. So here we are, three North Americans of Indian origin, riding Indian made motorcycles in South America. The BMW is made in TVS Motor Company’s Hosur plant in Tamil Nadu, while the Hero is proudly made in India, I just couldn’t figure out in which city, Hero has so many plants.

From the get go, the plan was to do an adv ride, mixing in good amounts of off-road riding. Somehow my interest in pure street-oriented touring has waned and I’ve focussed on more off-road “adventure riding” over the last 3-4 years, as the contents of this blog will attest to. With focussed off-road riding in remote places, a GPS was a must, so I picked up a used Garmin Montana on Advrider. This simple (though ancient) device was worth its weight in gold! The Garmin saw heavy usage on every single day of the trip and routed us through completely unmarked terrain. I developed a new appreciation for the ruggedness and reliability of Garmin GPS’es while at the same time developing a maniacal hatred for the Garmin software.

Between February and May, the three of us had several Zoom calls where we discussed the route, the hotels to stay, and other things to pack. I planned most of the routes myself, and I used basically three resources (1) Ecuador Freedom Bike Rental has self-guided tours that describe routes and destinations, (2) Noraly, aka Itchy Boots had ridden through Ecuador in Season #6, I watched all those videos and (3) General content on Google about roads to take and places to visit. Garmin Basecamp makes it easy to plan routes, especially off-road, so I created a day-by-day plan of all 6 days and shared it with Shobhit and Mahesh. Shobhit bought a new Garmin Zumo XT, but he was not able to load the South American off-road maps in time, so his unit was not usable. Mahesh has a similar Montana to mine, and he was able to navigate with ease on this trip.

Ayon & I signed up with Duolingo, the free language learning app and started to learn Spanish. I ended up with a 90 day learning streak, which was a great help on this trip. I could form simple basic sentences, and had a vocabulary of maybe a 100 Spanish words. In more complicated situations we would end up using Google Translate, which also worked very well.

I decided to carry my Alpinestars Halo Drystar Jacket and Pants. The weather forecast for Ecuador showed rain off and on every day, so I was thinking about taking the waterproof Aerostich suit, but packing it into my hand-carried luggage was not an option. The A*Star suit could simply be worn on the plane, while the rest of my gear was packed in my waterproof Wolfman Expedition Duffel bag.

Our helmets were equipped with Sena communicator units and they came in handy while riding. Unfortunately Mahesh’s unit took on water on the second day and he was not able to use it to communicate for the rest of the trip.

So with such a long introduction, here we are at SFO waiting to board our plane.

Day 0: Flight from SFO to Quito

We were booked on JetBlue, SFO to Ft. Lauderdale to Quito. The flights were uneventful and comfortable, with just a little turbulence over Panama. We had a beer at FLL and arrived in Quito at around 10:30PM. Immigration was a breeze, no forms even, and we called an Uber to take us to our hotel. We noticed a lot of smog in the air that night.

We checked into our hotel – La Casona de La Ronda Heritage Boutique Hotel – a wonderful quaint little hotel just a couple of blocks from Plaza de Santo Domingo and Independence Square (Plaza Grande) in the historic part of old town Quito. It was past midnight by now, so we called it a night.

Day 1: Ride from Quito to Mindo

In the morning, we explored the hotel a little, had a great omelette breakfast and decided to walk around the historic town of Quito.

After exploring the area a little, we checked out of the hotel and took a taxi to the motorcycle rental place. It was about 20 minutes away and we got set up pretty quickly. The bikes were ready to go, cleaned, lubed and gassed up. They set us up with a prepaid cell phone for emergencies and a bunch of tools, like wrenches, tire irons, tubes and a pump.

We left Quito in heavy traffic, weaving in between cars and trucks. Our first stop for the day was the Ciudad Mitad del Mundo (Center of the World) – a monument constructed right on the Equator. We walked around the little village they had made there, took a few pictures and climbed up to the top of the tower.

Lunch was pretty good there, we had Llapingachos, Ecuadorian style potatoes and other veggies.

After lunch, around 2pm, it started to rain lightly as we made our way to our destination Mindo. Our first off-road jaunt of the trip would be from the highway to the a small village called Nono. This was about 30 kms of off-road and the easy terrain helped us get confident with our new bikes. I noticed that the DR650 severely lacked both front and rear brakes, something I got accustomed to over the course of the this trip. We made it to Nono in the light rain, but as we were leaving Nono, the rain got very heavy. In the huge downpour, we were lucky to find a cafe for some coffee and the owner there spoke English. It turns out, he is an Argentinian, lived in Switzerland for a few years and then moved to Ecuador about 13 years ago. He told us stories about the quaint rural life in a small village like Nono.

We left Nono when the rain reduced, but it never completely stopped for the rest of the day. As we got to the town of Tandayapa, it was getting to be 6pm or so, and we decided to skip the rest of the off-road section and ride to our destination on the highway. Sunset is around 6:15PM in May in Ecuador, and it gets very dark by around 6:30pm. The highway decision was a good one. It was pitch dark and rainy. The DR650 headlights were dimmer and weaker than any bike I have ever been on, I could barely see anything, so I asked Mahesh and Shobhit to lead. We rode slowly, with our rain gear and made it safely to our hotel in Mindo – CasKaffeSu. This was a decent hotel, and after a hot shower we went to the main street in Mindo for some pizza and drinks. Shobhit bought a full bottle of Chivas Regal from a store there, and at first, I was wondering if we would ever finish a full bottle. Turns out the bottle was over in less than 24 hours 😀 I wasn’t surprised at that either. Over pizza and whisky, Mahesh told us the amazing story of how he met his wife. His wife is from Bulgaria. Mahesh also told us that he recently lost his job, just a few days prior to the trip. Silicon Valley layoffs were hitting everyone, sadly. But overall, Mahesh’s mood was up, his spirit was not shaken and we tried to not dwell on jobs & careers too much.

Our hotel for the night.

Day 2: Ride from Mindo to Chugchilán

We got up early. Sunrise is around 6AM and the sun comes out bright and shining. Not quite like the Bay Area where morning are always cloudy and foggy. After another egg breakfast, and we were on our way.

We rode out to the highway from Mindo and stopped for gas. Full service gas in all of Ecuador and the price of the regular gas was cheap (~$2.5 a gallon). Ecuadors largest export is petroleum and petrochemicals. We rode through the town of Los Bancos and crossed the bridge on the wide Esmeralda river. This river flows into the Pacific and is not part of the Amazon. In just a couple of kilometers we hit our first off-road section of the day. Surprisingly, this road was gated, and we had to pay a small toll (25c) to enter. The guard at the entrance collected our toll, noted down our names and raised the gate for us to enter.

This single lane road was excellent. For the next 60 kilometers, we rode through many small towns, lots of farms and plantations and alongside amazing scenery. Many times were we literally riding through the clouds. The terrain not too technical and not too easy, just right for us to have a good time.

Riding through the clouds

Somewhere on this road, Shobhit and I were leading and we lost sight of Mahesh. So we pulled over, waiting there for a few minutes, hoping he will catch up soon. A few minutes turned into 5, into 10, and that point we turned back to go look for him. We are never 10 minutes apart, generally just a few minutes between us all. So I was starting to worry a little as we traced our way back, but luckily we found Mahesh in about 3 kilometers. It turns out that he lost the spring to his side stand while riding. He obviously could not ride with a floppy side stand, so he used a string from his helmet bag to secure the stand to the bike. We found him just in time to help a little, but thankfully that was the only issue.

We pressed on, taking many breaks along the way, and while 60 km may not seem much, riding that distance off-road was strenuous. We exchanged bikes for a little bit while I rode the Hero. It seemed like a decent budget bike, not very powerful and not very good at off-roading, but a good budget entry level adventure bike. We stopped a few times for a sip of whisky!

We got to the highway right around lunch time, and it started to rain just then. We found a roadside “dhaba” for a simple meal of rice, beans, salad, potatoes and eggs. A nice beer to go along and we were fueled up.

At this point it was still raining a little, so we decided to take the paved highway to our destination for the night – Chugchilan. We rode the Hwy E20 to the Pan-American Highway (E35) and while there was a lot of commercial truck traffic the twisties were very nice. This was a recurring theme for the trip – very good twisty roads for sporty riding. The Pan-American Highway is at a high altitude there and we were riding around 11-12,000 ft. We stopped for gas at one point and got a nice view of Volcan Cotopaxi in the background.

We got off the highway at Via Sigchos and took that road inwards towards Chugchilán. Of all the twisty roads I have ever ridden, Via Sigchos ranks up there with the best of the best. Excellent tarmac, beautiful scenery and amazing curves for sporty riding. For a moment it felt like riding in the Swiss Alps, the Sierra Nevadas and the rural Indian countryside, all at once.

Here is a beautiful view of Iliniza Sur from Via Sigchos. This whole road was superb, about 80 kms of pure bliss. Mahesh commented to me that he missed his BMW S1000XR, it would have been amazingly fun there.

Sigchos is a nice small town with a hospital and university. With a population of 1200 it was one of the larger towns we rode through. You just don’t see too many people out there and not too many vehicles either. Strangely, even in the smallest of Ecuadorian towns, I noticed many roads are designated as one-ways. So if a town has 4 roads, 2 of them run one way, the other 2 the other way. This would often confuse the Garmins and a couple of times we rode through the wrong way to get across town.

We made it to our hotel – Hostal Cloud Forest – by about 7pm. This is an awesome little “hostel” catering mostly to European backpackers. It was very affordable at $51 for two extremely comfortable double rooms. Shobhit and I took one room, while Mahesh took the other. We went to the dining room and enjoyed a communal dinner of corn soup, quinoa, veggies and beans. The banana bread and chocolate was also pretty good.

Before turning in for the night, we played around with our Garmins, mapping out a shortcut for tomorrow. With ~300kms of off-road tomorrow was going to be a long day, but using our paper maps and Google maps on our phones, we found a shortcut that would reduce the off-road distance by about 30km.

Day 3: Ride from Chugchilán to Salinas

We rose early and headed to the dining area for breakfast. After an awesome breakfast of pancake, fruit and yogurt, we took a quick picture in front of the Hostal and were on our way. This was to be our longest day with about 250km total, and it turned out great.

Our first stop was Quilotoa Lake, about 20 minutes south of Chugchilán. I’d seen this in lake in Itchy Boots’ videos so I knew sort of what to expect. I also knew where to ride our bikes to get a perfect view. The lake was beautiful, stunning, especially when the cloud broke and sun shined brightly. Dissolved minerals in the water give this lake a green color and it looks especially vibrant when the sun hits it at the right angle.

Shobhit wanted to fly his drone here and take some pictures, but there was some issue with the firmware and app on the phone that prevented that. Nonetheless, we took in this magnificent sight for some time, and decided to ride on. We were able to find gas in the small town of Zumbahua and then got on to the highway E30. A short distance later we turned off the highway towards Angamarca and the road turned to dirt soon. Again, in terms of the best dirt roads ever ridden, the road from Zumbahua to Simjatug via Angamarca remains my top one of all time. We saw a bunch of Andean camels along the way, both the wild ones, guanacos and vicuñas and also the domestic ones, llamas and alpacas, seen here.

Ecuador has some amazing roads!

We crossed Angamarca, a small town with maybe 5-8 streets total and rode through “downtown”. There was a busy market in progress, native people buying and selling all sorts of stuff. We wanted to stop and take a look, but with all the electronics on our bikes and our passports and luggage we didn’t feel safe stopping and walking around the crowded market. Here is the town of Angamarca in the distance. We stopped for a casual break and Mahesh dropped his bike on the soft grass as he dismounted.

With all the rain, the roads were wet in some places. Wet and often very muddy. Mahesh came in a little too hot into a corner and fell down in the mud.

Shobhit also dropped his bike a few kms down the road. Thankfully none of these were major incidents, just minor drops.

We got to the town of Pinllopata and took a shortcut towards Simjatug. A few kms down the road we stopped for lunch, a nice egg and tomato sandwich packed for us by the Hostal in Chugchilán.

There is something about having a sandwich on a trail while riding a motorcycle through the clouds!

We took a break again in maybe 50kms, after passing through Simjatug.

Rural Ecuador has lots of dogs, country dogs that chase behind motorcycles, barking viciously. Not all of them were vicious through, this fella came by and quietly sat beside us as we took a break.

We made it to our hotel – Hotel El Refugio, Hostal de Salinas – in good time. Thankfully we hit rain for the last 5-10 kms only. I had reserved this hotel by chatting with the department of tourism of the province of Guaranda on WhatsApp. They put us up in this hotel, which seemed decent but was a few hundred meters outside the main town. Not a big deal, but the rain was coming down heavy now. I went in for a shower and realized that the hotel had no hot water. There was some problem with the water heaters, so in the middle of this huge downpour, we transferred to another hotel – Hostel la Minga. At $15/night per person, it was a great deal. They had a small garage at the back where we could park our bikes.

After a hot shower, which was only luke warm, but anyway, we headed to a pizza parlor across the hotel. Pizza is everywhere in Ecuador. After a lot of whisky, pizza and general fooling around we called it a night. It was pretty cold that night, probably in the 40s, and the hotel only had a central fireplace for heating. The fleece blankets kept us warm and we slept well.

Day 4: Ride from Salinas to Chimoborazo

After three days of riding off-road non-stop, today was a bit of a rest day. We didn’t have much ground to cover, so we’d planned on walking around Salinas to explore the place. Our hostal was right in the town square, and since today was Sunday, they were getting ready for a town market.

We walked down a couple of blocks to the local chocolate factory. It was not operational because of the weekend, but we could stop by, check it out and buy some chocolates.

This small little hilly town is very picturesque and it was such a pleasure to walk around.

From the chocolate factory we walked down to the cheese factory. It was a mid-sized operation employing about 30 people part time. We bought some local cheese at the store.

We walked back to the town square then and visited the Church. Everything is about a 5-10 minute walk here. The Church was pretty!

And our final stop on this walking tour was a football (soccer) manufacturing “factory”. This was about the size of our dining room, on the second floor of a dilapidated building. Coming from California, this really gave me some perspective, on how parts of the world live. We talked to this girl for a few minutes who showed us around her uncles factory. We didn’t end up buying any footballs because we had no space to carry them.

Lots of domesticated farm animals are used for labor in rural Ecuador.

It was about noon by now and after the relaxing morning, we decided to gear up and ride on. It was only about 50km to Chimborazo, but we took some interesting dirt roads and stayed off the main highway. We gassed up in the town on Guanujo and took this dirt road that the Garmin showed us would lead to the Chimborazo highway. We must have missed a few turns, but we ended up at a dead end, where the road led to a recycling facility and a single caretaker house. We talked to this family and they advised us a different route to Chimborazo – over a steep hill.

The hill cimb was steep but we all managed. We were now riding in the Chimborazo national park, which we later realized was not permitted. The trail there was not very well developed and probably did not see much use. In a few places the dirt was very soft. Shobhit and Mahesh both lost traction at one point and their bikes went down. The Hero was so underpowered, that it was not able to move it’s own weight in the sandy area. Eventually I was able to help them both ride through some very soft dirt and thankfully we made it out of there on to the highway.

Riding a motorcycle at 14,000 feet on the volcanic plains of Chimborazo is an experience I will never forget!

The DR was really bogging at 14,250 ft. It was cold up here and were in and out of the clouds.

When we got to the highway, it was a little tricky to get off the dirt and on to the pavement. The water channels (gutters) on the sides of the roads are typically deep in Ecuador. With so much rain, they are designed to be about 2 feet deep, so it was a little tricky to jump our bikes on to the pavement.

We got our first glimpse of this majestic mountain when the cloud broke. We decided to ride around the mountain for a few kms, before we hit our hotel.

It’s hard to describe the grandeur of this mountain, it looks very big and imposing when the clouds clear.

After riding around Chimborazo for an hour or so, we arrived at our hotel for the night – Chimborazo Lodge.

This was a beautiful property, situated right at the base of the mountain. We had a couple of excellent double rooms booked, and the property offered dinner and breakfast at the beautifully appointed dining room. The owner of this hotel, Marco Cruz, is a famous mountaineer and has apparently been up Chimborazo several (hundreds) of times.

The only other guests at the hotel were a couple, a lady from Munich Germany with her tour guide, a local Ecuadorian naturalist, Manuel Jacome. We got chatting with them before dinner and shared some whisky. Mahesh talked about how Bayern was playing in the Bundesliga and the Champions League. A lot of whisky was flowing, and so the opinions on football were getting strong.

Before dinner we also hiked up a short path towards the mountain. Walking through the herd of alpacas, in a remote but stunning place like this … was special. I will never forget this view of the mighty Chimborazo.

Dinner was cream of broccoli soup, some roasted carrots and a poached pear for dessert.

After dinner, we walked outside to view the sky. It was crystal clear with stars shining brightly. It was also very cold by then, probably in the mid 30s. Shobhit was chatting with Manuel and he recommended a hotel in Misahuallí to stay and explore the Amazonia. We made a note of that hotel and decided to ride out there the next day. There was no cell phone signal or WiFi anywhere at the hotel, so that evening we had to ride out a few kms to a restaurant and update our families that everything was ok.

Day 5: Ride from Chimborazo to Misahuallí

Manuel the tour guide had recommended that if we wanted to visit the Amazonian part of Ecuador, we should stay at “the Jungle Lodge El Jardin Aleman“. Our original plan was to ride to Volcan Cotopaxi, but given how cold we all were, we were ready for some warmth. But first we wanted to see. ifwe could get to the basecamp of the mountain. We set out after an early breakfast, and rode to the entrance to Reserva de Producción Faunistíca Chimborazo. Our original plan was to ride up to “Carrel Refuge”, the first mountain cabin that hikers use to summit Chimborazo. Unfortunately, the only way to get up there was using a sanctioned tour operator. We couldn’t ride our bikes up there and plus it was very very cold indeed. After a couple of quick pictures, we were on our way.

The ride from Chimborazo to Misahuallí was mostly uneventful. It was fully paved, and we were riding the main highways that connect the towns along the way. We descended from 14,000 ft to 1,500 ft in about 4 hours, and the temperature went from freezing to warm and humid. The roads were very nice, twisty and scenic, but there was some traffic along the way.

Somewhere along Highway E30, between Banos and Puyo, we encountered a huge traffic jam. There was a mudslide on the highway blocking the flow of traffic in one direction. With one way controlled traffic, there was a traffic jam for 6-8 kms in each direction. Being on motorcycles, we could go around the cars and pass through it fairly quickly. However for the cars and buses stuck there, I’d imagine this was easily a 3-4 hour delay, but they were all filed orderly in one line, obeying the traffic control and not passing on the double yellow. Impressive! This level of traffic discipline is rare in India.

We got to the hotel early afternoon and were immediately struck by the beauty of this place.

The natural surroundings were completely different from the high Andes. Everything was lush green, tropical, warm and humid. The owner of the hotel, also a German, was not available in the afternoon, but greeted us later in the evening. We decided to head into town for lunch. Misahuallí is a vibrant tourist town where the tributary Misahuallí merges with the Napo river. The Napo river is huge, easily 2 km wide here. It flows into Peru and in 1,400 km becomes the Amazon river.

Misahuallí is also the last developed town in Ecuador, when going eastwards in the Amazonia. Anything East from here is mostly developed for petroleum and related commercial enterprises.

Lunch was more rice, potatoes and lentils.

We also took a short boat ride down the Napo river. The currents were strong. The Napo river and it’s tributaries rise in the Andes and they always carry sediments along. This is why they are relatively eutrophic and they look muddy and dirty because of the stirred up sediments.

The boat captain took his son along. No lifevest, no safety gear. The kid was about as old as my son.

We ended the relaxing evening with some pool at the hotel pool table. Mahesh is an expert pool player! He beat Shobhit and me easily in all the games we played.

Dinner was some fried broccoli, potatoes and beets. It’s amazing how simple the food is in Ecuador, so much different than the typical American dinner.

I slept very well that night. I turned on the ceiling fan in the room, and with the warm weather I was able to sleep soundly that night.

Day 6: Ride from Misahuallí back to Quito

This was the last day of our trip. We woke up late and had a lazy omelette breakfast. There were a couple of macaws on the hotel property and we took some pictures with them.

This parrot was happy to sit on the shoulders of hotel guests for a picture.

Shobhit also got his drone working and flew it over the hotel, taking some pictures of the property and river.

This is the Misahuallí river.

A quick poolside photo at the hotel and we were on our way.

The ride back to Quito was uneventful again. All highway riding, again through some amazing twisties. We dodged. afew mudslides again, climbed back to 13k ft and made our way to Quito.

Typical mountain highway in Ecuador. We took many short stops along the way.

Getting to Quito requires crossing a mountain pass, at 13k ft. Shobhit stopped for a quick picture while it took Mahesh a good 20 minutes to catch up on his Hero.

Nonetheless, we made it in good time and returned the bikes to Freedom Rental by about 3pm. The return was smooth and hassle free, and having survived the last 6 days with simple but bland food, we are all craving for some spicy Indian food. We took an Uber to Sher-E-Punjab, where we had some amazing Indian food. We also met the owner, Satwant Kangura, who spoke fluent Hindi and chatted about his life in Ecuador. He was a great guy and made us feel special and warmly welcomed in his restaurant.

This was the end of the trip and we had a couple of hours to kill before we had to go to the airport. So we found a massage place – Happiness Spa – and got a nice relaxing back massage. This helped with the soreness of riding a motorcycle on and off-road for 6 days. The flights back to the Bay Area were fine, I slept most off the time.

So Ecuador 2023 was a more than just a fun motorcycle ride. We experienced the amazing geographic diversity of the country, the friendly and warm nature of the people and the simplicity and authenticity of the food. It was an amazing trip overall and I wouldn’t hesitate to go back there again.

Here is a short video from Shobhit’s Insta360 camera:

Gear Review [coming soon]

Helmet: Scorpion EXO AT950

Jacket: Alpinestars Halo Drystar Jacket

Pants: Alpinestars Halo Drystar Pants

Gloves: Klim Dakar Gloves and Cortech Super-Sonic WP Gloves

I thought I’d should post about this – I rode the W650 on some dirt roads, near Pescadero, with Mahesh on hiis Scrambler. The dirt section wasn’t too long and it wasn’t particularly difficult. The W handled it beautifully, looking classy all the time 🙂

This is around Reservoir Road, Artichoke Road and Hill Road near Pescadero

In April 2022, the kids were off from school for Spring Break and we decided to take a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We had never been to North Carolina or Tennessee before and we really enjoyed the vacation there. The roads in and around the park are truly spectacular and I can see why it is such a motorcycle riding hot spot. On the final day of our trip, I rented a 2014 Honda Valkyrie from Wolf Creek Rentals in Townsend, NC.

I picked up the bike from the rental place in the morning while it was still pretty cold. They rented me a jacket, gloves and a helmet. I took some awesome roads there – Foothills Pkwy over to Happy Valley Rd and then finally US 129 “Tail of the Dragon”.

The dragon itself is a decent road, but not very different from Hwy 9 or the local roads in the Bay Area. The turns are relatively tight and the riding is pretty slow. I rode with Anushka behind me for about half of it, and then switched with Valmik for the rest of the dragon. They both enjoyed the ride tremendously, which was a little spirited for them.

I took a brief stop at the Dragon Resort, looked around the Tree of Shame, took a few pics and moved on. There wasn’t much of a crowd, it was still early in the morning and relatively cool. From there we rode down to the Historic Tapoco Lodge Resort and had lunch.

Shruti and the kids were tired with the winding roads there, so I decided to ride on towards Cherohala Skyway. I took Joyce Kilmer Road to Cherohala, stopped there for a few pics and chatted with a couple of riders from Ohio. I then road a few miles out on Cherohala and back tracked my way to the restaurant. I enjoyed Cherohala Skyway the most – it’s a great free flowing road with nice high speed sweepers. There were gradual elevation changes, excellent pavement and superb views – what more could one ask for? I was tailing a few ZX14 riders on the Skyway and it was a lot of fun. I could ride there for days on end.

I loved the Honda Valkyrie. I’ve been interested in a Valkyrie for a while now, ridden the older one many times. It has a lot of power – the goldwing engine makes more torque than a Busa. With five gears only, the last gear is a true overdrive. The bike has a super smooth engine with no buzz or vibrations anywhere. It also handles great, for being a cruiser. It’ll scrape pegs if you ride aggressively but for the most part it turns very well. It hides it’s 700lbs weight very well, while not being tiring to ride at all. It was definitely comfortable for the 400 miles I put that day.

The only issue for me really was that I think it needs a slipper clutch. It’s easy to skid the rear wheel when downshifting, and that can get scary on such a big bike. Obviously, the looks are a bit… polarizing… to put it mildly. Used prices are high – compared to a Ducati diavel or Triumph Rocket. Otherwise a fantastic bike, Honda reliability, awesome fit and finish, and best of all – 32,000 mile valve check intervals, only oil changes needed for a long time.

On March 25th 2022, Mahesh (Ducati Scrambler 1100 Sport) and me (Kawasaki Versys-X 300) rode into the mountains of Carmel Valley towards the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and Chew’s Ridge.

We started the day by meeting for coffee at Sue’s Gallery Cafe in Saratoga.

We rode up Hwy 9 through the SC mountains all the way down to Santa Cruz. It was quite cold through the mountains and by the time we got to Santa Cruz my fingers were frozen. We stopped for gas near Moss Landing and I swapped bikes with Mahesh till Carmel Valley.

We then started the ride towards Tassajara – the road was mostly hard packed dirt with a few ruts here and there. Nothing very difficult and we made it up to Chew’s ridge quickly.

The gate to the lookout was locked, so we did not ride our bikes up there, but walked the last quarter of a mile. The views from the lookout were amazing. The weather was perfect, and the visibility was great.

From there we rode a few miles towards the Zen center and stopped by a picnic bench for a beer and a sandwich. It was a very peaceful camping spot. We met a forest service ranger there who was laying irrigation lines for the service mules. We had a nice long chat with him.

From there we decided to turn around and head back to the Bay Area. Riding noisy motorcycles down to the Zen meditation center seemed like a bad idea, lol.

We rode on Carmel Valley Road, and then up Hwy 101 through Salinas and it was incredibly windy. The long freeway ride was tiring, but all in all it was fun.

On Feb 11th and 12th 2022, I went on a ride over the Carrizo Plain. There were 6 riders in all: Andy (Honda Africa Twin), Anil (Honda Africa Twin), Ayon (Honda CRF250L Rally), Gokul (KTM 690 Enduro), Mahesh (Kawasaki KLX230) and me (Kawasaki Versys-X 300). 

We left on a Friday afternoon with Andy, Anil and me riding down. We rode through Uvas Reservoir and Hwy 25 over to Hwy 198 and then on to Parkfield Grade. It was an easy ride, although it was getting a bit hot. Ayon, Mahesh and Gokul got their bikes down in their trucks.

We gassed up in Tres Pinos. Gas prices were high, but nowhere near the highs they became a few months later, after the Russia Ukraine war.

At the end of Hwy 25, Andy briefly lost his balance and dropped his Africa Twin.

 Some nice views climbing Parkfield grade.

Easy off road down the grade to the cafe.

We had a beer each at the cafe, some light food and were on our way to the hotel in Taft, CA. 

This was in the month of February and it got dark pretty soon as we left the cafe. We gassed up at the James Dean themed gas station “Blackwells Corner” at the intersection of Hwy 33 and Hwy 46.

From there it was a straight shot to our hotel in Taft. We reached around 7PM, which gave us ample time to shower and get dinner at the Mexican restaurant, Mi Casita, right next to the hotel.

The ride to Carrizo Plain began the next day, Saturday Feb 12th. We unloaded bikes from Gokuls and Ayons trucks, gassed up and were on our way at about 9AM. The highlight for Gokul was his new Rivian R1T truck that hauled Mahesh’s and his bikes down.

We entered Carrizo through Crocker Springs Road and Hurricane Road. The dirt was hard packed, the temperatures were mild and the ride was perfect.

The descent down Hurricane road was probably the only tough part of the ride, and that was pretty mild too.

We then road Elkhorn Road towards the north which was a very peaceful and meditative ride. The dirt was relatively easy with no challenging obstacles. We were able to maintain a smooth speed through the turns and whoops and we then took a break at the Wallace Creek Trailhead. Here we walked over to the San Andreas fault and took some pictures. 

From there we continued on to San Diego Creek Road and eventually came to Soda Lake.

It was getting hot by now, so we decide to visit the Carrizo Plain National Monument visitor center. We took a break there and had a beer. The visitor center was under construction but it still had some impressive stuff.

We decided to continue on with the ride from here. Andy had to go home early, so he left the group and started his ride home. Just a mile from the visitor center, Anil picked up a huge screw in his rear tire. The screw tore through his tire and tube and left him with a huge flat.

We removed the wheel. I had tire irons and with much effort, we removed the tire and the tube. The tube had a huge hole in it and we tried to patch it with a kit that Gokul had. Impressively none of us has a spare tube!

The patch would not hold air, which was sort of obvious to us all from the beginning. Anyway, at this point we gave up, disappointed, and Ayon called AAA to come rescue the bike. We had spent over 2.5 hours trying to fix the bike and everyone was exhausted. I decided at this point to make it back home instead of continuing with the ride. I was the only “rider” in the group left, the rest were going to haul their bikes back. Mahesh, Gokul and Ayon rode Soda Lake road down south and back to the hotel, I started riding north and took the freeway back home.

The ride back home was easy, but extremely boring. I had lunch at a McDonald’s on the way and made it back home around 7PM, exhausted. Anil was able to get the AAA truck to rescue his bike and drop it off at the hotel. He got a ride with Gokul and Mahesh in the Rivian as they came back to the Bay Area. Anil went down back to Taft the next day with a trailer to retrieve the bike. 

Interestingly Mahesh, Ayon and Gokul went back over the same route that evening in the Rivian and got some excellent pictures. 

This trip did not go as planned, mainly because none of us had spare tubes with us. Andy did have some spare tubes, but he left before the incident. Lesson learnt, I guess, for next time – always carry spare tubes. This trip also demonstrated how people react under pressure and why riding longer trips is a two sided coin – it’s all fun and games when the going is good, but it sucks when there is a snag. 

 

This ride was a repeat of RR21 from 2012 and RR56 from 2020. I was riding the Sport Classic and met up with Akshay (Moto Guzzi Griso), Anil (BMW S1000XR) and Mahesh (BMW S1000XR) and we rode down Uvas to Hwy 25 down to King City.

We had lunch at El Lugarcito Restaurant (a very mediocre fare, similar to 2019) and rode back to Hwy 25 on Lonoak Rd. I loved the desolate landscape there and it was great to visit after almost a decade.

While we were stopping for pictures along Lonoak Rd, Akshay hit a patch of gravel and tipped over his Griso. The damage is minor and we rode on.I was impressed how fast the Sport Classic can go in a straight line. I easily saw an indicated 130 mph on Hwy 25, with more room to go. The air cooled engine is grunty, torquey and surprisingly good at long smooth twisty rides.

 

I have been to Death Valley several times now, at least four times over the last 20 years, but never on a motorcycle. My first trip was in 2001, in a rental Nissan Sentra. And the latest trip was with the family in 2018, in our FJ Cruiser.

Death Valley National Park is home to the longest network of off-road trails in California, easily accessible from the main paved roads. I had been mentally planning this trip for many years and it was finally coming to happen. 

Many friends got involved and joined in. Many invited friends of their own and it became a big group quickly. A lot of preparation went into the trip. My friend Shobhit from Seattle even bought a motorcycle specifically for this trip (2015 VStrom 650)! Akshay bought his KTM 990 a few weeks before the trip, Gokul bought an XT250. Edit: Actually Gokul bought a KTM 690 early in 2021, but it had engine issues, so in the last minute he bought another XT250 to make the ride!

After buying motorcycles, people bought gear, accessories, fuel containers, gps units and more. We single handedly bumped up the GDP of California for DV2021. I changed the oil, adjusted the valves and flushed the coolant on my 990. I even rode it about 500 miles after the service to make sure everything was working ok – and it was – until it wasn’t. 

The final rider count was 11 – Akshay, Ayon, Bobby, Gokul-small, Gokul-big, Mahesh, Sandeep, Shahab, Shobhit, Sujit and Vijay.

Day 1: March 19th, 2021.

Seven of us: Akshay (KTM 990), Bobby (Ducati Scrambler), Shobhit (Suzuki VStrom 650), Sandeep (Honda Africa Twin), Ayon (BMW R1200GS), Mahesh (Honda NC700X) and me (KTM 990) left the Bay Area riding south for Death Valley. The winter of 2020 was one of the driest on record and it had not rained in about 2 months. But as luck would have it, on March 19th 2021, it started raining as we rode down on the first day.

Vijay trailered his Honda Monkey to Death Valley and brought along his brother Vikram, cousin Ravi and neighbor Salmaan. These were the “Sherpas” who carried a whole bunch of gear, a cooking stove and other supplies. They cooked some fabulous meals, including a goat curry. The sherpas, enroute in Salmaan’s Jeep:

Sandeep’s friend Shahab got his KTM 500EXC in his Honda Ridgeline truck. Gokul-big brought his Honda CRF450L in his Ford Ranger while Gokul-small got his Yamaha XT250 in a Jeep Gladiator. 

Our first stop for the day was in Hollister, where we gassed up and decided to ride down Highway 25.

As we started down Highway 25, about 10 miles in, Shobhit pulls over in an emergency maneuver. It turns out that he lost his shifter linkage. He had adjusted the linkage the night before, raising up the shifter to accommodate his large MX boots. He probably did not tighten it down enough, so the linkage fell off and the bike could not be ridden easily. At first we tried looking for the linkage on the road, but quickly realized that a small piece of metal, probably 6mm in diameter is going to be very hard to find. Shobhit called all the Suzuki dealers nearby, none of them had one in stock. So we decided to head back into Hollister and “make” a shifter linkage using an M6 bolt. As Shobhit rode his bike back to Hollister, he had to “ride the clutch” as he was not shifting. He was running the bike in 6th gear, from a start.

Anyway, we get to Hollister, it is raining and Bobby is getting impatient and restless because he has work call he needs to get on. He is also wearing mostly mesh gear and has gotten soaking wet. In what appeared to be his frustration, he decides to part ways with us, and head back home. That was the first of many casualties on this trip. Seven Down To Six. 

With the rain coming down on us, we worked outside the Ace Hardware in Hollister, trying to fix the bike. They folks at the hardware store cut the bolts to various lengths to make it fit, and we JB welded the other end. 

We got some nice hot lunch from Wong’s Chinese Restaurant next to the Ace and with the bike apparently fixed, we decided to press on.

In about a mile from there, Shobhit realized that his clutch was slipping – badly. He could basically put the bike in gear while it was not moving and let the clutch out without the engine cutting out. Revving the bike was getting only about 10% of the power to the wheels, so the clutch was definitely fried. Second casualty of the day – Six Down To Five.

At this point we were discussing what possible next steps would be. One idea was to head back to San Jose and Shobhit would ride Ayon’s CRF250L Rally. Somehow Ayon was not in favor of that – tensions were running high and patience was low. In the end I suggested Shobhit rent a car from Enterprise in Hollister and drive down to Death Valley. The only car they had was a minivan, but at least they had something that Shobhit could use. He drove the rest of the way down to Death Valley.

The remaining 5 of us, started to make our way to DV. It was already pretty late and we’d probably wasted 6 hours on this breakdown. We rode down I-5 to get there as quickly as possible.

Somewhere along the way Mahesh broke off from the rest of us – but coincidentally, he met us back at the Shell gas station in California City. At this point it was late at night and dark. The roads out there in the desert are even darker and rest of the ride was a bit scary. I spoke to Vijay over the phone and he mentioned that the winds were blowing strong there with a lot of sand in the air. 

The two Gokuls rode up to Trona Pinnacles on their way in. They took some great pictures. 

From California City, we took Redrock Randsburg Road to Hwy 395 and Searles Station Cutoff to Hwy 178. Both roads are completely desolate with no signs of life anywhere nearby. As I was riding Redrock Randsburg Road, my KTM 990 started to act up. The electricals started to fluctuate erratically. The tachometer was bouncing all over the place and the speedometer was going crazy, fluctuating between 0 and 140mph. 

The bike itself was running fine. I had turned on my heated grips and was using my much needed fog lights. The fog lights worked well and guided us on this desolate piece of road at night. While the engine was running fine, I was in a desperate mode of panic. I didn’t want to be stranded in the middle of the desert with a non-running bike. I could feel the bike was cutting out at low rpms, so I was giving it a good rev every now and then. I was also keeping it revved up, clutch in, on all turns and sharp corners. The cross-winds were strong and a lot of sand was getting blown around. 

Anyway, by a stroke of luck, and the grace of God, we made it to Stovepipe Wells 🙂

We came in right at midnight, having started at about 8am that day. Right as we were turning into the hotel, I didn’t rev the bike very much and it died right there, 50 feet from my hotel room. Yes, some things worked out better than others, now Five Down To Four. The bike never cranked again, it was totally dead electrically. But I was relieved. I had made it over the dark and dangerous roads to our safe hotel – where we had several folks to help us fix the bike. 

We had some pizza that night, a little bit of scotch and called it a night.  Shobhit had made it to the hotel about 30 minutes ahead of us. It was quite an adventurous day. 

Day 2: March 20th, 2021.

I got up relatively early on Day-2 and immediately went to look at the bike. I dropped the skid plate and looked at the battery. I was hoping that one of the terminals had come loose, but the connections were good. I borrowed a voltmeter from a guy on a KLR and the battery read 0V. Strange, how could the battery be completely dead? It should still read a few volts, I thought. Next another guy came out to help me – it turns out this guy is a mechanic and runs an auto-shop in Fremont, what a small world! Anyway, he brings along a battery pack and we try to start the bike, but it only cranks weakly. He calls his brother, gets another battery pack and connects them in parallel. That was sufficient juice to start the bike and it runs! It idles nicely but when we measured the voltage at the battery it was under 12V. We then concluded that the alternator was probably bust and was not charging the battery. I was disappointed at that point – thinking I could drive out of the park and pick up a replacement battery – but that would be of no use if the alternator was not charging the battery. Game over, really.

With Shobhit and I not able to ride, we decided to rent a Jeep at Farabee’s Jeep Rental and Tours. This meant we could at least stay with the larger group as we explored DV off-road. So we drove out to Furnace Creek in the morning and rented this tricked out Jeep Wrangler.

 

The first (and only) off-road trip of the day was through Titus Canyon. We assembled at the start of the Nevada-side entrance to the canyon and the Jeep was trailing behind the 7 bikes. Vijay had decided to go ahead and meet up with other folks and ride Titus separately. 

I had driven Titus Canyon in my FJ Cruiser earlier, so this was not really new. Shobhit and I served as the “sweep” vehicle for the 26 mile trip, picking up bikes as they dropped. First was Mahesh, he had a small tip over in deep gravel, then Sandeep had a spill in the rocky terrain descending Red Pass, and finally Ayon had a fall on the gravel deep inside Titus canyon. Thankfully all the incidents were minor and nobody got hurt. Corralling such a large group turned out to be difficult and we stopped numerous times for pictures and breaks. 

Gokul/big took some great pictures.

A lot of funny business.

Anyway, we exited Titus Canyon after about 4 hours there and it was already mid afternoon. Some of decided to go out to Ubehebe crater, where we drove a little off-road. Gokul-small decided to head home, we helped him load his bike into his truck. Gokul-big and Shahab rode out to Teakettle, but they didn’t ride all the way.

Vijay was the only one who actually made it to the Teakettle Junction on his Honda Monkey. After all this, turns out the smallest 125cc bike was the one that made it the furthest. 

Shortly thereafter Shobhit and I returned the Jeep and made it back to the hotel. We all gathered for some much needed beer and food. Here is a picture of all us at the dinner that night:

While we were drinking that night, a group or Brazilian riders came by our table. Among them was the same guy who had tried to help me get my bike started in the morning. It turns out that one of the riders in their group had had an accident and they were looking for someone to ride his VStrom 650 from Death Valley back to the Bay Area. This worked out well for them and for me, as I took them up on their offer. The injured rider would drive back with Shobhit in the minivan.

Day 3: March 21st, 2021.

The ride back from DV to the Bay Area was mostly uneventful. I was riding the VStrom 650 which I enjoyed. I was amazed that the bike could easily touch 100mph and sustain that speed for a long time. Ayon and Akshay broke off at Tehachapi. They retraced their route so that they could ride Hwy 178. Having ridden that highway a few times before, I was not interested, and I was generally frustrated with the whole situation. I pressed on, and rode Hwy 33 to 198 to 25 – which made it a little interesting. I got home, solo, in good time, while Vijay was gracious enough to trailer my broken bike back. I picked up the bike from him in a few days. 

The Brazilian group and Shobhit stopped by the Enterprise in Hollister and brought his bike back in a truck. Eventually we all got back home in one piece, all 11 of us, so things did work out well. A few broken bikes and some lingering resentment, but that wore off pretty quickly. As Valmik’s teacher says, “You get what you get and you don’t get upset”.

A few days after getting back my bike, I bought a new Yuasa battery, put it in and the bike fired right up. Maybe the battery was old (probably 5+ years) or faulty, but it left me a little nervous about the bike. So that concludes this ride report, my first “failed” ride of the last decade. Not bad a record I guess, but made for good memories. 

Maybe I will go back to Death Valley again next year!