Saline Valley Road

The Saline Valley Road/Superbowl Challenge, was awesome!

It was a late night for us, but we managed to be riding by 11:00 AM on Saturday. Here's Smithers loading up the pig.



That thing yanked his chain pretty good on the way down the washboarded bomber into the valley. There was a fair amount of snow over the road that was dificult to negotiate at speed too.



We thought briefly about hitching a ride out for more beer.



In the pic below you can see the aluvial fan that rises out of the valley just to the right of Mark's head. We could see the road cutting up it as we were bombing down.



Smithers took a beating on the way down from that Sibex fork in the front and the Bob in the back. When he got to the turnoff to the Springs he'd found his happy place and wasn't leaving. It was a nice camp. A little kit fox left us chicolate kisses around in echange for the drippings from our cans of turkey chili.



The first hour on Sunday was killer with smooth roads and a fast pace. You can find good conditions on the shoulder that last for miles at a time down there. not as bad as your would think driving it in a car.



Riding past the Saline Dunes.



After riding up the fan for an hour or so we were pretty high above the valley. The cool thing about riding in the desert is that you can see how far you've come. The perspective of distance over time is a trip when you're going maybe 5 MPH.



Grapevine Canyon.



And then we were at the top and celebration became necessary.



It was a pretty mellow ride from the top of grapevine canyon out to 190. Rolling hills and nice smooth DH. A Joshua tree forest and some nice streches of pavement. I'd driven the broken pavement the night before, and again I noticed that what is rough and crappy with 4 wheels, can be nice and smooth with only two.



Great touring with McD and Smithers. Thanks! What's the Superbowl Challenge going to be next year?

-M

ps here's that pic I promised:



See Japhy Rider's Blog for his write-up and his smugmug for his pics.