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May 8, 2016 - Day 10 The last two days have been by far the most incredible and action packed days of my life. It started two days ago leaving my friends in Colorado Springs headed for 24 west and Pikes Peak. Colorado Springs has easily some of the worst car drivers I've ever encountered. Everywhere people are driving Junkers like they've got nothing to loose and all the roads in springs are very strangely designed so it makes for a volatile mix. On my way out of springs a Mercedes suv pulled off the road into a gas station parking lot then reversed into me and my bike. I saw his reverse lights come on and had no forward path to escape and was on a hill and could not push backwards out of the way so all I could do was lay on the horn. The rear bumper contacted my right side pannier just as this idiot driver finally applied the breaks so it just bumped me really hard and knocked me down to the left. I honestly am glad I didn't have my GoPro rolling because: 1- I screamed like a wild animal when I realized Furiosa and I could be getting backed over and - 2 I will only say that my initial physical reaction was very aggressive I was not proud of how I responded at all. That really ruined the morning until I got on 24 west towards Pikes Peak. I had been sure it would be closed but I was able to make it to 13,000 feet and change. 30 degrees with very strong wind. I met another rider at the turn around point somewhere just after 13,000ft. Doug on his husky was a very nice guy and it was fun riding up with him. At pikes the light for my high beams went so I decided headed west on 24 again to a motorcycle shop on 24w. I took the bulb inside thinking they would have one, turns out it's a car bulb and they didn't have it. The owner or the shop, Peter, is an incredibly nice man who was very interested in my journey and shared with me some stories of his adventure from Amsterdam to cape town on an R80. He also had done the services for the bikes in the new film a story worth living which I really want to see. Found the bulb I needed a little further wear on 24 at an O'rileys. From there I headed back east to 25 and took 25 S to 160 W to 150 N bringing me to great sand dunes national park. The entire ride was absolutely spectacular, sunny and 85 the whole way. As soon as I got got Great Sand Dunes NP I found the last available tent site and set up shop. As soon as my tent was set I heard a BMW boxed coming and looked up to see Isaac crusin through lookin for a site (there were none) so I waved him over and offered to share my site. Isaac is an awesome dude and serious adv rider who's also the same age and we hit it off pretty well so we decided to make for Ouray together the next morning. We checked out the sand dunes then headed out. Great sand dunes is an absolute must see. Isaac and I headed out 150S to 160W across wolf creek in 30 degrees with snow and ice coming down like crazy. Long story short we got halfway from silverton to Ouray before the storm forced us back and we couldn't stay in silverton because we could be stuck there if the storm gets worse so we decided to head back to Durango. At which point the conditions deteriorated to being borderline unable to ride. 26 degrees with sleet hail and snow. I've all over the road surface. We staggered into a Hampton inn in Durango happy to be alive but marveling at the conditions and roadways we had just crossed and lived to tell the tale. The 50 miles from silverton to Durango were the most tense moments of riding I've ever had by far. Tomorrow we will part ways and I'm headed west in to Utah and Isaac is headed back home. It's been great riding with a buddy and I am so glad I had a friend there for the ride to silverton and back to Durango because it would have been catastrophic if something had happened there while I was alone. I had seriously underestimated the harshness of the high altitude climates and had figured by this time that would have been much more mild. Tomorrow I'll upload some pics from the past 2 days. Hopefully Utah will be a bit warmer than colorful Colorado

May 8 day 10 Yesterday's trip with Isaac up the million dollar highway and last nights stay at the Hampton inn in Durango was the perfect way to end my time in Colorado. 550 is easily the craziest route I've ever been down. It can only be described as sublime in the true sense of the word, it was incredibly beautiful but also terrifying at many parts. It exposed my gloves and boots as a weak point in my riding suit for my hands were soaked and freezing but did not ice thanks to the heated grips. My boots soaked through and froze still on my feet. It was pretty scary to be honest but ranks amongst the greatest times of my life without a doubt. The Klim suit held up like a champ and kept me dry and relatively warm. So did the schuberth C3 pro I have. The pinlock visor maintained visibility as long as phisically possible but was eventually overwhelmed by a sheet of ice and I rode the last 10-15 miles with my visor open to see the way. https://vimeo.com/165808489 So you can imagine how excited I was this afternoon to reach Utah where I had some lite rain on and off but it was 50-60s all day. I've had enough cold for this trip already. I took a ride through arches, it was a lot different than I had expected and the arches we're cool but no one had ever mentioned to me how long the road was and how high a concentration of absolutely astounding stone structures is. I road slack jawed for most of the route took some decent pictures but my GoPro died on the way in. And the park was pretty crowded. Tonight I've set up camp at the slick rock campsite and I'm getting ready for tomorrow. I'm going to give the white rim trail a go if it doesn't rain too bad. Any advice for white rim is welcome guys feel free to chime in. Thanks for reading! Click below to see my tracks http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0vOdQ17Gkzl75o9nCrbjzbmjyUZI7hDtx

Don't mind at all can't wait to see it!!!

Love it. Keep em' coming! 👍 Hope you don't mind, but we're sending a member newsletter today and we featured ride.

Lords of Atlas - Alcan 5000 Lords of Atlas - Mexican 1000

White Rim Trail? Air down a bit but protect your rims. Leave your gear somewhere if you can to ride it light. A fully loaded bike is a lot tougher to handle.

Thread title is "Tigers being ridden WELL." I'm still working on that part.

Have a great trip!

This seems like it's shaping up to be quite a great movie about adventure riding on big bikes! I'm hosting a screening in Irvine on May 19th but you can check here for screenings near you. If you can't make it on this night then you can find the movie later at some point on Hulu, Netflix, etc... And while I set up the screening here in Irvine, I'll actually be watching it from Overland Expo at Mormon Lake, AZ