Our plan was a no-brainer: ride the Utah Backcountry Discovery Route (UTBDR) from Mexican Hat, Utah, to the Idaho border, starting in Santa Barbara, California. Packing along both the official map and GPS tracks, and having already nixed a couple of “expert” sections from our route, we set off.
My buddy Roger rode his new BMW R 1200 GS Adventure, while I saddled my 2009 F 800 GS. In my enduring quest for the ideal adventure rubber, I took a tip from Senior Editor Greg Drevenstedt and shod my GS with a set of Mitas E-07 tires (an E-07+ at the rear) from Motorace for my own evaluation. (Read Greg’s review here.)
Six hundred miles brought us from coastal California, through hellish desert heat to a cool, green oasis of dispersed camping outside Flagstaff, Arizona, for the night. Much of the next 200 miles to Mexican Hat, Utah, crossed the Navajo Indian Reservation, where the roadside artwork almost comes alive.
Our northward ride included Monument Valley, the backdrop for many western movies. Hey, is that a stagecoach up ahead"
The official UTBDR route starts with an easy ride on graded dirt and gravel through Valley of the Gods. We would later refer to this as “getting sucked in.”
The desert can surprise you: from blue skies to brown in four minutes.
The Moki Dugway–several short, steep switchbacks built for uranium ore transport–was a piece of cake. Following that, Snow Flat Road was more like a tough steak cooked well-done the...