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Published: July 31st 2016
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Day 17: Gassing up & being on the road from Snowville by 7am we were checked into our Wendover Motel by 11.30am after 320kms. No breakfast stop & fast gravel roads. At the start we were back on the 80mph freeway for around 20kms & then rejoined the TAT on the gravel road which Ian & I had tested the previous evening. This area is around 1500m elevation & a desert. Scrubby brush, sand and rocks on either side surrounded by distant Mountains. We stopped to look at the remains of the viaduct that had been built in the 1880s for the Trans Continental railway being pushed through here. Mainly Chinese labourers & small settlements of up to 10,000 people sprang up along the way to service the exercise. Their record tracking laying was 10 miles in 1 day. All to no avail as in the early 20
th century a better route was found & this part was pulled up (probably by the same labourers) leaving very little trace.
After a while we were in an area called Salt Wells surrounded by salt flats & scrub. Around here I saw a Stag, running towards me. It had great antlers
probably an 8 pointer. Luckily it decided running towards the noise that startled it wasn't sensible & sprinted away from me. Passing a Nasa Orbital testing area (which is top secret so please ignore I have mentioned it,) we started climbing to around 1800m where we stopped on the side of the track to have a breakfast of trail mix & water & then removed a layer or 2 as the heat was building. In the distance we could see bushfire smoke & we seemed to be heading straight towards it. After a while as we headed South the clouds headed North so we missed the worst of it, however you could smell the smoke in the air.
More gravel roads took us back down to 1500m & we were riding a causeway between salt flats which were protected & no go areas but had some tyre marks in places - there are idiots everywhere! This was part of The Great Salt Lake. This was our longest day between services so we had to plan fuel & drinking water etc carefully. As we came towards our destination we startled a large family of deer and one large deer ran
across in front of Bryan. Earlier a deer had run between Ian & Keith on the road.
We arrived in Wendover at 11.30 checked into our motel, had a Mexican lunch, a rest & a swim in the pool, rode to the Bonneville Salt Lake Speedway only a few kms away. Speed week starts in a couple of weeks & testing has already started.Nothing was happening today but apparently earlier this week a 72 year old speed record holder was testing his streamliner trying for the 400mph record. The bike started to fishtail at around 200mph. Anyone who has ridden a motorcycle at high speed & has experienced this or even a wobble in a fast corner knows that at this point you are "on the horns of a dilemma". Back off & things will get worse, stay on the same throttle & it will keep doing it or accelerate & sometimes it will get better if the extra power stop the back overtaking the front (no guarantees). No one knows what this guy did but the streamliner lost traction & endoed down the track. Unfortunately he died later in Salt Lake City Hospital. It’s a dangerous sport. Experiencing
36 degree temperatures when we rode out onto the salt flats makes you think it could be dangerous from a heat stroke perspective during Speed Week when hot engines are adding to the problem.
After 6pm when the temperature had dropped to around 34 degrees we walked the 200m or so into Nevada where there were 5 or 6 Casinos. The border between the states crosses the main street & Utah has no gambling.
The first Casino we went into looking for a restaurant/bar on a scale of 1 to 10 did not rate. In fact we couldn’t think of a scale it may rate on. Nevada is on a different time zone however in this establishment, stinking of cigarette smoke & generally down at heel, it was still 1965!
As all these Casinos are owned by the same company they run a free shuttle bus to another that Bryan had read had live music. The passengers on the shuttle bus were not rating on any scale either. (in fact we suspect some of them may have been living on there)
However, the Casino we went to had a good restaurant & a great bar with
a live Motown sound band playing. Pleasant evening.
Tomorrow Utah/Nevada or somewhere.
Day 18: The plan was an early start. Leaving the Motel at 6.30am we arrived 200m up the road at 5.30am. Our breakfast restaurant of choice – Subway was not open so we gassed up had a quick breakfast in McDonalds & hit the road. Within 10kms we turned off onto a gnarly rocky track through the desert. Within a km or 2 my bike hit a sharp rock & “nek minute” we were repairing a front puncture. I took the opportunity to fit a new tyre I had been carrying since Vancouver & soon we were back on the trail. This area has a large air force base which is well hidden & we didn’t spot & was used for training for the Enola Gay drop on Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
Continuing on we had a couple of these gnarly trails before we were back on mainly fast gravel roads interspersed with some seal. The gravel roads allow fast progress however you still need to be alert as every now & again thick gravel or sand lurks to catch you out. When your front wheel gets into this stuff “Gravel Road Riding 101” says accelerate – however, mentally easier said than done.
After 250kms of this we arrived at the border town innovatively named Border. After a good hamburger lunch some ice & water for our Camel backs we set off again into 38 degrees. More straight & fast gravel with some interesting scenery. Causeway between salt flats was a good photo stop before we climbed through a Mountain Range Pass which I think may be the Sierra Nevadas. Up to 1800m where it was bit cooler before dropping down the other side where it was a lot hotter again. By now it was 2pm so the hottest part of the day. 60kms of long fast gravel straights with temperatures hovering just under 40 took us into the small rural town of Delta. We are still in Utah – arriving here around 2.30 to a welcome cold beer. 423kms today so a big day in these temperatures.
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