nelsonccc
04-26-2010, 09:35 AM
Gary and I headed out to do a trip in the Mojave Preserve.
We staged out of Searchlight and rode 117 miles into Baker and 98 back from Baker to Searchlight. Our moving time was 6:08, stopped time 4:00 (a lot of route finding, all the cool roads are gated), max speed of 84.1, moving average of 33.6mph, and a total ascent of 14,962 over the day.
It was a great trip. Perfect weather. We figured with all the rain that the desert would be pretty green and it didn't dissapoint. Lots of wildflowers and blooming desert cactus. Our ride out was a bit frustrating. I had planned a route via google earth and mapsource but it seemed that everytime we found a good, small, technical road it would end at a gate and private property signs. FRUSTRATING. So lots of backtracking. About 40 miles outside of Baker on a pretty long, whooped out section of road i had a high speed get-off. I was doing about 40 when a deep whoop threw me out sideways and down i went. No damage to the bike but my arm is covered in road rash and my thigh has two massive bruises.
The route out of Baker turned out to be fantastic. Lots of narrow, winding, sandy roads with rocks going right thru one of the largest joshua tree forests. We could see the train coming across the valley so we racing like crazy to beat it so we didn't have to wait. Then when we finally got to the rails there was an underpass, a bit washed out, but nothing too hard.
Overall we had great time and we saw lots of stuff we want to further investigate this fall.
We staged out of Searchlight and rode 117 miles into Baker and 98 back from Baker to Searchlight. Our moving time was 6:08, stopped time 4:00 (a lot of route finding, all the cool roads are gated), max speed of 84.1, moving average of 33.6mph, and a total ascent of 14,962 over the day.
It was a great trip. Perfect weather. We figured with all the rain that the desert would be pretty green and it didn't dissapoint. Lots of wildflowers and blooming desert cactus. Our ride out was a bit frustrating. I had planned a route via google earth and mapsource but it seemed that everytime we found a good, small, technical road it would end at a gate and private property signs. FRUSTRATING. So lots of backtracking. About 40 miles outside of Baker on a pretty long, whooped out section of road i had a high speed get-off. I was doing about 40 when a deep whoop threw me out sideways and down i went. No damage to the bike but my arm is covered in road rash and my thigh has two massive bruises.
The route out of Baker turned out to be fantastic. Lots of narrow, winding, sandy roads with rocks going right thru one of the largest joshua tree forests. We could see the train coming across the valley so we racing like crazy to beat it so we didn't have to wait. Then when we finally got to the rails there was an underpass, a bit washed out, but nothing too hard.
Overall we had great time and we saw lots of stuff we want to further investigate this fall.