420 Miles From Home

By Tom Neal
Bigfoot Trails Basecamp | Independent Adventure Media

Through the decades of riding motorcycles, I have gone on A LOT of great adventures. Short rides, long rides, super long rides, and plenty of WHAT THE FUCK moments.

One year we rode out to Baker City, Oregon, for the Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally. This year in particular I was riding my Yamaha Road Star Warrior. For those who aren't familiar with the Warrior, basically take your Road Star cruiser and combine it with a sportbike. This bike was fun as hell, but it lacked fuel capacity and fuel economy, so I added an auxiliary fuel tank to the back. I also did my first custom leather seat on it, effectively lowering the seat height by over two inches. To most people what I did to the seat would probably be uncomfortable, but for me it was just fine. I hate those pillow seats. Give me firm and low!

Now, from my house to Baker City is a 420-mile ride if you run straight through on the freeway, but this particular year we took two days and about 800 miles of awesome back roads to get there, touring Oregon's amazing central mountains. I swear, this was some of the most beautiful parts of the Pacific Northwest, but I am no tour guide, and everybody's opinion differs. This information will be important in the story in just a few moments.

The Hells Canyon Rally was different from most. They encouraged you to go ride the area rather than stay in town with the vendors. As a matter of fact, there weren't too many vendors there. The bike show started later in the evening to encourage people to go ride. It was a great rally back then. I did four years of the early rallies and loved each year. I know it has changed hands and supporters, but I have not been to a recent one.

So anyway, this first year with my Warrior, we got in a little late in the evening and grabbed the Super 8. The next morning I woke up and saw two of the ugliest bikes I had ever seen in my life.

At the time, anyway.

This was the first time I had ever run across a big-wheel bagger in person. This was when they were first starting to become a thing. I ended up talking with the owners because even though I thought they were hideous, I can still appreciate the craftsmanship and hard work that goes into them. I'll almost always find at least one thing I like about nearly any bike.

These dudes were there for the bike show and wanted to show off the "new trend."

Well, that sunk even more for me.

I'm not into show bikes.

I looked around the parking lot and didn't see a truck and trailer, so I asked them if they rode there. They confirmed that they did in fact ride them. I figured Boise was probably an hour away, so I had to ask. They said they rode down from Seattle, which puts them a good 500 miles from home.

I thought that was pretty damn impressive, riding a show bike that far. I had to shake their hands and give them some praise. It's not very often you see that happen.

We enjoyed riding the area for a couple days, and on the final morning we packed up the bikes to head home. We stopped at the gas station in town, and a guy approached my bike and asked if I was carrying a mini keg on the back to party with.

I told him, "No, it's my auxiliary fuel tank."

He looked dumbfounded and asked me, "Why?"

I told him I hate stopping for fuel.

Then he looked at my minimal seat and said, "Well, you need to stop anyway for your ass."

I told him, "Nope, it's fine."

Then he starts drilling me with questions, and he was pretty shocked when I told him I was 420 miles from home, it was 9 a.m., and I planned to be home just after lunch.

I run fast and hard!

I guess he expected me to say it was going to take me a day to get to Portland or something. I don't know.

But it's interesting, the people you meet while riding. You can judge the book by its cover and be shocked at what you actually find when you open the book up.

As I said, I've been back multiple times since, and the very next year my Dyna was on the cover of the local newspaper.

But that may be another story.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Neal is the founder of Bigfoot Trails Basecamp, an independent adventure media project built around real experiences. He’s spent most of his life around vehicles, motorcycles, racing, travel, and projects that tend to take longer and cost more than originally planned.

After decades of doing all that stuff, he’s learned that the best stories usually aren’t the ones you planned. They’re the people you meet, the places you stumble across, the things that go wrong, and the moments you never expected.

That’s what he wants to capture with BTB.

He doesn’t want to write about adventure from the outside. He wants to go experience it, then tell you what happened.

Bigfoot Trails Basecamp | Independent Adventure Media