RICKY CARMICHAEL’S US ADVENTURE RIDE

What a great ride! Every year we do this ride it keeps getting better and better! It blows my mind how we continue to find new roads that lead to new places that are just as spectacular as the places we went to the year before. We say it every year and it’s true, there is no better way to see this country than on a motorcycle.

An adventure bike makes it even better because it expands your possibilities to find non traditional routes which often lead to new places you wouldn’t have otherwise found! That was the case again this year and I am grateful for the opportunity to do this ride every year. The newly updated and redesigned 2023 Triumph Tiger 1200 made this year’s ride even better with the number of miles we covered.

July 22nd - Arrival Day
The crew arrived at Empire Cycle in Spokane from Australia, California, Tennessee, Mississippi and Florida. As we all began to gather at the dealership and work on getting our bikes setup for the ride, Kristen and Amy had rolled out the red carpet for us all and had a great lunch ready for us when we got there.

It was great to meet some of their customers as well and share our stories from past adventure rides and get some tips from the locals on our route to Darby. Once we got done setting up our QuadLock phone mounts, Mosko bags, Boxo tool rolls, Cardo PackTalk coms, and other parts needed for the ride we headed off to dinner to make our final plans for the ride.

July 23rd - Day 1 Spokane, WA to Darby, MT; 301 miles, 6hr 42min
We left Spokane early because we wanted to get to Darby as early as possible since it’s become one of our favorite places to stay and has become a staple of our summer ride. The route we took had us head southeast out of Spokane to St Maries on St Joe River Rd through Hoyt then up to St Regis. It was a super fun twisty road that followed the river, perfect for getting ourselves adjusted to the new Tiger 1200s. We then made a quick stint on the interstate to Alberton before heading south on Petty Creek Road towards Lolo.

The road turned to dirt pretty quick and it was fun to ride a little dirt on the first day as well to check out the Tiger in those conditions. We had already been in the saddle for a few hours so when we came across the Jack Saloon just before Lolo it seemed like a great spot to wash the dust down. One of my favorite parts of these rides is finding fun spots like the Jack Saloon to take a break. The place had great atmosphere and our out of country guests loved seeing a real western saloon with tons of character.

From there it was on to Darby. The town is amazing with some really fun places to eat and listen to live music at the end of our daily ride. The last couple years some serious darts have also been played, perhaps getting a little too competitive at times, at the Sawmill Saloon. Darby is located in the Bitterroot Valley and the famed Yellowstone Ranch from the TV show is also located there. We have stayed at the same place, the Rye Creek Lodge for 3 years now. It is one of the nicest places to stay, their cabins are first class and a peaceful place to rest after a long ride.

We made a quick grocery stop for some provisions for breakfast the next morning then made our way to the cabins for a quick shower then headed into town for dinner. We found the Big Cat Cafe a couple of years ago and that has been our spot ever since. It’s a great place to relax and enjoy some great food and reflect on the days ride. My buddy Chad Warrix was on this year’s ride and thankfully he brought his guitar. We closed out the day with some outstanding guitar playing by our buddy Apples, Ray and Chad. It was a perfect ending to the day.

July 24th - Day 2 Darby to West Yellowstone; 284 miles, 6hr58min
It’s hard to explain how nice it is waking up at the Rye Creek Lodge in the middle of a beautiful Montana valley.  Like a lot of things, pictures don’t do it justice and you just have to experience it. The temperature was 55 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. We new it was going to be a great day to ride! After making some egg sandwiches for the crew we zipped up all of our vents on our Fox Legion gear, Chad lead us in our pre ride prayer before we mounted up and were off for West Yellowstone.

We wanted to find some more dirt roads and a non-traditional route to West Yellowstone so we headed north to Grantsdale and turned East towards Anaconda. Not to far into our trip we came across these amazing little falls called Skalkaho Falls. It was a great place for a quick photo with the crew. We rolled on climbing the pass on our way to Butte where we made a quick pit stop then back off the main road heading for Virginia City.

Finding places like Virginia City are what makes our rides so much fun. It was an old mining town with lots of cool shops and places to eat. It’s fun to imagine what life must have been like there 150 years ago! The crew grabbed some pizza then we checked out the old Pioneer Bar, took a little walk around the town to stretch our legs then headed back out on the road. We made our way through Ennis and saw some more epic views then turned south on a fun road that ran us past Earthquake Lake. We had to stop and learn why it was called that, and sure enough a huge earthquake in 1959 caused a rockslide that blocked the river and 3 weeks later there was a lake!

Mother nature sure is impressive! We made it to our spot in West Yellowstone with time to relax and clean up before dinner. We stayed at the West Yellowstone B&B just outside of town and the other half stayed at some really nice cabins at the Yellowstone Inn. That night we had one of our best meals on any of our trips, and possibly the best BBQ I’ve ever had in my lifetime at Fire Hole BBQ.

Turns out my buddy Guy Fieri has been there as well and was so impressed he shot an episode of his show there. They made the crew a platter of food and filled us with so many sides we knew breakfast was going to be a challenge the next day!

July 25th - Day 3 West Yellowstone, MT to Palisade, CO; 571 miles, 11hr 10min
This idea seemed better on paper. Lol. We knew it was going to be a long day but the payoff was being able to ride some off road in Colorado so we got an early start so we could hit Yellowstone National Park before the crowds started flowing in. It was 41 degrees when we rolled out so the Tiger’s heated grips and seat were great to have that morning! Right off the bat we saw amazing wildlife! Lots of bison, elk and deer among other animals. We made our way past some of the hot springs which looked amazing in the clear cold morning.

We rode past Yellowstone lake and got to see some of the sites before heading to the Tetons. It was an absolutely beautiful morning and the mountains looked like a painting. Our guys from Australia we blown away by the size of the mountains and how majestic they were. Luckily, we found a fun little off road section we got to ride for a bit and we were able to get some great pics that will last as memories for a lifetime!

With plenty of miles ahead of us still we made our way south via Flaming Gorge for some more amazing views with absolutely epic winding and twisting roads.  Along those beautiful winding roads, I was amazed at how well the new 1200 performed because of its nimbleness from the lower CG (center of gravity) and lighter overall weight.  From there, we would continue south into Grand Junction Colorado then over to Palisades where our Motel for the next couple of days, the Spoke and Vine, was located. We were in luck that the motel had a food truck that night and after 570 miles we didn’t feel like going anywhere so it worked out perfectly. The motel has a cool little bar as well so a few drinks were in order to celebrate our longest day of the trip.

July 26th - Day 4 Palisade to Ouray, Engineer Pass, Silverton back to Palisade; 283 miles, 8hr 20min
We had a later kickstand time since we were supposed to have a shorter, but super fun, off road day in the San Juan Mountains. Little did we know we were about to get more of an adventure than we planned for! My buddy Chad has been telling me about Ouray for years, so that was part of the reason for the long ride the day before so we could make it to Colorado to explore a part of the country that me, and others on our ride, have never been to before. Colorado has always been a favorite place of mine to visit, so I couldn’t wait to check it out.

The town of Ouray is amazing! It’s one of those places you just have to experience and I highly recommend you do if you can. It has everything outdoor a person would want to do, it’s also known as the Switzerland of the US. For us, we were there to ride some trails and see the amazing views it has to offer. Just outside of town we jumped on the trail to Engineer Pass. It was probably one of the toughest rides I have done on an adventure bike, not to mention the lack of oxygen, but the Tiger 1200s made it and the payoff was incredible with the views we saw along the way. It was super rewarding to make it to the top but that’s when the real adventure got started!

We saw the weather was starting to roll in so we made a quick exit only to get caught in some pretty heavy rains. We made it to Silverton, which was another cool western town, and thought we were home free navigating the paved twisty roads back to Ouray only to make it a few miles from there to find a massive mudslide had just closed the road! I have never seen anything like it before, nor had anyone in our group! We had just missed it by about 15 min. It was at this point things got serious pretty quick. In that part of the country your options are limited. We knew the roads were closed over on the Lake City side as well, so our only option was to take the pass back out and go around the mudslide if we didn’t want to wait for the crews to come and open the road, which could have ranged anywhere from a 3-5 hour wait.

With it getting late we made the decision to head back to Silverton grab some fuel and make our way back into the mountains and over the corkscrew pass, (which ended up being an awesome addition to the ride), and around to Ouray. With the rain falling it was for sure more challenging than what we planned on doing on our last day of riding but luckily the Tigers were up to the challenge as well and we were able to successfully navigate our way out and get back on our way to Palisade. At one point we were able to look across the valley, where we saw the crews cleaning the mudslide so we knew we made the right decision on time.

Once we were heading north of Montrose the skies cleared up and it warmed up as well. We were pretty much dry another 50 miles later and had a great time chatting it up on are Cardo Edge’s about what an amazing and unexpected experience that day’s ride had been!

We wrapped up our trip with an amazing wine tasting at the Blue Beryl Winery hosted by our dealer friends in Grand Junction, All Terrain Moto. It was so nice of the Wells Family to welcome our crew at the end of our ride and host us at such a beautiful spot. It was the perfect ending to our trip!

At the end of the day, when it is all over and I have a moment to reflect, I’m always humbled by the support that our great partners give us.  Especially the incredible Triumph dealers.  They take time out of their own lives, workdays and work force to make our experience incredible and seamless.  I’m so thankful for their dedication because outside of our ride I know that they have a business to run.  Finally, to our summer ride crew that made the financial sacrifice and spent valuable time away from work and family, I appreciate you all so much and sincerely thank you for making this ride one for the books!

Our Gear:
Bikes: 2023 Triumph Tiger 1200 Rally Pro and Tiger Rally Pro Explorer

Tires: Dunlop, Trailmax Mission

Gear: Fox Racing, Legion Gear

Communication System: Cardo Systems, PackTalk Edge

Phone Mounts: QuadLock, Moto mount with anti vibration damper

Tool Roll: Boxo USA, ADV Tool Roll (coming soon)

Bags: Mosko Moto, Pico Tank, Nomax tank and 30L seat bags

Satellite Coms: Bivy

Navigation: TrailTech, Voyager Pro

Helmet : Arai, XD4 Adventure helmets

AntiFog: Klotz, AntiFog Paste

Rental bikes for our crew: Eagle Rider

Riders:

Ricky Carmichael, Tallahassee, FL

Anthony Paggio, Laguna Nigel, Ca

Ray Butts, Lexington, KY

JH Leale, Tallahassee, FL

Chad Warrix, Nashville, TN

Jimmy Keys, Odessa, FL

Chris Goolsby, Tampa, FL

Russel Griffin, Mississippi

Scott Runciman, Melbourne, Australia

Ian “Magoo” McGillivray, Bright, Australia

Shaun “Apples” Appleyard, Australia 

Final Stats:

1465 miles 34hrs 5min.

6 States, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado

2 National Parks, Yellowstone, Grand Teton

Multiple National Forests

Countless laughs and a lifetime of memories!