Drove the URRV from Rabbit Valley, CO to Hotchkiss, CO to dry camp at the Delta County Fairgrounds. $6/day donation for water and power....great deal.
view of Mt Lambourne and Lands End
as one drives from Delta, CO to Hotchkiss
Saturday was spent BS'ing and getting re-acquainted with Rich K, a KLR rider par excellance who also lives in Hotchkiss and has been to Moab at the same time as the Uralisti were there.
Sunday, the 19th.
A late start for riding to be sure but some enjoyable riding was done with both Dana and Rich taking turns leading us to scenic locations near Hotchkiss.
The view from Scenic View Mesa
A view of Needle Rock as we neared it.
Though there's private ranches all around, the immediate area all around Needle Rock is BLM land and apparently you can hike to the top somehow, we did not hike.
A new to me BLM resource classification?
After lunch in Paonia, which was delicious, Dana and Spat went back to Dana's place and Rich lead Dan and I on a tour of trails that was both enjoyable, sometimes "exciting" in terms of keeping the shiny side up but overall, very nice.
We all expressed our dislike of the deep dips we encountered which caused the front suspension on the T-Dub to bottom out frequently until I figured out its better to come to almost a dead stop, hit the bottom of the dip with the front tire and then power out.
On one particular big hill, I saw Dan K. come to a stop in the middle, turn around and come back down. He thought he'd over-revved the engine and it had shut down. Can you see below what really caused the problem:
Yep, the chain came off the rear sprocket.
In a matter of minutes though, Dan K. had the chain back on the sprocket and things buttoned up. We rode up the hill and continued our explorations.
Part of the riding involved Rich K. coming up on a pretty big dip and choosing the deeper portion by mistake. He could have made it out, he said but his KLR was in second gear and stalled. So he dropped the bike and Dan K helped him right it and they powered it out of the hole while I took pics:
Some more wandering, some more steep up and down hill travels and some "bonus" riding due to getting slightly lost, we all made it to the right county road that would take us back to Hotchkiss.
3 went in, 3 came out....all good.
4 comments:
That looks like a nice location. With it over 5,000’ elevation, do they get a lot of snow or really hot?
Looks like a fun time was had by all.
From the dark skies seen in the photos, get rained on?
We got lucky CCjon, no rain on us.
Apparently not much snow, RichardM....nearby Paonia which is higher gets much more. Really hot in summer for about three weeks, like Denver
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