The Road to Tombstone

Gerald on his Highball -
Photo courtesy of Steve Mclean

Tombstone; the destination for my first multi-day group ride and longest single-day ride total. By the time we all met up there were nine riders, all of us on Victories for the three-day ride – three Visions, five Cross-countries if we still count Brad Parrack’s beautiful newly and heavily modified bike, and one High Ball ridden by Brad’s son Gerald. On the visions we had Kevin Shaw, the ride leader, Steve Mclean Sr., and Jim Liston. Including Brad and me our Cross riders were Mike Roark, Greg Brown, and Tim Tarbet. In my mind Gerald had the gutsiest ride of us all with the High Ball, moderate ape hangers, no windscreen, and no seat back; he rode the crap out of that bike and reminded me of when my best friend and I took off on our under powered and under equipped Hondas for 4,000 miles – a CB500 and a 350 Scrambler. Well done young man. 

My kick stand was up at 4:27 am, three minutes early, and I headed east out the 210 to meet Kevin at the Seidners Collision Center in Duarte. Fortunately this was not a harbinger of things to come and nobody needed the place other than as a meet point. The Cheshire moon was low in front of me and had Venus hanging below like a Liz Taylor diamond gleaming in the predawn sky. The two us jumped right back on the 210 for 13 miles to pick up Steve at a park-and-ride. Still dark out, we rode out to Moreno Valley and brought the ride number up to seven with Brad, Gerald, Greg, and Tim.

After we met, re-met, and greeted each other we geared up swapping out clear eyewear for sunglasses and jumped on Highway 10 for the first longish, as it turned out, ride segment to gas up 94 miles later at Chiriaco Summit. The sun made its grand entrance and we rode right into it. For the most part I rode in the middle of the pack with Tim preferring the sweep position and Kevin in the lead. We had a pretty calm ride until we hit the San Gorgonio Pass and the big wind farms with the gigantic turbines stretching along the pass and ridgelines like Indian warriors stretched out as shown in the old western movies. With the sun rising more white than yellow making the clouds silver in the celeste-blue sky and us coming up the grade into it the riders ahead of me were silhouetted in front of the turbines in the grayscale scene; the only color showing was the red taillights drawing us onward as we snaked up the grade.

Fueled up, we pushed into Arizona to meet up with Jim and Mike in Quartzsite. At this point Kevin was taken to task for being ten minutes late after 234 miles and three meet points. After all, we had another 100 miles to breakfast in Buckeye and Jim was hungry. To be honest, as soon as he said it, so was I; I hadn’t given it much thought with all the excitement of the adventure ahead of me. Considering that we wouldn’t eat lunch a late proper breakfast, as Dale Moews would describe it, worked just fine. As the rest of the trip unfolded, not stopping for lunch was the pattern; I felt right as home as that was the way we worked microwave radio site visits in the middle of nowhere.

The next hop was 150 miles into Tucson where we stopped at HMD and since I hadn’t taken the time to figure out what that was I had a nice surprise. HMD, Heavy Metal Desigz is a custom design and fabricator for motorcycles and specializing in the Victory line. Arlen Ness and HMD are official distributors of each other's parts. This is where Brad got the parts and design help for his bike. They also do cars and trucks; basically, anything on wheels they will make look awesome! Mike Saenz is the originator of HMD and he hosted a tour of the shop; he and the rest of the team are gracious, knowledgeable and friendly. The current in-shop project is shown here and is similar to Brad’s black XC, they are both stunning bikes. I highly recommend a visit to the website at: http://www.hmd520.com/ . Start with HMD if you want to do some great work on your ride.

HMD design Victory Cross Country

Close up from HMD Website

Another 69 miles later and we checked into the Sagebrush Inn in Tombstone, it was perfect for our group, hitching posts in front of the rooms for our bikes and everything. I had the Fred McLaury room having left the Maureen O’Hara suite for Tim. Dinner that night was a 10-block walk to The Depot Steakhouse & Johnny Ringo’s Bar and since nobody really noticed my western style riding boots I’d have been better off walking it in my tennis shoes. Good meal, good friends, and a good day all around.

When all was said and done and all was seen that I was to see over the 571 miles and 10-block walk the quote of the day for me was something like this: “Hair? I thought she’d just got out of the pool and that was a swim cap!”

Ride safe, be well, and keep the iron side up.

Patchwork 2 - Tombstone Tune-Up

I am preparing for my first multi-day trip with two or more riders since the summer of 1972 when three riders on two bikes left my house for what was scheduled to be a six week ride that, for me, ended as four weeks out with a solo run home from Bass Lake. It was a great journey in many respects and should be the subject of a multi-post series. This weekend’s trip to Tombstone, Arizona will be different in almost every aspect and I’m not so sure that I know how to get ready for it. There will be nine or ten riders meeting up at different spots from Monrovia out to Quartzite, Arizona. I’ll leave my place at 4:30 in the morning to meet Kevin at 5 a.m. in Monrovia. I’d be yawning already except that’s not too different from dozens of long work trips I’ve taken over the years, not to mention the personal road trips with friends, family, and on my own. I feel at home on the road.

Mentally, I ticked off several items that I needed and/or wanted to do prior to going; clean the bike that’s been mostly idle for six weeks or so, see about a bike-to-bike communications system, check all my gear including rain gear, protective gear for the heat and cold, off-bike clothes, and rider’s group vest, and I also needed to get on the bike for at least an hour at one stretch to make sure the bike and rider are in sync.

I started out looking into the comm. system by asking Kevin, the trip leader, what he suggested. He uses a CB system that requires installation; the time and money ruled that out for me for this trip. Kevin suggested that I ask the group what they are using by going through the Facebook message we’ve been running. Brad, Tim, Jim, and Mike all use a Sena device. I already have a Scala Rider Q2 by Cardo Systems but I haven’t used it in a couple of years. I decided to dust it off, charge it up, and see if I can talk to anybody. The only problem is that when I opened the box the charge and MP3 cords were not there; they may be buried in my spare bike gear box in a garage that has been Wedding Central now for six months and two weddings. I may excavate later today or I may be running silent.

I know I’m good on the riding gear, cold and hot, so I decided to tackle the tune up ride and rider’s vest at the same time by running out to Buckle and Belts in Calimesa yesterday. You might recall from my previous post that I screwed up the last attempt by letting my saddlebag flop open and losing my patch. I started out the ride by having lunch in Montrose with some retired phone company friends and having the lunch extended by running into some old friends I haven’t seen in years. From there I headed out the 210 freeway and followed my Waze app directions to the end of the 210 and onto the Highway 10. The weather was just right, 72 degrees with light patchy clouds. The roads were wonderfully clear just after noon and I was able to keep a brisk pace in the carpool lane all the way out - 80 miles in less than 75 minutes. This was the perfect tune-up for me.

Prior to leaving I had double checked my saddle bag with the vest and patch, having acquired a new one from Kevin over the weekend, and checked the bag during the run out to Calimesa every once in a while as I’ve become a little paranoid about it. I arrived at Buckle and Belts to find a very nice looking Harley Sportster out front, clean chrome with a gold and black trimmed paint job, it was a pretty bike but it looked too small for me. I went in and asked the ladies about having the patch sewn on while giving my sob story about losing the first one. I was lucky that the right person was there who is not usually there on Tuesdays. Whew! I shopped around while she sewed it on after having positioned the patch for her and picked up my first personal patch to be sewn on at a later date. Again, I recommend the place and a visit to their website to read the owner’s story: http://www.buckle-belts.net/ . I found great service with a large selection of patches, vests, and other riding accessories.

I learned one thing on the way home; I should let the Waze GPS app lead me. Waze had me going home via Highway 10 to the 57 to the 210. Thinking that I knew better and going back the way I came as soon as I hit the junction from the 10 to the 210 traffic came to a dead stop. I jumped off the nearby off ramp and doubled back to the 10 and had a good ride home. I feel tuned-up for the ride to Tombstone, making some new friends, deepening other friendships, and exploring some of the fabled scenes from an era that I sometimes feel is where I should have been born to. With my luck though rather than being a US Marshall I’d have been a blacksmith apprentice or running a telegraph office.

Ride safe, be well, and keep the iron side up.