Yep, BUST! Self and Bike….
By Tom Neal
Bigfoot Trails Basecamp | Independent Adventure Media
Campsite at Indian Creek Campground in Deer Lodge Mt.
I wasn't planning on riding to Sturgis in 2021. Not that year. Not any year during the rally, for that matter. After attending the 75th anniversary, I just didn't have much desire to go back during what I considered trailer week, er, bike week.
Then things started falling into place. Work shifted, finances worked out, and I accepted a new job that would pay me the same as the one I was leaving, put me closer to home, and give me more flexibility to pursue my own business. After giving notice at my old job, I suddenly had a little freedom.
My buddies were already planning to be in Sturgis. So I figured, fuck it. Why not? The plan was simple. I'd ride from Washington to South Dakota by myself, meet up with my friends, and ride home with them.
Only I had one small problem.
Four weeks earlier, I'd been pulling a rear axle housing and managed to break my wrist and hand in 18 places. It wasn't "fully" healed. Now, in my defense, at the doctor's appointment before I left, I asked the Doc about riding the bike. He told me to go ahead and ride. I just didn't tell him my plan. It probably wasn't smart, but let's test it anyway. I rode to work for a few days, and nothing hurt any more or less than it already did. Good enough. Let's fucking do it!
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Some links in this story are Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of these links, Bigfoot Trails Basecamp may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. These are products I actually bought and used on this trip.
Back up just a bit. I no longer had camping gear because we'd gotten spoiled by hotels, so I jumped on Amazon and ordered a tent (paid link), sleeping bag (paid link), air mattress (paid link) and a few other things I needed for the trip.
The bike was ready. It had fresh oil in all three cases after replacing the stator a month and a half earlier. I checked tire pressure, brake fluid, adjusted the final drive belt and tested a couple of gear setups. Mounted up my new Akaso camera (paid link) on my hand made handlebar mount.
One thing I bought for the trip that surprised the hell out of me was a Biltwell tank bag(paid link) . My previous bag had six large magnets, and that bag would still shift around while riding. The Biltwell only had four little magnets, so I wasn't expecting much from it.
All right. We're set.
Now, anyone who knows me, and especially anyone who's ridden with me, knows I don't like to stop when I'm on a mission. The mission was to haul ass to Sturgis. Fourteen hundred miles in a day? I've done it before. But not all busted up.
I planned my fuel stops and made a reservation at a campground in Deer Lodge, Montana, for $25. This was a backup plan in case the hand and wrist were giving me issues. Seven hundred miles on day one, then finish the run into Buffalo Chip on Sunday. That seemed reasonable.
Saturday morning, I woke up at 0430. The bike was already packed, and I wanted to be out the door by 0500.
Well, shit.
I got into the trip around 0545 after having to stop at my daughter's house to pick up the last two supplies that had somehow ended up there instead of at my house. Already behind schedule. Oh well. I could make up the time. I jumped onto the highway and settled in around 70 mph until I got onto I-90 eastbound. Once I hit I-90, I locked the throttle in around 90–95 mph. That speed didn't really change for a long time. Riding through Washington was uneventful. Northern Idaho had shitty roads and no helmet law, so the helmet came off and I pushed through it. It was less than an hour of crap before dropping into Montana anyway. About 150 miles into Montana, I started thinking about the ride. Mentally, I felt awesome. Physically, I felt fine. My hand was holding up, and my mind finally cleared.
I was only about 25 miles from the campground. I could keep going, or I could stop for the night. It was only $25 to pass on the spot and ride on. I was already a little over halfway there. If I stopped, I could still be in Sturgis around lunchtime the next day. I'll fuel up the bike and me and think about it a minute. I fueled the bike, grabbed something to eat and realized I'd just put 700 miles behind me in about eight hours.
Hell yes. I can still do this.
But my wrist and hand were swelling up, and I was starting to hurt. The adrenaline levels dropped and the pain levels increased. Fuck it. I'll stop here. I checked into the campground and set up my tent. It was hot as hell inside. Even with the windows open, the breeze outside didn't seem to make it into the tent. I fell asleep around 1830, naked and lying on top of my sleeping bag in a puddle of sweat.
Around 0130 Sunday morning, I woke up freezing my ass off. The temperature had dropped to 42 degrees. I crawled into the sleeping bag and warmed up pretty quickly. At least I'd bought a decent one. By 0230, though, my hand was hurting badly. It was swollen. Pretty damn swollen.
That was when I started thinking about the trip a little differently. At 0430, I was showered, dressed, packed and back on the bike. I headed out of Deer Lodge and started toward I-90. At some point, I stopped and thought about what I was doing. I could keep going toward Sturgis, or I could turn around and go home.
The mission had changed. Get home.
I had also installed a new LED headlight (paid link) the week before, so at least the ride home would give me a pretty good test of that. I'd been running Silver Star Ultra halogen bulbs for years because they were bright, but I'd go through them about once a month with daily riding because of vibration. They also put out a ridiculous amount of heat.
This LED was a completely different animal. Holy shit. The difference at night was incredible. The beam was clean, bright and gave me a ton of visibility. I wasn't going back.
Riding that early in the morning had some disadvantages. Nobody was open for food, there were critters everywhere, and it was cold. But the roads were empty, and that almost made up for it. As I approached Missoula, I was getting hungry. I saw the Cracker Barrel sign and thought, perfect. We don't have any near home. I'll stop for breakfast. Except they weren't open yet. Of course they weren't.
Back on the road. About five miles later, it started raining. Then came the thunderstorms. I had forgotten to change out my air cleaner lid before leaving, so the bike was running with the 360 open. Water started getting into the intake. The bike didn't like that. She started coughing and trying to die as I approached St. Regis, Montana, but somehow kept going. After I fueled up in St. Regis, she seemed to smooth out again. Unfortunately, she didn't have much power going up and over the mountain pass. From there, the bike progressively lost power the whole way home.
Then I lost the rear brakes. Normally, that wouldn't have been a huge deal. I tend to use the front brake more than anything anyway. Except this was my right wrist and hand that were broken, and they were hurting. So suddenly I needed that foot brake a whole lot more than I normally would. Fuck it. Who needs to stop?
At that point, I remembered that new Biltwell tank bag I'd bought for the trip. I wasn't expecting much from it. My previous bag had six large magnets and would still shift around while riding. The Biltwell only had four little magnets. That fucker held tight to the tank at 125 mph in Montana. Then I rode through thunderstorms with no rain cover on it, and everything inside stayed dry. Okay. I was impressed.
At that point, I just wanted to get home. The rain lasted until Kellogg, Idaho, roughly 150 miles. Then it cleared up. By the time I stopped for gas on the west side of Spokane, I was freezing, but at least I was drying out. Sort of. I threw on some long johns and got back on the bike, thinking eastern Washington would be warm and dry.
Wrong. I hit more rain. Not a huge storm, but enough to get wet and cold. Then it would stop. I'd finally start drying out. Then it would rain again.
It played that game with me all the way across eastern Washington and over the Cascades. The closer I got to home, the worse the traffic became. I-5 was a mess, as usual, but on a motorcycle, traffic isn't quite as much of a problem. I could scoot along.
But something else was changing. My speed was dropping. The adrenaline was wearing off, and my pain level was climbing. Oh yeah. That's why I was coming home early.
As I approached home, I took the exit and started slowing down. I rolled off the throttle, started downshifting and reached for the rear brake. Oh shit. That's right. It doesn't work. I reached for the front brake. Oh shit. Yep. That hurts. But it was going to hurt a hell of a lot less than crashing. So I pulled hard, dropped more gears and slowed that bitch down.
I took it pretty easy through town. I didn't want to get too close to anyone or put myself in a situation where I'd have to grab a bunch of brake quickly. When I turned onto my street, I saw my garage door wide open. What the fuck? Then I remembered. My wife had installed one of those gps tracker units (paid link) so she could find me if I ever had a problem on the road.
Apparently, she'd been watching.
I pulled straight into the shop, dropped my chaps and jacket on the floor, kissed my wife and the dog, cleaned myself up and passed out on the couch by 1430. That was it. Sturgis 2021 was over before I ever made it to South Dakota.
The mission had started as a 1,400-mile ride to Sturgis. It turned into 700 miles to Montana, a middle-of-the-night decision to turn around, a long ride through rain and thunderstorms, a motorcycle that was losing power, no rear brakes, a broken hand that was getting worse, and another 700-ish miles back home.
Physically, I was wrecked. Mentally, I was pretty damn sharp. Mechanically, the bike was questionable.
And the funny part?
Even after all of that, I was already thinking about the next ride.
Bonneville Speed Week was happening in Utah.
I should ride down there.
Maybe next year.
Yeah.
Maybe next year.
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
Jahanel Neal — Photographer, Bigfoot Trails Basecamp
This tracker is ACCURATE!! Yep, that was my camp spot.
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