Motorcycle Through 4 Corners — Mens Adventure Travel

Four Corners on Two Wheels

I could have made Cortez Colorado before dark if I hadn't asked directions from a Najavo Sheriff Deputy fueling his cruiser in a Kayenta, Arizona gas station.

Eyeing my Suzuki RF900R in the skeptical way lawmen regard bikes in general and sport bikes in particular, he repeated in a slow Navajo cadence, "Monument Valley? That would be twenty four miles up 163." He took a second to note my Idaho plate then volunteered, "My family used to work the spud fields outside Mountain Home. They still grow potatoes there?"

I confessed they did. In fact, the only thing Idaho is famous for is potatoes. Famous Potatoes. It's on the license plate.

"We made ten bucks a day," he kept on while I vacillated between Cortez and the Monuments. Daylight was burning and if hoped to make Colorado by night fall, I needed to keep moving.

A thousand miles in two days had taken me from Sun Valley, Idaho through Nevada and Utah’s Zion National Park, to the junction of Arizona Highway 160 and 163. It was now six o'clock--three hours before dark and Cortez was still 120 miles east. A detour to Monument Valley would add 50 miles to that total. Even if I risked a ticket by booting it through the Monuments, I'd still be dodging deer through the Four Corners. The towering sandstone spires, however, spoke to the soul of the American Southwest and, night coming on or not, it might be ten years, if ever, before I rode that way again.

About then the deputy allowed, "If I were you I wouldn't miss the Monuments." And taking his advice, I decided to hell with the deer and accelerated north.

One look at the sand stone obelisks was more than worth the detour. Colored rose, orange and soft purple by the fading afternoon light, they spoke of infinite time and the irresistible action of blowing sand and moving water. The extra hour, however, put me into Cortez past dark and by then my old friend Peter Dent was worried.

Twenty six years had passed since Peter had found me laying face down in a Naples, Italy camp ground. It was 1972, I was touring Europe on a 750cc Norton Commando and had eaten a bunch of unwashed grapes. The effect on my stomach was immediate and violent. I puked all that night and was still convulsed by dry heaves the following morning when Peter wandered over, studied my red Roadster and inquired, "I say chap, having a bit of trouble here." When I groaned in reply, Peter used what little remained of his own money to buy me a ham and cheese pizza, a gallon of bottled water, and something that resembled Italian milk of magnesia. Credit the Englishman's empathetic nature, the pizza, or the recuperative powers of youth, but the following morning I felt strong enough to ride.

When I met Peter he was a 22 year old journeyman steam fitter who had already biked across Scandinavia, Greece, Italy, Spain and Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. In August of 1972 he was riding a 1957 Royal Enfield that first saw light as a 350cc single cylinder before being reincarnated as a 700cc twin. He told me he was returning from a month in Algeria, where he'd cracked a front fork. With only a piece of rusty coat hanger and an isolated village's lone ancient acetylene torch, he braised the fork together. The Enfield then proceeded to burn an exhaust valve and a few miles later consumed a head gasket. By the time Peter reached Naples, he was limping home on a cylinder and a half.

PEter Dent’s Four Cylinder Royal Enfield

I don't remember if Peter and I ever consciously agreed to ride together. From Naples, he and I simply turned north to Rome then continued through Switzerland and France before crossing the channel to his parents home in Broadstairs England. Two weeks later I returned to the United States and Peter followed a variety of jobs to Southern Africa, and Vancouver, British Columbia where he now lives.

Due in part to a similar sense of humor and a shared love of all things mechanical, Peter and I have remained close friends for twenty six years. During a 1977 motorcycle tour of the United States, Canada and Mexico, he helped me build my house in an empty canyon near Sun Valley. He was still riding the Royal Enfield, but a Royal Enfield radically changed. In the five years between Italy and Idaho, he trashed the unreliable 700cc twin and shoe horned a 1000cc four cylinder, sixty-five horsepower water cooled Hillman car engine into the Enfield's frame. Peter designed and fabricated a custom main shaft to mate the wide car engine to a Norton transmission. He also built his own radiators, a four into one exhaust system and an aluminum muffler. He crafted a beautiful set of aluminum panniers, adapted a twin set of Triumph disc brakes and as a final touch, built an exquisite aluminum case to protect the drive chain against the deserts he planned to traverse. If a majority of conversions tend to be rough compromises, Peter's was a work of art. To this day, graying riders wonder aloud, "When did Enfield build a four cylinder?"

A month after Peter completed the Hillman/Enfield conversion, he rode from Seattle to Boston, from where he shipped the bike to England. Following a visit with his parents, he started east around the world. Crossing Europe, he spent a year exploring the Mideast, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South and Central America, Mexico and the American Southwest. While Peter negotiated with Iranian Border Guards and forded swollen Bolivian Rivers, I raised two sons. While he camped on Southeast Asian Beaches, I framed stud walls, shuttled babies to day care and saved toddling boys as they careened toward sharp edges.

The responsibility of a family may have tempered my passion for high speeds but I never stopped saving for my next motorcycle. I managed to wait until the boys graduated from grade school before I fell hard in love with a 1995 Suzuki RF900R. Widely praised as Suzuki's sport tourer, the RF900R's dramatic lines borrowed heavily from a Mako Shark's sleek nose. With a hundred and fifteen horsepower mated to 460 pounds, the RF900R was worth just under 130 in a quarter, and a hair under 165 top end. Even sitting still it looked like a hundred miles an hour but it was the RF's British Racing Green color, blinding acceleration and superb handling that ultimately seduced me. Following a shakedown tour of Idaho and Wyoming, I called Peter and suggested we meet in Missoula, Montana. From there we followed the Bitter Root, Salmon and Wood Rivers back to Sun Valley.

Three years later, I found myself headed south on a warm fall day through Jackpot, Wells, Ely and Panaca Nevada. Shadowing the Ruby Mountains east slope, Highway 93's long straights spoke to the Suzuki's strengths--raw acceleration, minimal engine vibration and high speed stability. That sunny afternoon, few rigs heeded the 70 mph speed limit posted along these empty stretches of asphalt between Ely and Panaca--certainly not the two Corvettes that blew by me at over a hundred and twenty.

Resisting the impulse to reel them in, I instead held the Suzuki to a civilized eighty-five and savored the sage scented air that whistled around my helmet. At that speed, I caught and passed long haul truckers cheating the limit for Las Vegas and graying snow birds pulling thirty foot Airstreams bound for Quartzite Arizona. The empty horizons and passing miles erased any guilt I may have had over the pile of unfinished work waiting on my desk. And in place of deadlines, I focused on the jagged mountains, how much 91 octane was left in the RF's five gallon tank and the distance to the next town.

I spent the first night in Cedar City, Utah and the following morning turned south to Hurricane Utah where I picked up Highway 9 through Zion National Park's brilliant sandstone formations. Pushing the Suzuki through the twisting roads east of the park, I followed Highway 89 to Page Arizona where I turned southeast on 98 across the Navajo Indian Reservation to 160. I have lived most of my adult life surrounded by the West's most beautiful mountains, rivers and forests, but I was stunned by the distances and spectacular red rock formations of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona. Viewed from a motorcycle, Monument Valley and the Four Corners region mirrored the immensity and grandeur of Howard Hawks classic western "Red River."

By nine p.m., I was still thirty miles outside of Cortez when Shiprock, New Mexico flared across the dark Arizona planes. Lit by the final rays of the setting sun, it both dominated the horizon and caused me to start talking to myself. Even amplified by my helmet, "incredible" failed to do justice to the brilliant red, orange and yellow sandstone spire that lifted in stark relief against the coming night.

Full dark had settled across Western Colorado when I rolled into Cortez and shined my headlight into Peter's ground floor motel room.

Helping me unpack the bike, his greeting recalled that Naples campground. "I say chap," he said in his clear, British accent. "I was starting to wonder if you were going make it."

At a Mexican restaurant that night we were surrounded by a busload of German tourists who puzzled over the combinaciones, frijoles and enchilada platas. While the waitresses struggled and failed to translate Spanish into German, Peter and I studied the map.

Because the Enfield and Suzuki cruised at markedly different speeds, we looked for a circuitous route home. After studying half a dozen routes back to Sun Valley, we decided to chance Utah's Highway 95 that runs from Blanding through Glenn Canyon, to Hanksville.

The following morning we had just ordered breakfast at Cortez's Anasazi Restaurant, when an old boy noticed the Enfield. Hurrying across the parking lot, he first studied the Hillman engine, then the Norton transmission and enclosed chain. Returning a short time later with a friend, he indicated the different components, with what approximated pride of ownership

"People ever ask you for autographs?" I glanced at Peter.

"On checks," he admitted.

Peter Dent’s Hand Built Royal Alloy Enfield

"Those two would be grateful if you gave them the cook's tour." I suggested.

He turned to look over his shoulder at the men who were now on their knees next to the bike. "It makes a better story if they create their own fiction...Hillman/Enfield......a skunk works Norton, something built by aliens, " he shrugged.

September 20, offered an incandescent morning framed by a bright sun, cool breezes, and empty roads. Skirting the Hovenweep National Monument, the Valley of The Gods and the Natural Bridges National Monument, we couldn't believe our good luck. By now the motor homes and minivans full of vacationing families had abandoned Highway 95 and west of Natural Bridges the pinion pine forests gradually gave way to deep red rock cliffs and plateaus that in time opened to Glen Canyon. While skiers cut white wakes in the blue lake water, we pushed the bikes into long curves beneath the fire red arroyos. Five miles east of Glen Canyon, Highway 95 swept into a sheer rock chasm. Trading sun for shadow, it twisted beneath red battlements and arced around soaring burnt rock cliffs before finally opening on to the windy planes east of Hanksville, Utah.

Hanksville serves as an outpost in an immense and empty country given to small farms that fill the river bottoms and arid hills. From Hanksville west, Highway 24 passes through Capital Reef National Park's surrealistic red rock pinnacles before climbing onto high, wind swept pass west of Loa, Utah. In the late afternoon the cold cut through layers of leather and poly pro and the first shiver of hypothermia rapidly progressed from my hands to my wrists up my arms and down from my collar to my chest. Camping out at ten thousand feet in sub freezing temperatures was not an option and with evening coming on, we pressed on to Salina, Utah that appeared on the horizon just as true dark swept over the surrounding eleven thousand foot peaks.

It was bitterly cold the following morning on the 190 mile stretch from Salina to Ely, Nevada. Highway 50 cut across empty valleys and raw mountains that have changed little, if at all in the last two centuries. Peter and I got separated outside Ely and I was twenty miles south of Jackpot when the rain, which had been threatening all day, exploded with a sensate fury on the empty road. Roaring out of a black, turbulent cloud base, the rain drowned every cliche about cats and dogs and cows pissing on flat rocks. Forget my wet weather gear and leathers, I was soon soaked to the skin. The Suzuki, by rights, should have shorted out. People in passing cars wondered how I could be so stupid to be riding a motorcycle in this biblical downpour, but with no other choice, I simply wiped the inside of my visor and soldiered on. Then, as quickly as it began, the rain suddenly stopped. One minute I was weaving through a water fall, the next warm air and dry pavement.

Despite the sudden heat, hypothermia started to set in and I turned down a country road and stripped off my wet clothes. It's amazing how a farm truck can rise out of a hundred square miles of empty potato fields while you're hopping around trying to get one leg in dry skivvies. Because we were riding at different speeds, Peter and I didn't plan to reach Sun Valley at exactly the same time. After five hundred miles and different bikes, it worked out that way. There is a grain of truth in the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. And it is also true that your oldest friends are your best friends.

Peter lingered two days in Sun Valley. My sons, who are now nearly as tall as he is, treat him like a favorite uncle. For myself, I think he's a perfect role model. Starting the Enfield, he waited until it settled into an easy idle then said, "So what's on for next fall?"

"We could do a variation on this same trip." I suggested. "Maybe take more time and swing further north into Colorado."

"Don't forget to write....," he said, dropped his visor, rolled on the gas and slowly eased out the clutch.