[ST] Coronado Trail, ride report & new ST update

["Bob Nixon" <bigrex@xxxxxxxx>]

I got back into PHX about 4:30 this afternoon; after a two day overnighter
to Coronado Trail (old 666) and rode the return loop on 180 in western NM.
Other than riding the last 70 miles in 113 heat and Friday I-60 rush hour
traffic, the rest of the trip was a blast.

I left at 6:15AM thursday, stopped for a late breakfast in Morensi and after
a hail storm, three stops for road construction (follow me truck -one way
traffic), I arrived at the campsite in Hannigan Meadow about 2:00PM. It so
happened, the campground's summer host was a fellow biker and treated me
like a long lost son. He even dug out a map to show me the NM route. Then
Friday morning, I left for my first trip down 180. Great road, with mostly
sweepers and a bit more traffic (but saw no LEO's) than Coronado Trail. At
the bottom, I turned onto the spur that runs back into AZ (170, I think ).
More road work and gravel littering nearly every nice looking turn. I ate
Lunch in Safford and the rest was boring but obligatory highway driving,
with a few twisties, below and after Globe. Also, a big grass fire nearly
closed the road about six miles on the other side of Globe. I did make it
through but it looked like they'd have to temporarily close it as the fire
was right up to both sides of the road.

Some thoughts and maybe insights to those taking future trips to the
Coronado Trail.

Road conditions:
The road crews said all the chip sealing and resurfacing of the road should
be done by the 4th of July weekend. A girl working on the road crew told me
they were using various different chip sealing (experimenting) variations,
to see which one works the best. I'm not all that crazy about the traction
of chip seal. What do you guys think? So anyway, the roadblocks shouldn't be
an issue, later this summer.

Another near collision with a deer:

Same thing as last year, only this time as I'm leaving for Alpine about
7:30AM and tooling along about 80-90MPH, SHIT!!, I just miss hitting a small
deer. I guess, thanks to alertness and my hand covering brake, I slowed
enough to let him cross, with out nailing him/her. As I said, this happened
last year too but in the open meadow area about 30 miles up from Morenci.
Just remember, while there is virtually no LEO presence on this road; in
talking to a couple of State Troopers, at a stop in Alpine, they expressed
that Deer and Elk strikes were nearly a daily occurrence.

Bottom line. You can go as fast as you like but I think anything >100MPH is
flat dangerous, due to the potential of an animal strike. They may just be
standing there, then dart out or be running across but either way, bikes and
large dumb animals are a bad mix. I do occasionally see deer (early AM
summer) on the sweeper section on Apache Trail but it's pretty rare. Hell,
we could get into a whole discussion about the fear of hitting one, bringing
them to you. But I but I just think if their numbers are statistically high,
then the likelyhood of nailing one is higher. Some fuel for this argument,
would be Wisconson, where more deer die as road kill than are killed in ALL
the other states with hunting rifles. I shit you not-:) Deer whistles, loud
pipes,  a blessing from the a medicine man, who knows?


BTW, The new bike ran flawlessly. The FI worked great at the near 10K feet
of Hannigan Meadow and my mileage was 59 UP, 51 twisties and 57 back. I
stopped about every 100 miles to sooth my burning posterior, rehydrate and
get my nicotine fix but was pleased with the nice compromise of the Sprints
soft but not too soft, suspension.

.A few pictures of my trip:
http://members.home.net/bigrex/images/page-2/Camping-0601.jpg
http://members.home.net/bigrex/images/page-2/HanCamp-0601.jpg
http://members.home.net/bigrex/images/page-2/cor1-0601.jpg

PS. I wrote this for the local "Arizona Sportbike Riders mailing list", so
if you see any 'local' references, that's the reason. I thought it might be
appropriate and informative, here too.

Bob Nixon
01 Sprint ST



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