Not Recommended

Trip Start Aug 04, 2008

Trip End Ongoing

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Flag of Honduras Danli, Honduras
Saturday, October 18, 2008

Rain. In Mexico, we had some, but not a lot. In Antigua it clouded over and threatened a lot, but actually rained very little. We were told that the rainy season had ended in early October. In Honduras, it rained. It rained pretty much the whole time we were in Copan Ruinas. So before we left, we checked our route with the friendly manager of the restaurant across the street from our hotel, where we ate breakfast. It concerned a choice: Either tacke the long way around by heading north to San Pedro Sula, a not so nice city, and then down the Panamericana towards Tegucigalpa, or take a much more direct route on a smaller road. The manager said that we should take the long way: the smaller road had some rough spots, and was difficult to traverse in the rainy season, and it was not recommended to go that way. We said okay and left, but the morning was sunny and when we came to the fork, we decided to give the direct route a try. We figured we could make our way through the odd shallow stream or dirtslide. It was an act of hubris, one that we should probably regret, but I do�'t, really. But man, it was a bitch, and things looked pretty bleak at times.

The small road started out great! clear and winding, little traffic and lots of scenery. But then it started. The mud, that is. But 'mud' doesn't do it justice, it was far more slippery and insidious - evil! - than that innocent word suggests. The first stretch I believe was about 30 yards. It looked scary. This was a dirt road that was under construction, soaked with water. On a good day it would have been a challenging ride. But we had already ridden 30 miles to get here, and had to go forward. The mud felt like wet clay. It was fine, with no grit to give traction. It was anywhere from 2 to 6 inches deep. And there was no other traffic on the road save the sporadic 4x4. Oh, and parts of the road were pretty steep uphills an downhills. Soon the road was all mud, no breaks.

I first used what I knew, which was to keep your feet on the pegs and if you feel the front end wanting to wash out, give it some gas. This works okay for short stretches, but on one 80 yard uphill with the front end continuously sliding all around, I ended up going about 30 mph riding a 1000cc bucking bronco before I finally lost it and the bike slid to a stop on its side after dumping me in the mud. Worse yet, the fall had Totally bent out one of my panniers. And it started to drizzle, and get darker. I dumped the bike about 3 more times, each time needing either Jesse's or someone else's help to right it in that evil slippery stew. Finally the pannier came totally off, and I had to strap it onto the back of my bike like carrying a severed limb. Needless to say, at on point the whole thing seemed so bad, there was no end in sight to the mud, and I had just dumped my bike again, I started to laugh. I totally cracked up, the situation was absurd. Jesse looked at me, a little concerned. We both knew that if it started to rain and get dark, we would spend the night out here in our tents, not a pleasant prospect, and who knew if tomorrow would be any better?

Jesse did better than I did. His bike is lighter and his tires have better tread for the dirt. He dropped his bike a couple of times, but not wit the gusto that I seemed to manage. Anyway, after about 2 hours I figured it out. I stopped trying to ride my bike like YZ250. The trick I learned was to do at a snail's pace, slower than walking speed, and keep both feet skimming the ground on each side. And most important, do not change your pace, neither slow down or speed up, at all, EVER, no matter what, no matter how steep the hill or drop, or how tall the berm or steep the rut, just KEEP GOING, use my legs and body English to keep it upright and moving forward, or I'd be picking the goddamned 750 pound thing up AGAIN, which takes about 15-20 minutes. But here my bike had one thing going for it, a huge amount of low end torque and a low 1st gear, so I never had to mess with the clutch, just keep it in 1st at just over idle speed and it would pull me along through and over anything, smooth as butter.

We got through about 5 miles of road in about 3 hours that way, and finally pulled into Esperanza Honduras, our planned lunch stop, after dark, and in the rain. All the hotels in town were full because students came in on the weekends to take classes, so we stayed at this weird resort with a wildlife theme outside of town. But we couldn't have cared less. And that evening, I pulled a couple of extra nuts and bolts and a tie-down from my tools and parts, and managed to re-secure the left pannier. THAT was cool.

So this was our own fault. If we had taken the recommended route, we might not have hit ANY mud. I told Jesse we should start a club - the Not Recommended Riders. But we had definitely earned our mud riding merit badges.