Scenes from the 13th Annual Arizona KLR Ride (September 2025)

 

Lucky 13. That’s what this year’s annual KLR Ride was. 

Well, maybe not exactly, as there were all sorts of bikes there this year…though the venerable KLR still made a respectable showing.  

My buddy Jon hosts a cool motorcycle ride in the Paulden, Arizona-area very year.  It usually attracts a dozen or so local riders and others from around the US.  This year I counted 18 riders.  

A handful of us got together on Thursday night for dinner and then did a pre-ride on Friday.  Jon took us out to Bagdad…and even though we’ve been there probably a dozen times the back way he took us over some side routes that were different and challenging and very nice. There was a fairly deep water crossing, as several steep, rocky climbs but the entire ride was enjoyable.  We took the winding pavement roads to get back to meet up with the main group of arriving riders.  

On Friday afternoon, the riders start arriving and setting up at the Gunsite Campground.  There were some familiar faces, old friends and some new folks.  A good mix.  Jon and Kayla provided pulled pork tacos and explained the next day’s riding options.  Most of us were up late drinking and talking bike stuff around the campfire.  

Saturday is all about the ride and this year three different rides were offered.  Jon led a group of riders to the Bradshaw Mountains…mainly to Mt. Union.  Three riders—Senior on his Gen 2 KLR, Chuck on his pretty Ducati, and Darrel on his Tiger—took a pavement ride up north.  I joined local rider Charles and 6 others for a spirited ride to Bagdad through the woods and the Yolo Ranch.  I’d ridden that way several times but Charles managed to show us an even different route.  I had no idea there were so many different routes hidden within the Prescott National Forest.  We had burgers at the Bagdad Diner then two of us headed back via pavement as the others rode the dirt way back to Paulden.  I stopped at the classic saloon in Kirkland and had some drinks with my buddy, Doug, who’d never been there before.  Good times.  

Everyone arrived back to the campground between two and 4 o’clock and commenced to telling stories about the different rides.  There were a couple dirt naps, but nothing major.   

As usual, Kayla and Jon put on an amazing dinner for us consisting of Todd’s slow cooked ribs, spicy macaroni and cheese, Kayla’s famous potato salad and some other goodies. 

Senior came around after dinner and started discussing who would earn the coveted Riders Trophy this year.  We all agreed that Jon not only deserved it, but earned it this year.  He put together a fantastic Ride that we all enjoyed, he took a Dirt nap or two and he managed to come out unscathed after meeting a dog at speed. 

Craig and some others got the campfire going and we were up late laughing and talking about motorcycles and motorcycle rides. And that’s really the main reason I attend these annual rides…the camaraderie.  

Note: I’d like to mention that even though there were many people from different backgrounds, I don’t recall politics being discussed at this or previous rides.  I couldn’t even guess the politics of some of the guys that were there because we stick to talking about motorcycle-related topics. FWIW.  

Everyone packed up on Sunday morning and headed for home.  

I know Jon is exhausted from 3 days of riding…but I had to ask him as I was rolling away: “Well, what’s planned for next year?”

Chattahoochee BDR-X Lite (missed it by “that much”)

 

When my buddy Dennis said he was coming out east to ride a few BDR’s and invited me to ride the Chattahoochee BDR-X with him, I agreed…though not without a little trepidation.  You see, I’ve finished the last two BDR’s I’ve done solo—the Arizona and New Mexico—as my partners left in the backs of trucks or air ambulance’s.  I don’t have a great record of riding BDRs with friends. And it was with that worry on my mind that I agreed to go along. 

We left Chattanooga for Ellijay, Georgia, which is the start of the Chattahoochee BDR-X, early on a Wednesday morning.  The weather called for triple digit heat, brutal humidity and heavy thundershowers.  So we wore mesh riding gear and waterproof boots and left with high hopes.

We took backroads through some pretty Georgia countryside on our way to Ellijay and arrived in about two hours.  We wasted no time in starting the BDR-X.  The first few miles were just paved back roads and I became skeptical that this was not gonna be much of an off-road adventure.  Well, that quickly changed when we turned off onto a gravel road and headed up into the hills.   

It wasn’t too much longer until we were faced with some fairly challenging, rutted out roads.  Because I was leading, and had picked a poor line going through these ruts, my buddy did not have the momentum to follow me and his bike tipped over.  It wasn’t but a few minutes afterwards that I realized I had dropped a gear bag on the trail and had to ride back down and retrieve it.  I found it about a 1/2 mile down the trail and we headed back up to face the deep ruts again.  This time we passed through almost effortlessly.  

It wasn’t but a couple more miles up the trail where I came up on a mud puddle.  At first glance, it aseemed fairly unassuming, but I had remembered watching a video of a motorcyclist going through a similar mud puddle that looked about 3 or 4 feet deep.  I hit it a in second gear, standing on my pegs and sure enough it came up to my thighs.  The muddy water was almost over my tank before I was able to come out the other side.   

Dennis was doing pretty good until midway through the mud hole when his bike just stopped.  I resigned myself to getting into the mud hole and pushing the bike out but didn’t have to.  Instead, he used a trick that I’d never seen to get out of the puddle: He put the bike in first gear and used the starter to pull it out.  And sure enough it worked.

While I was walking back to my bike, I heard it abruptly stop, as if it ran out of fuel.  Long story short, we stripped down the bike checking for electrical, air or fuel issues.  It smelled flooded and the plug was fouled.  We cleaned the spark plug, buttoned everything up and the bike started like normal.  Though it occasionally sputtered, it did fine the rest of the day.

We rolled into the tiny town of Suches at the end of Section one, but could not find lodging.  The local bike haven called, “Two Wheels of Suches” was not open and besides, they had a two night minimum.  We rode back the way we came through some fun twisties to the little town of Dahlonega where we found lodging and some decent Georgia barbecue.

The next morning we started off for Suches to begin Section 2.  Even though it was all  pavement, I must admit that those twisties were awful fun early in the morning.

Sadly, my bike was not cooperating, and it appeared to be a continuing fuel issue. Again, I stripped it down at the local gas station and determined that I had either got some water in the fuel, some bad gas or something keeping the float valve open.  After putting everything back together and having the bike start up OK, we decided to take a different route back to Chattanooga.  And that pretty much ended our Chattahoochee BDR–X experience. 

However, looking at my GPS as we rode Route 60 west, I could see that we were still on the Chattahoochee BDR-X route.  Though the tracks went north and south off of Route 60, we were pretty much following the overall route.

Due to my bike’s intermittent issues and weather concerns, we decided to skip Section 3 and head home the long way via back roads.  And there are some truly spectacular backroads in that part of Georgia and Tennessee. We headed north toward the North Carolina border and rode through the small towns of Ducktown, Blue Ridge and McCaysville before reaching Tellico Plains.  

It was getting hotter and muggier and we headed back south following as many 2-lane roads as possible.  We saw we’d just missed a huge rain front that was moving east toward Ellijay. Just as we arrived back in Chattanooga, the skies opened up and a thunderstorm brought down the heavy rain that had been treating us the past couple of days.  

Though we didn’t complete the BDR, we both agreed we had a most excellent ride.  

Will I go back and finish the last two sections? Most likely. 

TO BE CONTINUED.