Southern AZ Feb-2025

Life is dreary in the Pacific Northwest. About the last time of the season I tried to ride was taking my dual sport up a logging road with a friend only to find just how slippery logging road mud can be. I ended up in a ditch, but thankfully it was slow speed and neither I or my bike were injured. That’s life, I guess. When I bought the KLX300 in the middle of 2024, one of my DS friends said that putting it down was a part of dual sport riding and to just accept that it wasn’t going to stay pretty.

But I digress, because I’m just complaining about the weather. Kind of like how I should have written a blog post to talk about the Lolo Montana trip I took in September ‘24 with a buddy and how the weather really sucked. How much did it suck? Thunderstorms and cold rain for two days straight while wearing summer leathers with just a rain jacket over the top. Riding all day in rain and 40s temperature while…. Well, you get the idea. Sometimes you gamble on the weather and it throws a curveball at you. Which is pretty much every time I tried to ride out to Lolo, except that this time I made it.

Okay, maybe I am complaining about the weather because this year I finally did what I’d been fantasizing about for years. Well one of the things anyways. I took another trip into the Southwest, during February. Granted it was another gamble weather-wise because even Southern Arizona where I was aiming to go does actually get cold in the winter. In fact, some of the mountains down there even have closed roads!

Since Arizona is a two-day drive just to get there, I decided to fly to Phoenix and rent a bike. I won’t get into the math, but the time cost made it worthwhile to spend a tiny bit more to do it that way.  It was a mental toss up whether to rent from a random person through a share service or rent from an agency, and out of paranoia I went with Eagle Rider. By the way, this isn’t an endorsement for them, I’m not an influencer getting paid for it, and in fact I’ll mention some things that might turn you, dear reader, off from using Eagle Rider.

Eagle Rider rents more than Harleys, even if they operate out of HD dealerships. Not all their locations have non-HDs, but the one in Mesa (part of the Phoenix sprawl) has Yamaha, Triumph, and BMW. I selected a Triumph Tiger Sport 660 because it’s size/weight/fuel range seemed appropriate. Besides that, I bought new gear because a lot of my textiles are worn out and or suck.

It was also a gamble on what to buy because there was no telling what kind of weather I’d see. Turns out it was a warmer than usual February, so selecting three season gear was right. The other gamble was whether it would arrive on time because it was coming from Italy and there was a snowstorm here that delayed a lot of shipping. Why from Italy? Because in my infinite wisdom I ordered direct from Dainese and the specific jacket/pants I ordered is not normally sold in the US.

I wasn’t trying to be special; I promise. But on the bright side it seems that since I got the EU spec items, they came with the higher-grade shoulder/elbow/knee armor instead of the lower grade stuff sold in the US market because we don’t have regulation. I don’t care for the government telling me to do things, but this time it kind of worked out. Funny thing though, the back protector I ordered can’t be bough in California or New York because of chemicals. P65 warnings were on all of it.

Everything booked, I boarded a flight Friday afternoon and ended up in Phoenix, Arizona. I’m unfamiliar with Phoenix, so it was another gamble whether any particular area was better to stay in. I also didn’t want to spend $300 on a motel room so I selected a Motel 6 that didn’t have bed bugs in the reviews. It kind of sucked anyways though for a number of reasons, but I won’t get into that. In the morning, I Ubered my way over to the Eagle Rider agency and walked in with my roller bag in tow.

They were waiting for me. Kind of literally. The old Harley guy working there joshed me by pretending that they didn’t have the Triumph and were sending me out on a Sportster! He got me good, then they brought out the Tiger. Visually it wasn’t in bad shape at first glance and I was in an excited rush to get going so I didn’t pay attention to a few details. I mean, I had the extra insurance on it, so I could have crashed it and not paid a dime extra to repair or replace it.

Turns out previous renters had dumped it on both sides. Part of the brake lever was broken and it hadn’t been replaced. The clutch lever was loose, the whole housing was kind of damaged. It was a pain to get it adjusted correctly which took several days of fiddling with it. It was either tell them to fuck off and take that Sportster they joked about or take the less than perfect Triumph. At least the tires were in good shape. With my luggage strapped onto the bike I set out.

Because of a freeway shutdown and detour I spent half an hour in city level traffic just to get to a different highway. An hour just to get mostly out of the Phoenix sprawl. Sprawl literally because it seems just as you’re getting out of Phoenix there’s another new subdivision with it’s usual retinue of chain stores and restaurants. I had lunch in one of those sprawls then continued finally into open air where it cooled down.

On the Butler map, the area around Prescott and south on 89 are good riding. In reality it’s just more sprawl and traffic. Just like in 2020, going through Prescott made me feel like I was a poor plebian compared to the obvious money that lives, or has a vacation home, there. Once onto 89 I was stuck in traffic for ten miles before finally breaking free and getting some good curves in. Unfortunately the base model Tiger’s suspension kind of sucks and this particular bike needed brake service.

89 is worth it for the curves, if you can break free of traffic, and the views. I had planned to make my way into the Ambrosia Mill area but due to some navigational errors associated with not having a written plan or using a GPS, I ended up going through Wickenburg and Vulture Mine. What’s kind of odd, at least to an Oregonian, about this area is how you’ll be riding through the desert admiring rolling hills and cacti then you’ll run into a “resort community” in the middle of nowhere.

Houses, golf courses, airstrips, all that. Just like someone said “here’s some cheap land, let’s build a community for rich Californians”. Then just on either side of that nonsense you’ll find RVs, trailers, and recreators of all shapes and sizes in the desert. Side by sides are quite popular and can be plated for road use here. Vulture Mine Road was a beautiful ride and eventually it’s paved section ends.

Given the lack of curves I’m glad I was on a more upright bike and not worried about burning out my sport tires because there was plenty of upright riding and curves were a rarity. With some more navigational challenges I made my way onto a major highway that led down into Gila Bend. While the Best Western there is nice, the rest of Gila Bend is a shithole including the pizza joint I had dinner at. It’s claim to fame, which I sincerely doubt is true, is that Prince Harry ate there. They have a cutout of him and the woman he married and everything. I didn’t ask them whether it was for real.

Either the greasy pizza or the “continental” breakfast didn’t quite agree with me the next day. Riding south into Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument was kind of chilly but it warmed up quickly and I was peeling layers off. This was real Southern Arizona and I started seeing CBP checkpoints and vehicles everywhere. Down in the park there’s even signs advising tourists that they may see smugglers and such and to report them.

I made my way into the park and stopped at a camp site where there was a 1.5 mile loop trail. After stripping off my gear and changing into shoes, I lashed everything to the bike and hoped that none of the tourists in the camp site would mess with my stuff. After all, why would Californians and Minnesotans in Sprinter vans dick around with someone’s motorcycle gear?

The loop trail was pretty although a lot of stuff was brown due to the season. But Tim, it’s the desert, isn’t it always brown? No. Just the sand and rock! Brush and cacti do have a growing season when they’re green. Some things were even still in bloom although I missed the cacti blooms. I took pictures, enjoyed walking in the sun, then the bad food I’d eaten came back to haunt me as I was furthest from the campground toilets. Good thing the restroom there has running water so I could clean myself up, because it wasn’t just the desert that was brown.

Anyways nobody had dicked with my gear, I put it all on and rode south to the border, turned around, then back north. At the Why junction there’s kind of nothing so I continued to an Indian casino where they advertised having a restaurant. Turns out the restaurant is just a hot deli counter that took nearly 30 minutes to turn out a cheeseburger. At least it was a decent burger. Riding through reservation land is always depressing.

It's like nobody had bothered to build or repair houses since the fifties. Junk gets left where it dies, and people all look unhealthy. Yeah, yeah, white man’s fault and all. I got stuck behind a law enforcement vehicle for probably twenty miles of what should have been decent curves, only to find it was a CBP, not sheriff, and I probably could have passed him without worries. This whole trip I really kept my speed down because AZ seems to have more cops (not just CBP) than all of Oregon.

Getting up Kitt Peak would have been more fun except for slow minivans and that the road surface was at least fifty percent tar snake. AZ as a whole seems to be tar snake country, but that section especially. It gets chilly again at the top but I spent a while just standing there eating a Cliff bar and enjoying the view. Time on a vacation shouldn’t be an issue except when I’ve made motel reservations and want to get somewhere before dark.

Continuing on, I got to experience some local culture in Three Points where my very obvious “not from here because I’m wearing Dainese motorcycle textiles” clashed with the locals who were coming back from a hunt wearing camo and all rocking some serious iron on their hips. When I was checking them out and one of them stared at me, I nodded and complimented his Staccato then mentioned I have a Prodigy for competition.

Ice broken a little bit and we talked gun stuff for a few minutes until they departed. I guess some things down here in the mountains are open season all year, and this close to the border sidearms aren’t for bears or cougars like in the PNW. From Three Points I made haste down to Arivaca road. It was just another highlighted road on my Butler map, and it didn’t disappoint besides the depressingly low speed limit.

Arizona is weird. Instead of just posting suggested speeds on corners, they lower the speed limit. I was paranoid and didn’t break the limit too much, but Arivaca road was still fun. Kind of rough in places, especially where the road dips into an arroyo. The views are nice too. On the eastern side there’s some new construction, adding onto the sprawl for people moving to AZ from shittier and or colder states.

That was it for the “fun” riding and the rest was a high speed, and I mean eighty plus was the traffic average, run down into Nogales where I checked into a Motel 6 that didn’t suck. The local Mexican food was pretty good, and I slept pretty good.

In the morning I put on my warm layers and rode out to Pena Blanca Lake. I was probably the first person out there in the morning and didn’t see any other traffic. Which was nice since it’s a curvy road. Technical really because there’s lots of 10mph corners. One of those corners almost did me in because it was in an arroyo and there was a lot of sand washed across the pavement. A bit of luck, praise be the motorcycle gods, and maybe a touch of skill kept me from crashing. Which is especially good because this was out of cell reception.

I doubled back and made my way east on Patagonia highway which was pretty and interesting. If you imagine the typical Patagonia clothing brand aficionados, then made an assumption about a town in Arizona called by that name, then you’d probably be right. Patagonia is kind of a rich people Disneyland version of the American Southwest, right down to the Sheriff deputy waiting at the drop from 55 to 25mph.

He didn’t have reason to ticket me thankfully. At Sonoita I turned south to go down to Parker Canyon Lake. This road was nice and curvy but in generally crap shape with lots of tar snakes. One arroyo still had water in it and I had to slow down and wade through the shallower part. Getting south it really struck me how much “middle of nowhere” it was. Also the mountains and hills here have a lot of low trees and brush, it’s not just all desert like in a Roadrunner cartoon idea.

The last seven miles to Parker Canyon Lake is single lane and narrow. You know the phrase country people use “we don’t dial 911 here!”? Well that’s probably true out here not just because of the aversion to inviting LE onto one’s property as it is because there’s no cell reception. It’s really isolated and it’s not far from the border. CBP probably comes out there more often than the local sheriff and for good reason. From Parker Canyon you can see the CBP aerostat moored on the other side on the mountain at Fort Huachuca.

Talking with one of the locals I found that every year some of the people trying to get into the USA try to do it through the mountains in places like Parker Canyon. Many of them don’t make it because they’re not ready for the cold overnight temperatures at elevation. CBP finds a lot of corpses in the mountains. But I digress. Parker Canyon Lake is like Pena Blanca, unimpressive, so I turned around and went back.

Just onto the two-lane section I passed a gigantic overlanding rig with Alaska plates. If I’d been a few minutes later I would have encountered his gigantic ass in the one lane narrow twisty section! I had wanted to take Canelo road because it’s highlighted, but a civilian like me can’t get all the way through because it goes through Fort Huachuca cantonment. On the way back to Sonoita I encountered some javelinas (Google them) who ran away rather than let me stop and take a picture.

There’s nothing really to eat in Sonoita so I continued on, then turned down towards Sierra Vista. Let me digress again. At high elevation in the southern desert, my eyes were just plain killing me. That’s with a visor, sun visor, and my glasses. Just straight up I could barely focus by the time I pulled into a Wendy’s in Sierra Vista. There’s a tethered aerostat at Huachuca which I couldn’t focus on. I popped some Excedrin and waited for my head to clear.

It occurred to me that with the thinner air, the UV radiation was higher. So instead of regular glasses I started wearing my polarized prescription sunglasses underneath my visor and sun visor. That combo screws with colors but it helped with the headache and stuff. At the restaurant, I briefly talked with a new rider who wanted to know about my bike. Unfortunately, I was too out of it at the time to probably make much sense. Oh well.

After Sierra Vista I took another Butler map highlighted road, Charleston Rd, into Tombstone. The road was cool but too much traffic to really have fun on it. I rode through Tombstone but didn’t stop because of the parking situation. South towards Bisbee got interesting again, at least in that isolated desert way with long vistas and endless rolling hills. When I pulled into Bisbee, besides the touristy “old town” which fairly stank of blue state money, what floored me was seeing the Grand Canyon.

Except it wasn’t the Grand Canyon. It was a giant artificial canyon where copper had been mined for years. It’s a tourist trap now although the mining company still owns most of the land and there’s rumblings about getting the mining going again due to the first world’s demand for it. The bad food from Gila Bend was still giving me problems and thankfully the visitor center had a restroom. I toured the old Lowell downtown, shot pictures, then followed my friend Marv and his wife Suzie out to their home in the O’Neal area.

Marv used to ride. I don’t mean that in a derogatory manner like some people. He crashed hard and shattered his collarbone. The doctors didn’t fix it because the shards were close to his jugular, I think they were just being lazy VA doctors though. He still rode for a decade after, although had to give it up eventually. Marv and Suzie moved from Oregon to the middle of nowhere in Arizona. I accepted their hospitality, we went to dinner at a nice unpretentious Vietnamese place in Sierra Vista and talked and talked.

In the morning I made my way back to Tombstone and walked around the “old” section. It’s hella touristy like you’d expect. Most of the shops weren’t open yet because I was early. After Tombstone I made my way north, connected with the freeway towards Tucson, and again was one of the slower vehicles on the interstate. Never be the fastest, that’s how to avoid tickets. On the interstate there were lots of snowbirds. Everything from multimillion dollar RVs to beater camper trucks and Sprinters, all with northern states license plates.

It took about 45 minutes to get through the east side Tucson sprawl to get to the road up Mount Lemmon. On the Butler map it’s a good road. In reality it’s… a good road. Too much traffic though so it took a few partial runs up and down to really get my curve addiction satisfied. At the top, over 8,000 feet I was a little bit dizzy since I’m a low-lander with Asthma. There’s lots of pull outs and vista areas on the road and I had a short conversation with some people about my bike. Turns out some of them were from Oregon. Small world.

Mount Lemmon is worth the ride, as long as you’re willing to go up/down a lot to get the whole thing. Get stuck in traffic? Turn around. Get a few miles of clear pavement before more traffic, then repeat. Lots of bikes up there and not just motorcycles. To my genuine surprise there were bicyclists riding up that mountain. I mean serious bicyclists, probably pro or semi-pro. Riding up 8,000 feet of mountain at a pace that I couldn’t keep up for a mile at my best.

One thing about the locals in Phoenix and Tucson. Fitness seems to be a real lifestyle there. Sure there’s the usual assortment of shapes and sizes, but it does seem that there’s a slightly higher percent of people that take care of themselves, at least compared to some other areas like where I live.

I finally had enough and rode back, checked into my motel, and had a quiet evening. The next day I rode to the Pima Air and Space museum. It’s near the Davis-Monthan airbase, which is home to the legendary airplane graveyard. Not just graveyard, but storage. Without the GWOT actively going on, there’s hundreds of military cargo planes stored there in addition to the planes waiting to be scrapped for spares and shredded.

The museum itself is huge. It’s a whole day kind of visit. To that end it surprised me how much crap they gave me about my little backpack for carrying my water bottle, camera stuff, and other odds and ends. It’s no bigger than a big purse but because it has two straps, it’s bad. They let me through after I complained and pointed out that I’d come by motorcycle and there was no leaving this crap behind. After all with as much as the museum is out doors, it makes no sense to make people carry water, sunglasses, hat, etc while traipsing around. Just a few of the pictures I snapped:

Other than that, the museum is great. They had a huge selection and will have more in the future including a military vehicle museum next door. Their F-117 is still in pieces waiting for it’s replica parts before it can go on display. If I want an already restored one I have to go to Palm Springs. Maybe I should go to Palm Springs next winter? Another quiet evening followed, including a pretty decent lasagna at a little bistro near my motel.

My last day of riding started with another thirty plus minutes to get clear of urban sprawl. It was cool and stayed cool on my way north and up in elevation. It was mostly kind of boring desert, as opposed to interesting fun desert, until Winkelman where the canyon carving started. Dumb me didn’t notice the signs advising of a detour and closure, but we’ll get to that. Highway 77 north goes up into the mountains and has some good curves.

Along the way I stopped at a small monument to the mines that used to dot Arizona. Gold, Silver, Copper. Entire mountainsides washed away to get at them.

Unfortunately, it seemed there was a plethora of heavy haul on the road which made it suck. Also it went into the mountains where it got cold and misty. Like a dry mist, not a condensing mist. Fortunately, my three-season gear was fine in it. On the other side, pulling into Globe, I realized that the detour and closure was on the very highway I had planned to take into Phoenix. That meant doubling back and down to Winkelman.

At first I was cursing myself except that once I got past some trucks I had a nearly clear run over the mountains and through the canyon to Winkelman! I was a little worried about the time since I had to get the bike back to the rental place by two PM. I made great time and then once on the major highway 60 made even better time. The mist and coolness was replaced by dust and Phoenix heat all the way into Mesa. I pulled into Eagle Rider right on time.

The guys at the rental place asked how the bike ran, and I told them the entire truth. It stalled on me twice while riding, threw a CEL, the clutch lever assembly is screwed up, the brakes need service badly, and the suspension needs to be refreshed. His eyes glazed over because Harley guys don’t understand anything other than “add more accessories and power mods”. Whatever. I changed, repacked my rolling duffel and caught a ride to the airport.

Airports are a good place to catch an expensive afternoon buzz, then eventually get on a plane and back to reality. Two days later and I was already planning my next trip.

Do I recommend Eagle Rider? Yes and no. The Mesa location had a lot of Harley Davidsons available. If that’s your thing, go for it. The Triumph they rented me shouldn’t have gone out the door. I think like any rental agency they just run their equipment into the ground. If you wanted an HD then you’d probably be getting something lower miles, but who knows really the condition of the one you’d get. Since they’re primarily an HD operation, you’d probably get a better roll of the dice. Probably. During or after Bike Week you’re throwing a crap shoot.

Given the cost difference, I might try out a motorcycle share service and see about renting from some random joe. That’d be about half to two thirds the rental cost. Flying in and renting a bike has it’s time-advantage as opposed to trailering to a destination, storing my car, and then riding.

What do I think of the Tiger Sport 660? It's seat was awful. Not a comfortable all day seat. Riding position was comfortable. It needs more power. The base model suspension is just... basic. With the factory hard bags and a little better in the above departments it might be a hit sport-touring wise. The trim level I rode was just a commuter bike.