Trip Report: Broken Pegs & the Happy Burro - Day 2

Welcome to day 2 on the Nevada Backcountry Discovery Route.

This is the daily log of six novice adventure riders tackling the new #NVBDR route. We are riding Honda Africa Twins and Kawasaki KLRs.

Broken Pegs & the Happy Burro

Our planned route for day 2 was completely on the NVBDR which meant lots of unsealed roads. Well, that's what we thought we had planned.

We rejoined the NVBDR after a restful night in the Primm Casino hotel and a quick breakfast at McDonalds.  We got a few good comments and questions: "Are you guys racers?" Haha, far from it!

Initially the track runs North, parallel to the I-15 highway, before turning to the North East and onto Pahrump.

Broken Pegs

20Km later and we had a broken foot peg on the Africa Twin.    The track had a number of sections damaged by flood water and as a result large boulders lay scattered on the track.  One of the Africa Twin riders followed the inside track on a left turn and had little room to maneuver to avoid a few large boulders.  The front tyre clipped a rock and milliseconds later the rider was on the floor.  The rider and bike were ok except for the right foot peg.

On small vital piece off the Africa Twin was crucial in changing plans... the NVBDR was over.   We needed to return to Las Vegas to repair the Honda AT and rethink our plans.

Making that call to GSMA... we needed help

Decision made... we would use the highway from Las Vegas to the old mining town of Rhyolite and onto Beatty for the evening.    Nevada also decided to change weather patterns and the 38Deg C heat wave turned into strong 60km gale force winds.  It was not a pleasant few hours as we fought the North Westerly winds towards Beatty.

Head down, we wobbled our way North West to Beatty.  A quick bite to eat at the Area51 Alien Center roadhouse before pushing onto Rhyolite, an old mining town.

Rhyolite was built around 1905 but quickly faded as miners moved to Beatty.  Infrastructure resources was pretty scarce so the town folk dismantled buildings and carted them to Beatty.

The Happy Burro

When you visit Beatty as part of the NVBDR, be sure to have a bowl of chili at the Happy Burro.   The food is good, the beer is cold and the atmosphere is outstanding.  We spent an enjoyable few hours detoxing from the gale force winds and talking through the broken peg incident and being thankful that no one was injured.

Happy Burro Chili & Beer in Beatty

No rest for those on international business trips... day 3 needed planning!

Trip Stats:
Accommodation: Atomic Inn, Beatty
Ride distance: 273Km
Riding time: 3hours 17min

The route below was our intended NVBDR track...

Additional Reading:

• Pre-Trip Prep
• Day 1: Trail or Tracks
• Day 2: Broken Pegs & The Happy Burro
• Day 3: Canyons & Craters
• Day 4: Valleys & Peaks