I haven’t written much the past few days because I’ve been having adventures from the best campsite I’ve ever had. Let’s catch up a bit.
On Saturday I took a lap around the lake. It was mostly long, straight, flat stretches of road, but at the north end I rode over the dam that created this lake, and there were some actual curves in the road. Unfortunately, I was stuck behind slow people going through them, but that’s to be expected for a weekend. I also checked out the store at the paid campground just down the road, and availed myself of their coin-operated showers for the first time. The pressure was actually a little too high for my comfort, but at least it didn’t take long to get clean.
I also followed a “road” along the lake for a little while. Unlike at Get On! ADV Fest, this two-track didn’t get any more challenging than this, well within my abilities as well as the bike’s. It was a fun bit of exploration.
Unfortunately, the rough washboard surface of the road back to camp caused one of the screws that holds my chain guard on to separate its employment from my motorcycle. I’d removed this screw during the tire swap back in New Hampshire, and I must not have tightened it down quite hard enough. Fortunately, I could easily fix this problem with zip-ties. I took advantage of the easy access to the chain to clean and lube it first.
Sunday I took a different kind of ride, following one of the nearby “National Forest Access” signs into White Gulch. This was an easy dirt Forest Service road back into the mountains I can see from my camp. It’s exactly the type of riding I’ve set up the V-Strom to do, and it did an excellent job of it.
I rode all the way out to the former location of White City, a mining town that was abandoned a long time ago. Surprisingly, there are still a few modern houses out here, quite a long way from the main road, and in the middle of the Helena National Forest. I wonder if these are direct descendants of some of the original miners who staked land claims here?
While my maps all said the road continued farther, it was gated off with many “No Trespassing” signs around. Not feeling like getting shot, I turned around and went back, but took a different route back to the main road, making a loop out of this trip. This ride, I saw farms, ranches, and abandoned mines. It was about as Montana as I could get.
I had a guest for the evening, Joyce, author of the Memoirs of a Crazy Biker Bitch series of books. (I’m not being rude or crude when I call her this — it’s the name she chose for herself!) I met her near her home in Oregon last year. She’s currently on her way to Sturgis from a book signing in Spokane, Washington, and I’m at a convenient almost halfway point for that trip. I certainly have room to spare at this campsite, so I shared it for the night. It was great to see her in full biker mode, something I didn’t get to see when we met for lunch near Portland last year.
We met at a “nearby” restaurant (about 15 miles from my camp), and then we rode together back to camp. I’d warned her about the last few miles of dirt road. She took it slow, but got her fully loaded Harley Nightster through with no problem. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery, an amazing sunset, and some like-minded company for the night.
Joyce left for Sturgis this morning. Late in the afternoon she sent me sad pictures of a flat tire and her bike on a trailer. But she’s okay, and is camping in a Harley-Davidson dealer parking lot and hopefully getting it fixed tomorrow.
Meanwhile, it was a hot day at camp, so I didn’t venture out after leading Joyce back to the paved road. I do seem to be accumulating more and more parts I need to replace, though. The foot of my trailer jack is twisted at a funny angle. Most likely this happened at some point, perhaps on my drive into this camp area, when the foot of the jack bottomed out on an uphill transition. It’s also really hard to crank. Something probably got knocked out of alignment inside. The end result is that I can’t drop the trailer, nor reattach it to the van.
Fortunately, I don’t need to right now. I can leave the trailer hooked up all the way through the Rocky Mtn Roll, and then I’m cannonballing to my friends’ place in Oregon. Even there, I can leave the trailer attached until I install a replacement jack, and the van will support the trailer during that process. I’ve even found one on Amazon that’s a similar design, but will also take a 3/4” socket so that a drill or impact wrench can quickly raise and lower the jack. I don’t have an electric impact wrench anymore (one of the few things I physically lost in the fire), but I can set up my drill to do the spinning part, and apply the actual elbow grease required by hand.
Also, the plastic tab I pull to open my modular helmet broke today. It’s locked in the closed position, and is basically a full-face helmet now. It’ll work, but I strongly prefer a modular helmet because of my glasses. With a full-face helmet, I have to take my glasses off to put it on, then go looking for my glasses on the ground after they fall off my bike from wherever I put them down and hope I don’t step on them and break them in the process. There are a couple of motorcycle shops in Butte, so I’ll check out their selection before heading to the Rocky Mtn Roll. I’d really like to have a fully functional helmet while I’m there.
How can so many completely unrelated things be breaking all at the same time? These are in addition to the problems with my van build, like the dead circuit breaker, a dead Starlink cable, and the diesel tank that sprung a massive leak, which are what’s already pushing me to cannnoball to my PNW home base in Oregon after the Rocky Mtn Roll to make repairs. I really hope this trend ends soon. While I have money in the bank and can afford all of these repairs and replacements, I wish they weren’t all happening at the same time. At least none of them are debilitating, preventing me from following through with my current plans before buckling down and fixing things.
Smokey Da Van 