Broventure 2014 - Day Four: No Bad Days

One of my favorite phrases has to be “no bad day” — as it encapsulates everything about a motorcycle. There are no bad days on a motorcycle. There can be bad weather, there can be breakdowns, and even crashes, but never a bad day. My second favorite phrase is “if you’re not having fun on a motorcycle, you’re doing it wrong.”

This ties into the prior idea. If you’re on a motorcycle, you’re exploring new roads, you’re hanging out with good friends, you’re living this short existence we call life. Even when the unthinkable happens on two-wheels, the moment right before was spent in sheer bliss. Since we all have to punch out at some point, that seems like a pretty good deal on an inevitably losing hand.

I feel like this is a mantra that goes well with the adventure-touring segment. Breaking free of our nine-to-five lives, getting outdoors, and seeing where the road goes once the sidewalk ends. That’s at least what the marketing materials from OEMs tell us; and of course, the adventure is what you make of it.

Day Four of the 2014 Broventure sees us starting in Baker City, with nothing but tarmac between us and our route back to Portland. Making roughly 50-mile hops between towns, we quickly jetted through Ukiah and into Heppner for lunch.

The weather was brisk, and there looked to be a threat of rain in the clouds that lay before us. Accordingly, we had to stop once to add more layers, as the added elevation certainly wasn’t making things any warmer for us, and we were accustomed at this point to the 95º weather we’ve had during the other days of the trip.

Once comfortable again, we slogged the open twisting roads ahead of us. I would hazard a guess that we averaged over 90 mph for the next few hours here, though I’d challenged any county sheriff to prove that assertion. With only a couple trucks full of hay to impede our progress, we made remarkable time, and were simply content to string together the series of apexes ahead of us.

Once we actually got our food in Heppner (story in itself), our route took us through Spray, Fossil, Antelope, Shaniko, and into Maupin. An endless number of twisty roads fell before us, with the temperature rising and falling as we cleared summits and left valleys.

We stopped for a well-earned ice cream in Shaniko, and after a short blast into Maupin, our Broventure broke up from its quartet, into two duets, as Colin and Pete would be better served taking a different route into Portland, as Quentin and I would be returning southeast of the city, into “The Clack”.

We would learn later via email that Pete got popped by the police for speeding on his way back into PDX, and also that Colin secretly enjoyed our “Bro-banter” throughout the trip (this may or may not be a lie).

The relatively close proximity of each city meant we never did get to use the fuel siphon on my Hypermotard; which is probably a good thing, as Ronnie pointed out, the ethanol in our gasoline would like make the siphon a one-time use gizmo.

Making our way around Mt. Hood, we rode though the Timothy Lake, and finally into Estacada — a place where Quentin and I had frequented many times in the previous weeks. The road we intended to take through the Mt. Hood area was closed, so we had to improvise our route, getting one more off-road excursion, which brought us to single-lane blind logging roads that looked like the speeder chase scene on Endor from The Return of the Jedi.

It wasn’t long then until the familiar sight of Quentin’s neighborhood returned to us, our bikes 1,200 miles older for the course of it. Tapped out on energy, dehydrated, and just plain exhausted from our adventures, we grabbed a celebratory burritos from a local restaurant, and promptly passed out.

I hope you all have enjoyed our second annual Broventure as much as we did. The postings are a bit different from our usual grind here at Asphalt & Rubber, but hopefully it inspires you all to get out and get one last ride in before winter comes. May the apexes forever be in your favor.