The seeds for my journey on the Trans Euro Trail were planted in 2015, when I toured Europe on my BMW R 100 CS. I had the briefest sample of Albania, an afternoon riding the most dramatic mountainous landscape on a pristine ribbon of tarmac. Smooth riding perfection soon turned into a perilous off-road trail that put my bike and me well out of our comfort zone. As snow fell and my extended sump rebounded off rocks, I made a rare sensible decision and turned back to Montenegro, vowing to return better prepared one day.
This time around I took my 1982 BMW R 80 ST. It’s not a true off-road bike, but modified with a wide handlebar, a 21-inch front wheel, a longer rear shock, and a bash plate, it’s more than capable of taking on tricky terrain. With countless days on Wales’ toughest greenlanes, plus an enduro race under my belt, I was ready to take on Albania properly.
Choosing a route was easy. The Trans Euro Trail is an incredible resource. With nearly 32,000 miles of off-road trails mapped across Europe, it’s a lifetime’s worth of riding. The Albania section covers 500 miles, which could be a day’s riding on tarmac but is a lot longer off-road. Free GPS routes are available at TransEuroTrail.org, and there’s even a TET app for Android phones that allows you to download all the routes.
Albania is inconveniently located nearly 2,000 road miles away from my home in Wales. No doubt there’s some spectacular riding on the direct route, but I’ve traveled its roads plenty of times before, and there are too many motorway miles that crush spirit and wear out knobby tires. Instead, I took the ferry to Santander, Spain, with further ferries taking me to Sardinia, Sicily, mainland Italy, and finally to Albania. It’s a great alternative route with fewer motorway miles, beautiful landscapes along the way, and overnight ferries costing not much more than a hotel room – and you can sleep while the boat does the work for you.
The route also gave me a chance to sample other sections of the TET and get a feel for what to expect from it.
When the ferry landed in sunny Santander, I headed south to join the TET at the nearest jumping-on point. As soon as my wheels left the tarmac, I hit thick, wet clay, and within 800 yards, I was on the ground and struggling to pick up the heavily loaded bike as my boots slipped in the slick clay. For a moment I just stood there, staring at my once-pristine bike wedged in the mud on its side. Maybe I wasn’t as ready for this as I thought.
Eventually I got the bike upright, and the next 10 miles was an arduous crawl through deeply rutted clay across unremarkable farmland. The Michelin Anakee Wilds, usually a very capable 50/50 tire, failed to get any real grip as the clay filled the tread, and I had to paddle my feet just to stay upright. The bike was caked in clay, filling every gap between wheels and frame and baking itself solid against the hot engine. I was dirty, hot, exhausted, and soaked with sweat.
Is this what the TET is about? I can fall off my bike in muddy fields back in Wales anytime I want.
As I made my way to Barcelona via the Pyrenees, I hopped on and off the TET at convenient points, using paved roads to make up some miles in between. Thankfully the riding improved in both trail quality and scenery, although I was occasionally hindered by deep snow in the higher ground.
I rode a short section of the TET in Sardinia, fast gravelly trails over beautiful hills, and for the first time I could see the wheel tracks of other bikes.
In Sicily, I enjoyed a few easy days of touring and sightseeing before making a beeline for Brindisi on the southeast coast of Italy, where I boarded the overnight ferry to Vlorë in Albania.
My Welcome to Albania
On arrival in Albania, I realized my first mistake: I had my passport, motorcycle insurance, Covid pass, and international driving permit but no vehicle registration documents, which turned out to be vital for crossing borders in this part of the world. In the early hours of the morning, I woke my fiancée back home to email a PDF copy. The border guards were not overly impressed, but it was enough to get me through.
To join the TET, I took the most direct route, which seemed like a major road when looking at Google Maps. On arrival, that road turned out to be a stone military road built by the Italians during World War II – and barely maintained since. The frugal suspension travel on the stock ST fork made for a bumpy ride as I tried to pick the best line across the stones. As spectacular as the views were, it was tough going.
If this is just the road to the TET, how hard is the actual TET?!
When I joined the TET to make my way to the most southerly point of the route, I was surprised to find a smooth tarmac road that winded up in the hills past some spectacular monolithic war monuments before turning to dirt as it dropped down to the warm sunny coast. A spectacular ride, not too challenging, and I finished the day with a pannier-cooled beer on the beach watching the sun go down. A trail rider’s dream!
The next day, I began making my way back north and inland, using tarmac roads to skip the section of the TET I’d already done. When I rejoined the dirt trails, they once again wound into the hills, passing tiny villages of makeshift homes, friendly farmers herding livestock, and rivers cutting their way through gorges and flowing under precarious bridges. One thing the TET has done is bring commerce to these faraway places that otherwise see very few tourists. Groups of trail-weary bikers buy drinks and food and camp in the fields – or in my case, take refuge in the basic B&Bs that cost next to nothing to stay in.
The Trans Euro Trail to Some; the Daily Commute to Others
It was my third day in Albania, but I’d already been away from home for 15 days. The trails had been spectacular, but I’d heard they were tough, and so far I hadn’t experienced too much of a challenge. That was about to change.
After an early-morning meal of a banana, cheese triangles, peanuts, and some unidentified tinned fish purchased at a small corner shop, I dropped down the mountain into the town of Gjebes where I saw a battered old Kawasaki 200 trail bike. Its owner soon appeared and introduced himself with well-spoken English. His name was Djem.
When I checked the GPS that morning, I noticed the TET offers two options: a straight(ish) 10-mile section or an alternative 40-mile detour into the hills labeled as “wet option.” The shorter section follows the river, so I asked Djem if it could be ridden this time of year.
“Sure, I’m going that way to work this morning. You can follow me, but I’m running late.”
Djem set off at a pace down the mountain trail, ably carving the best line at speed, which I tried to follow while taking liberties with the ST to keep up. So far on this trip, I’d ridden with a “this bike has to get me home” attitude, but that was thrown out the window.
As advertised, we left the road and dropped onto the vast rocky riverbed. Djem weaved a line from bank to bank, bouncing over the stones and occasionally plowing through the river. As exciting as chasing Djem was, after five minutes, I thanked him and said farewell. He left me with one bit of advice: “When you see the second village, make an exit. After that the water is too deep.”
Realizing our last river crossing was rather photogenic, I decided to take the opportunity to take a much-needed rest and shoot a picture. I made the crossing several times until I was happy with the shot and continued on my journey – only to completely misjudge the climb up the riverbank that I’d just done five times over and topple into the river.
My bike was upside down, and my phone mount fell off and went floating down the stream with the phone inside. Petrol was pouring out of both carbs, so I immediately shut off the taps. With the bike at an awkward angle on the riverbank, I couldn’t get it fully upright with the weight of all the luggage. I was forced to drag the bike to a more favorable position, which meant the whole bike was now in the river. After a lot of swearing and my new deadlift personal best, I got it back upright. Thankfully the bike suffered no damage, and I came out with just a nice lump on my shin as a prize. I managed to rescue my phone from farther down the river, but it was fully drowned and lifeless.
After draining the carbs and a few nervous cranks of the starter motor, the ST spluttered back to life, belching a plume of damp, oily fumes as it cleared its left cylinder. With a dead phone and no GPS to follow, there was just the small matter of navigation. I could see where other vehicles had traveled for the most part, but in sections the pathway seemed to disappear into rocks, leaving me aimlessly bumping around the riverbed searching for a passable route.
Every now and then the reappearance of Djem’s wheel tracks reassured me I was on the right track, only to disappear into water, nowhere to be found on the other side. I plunged in and out of the river, one time beaching the sump on a hidden rock and losing all traction. After that, I began walking the river crossings first to assess a safe route, my boots filling with water as the crossings got deeper. I started wondering if, while focusing on my riding, I’d accidentally gone too far. After nearly two hours, I was relieved to see the second village, and I rode back into relative civilization. Finally, a chance for a drink in a modest Albanian refuge and to empty the water out of my boots.
This was my big adventure for the day, but to Djem it was just another commute.
The Climb to Theth
In stark contrast to the slog across the riverbed, the next day involved fast, open, well-graded trails. For the first time, my speed stayed consistently above 30 mph, and I made good progress, leaving only 75 miles of the TET remaining by the time I reached my accommodation. It was a smart-looking hotel from the outside, but inside it was barely decorated and revealed some dubious building standards, such as a 230-volt socket in a wet room within splashing distance from the shower head and a polished public balcony with no railing.
After surviving an overnight stay in the hotel, I was ready to take on the final section, a jaunt into the Albanian Alps arriving at Theth, one of the country’s top tourist draws. The trail started as tarmac but soon degraded into tough, rocky, technical riding on a path not much wider than a small car and a plunge to certain death as the reward for lost concentration.
By midday I felt like I’d been climbing forever, but I’d only covered 12 miles of the road. The ST was already losing a significant amount of power due to the altitude. It wasn’t until late afternoon that I finally reached Theth, but the effort had been worth it. The harsh, desolate landscape gave way to an oasis of color and beauty in the hills. Charming little houses dotted a towering, snow-tipped landscape, with a blue crystal-clear river running through a deeply cut gorge.
Mercifully, the ride back out of the hills was a smooth tarmac road, albeit with 6-foot walls of snow towering on either side, razor sharp hairpins, and a dizzying descent down the mountain. Despite the evening drawing in, the air warmed as I got closer to the sea, the roads opened up, and the ST regained power as it breathed more oxygen. Not only did the 40-year-old BMW complete the Albanian TET, but it had excelled as a riding companion.
When it comes to an adventure bike, less is certainly more. Traction control, ride modes, adjustable windscreens, and TFT displays are all just distractions around what you really need: a solid, dependable machine that’s easy to live with day to day and can be fixed with basic tools on the road. The ST is light for an adventure bike, coming in at just over 440 lb with fluids compared to a whopping 550 lb on the latest R 1250 GS. In fact, with most of Albania’s vehicles being around 30-40 years old, the ST fit right in!
I don’t like describing my bike as a “classic.” The word suggests a machine kept for its history and novelty, but Airhead BMWs aren’t there yet. To me, they still cut it amongst the best, and their work is not yet done. With the Albanian TET under my belt, I’m now looking toward the next adventure on the ST.
White Rim Trail – or White Rim Road in national park parlance – is a 100-mile unpaved route that loops around the Island in the Sky mesa in Canyonlands National Park near Moab, Utah. It’s on the bucket list of many dual-sport and adventure riders, and rightfully so. The scenery is spectacular, and the trail is ridable by anyone with a modicum of off-road experience.
White Rim Trail, named after the layer of White Rim Sandstone that it runs on top of, was built in the 1950s by the Atomic Energy Commission to access uranium deposits. The mines didn’t produce much ore and were abandoned, and the road became part of Canyonlands after it was established in 1964.
Although White Rim Trail is a rough and rugged route, only street-legal (plated) motorcycles and high-clearance, four-wheel drive vehicles are permitted. Off-road-only dirtbikes, ATVs, and side-by-sides that are common on many trails around Moab are prohibited, which helps keep noise and traffic down. There’s also a daily limit of 50 day-use permits.
Since the trail is within Canyonlands, a national parks pass or entrance fee ($25 per motorcycle, good for seven days) is required. Day-use permits are free at visitor centers, but a $6 fee is required for permits purchased online at Recreation.gov. There are several campgrounds along the trail that require overnight permits for an additional fee. In the spring and fall, reservations are strongly encouraged.
The plan was for four of us – Bruce Gillies, Vic Anderson, Kevin Rose, and me – to ride the entire White Rim Trail in one day. We would be traveling light, with all of us riding KTM 690 Enduro Rs. As enjoyable as camping would be in such a beautiful place, it requires gear that would’ve weighed us down, and whatever was in our saddlebags or panniers would be subjected to paint-shaker conditions for hours on end. Instead, we rented a house in Moab that served as our base for two days of riding.
As a warm-up for the White Rim, we spent our first day riding Chicken Corners Trail, a 42-mile out-and-back route on Bureau of Land Management land that passes through Kane Springs Canyon, goes over Hurrah Pass, and runs along a high sandstone bench on the southern edge of the Colorado River. We got hammered by rain early on, but then the clouds parted, and we enjoyed a fun, scenic ride. The trail ends 400 feet above the river across from Dead Horse Point Overlook, the filming location for the final scene in Thelma and Louise when they drive off the cliff.
Having obtained our day-use permits online, the next day we left the house around sunrise and rode north on U.S. Route 191 past Arches National Park and then turned west on State Route 313. There’s no gas in Canyonlands, and the nearest gas station is about 30 miles away in Moab, so completing the loop requires at least 160 miles of range. We were equipped with auxiliary fuel canisters just in case.
White Rim Trail is a two-way road, so it can be ridden in either direction. Our plan was to ride it counterclockwise, saving the famous Shafer Trail for the very end. We turned west on Mineral Canyon Road (BLM 129) before entering Canyonlands and followed the long, flat, well-graded dirt road for about 12 miles.
The road into Canyonlands climbs up onto the Island in the Sky mesa, which is where the visitor center and many RV-clogged overlooks are located. Since the White Rim is below the mesa, riding it in either direction requires going down a series of steep switchbacks to get to the trail.
On a crisp morning in late May, we peered down into the red sandstone canyon carved by the Green River and descended to Horsethief Bottom. After passing the Canyonlands National Park boundary sign, we cruised along the flat trail and took in the full spectrum of colorful scenery: green vegetation along the river; layers of red, pink, yellow, white, and gray rock; and blue skies sprayed with tufts of white cirrocumulus clouds. Off in the distance was Canyonlands’ Maze district.
Our first challenge was crossing a sand wash where Upheaval Canyon dumps into the Green River. If the Green is running high, the wash can be flooded and make the trail impassable. We blasted through on the gas and soon found ourselves at one of the two most technical sections on the trail: Hardscrabble Bottom. Since we rode the loop counterclockwise, this section was downhill, and we picked our way along without incident.
Even though it was a Saturday, we rarely saw others on the trail. We waved to a group of Jeepers at a campground, and we passed a few 4x4s and mountain bikers followed by support trucks. Otherwise, it was just the four of us enjoying the sweeping views and a fun trail with minimal dust thanks to the previous day’s rains.
The second technical challenge on White Rim Trail is climbing up and over Murphy’s Hogback. Our KTMs were perfectly suited for the terrain, and we again made it through without any problems. Bigger ADV bikes would be more of a handful here but certainly capable of getting through.
While some of White Rim Trail is red dirt and sand, miles of it are on bare sandstone, which makes for a bumpy ride. Long-travel suspension, good ground clearance, and a sturdy skid plate are essential.
The sky had become progressively cloudier throughout the day, and by midafternoon, dark clouds blotted out the sun. At the junction with Potash Road, a ranger checked our permits before we began the final climb up the Shafer Trail switchbacks. This section of trail is accessible by anyone visiting Canyonlands, so we worked our way to the top around not only Jeeps and mountain bikes but Toyota Camrys full of Instagrammers too.
A few fat raindrops began to fall as we exited the trail. We made a hasty retreat back to the house to hoist celebratory beers and share stories about our adventure.
After months of planning and a morning of pavement riding, we arrived at a section of the Trans Canada Adventure Trail near Huntsville, Ontario. Our plan was to ride about 900 miles of the TCAT, which stretches 9,000 mostly off-road miles from Newfoundland in the east to British Columbia in the west (see sidebar “TCAT 101” at end of the story).
Our group was a fairly diverse threesome of riders. Dan, who had some dirt-riding experience, was concerned with how his Yamaha Super Ténéré would handle some of the tighter, more technical parts of the trail. Greg’s KTM 790 Adventure was probably the most off-road capable bike on this trip, but with almost zero dirt-riding experience, he didn’t know how he would handle the rigors of the trail.
I had the most dirt-riding experience, and with my new-to-me, BBQ-black enamel painted Kawasaki KLR650 – easily the ugliest bike on the trip – I was probably the least concerned with dropping my bike.
Within minutes of getting on the TCAT, we were faced with a fairly steep hill to climb with good-sized rocks and ruts. I made it to the top, but Greg lost momentum and fell, breaking his left side mirror. A broken mirror only five minutes into the off-road portion of the ride was not a great start. After the required photo, we righted his bike, Dan made the hill, and we carried on.
A few miles up the trail was the first deep, long water crossing with a pond on both sides. Greg again stumbled and got caught in a rut. In one scary moment, Greg fell, getting his bike twisted around and aimed directly into the pond we were crossing. One inadvertent twist of the grip and his bike would still be in that pond today. Getting it out ensured that both his and my boots were soaked, as waterproof boots are only effective when the water is not up to your knees.
After Greg had another fall in some deep sand, we decided we should start looking for a spot to camp. Our plan for this ride was to camp on public Crown land (see sidebar) as often as possible to add to the adventure and reduce our costs. There promised to be a lot of Crown land up north, but we knew it might be harder to find where we were at that point.
While looking for a camping spot, Dan led us through a puddle that looked on the surface like every other one we had recently splashed through. But this one was different. As Dan rode into it, his front wheel disappeared into the water, followed by the rest of his bike nearly up to the seat. He quickly hit the kill switch to avoid sucking water into the airbox and was stuck deep in the muck. After the requisite laughter and photos for posterity, Greg and I pulled him out backwards using a tow strap we had brought for such occasions. Now Dan was a member of Team Water-Soaked Boots.
Exhausted and fearful of future bike-sucking puddles, we left the trail and camped in an area with several abandoned RV trailers and a bus, left to rot away in what appeared to be an unofficial RV graveyard.
After a night filled with zombie RV nightmares, we found the TCAT again. The trail turned from an abandoned, pulled-up rail line to a narrow one-lane “road,” to a two-lane logging road, followed by a highway near North Bay, then back to an old rail line again. The variations of the route ensured that we remained focused, monitoring the terrain for rocks, potholes, and water. After what seemed like forever along an old rail line, heading west directly into the setting sun, we camped in my aunt and uncle’s backyard, which is a bit off the trail on a beautiful lake near Sudbury.
In the morning, we continued along the TCAT to an old rail bridge that we were not brave – or stupid – enough to cross. It seemed about 450 feet long and at least 100 feet high with no side rails. Many rail ties were missing, broken, or burned. There was evidence of snowmobile tracks on the bridge, but we agreed that trying to ride our bikes across was a terrible idea, so we backtracked and got on the highway toward Sudbury.
Once back on the TCAT north of Sudbury, we were totally alone. The road turned into a single lane with trees on each side. If two cars were to meet here, they would have to negotiate a path to allow each other to get by. We didn’t see any cars though – or anyone else. A stop near a river gave us a chance to enjoy the natural beauty and sounds of a seemingly endless supply of rushing water. The isolation was a rarity for us, and the peace of shutting our bikes off in the middle of the trail and hearing nothing but the gentle breeze through the trees never got old.
The TCAT offers some alternate technical sections that roughly parallel the main track. One section we took follows a power line cut through the woods and offers up some decent challenges, including rocky ascents and descents. Several water crossings gave us some difficulties and wet boots, but we eventually made it through.
‘It’s log, log! It’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood!’
Once off the technical section, the track had us on a road where the only traffic was logging trucks. There were three tire tracks in the gravel, and we tried to stay on the farthest right one, especially around corners, because the trucks use up the two left tracks and then some.
We almost choked in the dust thrown up by the trucks. One time, after two trucks went by in a row, I could hardly see the road in front of me and had to slow down for fear of going off the side.
We found a nice camping spot just off the road with an outhouse, which, at this point in this isolated part of the province, was a luxury for us.
After making it to Shining Tree the next morning, we bypassed the 60 or so miles of logging road the TCAT follows that would’ve taken us to Timmins and instead got on Highway 560 toward Watershed. The track again took us on a logging road toward Chapleau, where we stocked up on groceries, knowing that the next stretch would keep us away from civilization for more than 24 hours along some snowmobile trails toward Wawa.
Leaving Chapleau, we rode on gravel roads for a while, and we started searching for a camping spot. Our goal was to find a spot that was roomy with plenty of space for a fire, as well as water nearby for swimming and collecting our drinking water. In this part of the province, there is a ton of Crown land, but our standards meant that we had some trouble finding a good spot that day. We finally found a seldom-used boat launch where we set up our tents as the sun was setting. We had a great fire on a beautiful sandy beach, listening to the calls of the loons on the otherwise deserted lake under the glow of the nearly full moon.
The next day our gravel road turned into a snowmobile trail, wide enough for a truck but with a lot of rocks, sand, and hills. Trails that are smooth and easy in the winter on a snowmobile can be treacherous in the summer on a motorcycle.
Hello? Anyone Out There?
Isolation was our constant companion. We had seen only a couple of people since the previous afternoon in Chapleau. As we were riding along, a black bear suddenly darted out about 20 feet ahead. He quickly vanished into the bushes, but the shock of it stayed with me for a while, so I slowed my pace. Hitting a bear was not something I was keen to do.
Shortly after the bear sighting, we came across a clearing by a lake where someone in a truck camper had set up. Needing our morning coffee, we stopped and asked if he minded if we made our coffee by the water. Dan had a swim while I made the coffee, and we had a chat with the man, who said he loves the area and comes up every summer from Michigan with his canoe and ATV. He gave us a few pointers about the type of route we had ahead of us.
We arrived at Halfway Haven Lodge, which coincidentally is located about halfway between Wawa and Chapleau on the trail. It’s mainly a hunting camp and snowmobile lodge and was closed for our summertime visit. In the winter months, it has fuel and a few cabins for rent. A neat place in the middle of the Northern Ontario wilderness.
We continued on the sometimes rocky and challenging trail, which again followed a power line. It is safe to say that the power line portions of the northern Ontario TCAT are some of the most challenging sections. They are also the most interesting and offer some of the nicest views. Eventually the track turned back into a small road. It was another hot day, so we took advantage of a great swim spot on the side of a gloriously refreshing river.
As we approached Wawa and the end of the TCAT portion of our trip, we came across a small box in the road with a handwritten note on it saying there was a washout ahead and the road was not passable. A man in a truck confirmed that the washout indeed made it impossible for us to get through. We considered going to check it out for ourselves, but Greg had reached his limit for gravel and trail riding, so we declared the end of our TCAT journey and made our way back to the pavement of Highway 11 and eventually home.
The section of the TCAT from Huntsville to Wawa was everything we had hoped it would be. If you crave isolation and remoteness without being more than a few hours from civilization and challenging adventure riding, the Ontario portion of the TCAT will reward you. We’ve already begun planning our next TCAT journey.
Trans Canada Adventure Trail Sidebar: TCAT 101
The Trans Canada Adventure Trail is a 9,000-mile route across Canada from the east coast of Newfoundland to the west coast of Vancouver Island. It started out as a concept in 2007, took five years to map out, and was put together with the help of many volunteers. Most of the route is gravel or dirt, with some pavement sections where necessary. If a rider is looking for more of a challenge, there are some alternate sections that are more technical than the standard route. Visit GravelTravel.ca for more information and to purchase the GPS tracks of the TCAT for $25.
Much of the TCAT in northern Ontario goes through Crown land (what Canadians call public land), and it’s important to obey rules about what you can and cannot do. Camping by Ontario residents is free for up to 21 days at any one site per year. Nonresidents must pay a fee of approximately $10 per night, and permits can be purchased online. For more information, click here.
“You realize that we’re moving to mandatory evacuation,” the park ranger told me as I pulled up to the campground kiosk to check in. It was August 2020, and Hurricane Isaias was bearing down on the East Coast just as I was about to start my “Adventure of a Lifetime.” The storm was expected to make landfall right where we were standing at North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
A month earlier, my KTM 500 EXC-F had been loaded on a truck in Louisiana, bound for Outer Banks Harley-Davidson. I had flown into Norfolk, Virginia, with plans to pick up my bike and spend a week at the beach with friends before starting my solo journey on the TransAmerica Trail.
Now I was doing battle with cars and RVs trying to outrun a hurricane. My KTM was overloaded with an expedition’s worth of gear plus a now-pointless beach towel, umbrella, mask, and fins, making it as unwieldy as the rattletrap jalopy of the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath. I made my way north along the Outer Banks and felt lucky to snag a room at an overpriced roach motel in the ominous-sounding village of Kill Devil Hills.
I had heard that the pavement ended just north of Corolla and from there you could ride on the beach into Virginia, so I got an early start and baptized my knobbies in the Atlantic brine. The plan was to ride west to the Great Dismal Swamp and drop down to Sam Correro’s TransAmerica Trail from there (see “TAT? Which TAT?” sidebar at end of story). It was a gorgeous day in one of America’s most beautiful places – the calm before the storm – and as soon as I was off the beaten track, I thought to myself: I’m doing it. I’m actually riding coast-to-coast on a dirtbike!
I rode west across the causeway to mainland North Carolina where it got really hot, really fast. My riding gear became a soggy wetsuit. I pulled into a state park to re-sort my gear and camp for the night. Just as I entered the parking lot, my bike skidded, and I almost toppled over. My heavy load had pushed the rear fender into the exhaust, melting a strap, which had rolled up into my sprocket, as well as one of the turnsignals and the license plate mount. The state park was closed because of Covid, so after re-shuffling my gear, I was back on tarmac. It was still hot, and black clouds trailed behind me.
Suddenly a bird hit my thigh, bounced into my chest, and flew over my shoulder. Wait, that wasn’t a bird, it was my phone! After a tedious half hour of tacking back and forth down the road, I spotted it – functional but with a cracked screen. When I climbed off the KTM to retrieve it, I felt woozy and was no longer sweating. I held onto a telephone pole to keep from fainting and succumbed to a bout of rib-wracking dry heaves. I was on the verge of a full-on heat stroke. Nearby I saw a kudzu-covered shack that turned out to be a juke joint-cum-country store where I sucked down three Gatorades and laid down over the top of the old-school ice box. Had I not dropped my phone, I wouldn’t have stopped riding and might have died.
Hurricane Isaias caught up with me near Appomattox, Virginia, and I ducked into a gas station overhang to put on my raingear for the first time. It fit rather snuggly over all my off-road gear, and when I tried to swing my leg over the enormous pile of kit on the KTM, I fell over, my legs splayed akimbo with the bike and bags toppling on top of me.
I hadn’t even put a wheel on the TAT yet. Was I in over my head?
A Decision is Made
If I bailed out, I’d still have to get my KTM back home to Louisiana. Shipping it home would be expensive and take a month. The 500 EXC-F is an enduro, the last thing you’d want to ride on the freeway, so I’d have to take little secondary roads back down south. That pretty much sounded like the TAT.
I decided I was unlikely to make it all the way to Oregon as planned. The TAT dipped into central Mississippi, and from there it was only about three hours to my house. The revised plan was to put Oregon out of my mind and just focus on getting home.
Removing the pressure to complete the entire TAT lifted a heavy weight from my shoulders. The storm had passed, and it was a beautiful day with blue skies and cooler temperatures. Virginia is lush and green, and the rain brought out flowers and butterflies. Narrow lanes and gravel roads weaved between red barns and fields of mowed pasture, eventually climbing into cool, dark forests. I could sense the temperature and humidity changes around each dip and turn. I could smell little creeks, pines, and vegetation, the very earth itself.
I veered off the TAT to have a hearty lunch at the Devils Backbone Basecamp Brewpub. With the views, live music, and great weather, I could have spent the day there, but instead I mounted up and crossed the Appalachian Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway. I stopped briefly at the farm where Cyrus McCormick invented the mechanical reaper that led the United States to feed the world. In the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, I camped in a clearing next to the trail, just me and the bike and a million stars.
Soft Mud Makes a Hard Slog on the TransAmerica Trail
By the time I blazed my way through Virginia, North Carolina, corners of Georgia and Alabama, and into Tennessee, I had perfected my packing and loading system, felt at home behind the bars of my KTM, fought less with my GPS, and really began to enjoy myself.
Tennessee was a turning point. Some dear friends rode their Harley down to Lynchburg to join me for dinner and offer encouragement. Just off the trail in Counce, I had breakfast at the home of TAT founder Sam Correro, and he personally adorned my bike with one of his TAT stickers on my front fender. And a buddy in St. Louis contacted me and said he’d meet me in Arkansas so we could ride together for a few days. It was settled: I was back on the TransAmerica Trail to Oregon!
But it wasn’t easy. For many, the hardest part of the TAT east of the Mississippi is the myriad of water crossings in Tennessee. The two worst ones – which you see most often in YouTube videos of TAT-ending epic fails – occur the first 10 miles after you enter the Volunteer State, one right after the other. The gracious host of the motorcycle-friendly Lodge at Tellico lessened my anxiety by sharing some strategies on how to manage them. “Worse comes to worst,” he said, “it’s not too far to hike back here, and I can get ya out.”
In Mississippi, the remnants of Hurricane Marco darkened the skies, and rain turned the TAT into retreat-from-Stalingrad, diaper-full-of-diarrhea sludge. I found refuge in the college town of Oxford, where I checked into a hotel, ordered a steak for dinner, and enjoyed a rest day waiting for things to dry out. But I couldn’t dally because yet another hurricane threatened to make a bad situation worse.
The thing about being in way over your head is that you usually don’t realize it until you’re actually in way over your head. At the southernmost part of the TAT in central Mississippi, I turned down a damp red-dirt road and headed east. The red clay grew more viscous as I followed the ruts others before me had made. In places the muddy track grew wide where folks attempted workarounds to what looked like permanent sludge holes. There came a series of undulating rises through a canopy forest tunnel with the road getting increasingly soupier. I thought about turning back, but it would have been a long detour well off the TAT.
Well, this is where the ‘adventure part’ begins, I thought. Slowly and surely wins the race. Take it easy, stay focused, and we’ll get through this.
One little hill had me spinning my wheel in a red rooster tail of muck going up, then sliding sideways out of control to the bottom, my tires coated like frosting on a Krispy Kreme donut. Now I really had to stick with the trail because there was absolutely no way in hell I could make it back up the slime track I just slid down. I lasted only about a minute more before my KTM became completely stuck up to the rear sprocket. When I dismounted, there was no need for a kickstand because the bike was cemented in place. I walked down the road to scout ahead. Slipping and sliding in my moto boots, each one weighted down by pounds of Mississippi clay, I peered over the rise and saw … more muddy hills, an endless procession of them to the horizon and beyond.
The hot, humid air was thick, and I felt nauseous. I took off my helmet, gloves, jacket, boots, and even my pants and sat down on the side of the road. A black butterfly landed on my bike, then flew over and sat on my knee. We looked at each other for what seemed like an hour. I just sat there, hot and numb. I did not know what to do. Another storm would come that evening – maybe that afternoon – and no way was another vehicle coming down this road. Not today. Maybe not ever.
Thoughts of living the rest of my life in the woods like Grizzly Adams soon dissipated along with my stock of water. Scrolling around on my Garmin, I saw a little spur a few miles back that looked like it might lead to pavement. I stripped the bike of all the gear and scraped off as much clay as I could. With no other choice, I backtracked, dragging the machine sideways over the hills and making multiple trips to retrieve my gear.
Back on blacktop, I stopped at a store and downed a water, a Gatorade, and a Mountain Dew. I was in Bobby Gentry country, and the lyric “Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge” played in my head as I thought that maybe what Billy Joe tossed off the Tallahatchie Bridge was a mud-encrusted KTM.
That night the hotel’s fire alarm went off just as I began a relaxing soak in a hot bath. Guests were summoned to the lobby because the hurricane was kicking up tornadoes in the area.
Was I cursed? Had my karmic debt finally come due?
I took a day to visit Graham KTM, a dealership in Senatobia, and the great guys there changed the oil, adjusted the brakes, and installed a trick tail piece that better supported the weight of my luggage. While they were power-washing pounds of clay off my bike, I asked the shop fellows what strategy locals used to ride those gooey roads. “Man, we never ride in that shit.”
Beyond Big Muddy
Arkansas is a special place. Its mountains are not part of any other continental ridgeline, and the culture – equal parts Southern, Southwestern, and Midwestern – is unique. Ozark people know the TAT, and hospitality and homemade signs of encouragement prevailed along the trail.
In addition to the beautiful vistas and bountiful barbecue, Arkansas highlights included a gentleman who serves TAT riders iced tea from his back porch while photographing the different motorcycles and recording them in his ledger, the little TAT Shak that’s open and free to anyone who wants to stop, and spending a few days riding with Rick Koch, an old college buddy who had come down from St. Louis.
I had no preconceived expectations about Oklahoma, yet it provided some of the best memories of the trip. Intermittent rain and challenging mud made for slow going, and I slid from town to town to take shelter through countryside that I otherwise probably would have blasted though.
I met some of the nicest people of the whole trip, and I visited the little town of Beaver during the World Championship Cow Chip Throwing Contest.
The Way-out West
New Mexico and most of Colorado passed by too quickly. I set back the clock another hour and entered the Pacific watershed after crossing the Great Divide. It was weird to see patches of snow after almost passing out from heat stroke earlier in the trip.
In a little bunkbed bungalow in Sargents, Colorado – a haven for hunters and off-road enthusiasts where I feasted on elk meatloaf – I awoke to shrill whistles and shouts of “yip, yip yip!” Local cowboys were rounding up the herd outside my cabin’s back window.
After weeks of temperatures in the 80s and 90s, it was 30 degrees outside, and I scraped frost off the map pocket of my tankbag. The dip in temperature tripped the aspen trees, and just like that, almost all of them went from pale green to vibrant yellow.
Riding high in the Rockies, I went over Black Sage Pass (9,725 ft), Tomichi Pass (11,962 ft), Los Pinos Pass (10,509 ft), and Slumgullion Pass (11,529 ft) and then zig-zagged down switchbacks into Lake City, said to be the most isolated town in Colorado.
Continuing west to Ouray meant going over Engineer Pass (12,800 ft), which is surrounded by barren tundra that reminded me of the Karakoram Mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
It was freezing cold and extremely windy at the summit, and it was a struggle to keep my loaded bike from falling over as I took off my gloves for a quick selfie. Snow started blowing sideways, and soon it was a complete whiteout. Fog on my goggles turned to frost, and the grade was so steep I was reluctant to move my hands from the handlebars to wipe them. Slinking down the precipice was all the more unnerving because I had to contend with Jeeps and side-by-sides coming the other way. A strip of mud and trickling water on the inside track became gravel-covered ice, forcing me to move closer to the outside ledge.
I never felt comfortable on those steep switchbacks. My bodyweight kept trying to put me over the handlebars, and I couldn’t scoot back because of my loaded luggage. I washed out my front tire on one gravelly switchback, and a passing motorcyclist going up the hill stopped and helped me right things.
After arriving in Ouray, a long soak in the warm mineral waters of the public hot springs was just what I needed to close out an incredible day that featured sunshine, gale-force winds, a blizzard, freezing rain, and more than a few pucker moments.
My Dear Imogene
From Ouray, there were several options. Sam Correro’s route would send me south on the Million Dollar Highway, one of the most beautiful roads in America. Instead, I opted for the more adventurous Yankee Boy Basin route over Imogene Pass (13,114 ft) to Telluride.
The weather the next day was probably the single most beautiful day of the trip. I was in top TAT shape, the bike was running great, and my gear was dialed. The autumn leaves were vibrant, and there were many natural and historic things to see along the way. At one overlook, I met a young guy from California in a new Jeep who had stopped to let some air out of his tires. He was on his honeymoon, and the couple had planned for more than a year to drive this road, which is a bucket-list destination for many off-roaders.
Even though it was a Tuesday in late September, there were a lot of vehicles on the road, especially side-by-sides, not all of which yielded the right of way. One of the trickiest technical bits – a staircase of rock and shale that plummeted down to a precipice below – required a careful study of the approach. The trail devolved into a giant rockface about 100 feet wide that had shale-like “stairs” of varying widths and heights. You must go up the stairs diagonally, pick a shelf to straighten out on, and then go back down diagonally again. On two wheels, this is a feat that requires just the right mix of momentum, balance, skill, and luck to avoid falling off the cliff.
Just as I decided on a route up and hit the gas, two side-by-sides came across from the other direction, forcing me to scramble up the stairs higher than planned. They squeezed by without mishap, tooting and waving as they passed, but I was stuck at the top of the staircase, holding myself to the cliff with just my right leg and about two knobs’ worth of tire. I perched like that for some time, a few Jeeps passing by closely without acknowledgement. When my knees began to shake and I wasn’t sure I could hold on any longer, I launched myself down, kicked off the ledge, and skipped down the stairs, just catching the lip of the trail.
Shaken, I knew backtracking was no longer an option. I was committed to summitting, come hell or high water.
Next I came to a deep, narrow stream filled with softball- to bowling ball-sized rocks. I was at the top of a waterfall that poured into the canyon below. With a cliff on one side and a house-sized boulder on the other, there was no workaround. Before fear got the better of me, I gunned it, and my front wheel skimmed the top of the water toward the far bank. The strong current and slippery, unstable rocks caused me to slip sideways, and I started to fall over, but somehow my boot caught a rock and I bounced back upright as I gassed it over the finish line.
Soaking wet and hyperventilating, it took me awhile to regain my composure. I rode around the big boulder only to find that the little stream I crashed through was but a small tributary of a larger stream that now roared before me. The trail required me to ride up a 6-foot-high steep, mossy waterfall and then hang a sharp left up a switchback. Um…
Remember when I said that you don’t really know you’re in over your head until you’re in over your head? I was stuck between two streams I could not cross. I shut off the bike, took off my helmet, and sat for a long while, feeling demoralized. It was getting dark in the crevasse I was tucked into, and I had to make a decision. It wasn’t like I could establish residency in the shelf between the streams and have my mail forwarded there.
So I put my helmet on and gave it a shot. I closed my eyes and let out a scream as I popped the clutch, laying on a fistful of throttle. The weirdest thing is, I have no further memory of the incident. Suddenly I was on a wide, flat bit of dirt road farther up the summit, out of earshot of the water, but I don’t recall how I got there. It’s like God’s hand reached down and delivered me. One moment I’m crashing into a waterfall, and the next I’m back in my body, calm and relaxed and tootling down the trail, none the worse for wear.
My idyll didn’t last long. In full view of the barren summit, I now faced the final stretch and what for many is the hardest obstacle of the trail. Blocking the final approach to the summit was a large boulder. There looked to be a little ramp around it on dirt, so I took that route, but near the top of the boulder, just around the corner out of view, there appeared a 4-foot ledge. I came to a sudden stop, sliding up on the tank. In trying to turn around on the steep slope, I lost my balance and fell over.
I was above 10,000 feet, short of breath, and my arms felt like wet spaghetti noodles. I was too weak to lift my bike, so I started unloading my gear. Just then, California Honeymoon Jeep Guy came up the trail and said, “Hey, Louisiana KTM Dude!” He put my bags in the back of his Jeep and promised to drop them off at the summit. We then pushed and pulled my bike over the ledge, and I served as spotter for his careful crawl up the face of the boulder.
Near the summit, several vehicles were stacked up at the base of the steepest incline I had ever seen. After Jeep Guy left, I faced another 3-foot stepup to continue on the trail. I was exhausted and again unsure of what to do. The only other bike I had seen was a mangled BMW in the back of a pickup truck.
Just then a side-by-side pulled up next to me, driven by a tour guide. “You look stuck,” he said. “Are you alright?” He told me he was a KTM man himself and that he often enjoyed this trail with his enduro friends. The ledge looked vertical but actually had some angle to it, he said, so the trick was to hit it head on with enough speed to make the next righthand switchback and up the shale slope.
“Don’t worry what line you take or how sloppy it gets,” he said. “Just stay on the gas. Don’t let up. You can do this!”
His enthusiasm was encouraging, and being relieved of my luggage was liberating. After a few false starts, I recommitted and used my “waterfall” technique, screaming as I accelerated into the ledge. When my front tire hit, it lifted straight up into the air. The impact knocked my body back, but I held on with vice grips of adrenaline and gassed it. After going aerial, somehow I touched down where I needed to be.
Maintaining momentum, I threaded around some other vehicles, made a sharp right at speed, and went up into the scree, fishtailing sideways and throwing rocks everywhere, clawing my way up the steep slope. My engine howled wonderfully like I’d never heard before. “Woohoo!” I heard from below, and I thought, I’m doing this! Up and up I went. Just as my front wheel lurched onto flat ground, with my spinning back tire not far behind, the KTM died.
WTF?! How? What? Why?!
My forward movement stopped, and for a moment I was in suspended animation, half on and half off the slope – like Wile E. Coyote when he first runs off the cliff, and then looks down…
Pulling in the clutch, the KTM restarted first pop. But I felt the sickening feeling of going backward. Squeezing the front brake lever just caused the front tire to skid. Locked up and sliding backward, I became disoriented.
Instinctively, I put my right foot down to arrest my slide, but the incline was steeper on that side, and my boot touched nothing. My body shifted to the right, causing me to whiskey-throttle into a sideways wheelie that knocked me backward at an awkward angle. As I landed hard, I felt a crunch below my right knee – what turned out to be a tibial plateau fracture – and I heard my coach shout, “Oh no!” from below.
Within sight of people taking selfies at the Imogene Pass summit sign, the KTM and I tumbled to a halt on the slope, bringing my TransAmerica Trail journey to an end – for now.
TransAmerica Trail Sidebar: TAT? Which TAT
In the mid-1980s, dual-sport enthusiast Sam Correro began scouting and mapping a mostly off-road trail from Tennessee to Oregon, which he called the TransAmerica Trail. Correro’s TAT now includes a main trail that runs west from West Virginia to Utah, north to Idaho, and then east to Wisconsin. Spurs extend the TAT to the Atlantic, the Pacific, and along the Rockies.
Correro continues to ride the TAT and updates it regularly. At TransAmTrail.com, he sells maps, rolls charts, and GPS tracks. He also provides his phone number and email address to those who order his maps. While on the TAT, I texted Correro to let him know how much fun I was having, and he invited me for breakfast at his home, which is just off the trail in Tennessee.
Another resource is gpsKevinAdventureRides.com, which offers digitized TAT maps as well as GPS tracks. Much of gpsKevin’s main TAT follows the same route as Correro’s, but he offers alternate spurs from Tennessee to New York and from Moab, Utah, to Los Angeles.
Whereas the TAT runs mostly east-to-west, Backcountry Discovery Routes (RideBDR.com) run south-to-north in individual states, and some parts of BDRs in western states overlap with the TAT.
For my trip, I bought maps and GPS tracks from Correro, gpsKevin, and BDR and put together my own trip, mostly following Correro’s route. Since I’m a history buff, I incorporated some of America’s original routes: the Trail of Tears, the Cimarron and Santa Fe Trail, the Mormon Trail, and Lewis and Clark’s Route of Discovery. And as a fan of American culture, I included parts of music trails through the Appalachians and Ozarks and sought out the best local barbecue and regional cuisine.
There are many planning resources available online. Do your homework, prepare yourself and your bike, and go for it! – DS
Listen to our interviews with Dave Scott in the Rider Insider Podcast, Episode 46 and Episode 48.
This article originally appeared in the November 2022 issue of Rider.
Our guest on Episode 49 of the Rider Magazine Insider Podcast is Gina “Brooklyn” Neumann, a member of the Leather and Lace MC, an international women’s motorcycle club founded in 1983. Although Leather and Lace MC is a patch club, it is by no means an outlaw club. It’s a family-oriented MC whose mission is to promote sisterhood among its members, to ride together, and to work as a club to raise funds for charitable organizations that support children and families. Neumann is a member of Leather and Lace MC’s Midway Crue, which includes members in Virginia and Maryland. In October, the Midway Crue hosted a poker run, and the proceeds went to Bethany House of Northern Virginia, which provides a safe haven for victims of domestic violence.
In this episode, we discuss the history of Leather and Lace MC, which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2023, and we talk about the stigma that faces patch clubs, the profiling of motorcyclists, and the importance of sharing knowledge about protective gear, riding etiquette, and safety to new riders.
Thirty years after the fact, my older brother still likes to remind everyone that I managed to blow a full-ride scholarship my first semester at college even though I was supposedly “the brains of the family.” I think he enjoys telling the story because, at the time, he believed it was a flaw in my armor, a chip in the chrome plating. But even then, he must have thought I would do well for myself. Otherwise, he might not have made a deal that ultimately brought him to my doorstep with a Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail in the spring of 2018.
Along for the Ride, A Few Lengths Behind
In my office, I have a framed picture of my brother, age 5, and a chubby 2-year-old me. We’re wearing matching striped railroad overalls with thick leg cuffs, holding hands, and I have a big smile. I’ve always looked up to my brother. He was the epitome of cool – as soon as I knew what “cool” meant – even if he wanted nothing to do with his younger, dorky brother as we got older. If anything, that made him cooler.
Even in our teen years, when he was getting in trouble and I was getting straight A’s, I watched him admiringly from behind my textbooks, wishing I were as fearless and willing to take risks.
A few years later, I ended up following him to the local college. With my grades, I could’ve gone somewhere more prestigious, but in my senior year of high school I had started hanging out with my brother and his friends. I was welcomed into his fold. We were friends again, like we hadn’t been since childhood.
I followed him onto the ski slopes – down mogul hills and over cliffs I probably shouldn’t have. When he got into motorcycles, starting with a Yamaha V-Max, I followed him there too. My first bike was a Honda V65 Magna. It’s a miracle I didn’t kill myself, but maybe I just didn’t have it long enough. I only owned the bike a little over a year before I had to sell it.
Here’s where the details get fuzzy. But it was college after all.
In my recollection, around this time my brother offered me a deal: Whoever could get himself a Harley first would then get the other brother one when he could reasonably afford it. The benefit of this deal was each of us eventually having at least one bike, either bought ourselves or gifted to us. But if we were both successful, we would each ultimately have two bikes.
When he bought a Sportster 1200 – and started doing pretty well in the business world – I got excited, especially as I was still screwing around somewhat aimlessly (this was after blowing that scholarship). Certainly my bike wouldn’t be far off.
Then he got a Fat Boy, and I thought, “Wait a minute.”
Turns out, my brother remembered the deal differently.
Deal or No Deal
By his own admission (when I called to tell him about this article), my brother proceeded to customize probably five other Harleys.
Several years and motorcycles later, after a few beers, I asked him about it.
“That wasn’t the deal,” he said. “It was that we both get one for ourselves first and then one for the other brother.”
“What if one of the brothers never ended up being able to afford one for himself to begin with?” I said, still living paycheck to paycheck at the time.
We continued to debate the finer details of a deal made about 15 years earlier. At the end of the night, I didn’t think I convinced him I was right – that kind of victory over an older brother is rare. But in 2018, after selling his business in a lucrative deal, he called me and said, “So, do you want a Jeep or a Harley? But whatever you pick, I get to choose the style.”
Who was I to argue?
I chose the Harley, and a month later, he showed up towing a 2004 Heritage Softail Classic with just over 8,000 miles. Talk about feeling like a kid again. Or at least that carefree 20-something-year-old. It was a dream – and a deal – come true.
Sometimes I wonder if my brother made that original deal because he felt bad that I had to sell my motorcycle. He says he just thought I would hit it big before him and things would’ve gone the other way. Funny how life works.
Whatever his reasons, he came through. These days he doesn’t ride anymore. After selling his business, he moved to Hawaii and traded his jeans and riding jacket for a wetsuit and fins. But after all these years, he is still the epitome of cool.
This article first appeared as the Exhaust Note feature in the October 2022 issue of Rider.
Greenery, blue skies, and sunshine were bursting forth upon the land like an invitation from Mother Nature to fire up my machine and go forth on a ride on some of my favorite northeastern backroads. I accepted her call and began my cruise a few miles north of the New Jersey border in Pine Island, New York.
Negative depictions of the state in film and television cause some people to think New Jersey is covered in urban sprawl, oil refineries, and clogged “highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive,” as Bruce Springsteen put it.
Although true for some parts of New Jersey close to the metropolises of New York City and Philadelphia, it’s called the Garden State for a reason. Northwestern New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania are blessed with farmland, forests, lakes, rivers, state parks, small towns, country churches, and most importantly, great roads to ride. Those blessings make this loop route a memorable favorite ride.
With the sun warming my face and the sweet fragrance of greenery filling my lungs, I rumbled south on my Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Classic LT. I had sold my heavy Vulcan 1700 Voyager, and although I missed all its bells and whistles, I enjoyed the backroad nimbleness of the much lighter 900.
On Glenwood Road (County Road 26) just north of the New Jersey border, the Blue Arrow Farm has an impressive replica of a western Plains Indian village. In New Jersey, Glenwood Road splits, and I turned west onto the rolling, serpentine County Road 565 and stopped at the unique Farm at Glenwood Mountain. Encompassing 170 acres, it sells grass-fed, free-range beef from Scottish Highland cattle, free-range chicken, eggs, turkey, and pork, as well as local honey and organic fruits and vegetables. They also host private farm-to-table dinners and weddings.
Rolling southwest toward Sussex takes you along the border of Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge, which runs 9 miles along the Wallkill River (one of the few rivers in the U.S. that flows north) and protects 5,100 acres of land. Wildlife abounds in this area, including waterfowl, raptors, coyotes, deer, and bears. Throughout my years cruising through rural New Jersey, I have been lucky enough to spot several bears, as well as red foxes, a coyote, and numerous great blue herons.
After crossing over State Route 23, I passed The Village Smith and Cycle Works, a motorcycle repair and blacksmith shop where you can get new tires for your motorcycle and new shoes for your horse. Naturalist writer and gadfly Henry David Thoreau said to “simplify, simplify” your life. In rural New Jersey, we say “diversify, diversify” your life to succeed.
Continuing on 565 to rustic Plains Road, I connected with U.S. Route 206. Cruising north toward Kittatinny Mountain, I saw some interestingly named eateries, such as Jumboland Diner and Firehouse Bagels, which has a real firetruck as part of its decor.
Passing through part of Stokes State Forest, which encompasses more than 16,000 acres, I turned onto County Route 560, sailing toward the Dingmans Ferry Bridge, one of the few remaining privately owned bridges in the United States.
Opened in 1900, the bridge is 530 feet long and crosses the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. Riding high above the river on a motorcycle over its wooden planks is quite the experience. This rustic bridge lies within the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, which spans 70,000 acres in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. A boat-launching area next to the crossing has views of the bridge.
Two impressive waterfall areas are nearby: Dingmans Falls and Childs Park. Both are worth a stop. Dingmans Falls is reached by a short, flat stroll on a boardwalk through the forest and alongside the stream. Childs Park is more challenging, with stairs going both up and down and a rugged walkway.
After a brief respite by the river, I fired up my machine and took State Route 739 to Silver Lake Road – a winding, rolling traverse through state forest land, lakes, and hidden gated communities. With areas of huge trees and forests lining the road, you get the feeling of motorcycling through primeval times. Route 402 north is much the same but is a faster-paced ride.
Blooming Grove Road (County Road 4004) and Well Road (CR 434), meander past country stores, rural homes, and forests. I felt like I was riding through a simpler era in America. At U.S. Route 6, a scenic byway that traverses the northern part of Pennsylvania, I roared toward Milford, a touristy town with several good restaurants.
After a late lunch at the Apple Valley Restaurant, I cruised across the modern Milford-Montague Toll Bridge with great views of the river back to Jersey. County Route 650 serpentines back through Stokes State Forest, which is a favorite of riders who love to challenge its rolling curves or just cruise along serenely. Traveling Routes 519 and 23 to Sussex, I headed northeast on State Route 284 to Bassetts Bridge Road, Lake Wallkill Road, and Glenwood Mountain Road.
As my Vulcan weaved through the countryside to Routes 565/517 and back to Pine Island, I reflected on what an enjoyable ride it had been. It was one I was destined to repeat.
Our guest on Episode 48 of the Rider Magazine Insider Podcast is Dave Scott, who made a solo journey on the TransAmerica Trail. This is Part 2 of a three-part interview. We spoke to Scott in Episode 46, where he told us about the logistical challenges of just starting the TAT – dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, having his KTM shipped from Louisiana to North Carolina, and riding his luggage-laden KTM through a hurricane and on wet, mud-slick trails. In Episode 46, Scott had gotten as far as the Mississippi River. In this episode, we pick up where we left off, and Scott shares his adventures in the Ozarks, the Great Plains, and the Rocky Mountains, where he faced his biggest challenge of the trip. This is another freewheeling, uncensored conversation full of humor, tangents, side stories, and insightful observations about what it’s like to ride solo across America on a dirtbike. Stay tuned for Part 3, where we hope Scott will finish telling us his epic tale of adventure! And look for Scott’s story in the adventure-themed November 2022 issue of Rider.
Few motorcycle brands are as legendary as Harley-Davidson. You won’t find the Hells Angels on Gold Wings or Panigales, after all. Within the brand, the Evolution (Evo) Sportster is truly iconic.
Born in 1957, XL Sportsters were the smaller performance models for more spirited riders. Originally equipped with 883cc and 1,000cc Ironhead engines, they were updated in 1986 to the Evo that produces the sound that many associate with Harley.
Development on the engines started during the notorious AMF years in the 1970s, and the original Evo was a 1,340cc variant, which replaced the aging Shovelhead in 1984. They are air-cooled with push rods, overhead valves, and enough vibration to remind you that it’s no Japanese cruiser. There’s nothing quite like an Evo.
Sportster: Old School with a Cult Following
The 1986 Sportsters got 883cc and 1,100cc Evo engines that hardly changed over the next 36 years. The 1,100cc Evo got bumped up to 1,200cc in 1988, fuel injection was added in 2006, and a 5-speed transmission replaced the 4-speed in 1991. And that’s about it. We live in a very different world today where European emissions standards are strangling anything that runs on gas.
Harley’s old-school Evo rumblers just aren’t clean enough, so a new breed of Sportsters is taking their place. The Sportster S and Nightster (a recycled Evo Sportster name) have the latest Revolution Max engines first seen on the Pan America adventure bike, while the Milwaukee-Eight powers the Softail and Touring models.
The Revolution Max is a liquid-cooled V-twin with a lot more power, but it lacks the character of the admittedly obsolete Evos. Harley has finally axed the last two traditional Sportsters – the Iron 883 and Forty-Eight (1200) – with production slated to end in 2023. They were discontinued in Europe in 2020 due to Euro 5 regulations.
Evo Sportsters have a cult following for a reason – they have infinite character. Riding an Iron 883 in 2022 is similar to riding its 1957 counterpart, which is truly special. They’re also incredibly customizable – you can build an entire Sportster from scratch with aftermarket parts. It’s a tinkerer’s dream, and few Sportsters end up alike. So many have been punched out of the factory that they’ll seemingly live on forever in the preowned market.
Are there any equivalents from other brands? Can you buy a new bike that’s comparably old-school? You certainly can, and we’ll start with a brand that’s even more old-school than Harley.
Royal Enfield
Harley-Davidson was founded in 1903, but Royal Enfield started in 1901. In fact, it’s the oldest motorcycle brand with continuous production. Originally an English company, it produced a model as iconic as any Sportster: the Bullet. Launch in 1948, it beats the Sportster as the oldest motorcycle design in history. Both the Bullet and Royal Enfield names come from the same place, as the original company was a subcontractor to the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield, London, which produced military rifles and swords.
Like Harley, Royal Enfields were instrumental in World War II, used extensively by the British Army and Royal Air Force. The Indian Army began using Royal Enfield Bullets in the late 1940s and opened a factory in Madras. By 1955, 350cc bullets were sent as kits to Indian factories and production of complete motorcycles soon followed under license. The legendary 1955 Indian Bullet remained relatively unchanged, unlinking itself from the British counterparts that were updated in the late 1950s.
The British company fell into disarray in the early 1960s and was shut down by 1970, but India’s arm endured and produced the 1955 Bullet for domestic riders. Success was not infinite, as superior Japanese bikes almost wiped out the brand in the 1990s. India’s Eicher Motors bought the near-bankrupt company, and the long-running Bullet received significant quality improvements, while additional models were also developed.
Today, there are two primary engine displacements – 350cc Singles and 650cc Twins. Smaller than the outgoing Evo engines but with no less character. All have fuel injection and emissions equipment to pass Western regulations. In fact, the Royal Enfield Meteor 350 became the best-selling 125cc-and-above motorcycle in the U.K. In the American market, the Bullet name was recently dropped in favor of the Classic (and Meteor) 350, while the Continental and INT 650s, Scram 411, and Himalayan 411 adventure bike are relatively new models.
All of them remain old-school and true to their roots, and you won’t find anything closer to bikes from the 1950s and 1960s. I dare say the Classic 350 is even more “vintage” than the Sportsters, while the new 650cc parallel-Twins are classically designed as well. Royal Enfields are designed in England and built in a state-of-the-art factory in India, and they’re half the price (or less) of new Sportsters. For old-school enthusiasts, they’re tough to fault.
BSA and Norton
BSA stands for Birmingham Small Arms Company, which began manufacturing firearms in the 1860s. in 1905, a bicycle with a small Minerva engine was built and motorcycle production became inevitable. The versatility of BSA was very evident during World War II when 67 factories supplied millions of rifles and machine guns, along with 126,000 M20 motorcycles.
By 1950, BSA was the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world. From 1938 to 1963, BSA’s Gold Star became an icon for the brand and was among the fastest bikes in the 1950s. It was called “Gold Star” after a Gold Star badge was awarded to Wal Handley in 1936 for running the Brooklands racing circuit at over 100 mph on a BSA Empire Star. Gold Star bikes had single-cylinder, 4-stroke engines in 350cc or 500cc displacements, and each came with dynamometer results to confirm horsepower.
BSA merged with Triumph and Norton to form Norton-Villiers-Triumph in a desperate attempt to save all three in the 1970s, but none could overcome the rising dominance of Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha. Triumph made a successful comeback in the 1990s with models reentering the U.S. market in 1995. The rights to Norton were bought in 2008, and the famous Commando was again produced in England, but the company fell into bankruptcy in 2020.
India’s TVS Motor Company subsequently bought Norton, and expensive hand-built performance bikes are now being produced. A pair of 2023 retro Commando models were also just announced, the 961 SP and 961 CR (the latter with clip-ons), which follow the very limited 2019 Commandos. Prices are high, starting at nearly $19,000, and the 961cc parallel-Twin only pushes out 76.8 hp. That leaves BSA, which is currently under Indian ownership (sound familiar?) and reintroducing the Gold Star.
The 2022 Gold Star has a 652cc single-cylinder engine that provides old-school character as thumpers tend to do. It makes 45 hp and can reportedly do the ton (100 mph), which is the same as the original 500cc model. Thankfully, the bike remains basic without ride modes, other electronics, or a fancy digital display. Like the 650cc Royal Enfields and even the new Commando, there are twin analog gauges for us Luddites. It’s ultimately a modern-ish bike with an old look and feel (like contemporary Triumphs) and certainly a very classic badge.
Wild Cards
There are some niche brands selling old-school designs that are genuinely intriguing. Janus Motorcycles is an American company based in Indiana, but it doesn’t have a historic pedigree. These are simply new bikes with old-school charm. There are three models, but the Halcyon 450 has the biggest engine (445cc) and is the one to get. It reminds me of a 1920s James Flat Tank 750, minus the V-twin, and the single-cylinder thumper is sure to have character. Most onlookers will also think it’s a 100-year-old antique. With a top speed of 90 mph, it’s viable for highway rides, although I’d keep them short. The bikes are only available in the U.S. (but not California), and prices start at $14,995 for the Halcyon 450.
U.K.-based Wardill Motorcycles is similar to Janus, but it has a history going back to 1927. The modern incarnation is owned by Mark Wardill, grandson of the original designer, so there’s direct family involvement as well. The new Wardill 4 is based on the 1927 Wardill 3, which was revolutionary at the time with a patented 2-stroke supercharged engine (Kawasaki’s H2 wasn’t the first).
Although a lot of positive attention was received, Wardill only produced prototypes and was soon forgotten. The Wardill 4 looks even older than the Janus Halcyon 450, with triangular girder forks, a longer tank, ridged frame, and 250cc single-cylinder engine. It puts out a paltry 17.3 hp but will allegedly hit a top speed of 90 mph. There are also drum brakes front and rear, so those looking for something old-school have struck oil with this one.
Brough Superior is a French brand with an English history going back to 1919. This was a luxury brand through and through, not unlike Duesenberg or Rolls-Royce, and was a favorite of Thomas Edward Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia. In fact, he died riding one in 1932 (model GW 2275). The brand ceased production in 1940 to focus on the war effort and was unable to resume operations afterward.
It was founded by visionary George Brough and recently revived by Thierry Henriette, and the first new model based on the famous SS100 from 1924 was unveiled at the EICMA show in Milan in 2013. There are several models to choose from today, from the SS100 to the Lawrence Original, and all are hand-built luxury bikes with price tags to match. They really capture the early style of the originals while employing state-of-the-art engineering throughout. The 997cc V-twin of the new SS100 looks a lot like what Indian has in the Scout models, but these are very different beasts. It’s respectable in the power department, with 102 hp and 64 lb-ft of torque.
Triumph and Kawasaki
Technically, all the bikes mentioned are modern classics, but brands like Royal Enfield and BSA maintain classic designs that compare well to the Evo Harleys. Bigger, more popular brands have capitalized on this vintage trend as well with thoroughly modern, retro-styled bikes. Triumph is the most recognized with the 1960s-inspired Bonneville line. Named after the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, the original model launched in 1959 and had a 650cc parallel-Twin, while later models were upgraded to 750cc.
Although shuttered in the 1970s, Triumph made a triumphant return in the 1990s. Yes, pun intended. Today’s Bonnevilles look very similar to the mid-century originals but are modern, high-performance machines. The 1990s bikes started with 800cc parallel-Twins, later upgraded to 865cc, and today there are speedy 900cc and 1,200cc models. Performance is superior to Harley Sportsters, but that Harley character is missing with the smooth liquid-cooled engines. Bonnevilles have better starting prices than Sportsters, however, so enthusiasts can get a retro British thrill with money left over for accessories.
Triumph isn’t the only brand pushing out modern classics. Kawasaki has the W800, based on the 1966 650cc W1 (and even the 1949 BSA A7), Moto Guzzi has the 850cc V7, based on the 1971 V7 Sport, and Ducati has the Scrambler, loosely based on the 1962-1976 models. And so on. However, when comparing modern bikes to Harley, one brand can’t be overlooked.
Indian Motorcycle
Harley and Indian were the two great American brands during the first half of the 20th century. The first Indian prototype was finished in May 1901, beating Harley by a couple of years. Public sales began in 1902, and a year later, Indian’s Chief Engineer Oscar Hedstrom set a motorcycle speed record at 56 mph.
The first V-twin debuted in 1905 as a factory racer and hit production models in 1907, and Indian was producing 32,000 bikes annually by 1913. During World War I, the company focused on the war effort and exhausted its civilian supply, which drained inventory and forced many dealers to abandon them. Indian never fully recovered, and Harley became the bigger, more popular brand. The Scout and Chief V-Twin models, introduced in the early 1920s, are iconic and live on today as modern interpretations. Competition and mismanagement led to Indian’s demise in 1953, leaving Harley as the primary U.S. motorcycle manufacturer, but the brand came back a couple of times in the late 1990s and early 2000s, only to repeatedly falter.
In 2011, Polaris acquired Indian and successfully revived the brand. There’s a smorgasbord of models today, including the performance-oriented, flat-track inspired FTR 1200. The Scout models are the closest to Harley’s Evo Sportsters but equipped with modern, more powerful liquid-cooled V-Twins. The new Revolution Max Sportsters are now appropriate comparisons. Under Polaris, Indian has become a modern performance-oriented motorcycle manufacturer, but the bikes still provide an old-school, nostalgic ride thanks to classic looks and outstanding V-Twins.
Evo Sportster: The King is Dead, Long Live the King
This is not an exhaustive list of Evo Sportster alternatives, but it demonstrates a broad commitment to classic designs for those of us that prefer vintage-inspired rides without lots of angled plastic, bleeding-edge technology, and race-ready performance. Traditional Sportsters are a rare breed, a throwback to the past, but they’re certainly not alone. Although they’re soon to be dead, new kings will rise. Royal Enfield, BSA, Moto Guzzi, Triumph, Norton, and even Kawasaki remind us that a host of brands have very interesting histories and aren’t ready to close the door on vintage models. And that’s a very good thing.
In his intro video on the Ride for Light Facebook page, former Army paratrooper Perry Steed says there has been something he has been unable to do for the last 10 years – an obstacle he hasn’t overcome.
“That obstacle has been going to collect one of my very best friend’s ashes,” he says with solemnity in his voice.
On April 24, 2012, Sgt. Kristopher Cool took his own life. Steed says he has known several people who died by suicide both before and since Cool, but his friend’s death has been “the worst one for so many reasons.”
I can relate to Steed’s struggles. I’ve never been any good with death, whether it was from old age, a tragic accident, or suicide. But it’s a little harder in the case of suicide because of the conflicting feelings for those left behind. In 2014, a good friend of mine who was a veteran took his own life, and I still get choked up thinking about the pain he must’ve been feeling and the times we haven’t been able to share since.
According to the website for Steed’s nonprofit, Operation: Purpose, veterans are 50% more likely to die from suicide than those who haven’t served, and what started as a mission to retrieve his friend’s ashes in Minnesota and take them to Fort Bragg to spread on Sicily Drop Zone became a “rally cry for support.” On May 20, Steed departed Wilmington, North Carolina, on a 2013 BMW R 1200 GS for a 48-state trip covering more than 15,000 miles. He returned home August 14.
“This ride is meant to provide Kristopher a final resting place,” the Operation: Purpose website states, “while also illuminating the issue of veterans’ mental health.”
When I first contacted Steed in June, he had made it to my neck of the woods in the southeastern corner of Utah.
“None of us can save the 22 that died yesterday,” he told me, referring to the Veterans Affairs statistic that 22 veterans take their own lives each day. “But if we can save one today, maybe they can help save two tomorrow. And then we can get this thing under control.”
More Than a Promise
Steed served as a forward observer in the Bravo 1st Battalion, 319th Field Artillery Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division from 1994 to 1997. He met Cool at the 82nd replacement. Steed was coming from jump school, and Cool was working the change of quarters desk. “We got to chitchatting about music, and we had similar tastes.”
The two men served together in the 82nd Airborne Division. Cool left the service a year before Steed, but the two stayed in contact over the years, including a stint when they lived in the same town.
“For a long time, he and I were pretty much inseparable.” Steed paused, and his next words were heavier. “Those were good times.”
In April 2012, Steed got a call he said he was expecting. “But I couldn’t hear it. My friend had died by suicide.”
The news hit him hard, and he formulated the plan to gather the ashes.
“But every time it came around for me to do it, I just couldn’t seem to make it happen.”
Steed said he struggled with his own instabilities for several years, and when he heard the news about Cool, he was trying to focus on his family.
“In fact, when I got the call, I was waiting for my wife to come home so we could go to childbirth class for our middle child,” he said. “So I focused on trying to be there for them. But I haven’t been there for myself.”
But the tragedies kept “building and building,” he said, including the deaths of more than two dozen family members and friends from various causes.
“They’re not all old people that had lived a full life. A lot of these people were cut down in their prime, and there have been a few suicides.”
He tried to keep motoring on, but everything came crashing down when his father-in-law died of cancer in 2019.
“He was the glue keeping me together,” Steed said, “because I had been focusing on getting him to his treatments, to his doctor’s appointments – just being there and doing things.”
Earlier in our interview, Steed said he had left from Fruita, Colorado, that morning, taking U.S. Route 191 and visiting Arches National Park, one of five national parks in Utah, and was talking to me from one of his father-in-law’s favorite spots in Mexican Hat, Utah, on U.S. Route 163.
“I’m actually sitting in the motel that he talked about for years and years, and wanting to come back,” he said. “I’m here to spread some of his ashes tonight. I carry him with me everywhere. I was raised by a good family, but when I met this man and asked if I could marry his daughter, he turned into my dad.”
Once his father-in-law died, “everything spiraled out of control for my family and me. And then Covid hit.”
He said the pandemic felt like a reset for a lot of people, himself included. He started using VA grief counseling tools and “put in a whole lot of work to get myself to where I could honor the promise I made when Kris passed away to go get his ashes.”
Before Christmas 2021, Steed spoke with his wife, who encouraged him to do it. The idea of the trip got him thinking about a friend in Oklahoma he had served with and who had been difficult to reach for quite a while.
“People don’t pop into my head for no reason,” he said. “So if someone pops into my head, there’s a higher calling for me to reach out to that person. I’m going to find them and I’m going to call them and I’m going to check on them.”
At that point, the purpose of the trip evolved.
“It’s me checking on battle buddies, guys I served with, friends of guys I served with, complete strangers.”
Over the course of reaching out to people, Steed reestablished a connection with a friend he served with who lives in San Luis Obispo, California.
“I told him, ‘Hey man, I’m getting ready to do this crazy thing. Hell, I might even come to California.’”
When Steed explained the impetus for his trip, the friend asked if Steed would also retrieve the ashes of his brother, Specialist David J. Howard.
“I haven’t physically seen this guy in California in over 20 years, and he still thinks enough of me to trust me with some of his brother’s remains knowing that I’m going to do exactly what I told him I would do and spread those ashes on Fort Bragg.”
The Pros and Cons of15,000 Miles of Helmet Time
Steed has been riding motorcycles for about 13 years. While the 1200 GS is his chosen mount for this mission – a bike he said was a holdout for him, even with the rave reviews – it’s not the only bike in his stable. His first motorcycle was an ’84 BMW R 80 RT.
“I spent a ton of money getting that thing right,” he said. “I still have it.”
He also owns an ’81 Yamaha XS 650, an ’84 BMW R 100 RT, a ’74 Moto Guzzi Eldorado, and a 2015 Suzuki V-Strom 650XT. A full stable indeed.
After more than a decade in the saddle, he’s no stranger to helmet time, but the Ride for Light provided more of a challenge. For one, it was longer than any rides he had previously taken.
“I did a mini trip last summer,” he said. “I rode 2,500 miles, just around North Carolina and Virginia and those areas, to see if I could even handle being in my head that long.”
Steed originally planned on doing the trip solo, but he was joined along the way by various friends and family. When he set out from North Carolina, he had a friend who is also a veteran ride along with him for the first five days and then split off in Georgia, at which point Steed was joined by a cousin who rode with him about 1,100 miles to the Oklahoma state line.
“He’s been riding for a long time,” Steed said of the cousin, “but as far as long stretches in the saddle, that’s the longest he’s ever done.”
In addition to the distance, his cousin had also never ridden with anyone else, which provided Steed some opportunities for coaching and helped break up the monotony. But more than that, Steed was glad for the cousin to come along because he is a veteran as well.
“He downplays his military service, but he still signed a blank check. He’s a good dude.”
And Steed ultimately connected with that friend in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They rode together to Fort Sill, where Steed had completed basic and advanced individual training. The two rode about 700 miles together.
Besides the camaraderie, the other advantage to having someone else along is in case of a mishap. After riding the Tail of the Dragon in Tennessee with the friend who had been with him from the start, Steed separated a rib doing some off-roading on a forestry road. At that point in the trip, he had become used to having someone tag along. He felt like he could push himself, take a few more chances, and do a little more off-roading. When his friend split off, that changed.
“All that stuff was gone,” he said. “I had to come to grips with no guarantees of anybody doing it with me.”
When you get used to someone being around – even if just for a short time – it makes it harder when they’re gone, like when a good friend comes to visit and you feel a little bit lonely when they leave.
Or when a friend you’ve known for many years takes his own life.
In the late 1970s, psychiatrist Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk started working with Vietnam veterans. Interestingly, his first patient would ride his Harley to bring himself down from moments of rage brought on by his trauma.
“The vibrations, speed, and danger of that ride helped him pull himself back together,” Van Der Kolk wrote in his 2014 book The Body Keeps the Score.
Van Der Kolk’s original work took place before post-traumatic stress disorder was an official diagnosis. These days, his contributions are considered pivotal in the field of trauma. He says one area of difficulty shared by those dealing with trauma is the inability to live in the moment. This capacity is the foundation of meditation and the somewhat recently coined term of “mindfulness.”
Personally, I appreciate the fact that when I’m on my bike, I’m only on my bike. Preoccupied with operating the machine, there isn’t much room to think about a troubling situation at work or home. The past and the future don’t matter nearly as much as the present moment.
For Steed, that wasn’t always the case on this trip.
“I’m stuck in my head and in my helmet all day,” he told me in June. “It’s like when you’ve got two kids who don’t get along, you lock them in a room together and say, ‘You guys are going to be getting along before you walk out of this room.’ That’s me, man. Some days my biggest fights are with myself.”
But this was a battle he was determined to win.
“Just today, I got in my head this morning,” he said. “I didn’t want to ride. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I was fumbling around getting ready, and I was awake almost all night for no reason.”
Steed said that as men, we try to find out the rationale, to get to the “why” for everything.
“But it’s just me,” he said. “It’s how I am. It’s how I’m wired. A success for me is going to be if I can get out of this trip being able to live in my head better.”
Steed said he could’ve chosen to fly to all these places to retrieve the ashes, maybe checked in on friends that way, “but I have things I also need to work out.”
“I need to be a better person for myself. I need to be a better husband for my wife, a better father for my children. I need to be a better friend, a better brother, a better son. With all these demons lurking over me, I’m out here trying to just pay all the kindness forward that I can, check on these folks, talk some stuff out with people I haven’t seen in a long time, and try to have some fun of my own.”
And there have been good times.
When you hit 48 states on a bike, you can’t list all the spots, but there are some eye-poppers worthy of mention. Although Utah is definitely beautiful, it was hot when he came through my home state, with temps in the triple digits. People in the Southwest like to say, “but it’s a dry heat,” to which Steed replied, “The only difference between a wet heat and dry heat is that with a dry heat, you don’t know you’re dying. Even though this GS is a waterhead, it was still not liking it.”
I can’t imagine Amarillo, Texas, was much cooler, but he has some great pics and videos of his stop at the Cadillac Ranch on his Facebook page. He rode in some “hellacious storms” along the way, and he stuck his feet in the Gulf of Mexico – “with my riding boots on.” There was a spark in his voice when he spoke of riding the Tail of the Dragon. After a couple days’ rest following his off-road crash and waiting out the rain, he rode it again.
Then there are the people, of course. Beyond visiting friends and family, he’s met a slew of strangers.
After a mishap with his bike in Oklahoma, Steed stayed an extra day and got to meet some friends of his buddy who were also veterans, some of whom had pulled “some pretty serious duty.”
He also mentioned a 20-year military veteran who was particularly inspiring. Steed said the man, who had been hospitalized twice for mental issues, had been rudderless until he started volunteering in a VA nursing home after retiring from the service.
After seeing the lack of attention paid to a couple of soldiers who had died under VA care, the man went to school to become a mortician and a funeral director, Steed said, with the mission of giving veterans the best burial they deserve.
“That is a fantastic thing to do for someone,” he said. “That really touched me. Because it’s not just Iraq and Afghanistan veterans I’m trying to help. A huge segment of our population that never received any kind of help were Vietnam vets.”
He said that, 50 years later, Vietnam veterans are still trying to figure out their place in this world.
“They were spit on or ridiculed when they got home. A lot of the veterans that end up committing suicide are from that theater of conflict and age demographic. Veterans often feel like they can’t help anybody and all they’re doing is hurting other people, so that’s why they do it.”
Steed said the people he’s met kept him going.
“Every positive reaction I get from telling people about what I’m doing makes me want to talk to somebody else,” he said. “This has been an exercise in me stretching my capabilities as far as reaching out to folks.”
Then there were the people waiting back home, namely his wife and three kids.
“If it wasn’t for my wife and children, there’s no way I could do this,” he said. “My wife has been the biggest cheerleader I’ve had.”
He said when he was having a difficult day, one that started with depression or anxiety, his wife was his support.
“It puts a lot of pressure on her, and I feel terrible about it sometimes, but if I’m having a rough day, I have to call her. She’s the one who has kept my head right for so long.”
Finally, he said he believes he’s getting help from those he’s lost over the last 10 years.
“Somebody’s watching out for me,” he said. “Of all the people I’ve buried that meant so much to me, I think they’re all having a huddle upstairs and saying, ‘Dude, we gotta get this guy straight.’”
The Road Keeps Rolling
In the 1994 movie Shawshank Redemption, two of the main characters reference a choice: Get busy living or get busy dying.
Steed’s mission will be over at some point. As of this writing, he has ridden 48 states and rolled back home to his family, and plans are in the works to spread the ashes of Cool and Howard at the Sicily Drop Point. But he’s determined not to make that the end of the road. This wasn’t just a trip about death; it’s about life.
Steed said that while he has been helped by the VA in many ways, he also recognizes its deficits. He has been researching various organizations that help veterans and is working on his 501(c)(3) status for Operation: Purpose, as well as accepting donations on his website.
“The real disconnect is placement for veterans in crisis and their families,” he said. “Who do you call? What do you do? Everyone knows the suicide hotline, but what happens after that? The goal is to create an education program for families and veterans.”
Steed knows some therapists willing to donate their time, and he is working with someone to apply for grants for Mental Health First Aid training, which helps someone who encounters another in a mental health crisis.
“You have skills available to talk them down, calm them down, and get them somewhere where they can think more rationally, or you can get them help without them harming themselves.”
Steed wants veterans to feel like they have another option besides ending their lives.
His long-term goal is to ultimately create a multiuse space similar to those seen on military installations, but in the immediate future, his first step is to create a database of key people in his area. He compared it to the military term “interlocking fields of fire.”
“I’ve got guys who are spread out in the greater Wilmington area, and it’s a network of people who know the veterans,” he said, adding that there are a lot of retired or ex-military in Wilmington, as well as several military bases in North Carolina in general. “We know a lot of people. We can be there for each other. We can be the ear and the shoulder and can offer redirection if that’s feasible.”
This support is what Operation: Purpose is all about.
“We may wake up tomorrow morning and the VA won’t be there anymore, but we still need to help each other. We didn’t have the VA when we were in [the service], but we had each other, and I need to reestablish that line of thinking, to bring the camaraderie and the unity and help each other get our dignity back and a hope for a better day.”
For more information, to make a donation, or to buy Operation: Purpose merchandise that supports veterans in crisis, visit OperationPurpose.net.
This article first appeared in the October issue of Rider. All photos courtesy of Perry Steed. Paul Dail joined the Rider staff as Associate Editor in June. This is his first story for the magazine. He also wrote the Exhaust Note for the October issue.