It took awhile for all the riders to pass by.
The Desert Caballeros Ride is an annual event that departs Wickenburg, Arizona for several encampments in the surrounding area for 5 days. Ridership is about 120 each year. Here are some of the snaps I took.
There are few things nicer than shade in Arizona.
A milestone, literally. 1001 miles on the Aurora’s odo!
After nearly finishing up a local solar project, it’s time to try to get back in development mode with the Evelo Aurora e-bike. The title of this post relates to the design maxim, “the last 10% of a product’s development takes 90% of the total project time”. In other words, there’s a big difference in the time it takes to make something work, and the time to make it work really well. I decided to take an impromptu bike ride, motivated by a local fifth wheel packed with yapping mutts having an anxiety disorder. I wanted to keep an eye out for an alternative campsite just in case the noise became intolerable. Well, while I was wandering about, I decided to tour the north shore of Senator Wash Reservoir beside the Laguna Dam LTVA.
This is merely an approach to the north shore area, well outside it. Easy going down, but not so much coming back up!
The goal of this trip was two-fold. One, evaluate the Read more…
Strapped in and ready to make noise, Delmont is signaling either “Go for it!” or “Call me!” I’m not up on such things.
I was recently given a very special opportunity in the form of what’s called a sand rail, and I took it! Delmont Day, a long-time Strolling Amok reader (“Papa”), invited me to tour the BLM land around Quartzsite with him. Long a fan of all things Volkswagen, Delmont had picked up his sand rail last Fall in order to be able to enjoy the extensive off-road opportunities in the Quartzsite, Arizona area.
The start of the run was the deep sand track I tackled on my e-bike, but the rail’s big tires made it float over easily.
And what a sand rail it is! Sand rails are similar to what most folks would call dune buggies, but they have the familiar shortened VW Bug floorpan/chassis replaced with a Read more…
Located right along the main drag in Quartzsite, one suspects this is of some historic value. Left unmarked, it is merely part of a large lot for sale.
Along the same street is what’s left of The Camel Stop Auto Repair, and old service station. And it’s for sale!
But look a little closer and you can see all the signs that the building is leaning heavily to the left, and that the facade was the only part worth saving. Was.
The building next to it is presumably part of the same listing, and is in better shape. Maybe.
And just for a change of pace, this is neither real estate nor for sale. It’s just one of my barber’s motorcycles. A lifelong motorcycle rider, she hales from Rockford, Illinois and moved to this area early. So, she doesn’t mind the summer heat, and puts on a light jacket when it’s 70 degrees. This ’57 Harley was her father’s.
This recreation of an original Eagle casting shows what was planted at every county line along the Victory Highway, and only five originals are known to exist today.
The Victory Highway was was an amalgamation of early trails and pre-existing roads that ran from New York to San Francisco, and was based on everything from Indian trails to the 1912 National Old Trails Road, one of the first official automobile routes going from coast to coast. The Victory Highway was dedicated on June 25th, 1925 to the memory of the men and women who gave their lives in World War I. The ceremony took place in Wendover.
There are occasional vestiges of the Victory Highway, but this piece that is several hundred yards long, is the only preserved piece I know of. Even it is interrupted by streets to reach the West Wendover city building, however.
No, the sign is not original, but is a much nicer version of the original one used to dedicate the road during its dedication in 1925.
East of St. Louis, it got little publicity, since it was effectively just Read more…
The call of Bonneville.
The World of Speed event at Bonneville is run each year by the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association, and participants were able to run what looked like their choice of 3 or 5-mile courses laid out on the salt. That’s much shorter than they would like, but current weather conditions dictate how much of the track will be dry enough to run on. Most of the vehicles don’t need any more distance, so only the big boys had a crimp put in their style.
Yes, this mini-belly tank racer is just a toy, and yes, it’s cute! Racers of all kinds tend to have a sense of humor.
I attended one day when the weather looked most cooperative, though I did have to wade the big Ford s-l-o-w-l-y through nearly a mile of brine to get there. I ferried the Evelo Aurora and trailer across in the front bike carrier, and then broke it out to tour all around the dry pits and racing area. Considering my phobia about splashing salt on the underside of the pickup truck, the decision to attend was no small one. Looking at upcoming weather, I had a gut feeling that this one day might possibly be it for the season, so it was either go, or gamble. The depth of the water between Read more…
Yowza! A customized old Toyota pickup goes streamliner for mileage, not speed.
Riding the Aurora e-bike on the way to Wendover, Utah one day, I came across a streamliner of sorts, parked at the Sinclair truck stop at the fringes of the Bonneville Salt Flats. It differs considerably from other streamliners in two respects. First, it is streetable, if impractical. Second, this streamliner is not built for speed, but for fuel mileage.
Based on an older Toyota T100 pickup truck, its owner has made serious modifications to its body. Functionally speaking, it is no longer a pickup truck, but a car. He was at Bonneville to hopefully wade through the brine and make a run on the salt, but that isn’t as exciting as it seems. Its little four-cylinder engine can, given enough distance, push this newly-slippery shape along at just over 100 MPH, if it has to. That may be fast for a stock T100 four-banger. I don’t know, but I assume it is. Pickup trucks are bluff boxes that force
Reenactments Gone Wild? A sign reads, “Welcome to Palookaville” at an entrance. This display was charming, though the Friendly Ladies looked out of place to me. but not that many theatrical costumers or hairdressers moonlight for free at volunteer air show events in sparsely-populated towns in remote areas, so ya gotta go with what ya gots! The tarp, table and uniforms made me smile, and as long as you don’t kick a bomb on the ground, you’ll be fine!
I was wandering into the local grocery when I noticed a small poster on their bulletin board. Wendover Air show in just a few days! I guess in the past they had current military aircraft on display, but this year would only be vintage WWII and acrobatic aircraft. Good enough for me. Even though the first successful day of land speed record runs would begin the same day, I decided to take my chances and see the air show instead.
One more shot of Palookaville, looking a bit more period at the moment.
I packed up the trusty Aurora and its trailer with camera and videocam equipment bags, water, and my vintage lawn chair, and biked the eight miles to the historic Wendover airfield. The air show volunteers even let me Read more…
A pickup truck wades out toward the dry part of the salt flats used as the race course.
Something I hadn’t banked on from last year’s all-or-nothing weather at the Bonneville Speedway was that part of the salt flats could be dry and usable for speed events, while the rest could be terminally underwater. It’s a fairly common situation, as it turns out. The endpoint of the access road to get there is nicknamed the “boat ramp” for just that reason. Right now, it’s under what I’m guessing is 9″-12″ of water, depending on the path you take. It was much shallower on Friday morning before a passing thunderstorm dumped more water on it. The track area apparently survived, while the entrance did not.
The two techniques used: on the left is the wader, rolling slowly through so as to limit splashing of the saltwater. On the right is the impatient hard charger, who must have a rental or leased car, because no one would do this to a personally-owned vehicle, would they?
Beginning this weekend and running through Thursday, the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials are taking place. The water entrance hasn’t proven a problem at all for the racers and hangers-on. They just dive right on in with whatever they have.
I find this impressive, but less so after I think about it. These guys make
The new Rancho Begley. Note that the Aurora e-bike, loaded with dirty laundry, looks more at home out here than it does in a suburban area.
With the Southern California Timing Association’s Speed Week event scheduled to run August 9-15 this year, recent sprinkles had bumped the planned start by just a day, with first actual runs to start on Monday instead of Sunday. Not bad. When I arrived Friday afternoon, everything was looking promising. The short drive from I-80 to the “Y” intersection of the access road to the salt and Leppy Pass Road to the camping areas at the foot of the Silver Island Mountains was jammed with traffic and vehicles parked on the shoulder. Several BLM Rangers were directing the stream of traffic, asking each driver what they hoped to do, and then directing them as needed.
This guy is hoping to run his Cummins diesel-powered rod for a record.
I made my way up toward last year’s campsite, found a workable area, and parked just long enough to yank the Evelo Aurora off the front end of the Ford. Racers are nothing if not celebratory partygoers, and although I found a Read more…
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