Trinidad, CO

 

Where to start? We started in Dodge City, KS. We knew it would be more of a straight road through Kansas kind of day, but it turned out being a long day for all. We started out strong. But it went downhill and we fought through it. 

We stopped at a small town to get gas. Ulysses KS. They were so excited to have us, that the lady at the gas station called a person who works for the paper and asked us to stay so she could get there and take pictures. She was so sweet and nice. We waited and filled our tanks. They gave us free coffee. 

Unfortunately after that we had issues. First, we somehow got separated. I was with Scott, Mike, and Loring. Scott's bike started to putter and ended up shutting off. They got it back running some how - with a lot of kicks, and we were off... for a brief moment. Then it happened again. 

We are connected with the app Life360 - we were able to see that Larry and Jerry were stopped too. They got back to us and we all figured it was bad gas. We had probably 10 more miles to go until the next gas station. Scott wanted to drain his bad gas and a random guy offered to go grab a gas tank - he lived down the road. Scott was grateful! 

Shortly after we left the gas station Scott started losing power. He changed and fixed a lot of things, but ended up adjusting his carburetor which we believe to have done the trick. At the same time, Larry was having issues with his clutch. Mike Loring and I didn't know this at the time, coming out of the gas station they got behind us. Scott had told us to go on without him, he'd catch up or whatever. Larry and Jerry must have stopped to help or work on their bikes together. Eventually they got Larry and Scott's bike up and running and they made the rest of the trip. 

In the mean time, Mike Loring and I were putt putting down the road. It wouldn't have been bad, but the wind was AWFUL. I felt I had to put my whole body into keeping my bike (and myself) from flying away. Then you add on semi's flying by. You know that wobble I have? This did not help the situation. 

We road the same road with minimum curves for 272 miles.It was hot, windy and long roads. I had to chew gum to stay awake. 

Even though we had some rough patches today - we did all make it in.  

We all just did minor maintenance on our bikes, Larry worked on his clutch. We are hoping for nice weather tomorrow and success for Mike ( & us)

On the side of the road trying to fix Scott's bike

On the side of the road...again. 

This is Gabe

I was so bored I took my phone out to take a picture.

Plane we got to watch 

On the side of the road with nothing around us

Adventuring into Colorado

This cute little dog, Bonnie, loved listening tot he bikes get started.

Things that I have forgotten to mention in other blogs:

Yesterday on the way to Dodge City, KS - I had my wobble - then I got that under control and I had a HUGE bumble bee hit me - then it landed on my leg. It was on my inner thigh, I had nothing to get rid of it, so I stuck my leg out and just shook it until it came off. I'm sure that was something to see - someone on a motorcycle shaking their leg. I did not get bit which is awesome. 

Joe's parents came out to Twisted Oz and Stu and Mike were talking. Stu said something along the lines of "I used to have to pay people to watch Joe, now people are paying to "watch" him."

Tomorrow is to Durango, CO. 272 miles again. We will be going over Wolf Ceek passing - we off loaded Mike's bike - I will be caring his supplies. We are hoping he makes it up! Luckily it is a gradual incline. He has discovered that it's the altitude that effects the bike. We were going to change his sprocket again  - but we couldn't find one to buy. Keep your fingers crossed that he makes it up!

Motorcycle TransAm

https://motorcycletransam.com/2025-scoring/

xoxo breezy

Dodge City, KS

 Today was supposed to be a 226 mile drive, it ended up being 235 because there was a detour. 

We drove through Sharon the town that Martina McBride grew up in. 

Luckily today was uneventful. Long roads through the great plains. You know the picture you saw in your text book for social studies and talked about the great plains - this views were exactly that. 

Scott had Joe welded something to get his front brake fixed. I don't know what Larry and Jerry did but their bikes sound good!

Mike did maintenance stuff on his bike. 

My wobble isn’t great. Joe adjusted some of the spokes in my back tire and we tightened the triple. We used an air pump to pump up my tires, tony checked with a manual gage and it showed lower than what we had put in, so we added more. Hopefully with all these changes, no more wobble.

We got into our finish line earlier than everyone expected. There was applebees across the street so we headed in there. Tony Joe Sean and I were at the table that we designated the "kids table". The other team butts members paid our tab. It was very nice, and confirmed more that we are at the kids table. We are running with it.

I had someone ask about the scoring for this endurance run. The scoring works by first the number of miles you achieve. If there are multiple people with all the miles or the same amount of miles (miles from wrong directions don’t count) then it goes to the age of the bike - oldest wins. If there is a tie with that- it then goes to the oldest rider. 

When they describe this journey they say it's man vs machine. That is no lie, but it's also man vs self. We are all tired and worn out. Ride all day, wrench on bikes, get sleep that doesn't feel like enough. We are fighting through it and getting things done. 

If I have responsed to your comments on facebook or here, please know I do read them all - I just have lots of things to keep up on. 

Random picture of my bike

Tony is refereed to as Tony Redbeard so naturally I took a pic

A wait for construction

Waiting on Jerry and Larry

The sunrise at take off

I did lose my pocket knife today. For some reason I always lose theses. I had it clipped to my pants, went to the bathroom and it probably fell then. :( I mean, I guess I'll pay it for the 3rd time. 

xoxo breezy

 

Augusta, KS

 This one will be quick because this girl is EXHAUSTED.

We started in Branson, MO and made our way to Augusta, KS 305 miles.

Right off the bat, Scott missed a turn - it's okay I missed one later in the day. We turned and waited for him, but he didn't see us waiting for him. So then we worried he'd try to catch up to us and it would be back and forth. I sped (safely) head so at least he wouldn't be alone - but we could also wait for the guys. Caught up to him at the gas station and we wait for the other three. 

I saw a lot of dead armadillos and raccoons. In the heat they smell extra bad. Don't recommend. Also saw a few turtles making their way. By the way, fun fact I have now seen two dogs taking a poo since on this trip.

We got to stop at Big Brutus to check that. We got our picture taken - excited to see how that turns out. Scott Jerry and I went inside it. It's amazing how big this thing is but can still move. 

We stopped at a gas station and there was a cat. We were able to pet him/her and they loved it! They made friends with me, Tom and Loring. 

As we left the gas station we saw the clouds coming in. We looked at the radar and we were going to hit rain. We got on our way, it started to rain. It feels like little needle pokes. It didn't last long and was safe enough to drive during. After that, Jerry's carburetor started to fall off - so he pulled off. Larry and I waited for him. 

Then 10 miles from our destination we stop for gas and Scotts front brake broke! We got to Twisted Oz where we were greeted by so many people. An amazing dinner and good bags. Kelly Modlin knows how to take care of us. We were spoiled. 

I got to see a friend from Kansa's, some friends from Minnesota, and some more people from Kansas. 

Joe said " I used to wonder how a group of cows could recognize it's calf, but with this group of bikes I understand" as he listen to a motorcycle start and knew who's it was.  

We were stopped at a single lane road.

 Big Brutus

Working on Scotts brake

The Unruh boys

This is late, but shout out to Beth for washing some clothes for me!

https://motorcycletransam.com/

xoxo breezy

Branson, MO

 Arg..I am not too happy. I don't know what happened but I had this all written and then poof - gone. 

Today we went from Cape Girardeau, MO to Branson, MO - 280 miles. The day started out good - cold but okay. Then we had a black cat run out and cross the road in front of us. I hear that is bad luck. We were chuggin' along. We did have to sit through some construction but it didn't last that long, they were tarring the road. 

We had a pretty good sized group riding together. Our 5 riders, then two staff bikes and Loring. Mike and Scott through the light as it turned yellow and then 5 of us went through the red light. The sheriff happened to be sitting at the light. Right there, first car. I was wondering what he was going to do. He did nothing. We never saw him again. The traffic violations - done safely - we get away with alot. 

We had to pull over Scott had lost power. It turned out that it was just bad gas and it started working just fine.

We stopped at church

Then later, Larry Jerry and I pulled over because Larry was losing power. His primer? was open. We got back on the road and caught up to the group.

The roads we took were awesome. Hills dips curves. Such a great day for motorcycles

We had stopped at a gas station. There was a lady who approached me and said she worked for Harley Davidson in New Zealand and gave me a poker chip. How cool!

Connor just chilling

We had stopped at a gas station about 7 miles out from the finish line. It was noticed that Mike's back tire was flat. Olivier the photographer had something to put air into it. So they did and headed on their way. 3 miles out, it was flat again. This time they put slime in. He was able to slide into the finish line.Needless to say they replaced that tire.

My front end was being wobbly again. I had mentioned it, we looked at things and everything was fine. Then Jerry mentioned it. He was driving behind me and he said "brianna are you more wobbly then yesterday" and obviously I said yes. We tightened some things but still didn't go great. Joe looked at it and hopefully we got it figured out. Something with my forks. He taught me how to measure the push rods and rockers as well. I fixed my clutch as it was catching at time. After we came into the finish line, I did have Mike ride my bike back so he could see about the wobble.  I crammed into the van with Tony and Joe.

Joe picked out a great spot for us to work on our bikes

We head to Augusta tomorrow. Twisted Oz Museum~ 305 miles

https://motorcycletransam.com/

https://www.facebook.com/motorcycletransam

xoxo breezy

Cape Girardeau, MO

 We went through 4 different states today. We started in Tennessee, went to Kentucky, Illinois and ended in Missouri. 

The day started out with Scott getting 2 miles into the ride and having to bow out. His bike had no power. He told us to go on without him. The first part of the ride was cold! I was bundled up. Like had my leathers on and sweatshirt under my jacket. My hands were the most cold. I had warmer gloves but it ended up they were just messed up inside so had to do some lighter gloves. 

 

Much to our surprise Scott got his bike going. He had forgotten to tighten a jam nut on the lifter. They were able to trouble shoot and he was able to catch up. 

Honestly, nothing too exciting happened today. I do think I look in my mirrors, chart and speedometer more than I look at the road. 

After Scott caught up we had no issues. 

229 miles

Joe rode the Honda to the end line in Cape Girardeau and when we left there, Jerry and Joe went to the Police Station because they wanted to see it after they saw a picture of it in the Ice Cream Shop. We saw a cool clock on our way to the ice cream shop - then they saw another clock when they took the detour.

Why so much ice cream? Because it's delicious. We get it when Scott doesn't kill his bike. We both successfully achieved this goal the last two days.

Once we got back to the hotel, Sean came over and did some welding something for Dave - Mike being in second place and Dave made us make a joke that we are helping him win. 

Joe redid the heat wrap on the Henderson header. 

Jerry changed his primary chain. 

Larry put on new clutch plates. 

Scott adjusted his valves. 

We replaced some parts of my carburetor, as the float sometimes gets stuck. 

 

I was walking past and wondered...whose feet are these?

They are Lorrings

Connor and Tim sharing an intimate cup of ice cream

Off to Branson tomorrow! 

xoxo breezy

Columbia, TN

First and foremost I forgot to mention I almost killed myself fixing my bike. I was messing with the footboard and the kick stand is attached to that so COULD have been under the bike- but I double checked before I did anything more. 

 Once we hit the Tennessee line we all agreed that the bugs were terrible. We got so many bugs in our faces. Clearly noticeably more. 

I was very nervous about this ride because they said it will be the most challenging one. 

We came out of Cherokee NC. Right off the bat we tried taking a wrong turn, but this time Connor was right and led us the right way. 

Shortly after we climbed a mountain. Mike ended up making the mountain just fine. That new sprocket really helped. Him and Scott took off from Jerry and I. They chugging along but eventually came up on some people that were going slower so they passed them and we weren’t able to. We took our time and enjoyed the views. The views were out of this world beautiful. 

There were rumors that we would be going on the tail of the dragon. And by golly we did! I’ve ridden it before but that was awhile ago- and on a modern bike. The road was pretty empty- which was absolutely a god sent. Once we were done with the Tail of the Dragon we had pretty views of the country side- not a ton of huge climbs. 

We were welcome in Columbia. TN at Colombia Motor Alley. Mike Wolf being the owner. A good group of people showed up, and had a delicious meal. We then, as a team, walked a block to an ice cream shop. We loved it! Then we went back and worked on bikes. All we did was maintenance which is awesome! 

Larry took the day off from riding. In the truck he looked at the creek and the road then looked at the temperature in the truck and said  “this would be a nice place to ride”. Apparently this happened a few times. Joe offered to pull over and take his bike out. It didn’t happen. 

Want to know what it’s like to ride one of these bikes? You are sore every day and it gets uncomfortable. I see every rider moving around. Every-time I get off my bike my butt hurts- and I have a cushion. My hips hurt- my lower back hurts , my shoulders and neck are just full of tightness if that’s a thing. 

What do I do and think about while driving. Hmmm… I sing a lot in my head. Mostly country road take me home. I’ll think of stuff to put in the blog and completely forget it by the time I write it, I also look around obviously which then triggers what I think about. The best part is seeing people so shocked about what we are riding. They will wave, give a thumbs up - whatever it is, it’s an awesome feeling. We pulled into a a gas station the other day and someone honked and I asked Scott why they honked and this random dude was like “because you’re freaking awesome”. 

At the icecream shop I was sitting and Joe was leaning against the refrigerator that I was next to and talking to someone. It was a man and a wife and a teenager or early adulthood man who had some kind of disability. Joe was trying to ask him how he was. He (the man) pointed to me and said “she’s pretty” 😍 it was the most adorable thing ever. Melt my heart. 

There was this little boy walking around the parking lot with his grandpa or dad and he was just looking at the bikes, he was shy. I asked him if he wanted to sit on one of them- he was all for it and smiled big even for being shy. 

If you know Jerry - he loves clocks. I don’t know why… but this picture is of him being said because he missed a clock on our drive. 

xoxo breezy

Maggie Valley, NC

 Today’s route took us to Wheels Through Time in Maggie Valley, NC. 

It started with us going through a detoured area, but let’s keep that on the down low. 

We got through town, got going. We had our first gas stop. At that point we got separated. We all got lost. We took a wrong turn. Mike, Scott and myself definitely road the road for a little while, turned around and then Connor (a support member of the transam) said to keep going the wrong way. We should have never trusted him. Eventually we got in the right direction and on the right roads. CONNOR SUCKS! 

We missed some turns and found them again. We went up an incline and mikes bike was not liking it. It ended up not making its way up. Scott and I continued on, it wasn’t a safe sport for us to stop and restart. 

We kept our bikes in second gear to make it up the mountain. We had a lot of go down a hill and stop quick. If we didn’t have those new brakes I would have been toast. 

We almost ran out of gas- I got on my reserve for the first time this trip. I wasn’t fast enough to change it over so the bike did turn off. 

We got to the next gas station and my bike was leaking gas again. Same spot from the carburetor - Scott and I removed it - twice and got it fixed - for now. 

At this time Mike and 3 others were pushing his bike up the mountain. They got it up and he made it in! 

Jerry and Larry had gotten a little more lost than us, but ended up making it in as well. 

After some great food we headed back to our hotel and wrenched on our bikes. 

I believe Larry Scott Jerry  worked on maintenance things. 

Mike put a new sprocket in his bike as we head into the mountains. 

I needed to tighten my primary change which seems easy but it effects everything. You have to move the tranny to tighten, which makes the back chain not as good so then we had to adjust that. Mind you I am a newbie so everything takes me forever. Then we had to adjust the shifter. 

We have what they say is going to be our most challenging day tomorrow. Mountains and 300 miles. I hope we survive. I’m already tired. 

Gorgeous right? 

We got to see some friends! David Butts stopped by - no relation actually. 

Mike, Amy, Nikki and Buck also stopped by! I love having cool people all over the country. 

Shout out to Joe for helping me when I got frustrated with my bike.