Steve
Cole and Friends
By Dave Dunn
September 2002
A
preface by Sam Correro:
As
far back as I can remember, I have always considered myself to have
an "adventurous personality". On the evening of September
12, 2002, in Monitcello, Utah, I came face to face with Steve Cole.
Now this was not serendipity. Steve and I had planned this meeting
for 9 months. Arrangements had been made for me to be the guide
across Colorado, using my Trans-America Trail. The Colorado Section
is a four-day, off pavement ride, across some of the most scenic
country in the United States.
John
Clements, his wife, Trisha, and I would ride with Steve and friends.
Trisha had a dual role. She rode her dirt bike on some days, and
she drove the chase truck on some days. And on several nights for
dinner, she was our entertainment guide. Thanks Trisha…..great
job.
Now
the Trans-America Trail flows from EAST to WEST, but don’t
tell that to Steve Cole. He purchased maps and roll charts from
Tennessee to Colorado and reworded and reversed and made left turns
into right turns and vice versa. This was not an easy thing to do!!!
In fact, I told him not to do it, but he did. I reevaluated my "adventurous
personality," and came to the conclusion that I should lower
myself a notch or two. Steve was clearly more adventurous.
I
had a wonderful 4 days with the 6 guys from California and with
John and Trisha. Thanks everyone, we must all get together soon,
for another ride.
—
Sam Corerro
When
Steve Cole asked Dave Dunn, Jim Smythe, Dana Slater, Mike Casey and
Dick Young to do a 5,000-mile dirt bike ridge, the only reservation
they had was "Will that be too much of a good thing?" Inspired
by the travels of Sidney and Bridgett Dixon, and based on maps developed
by Sam Correro, Steve Cole did the remaining mapping and led the group
from coast to coast.
They
took off from Los Angeles harbor on September 7th of 2002 and did
5,380 miles in 24 days. Thirty-five hundred of those miles were on
dirt roads or trails, 1,000 were on narrow windy roads in national
parks or on scenic parkways and the rest were getting to gas, motels
food and the start and finish.
Charlie
Grossman, a Nevada resident, joined them on Monday morning to guide
them to the Bar 10 Ranch on the rim of the Grand Canyon.
Going,
the riding was twisty, slippery, up and down with fast sections in
between perfect. The first significant rain in two years had passed
through the day before and the conditions were fabulous. Before noon
they were getting glimpses of the canyon.
The next morning Charlie led the riders out of the canyon, pointed
them east, and said goodbye. The riders headed across a plane that
seemed to go forever. The roads were fast and gravely, but the openness
of the plateau, and the distant mountains keep things interesting.
Next
morning was full of open forest roads and perfect traction for hanging
the rear wheel out. The rain had made it impossible to find dust.
By mid-morning they crossed a bridge called Hell’s Backbone
and by lunch they were at Lake Powell. At the first substantial change
in topography the roll chart pointed them down a road that was to
follow a stream along an embankment. Steve started in and Dave followed.
Within seconds they were in slow motion. Dave was sinking and Steve’s
bike was already down to its axles. As they stepped off, they both
sunk until the quicksand was above the brim of their boots. They couldn’t
lift their legs. Over the next two hours all six riders got completely
muddy as they drug logs, branches, and twigs to the scene and made
roads on which they could drag the bike to firm ground. Blanding,
Utah was the only place that Steve had allowed for maintenance. That
half-day couldn’t have come at a better time. As Monticello,
Utah approached, Steve had a rear flat, which he rode into town and
fixed while we got acquainted with Sam Correro who had driven from
Mississippi just to guide us for the next four days.
The
riding out of Lake City, Colorado was easy with good roads, glorious
scenery, no dust, but threatening weather. The riders were smoking
down the roads putting a section a minute behind them when the lead
bikes started to throw up rooster tails of mud. Huge globs of mud
were going 30 feet in the air and their traction vanished. One by
one the bikes found their way to the ground. The glue that had been
passing itself off as dirt was so heavy those two guys couldn’t
lift a bike without scraping mud of to lighten it. Once they got a
bike up and going, the ditches on either side of the side of the road
with weeds up to 7 feet tall were the only places they could find
traction. The rode the ditches for the next ten miles.
Hancock pass, where the riders crossed the Continental Divide, had
a foot of snow and would have been impassable had we come through
three days later.
From
Victor, Colorado the riders gained altitude and were greeted by aspen
trees just beginning to put on their fall colors.
Leaving Trinidad, Colorado we followed section lines through open
space and crossed over the northwest corner of New Mexico then into
Oklahoma.
On
into Kansas and Oklahoma the farms got greener and there was more
growing activity. Corn became a hazard as it become tall enough to
make the intersections blind. More east the farms got bigger and the
section lines fewer. Grasslands and rolling hills appeared and in
the midst of them they passed through vast Grassland Preserve that
showed what the plains were like before the sodbusters turned them
to farmland.
Lula,
Mississippi was Dave’s day to lead and he did get us lost more
than Steve, but it really didn’t make any difference because
once again the rains had the dust down and it seemed like they were
regrading many of their roads and they were in perfect condition for
two wheel drifts in the corners. You could get loose and lay it over
like a water skier on a very long rope. Thank you Mississippi.
Sam
had spent 15 years riding and researching the trails from him home
in Madison, Mississippi to Oregon. Without his research this ride
would not have even been considered. Sam would guide the riders for
four days and his maps would guide them from Colorado through half
of Tennessee. He make the maps available just to promote the idea
of keeping the roads as natural as long as possible. The only problem
Steve had was that Sam’s maps went from east to West but the
riders were going west to east. Steve overcame that by researching
every turn and intersection along the way at a cost of about three
times as many mapping hours as it took the riders to actually do the
ride. Sam would lead the riders to avoid pavement and to the most
beautiful trails, national parks or landscape features available.
Every morsel of trail was hand picked as if Sam had pre-run all of
the states by helicopter.
The
geology of North Carolina is absolutely spectacular but it has definite
ideas about where and how it wants you to go. It was cold, the road
was twisty and the clo8uds were on the deck. Visibility was often
limited to 3 or 4 bike lengths. Where speeds were posted 55 they could
often only make 15. Their tail lights were so dim you had to strike
a match to see if they were lit. The riders had the constant fear
of being hit from behind and of running out of daylight. The smallest
change in body position let water in so there would be none of that.
At 7:30 they had a brand new, by far, "Worst day ever on a motorcycle."
The fact that the boiler at the motel was broken and they spent two
hours schlepping bags between rooms in search of heat was insignificant
compared to the joy of being off of the motorcycles that night.
— 
Summary
With
fresh bikes and strong riders, the guys rode every day like they were
10 minutes from the truck. They didn’t hold back to preserve
the equipment. Combined they went 30,000 miles. The repairs amounted
to one clutch cable and one rear sprocket.
Was
there too much of a good thing, and what was the most compelling aspect
of the ride?
•
Jim said, "No two days were alike" and "We were so
busy that nobody had a chance to get bored."
• Mike thought that every day was memorable and that experiencing
the people and texture of Americana first hand was the most far
more valuable than he ever anticipated.
• Danna thought that most guys from California would drive
a half-day trip out and a half-day back to experience any half day
we rode on our trip, well maybe not our four half-days in the rain.
• Steve thought that the quest was a powerful magnet that
pulled the riders through some difficulties, but it was the riding
itself that made every bit of the trip exciting; finding so many
great people along the way was icing on the cake.
• Dick thought that every state and every hamlet and every
hole in the wall café and every farmer who gave us directions
were wonderful.
• Dave’s theory is that most people just feel their
surroundings, but dirt bikers interact with them systemically. They’re
risking that their knowledge of the laws of physics will get them
and their bike through the next hazard; they’re fully engaged
physically and mentally and moment by moment they can dial in their
own degree of difficulty or excitement.
Favorites
•
Restaurants – were Rino’s in Trinidad, Colorado; Oark
Cofe in Oark, Arkansas (Drunken Chicken); and Angel’s Lunch
Box in Viola, Tennessee.
•
Waitresses – They were all charming.
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