http://www.2fortheroad.net/soma3.jpg
Bought a new ride on Saturday, figured I'd take it out to Laughlin for a
spin and brought my other new ride along.
On the way home I stopped off at Mojave Natl Preserve and did some on- and
off-road riding. Started off on the road to Mitchell Caverns with no plans,
eventually spotted a big ass watertank near those hills in the background
and figured that was as good a goal as any. Figured I'd get there whether
there was a road to it or not, whether it was sandy as hell and I had to
carry my bike to it or not. It turns out there was an alternately sandy and
hardpack road out to it and I was surprised that even though I haven't
gotten any fat tires for the Soma yet that I was able to clear all the sandy
sections. I just sank a lot more than with 2.4s but was still able to move
forward. When I arrived it turned out the tank was for the water supply of
a currently running range cattle operation, they had tapped a spring and
there was a huge trough full of water for the quite shy longhorns roaming
through the creosote bushes. Other than the ranchers and the occasional 4
wheeler I don't think these cattle saw many humans.
Now that I hit my goal and turned around I had a nice 15mph tailwind and a
long gradual descent back to the car except for a couple of side trips out
some doubletracks and cow trails. What was 10mph on the way out was, except
for those side trips, an easily maintained 30mph on the way back.
In addition to the longhorns I saw one big ass barn own owl fighting with 2
ravens, a coyote, a roadrunner, and 2 foxes. A weekday in the desert turns
up plenty of surprises.
Oh yeah, the newer ride was just as nice as the Soma in it's own way. The
already installed Nissan iPod adapter helped keep the ride full of tunes.
Greg