Austin - Middlegate Dual Sport Ride

Finding ourselves with matching free weekends, Evan and I decided to saddle up for an early summer moto camping dual sport ride. (read about our previous trip last fall, here)

Evan had visited the Desatoya and Toiyabe mountains back in 2017, and wanted to explore some more, so that’s where we set our course.

This was only a weekend trip, but we decided to get a head start by skipping out of work early on Friday, and riding just a few miles on Friday evening before the sun went down to make it a two night trip. After a quick stop at The Lady Tamales in Carson City for a dozen pork tamales and 4 tacos, we staged at Middlegate and rode about 13 miles into the hills finding a suitable campsite just before we needed headlamps to set up tents. No pictures from Day 0 as we were focused on pulling off this Friday night plan without having to ride in the dark.

Day 0 route

Day 1

Here’s the campsite we found the previous night.



Packing up “bright and early”. Evan is usually chomping at the bit to get going by the time I even emerge from my tent.



On our short ride the previous evening, my handling felt really off. I suspected that maybe I had overtightened the steering head. Luckily our campsite came with a work stand so I could make a quick adjustment.



Not more than a few minutes into Day 1, we came to our first obstacle. The road was completely washed out, not just a little rain rut, but a good 10 foot section, with a chest high vertical wall on the opposite side.





Luckily it didn’t really derail us, we made our way into the washout, then there was an easy way up the other side just around the bend.



I kind of forgot it’s not as easy to pivot turn up a ledge on a loaded down dual sport bike carrying 5 gallons of fuel as it on a trail bike, and was rewarded with the trip’s first tip-over.



No big deal, but a sobering reminder to keep your eyes up and never let your guard down when cruising these fast desert two-track roads. This would definitely ruin your day if you smashed into it at 45mph.

Onward and upward, we found some desert wildflowers before stopping for a super scenic lunch in the Clan Alpine Mountains.







Tamale in hand, an excellent packable dual sport lunch.



Remember, Nevada is just a flat desert…





Riding across Edwards Creek Valley we started seeing tons of these huge grasshopper cricket things. Like, tons. The pictures don’t really do it justice, but in some places the road was absolutely covered in them, like they had designated road crossings.







Of course right after I took this picture it jumped at me and I screamed, much to Evan’s amusement.



Turns out these are Mormon crickets, evidently they were in swarming phase. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_cricket

The rest of the day was spent riding up and down some cool canyons, more wildflowers, some stream crossings (it has been a very wet spring) and a stop in Austin for fuel and gas station snacks.

From Austin we headed south into the Toiyabe Mountains where we found a particularly spectacular campsite.







Eating dinner at the Golden Hour.





Day 1 route



Day 2

Camping at nearly 9,000 ft, even in mid June it was a bit chilly. Evan put a little water in a pot as a tester and sure enough there was ice in it the next morning.



Heading out in the morning. We had that road along the ridge into the distance to look forward to.

Action shot of me riding through the scenery, past a half-decayed coyote caught in the barbed wire fence. A true masterpiece by Evan. Prints available.

Out of the mountains and across the river running through the valley floor.

Next up we followed this single track / game trail into a narrow canyon. We ran into a tree blocking the trail which necessitated some tricky maneuvering to turn around, drop into the creek bed, and back up the bank to the trail. Again, no problem on the lightweight trail bikes, but the bigger the bike/load, the harder this stuff becomes. These situations are why we strive to keep our loads light.

Back out of the Toiyabe Mountains, we headed South and West across Reese River Valley into the Shoshone Mountains.

Just up and down more canyons, over more mountains, looking at rocks, wildflowers, and the view.

















Lunch on another mountain top.



I stopped by to check my mail. It’s a bit inconvenient, but virtually eliminates package theft.

I don’t know anything about Geocaching, but I’m pretty sure this was a geocache.

Heading out of the Toiyabe National Forest, we continued Westward across Smith Creek Valley, and into the Desatoya Mountains and got into some single track.

I found my new summer home. Pretty sure it has hanta virus inside, so my realtor says we can low ball ‘em.

Onward and upward once again to some side-hill game trails.

The rockiest section of this trail is where my skid plate decided it had enough and bailed off. The KTM Powerparts skid plate is held on to the front of the frame with a quarter turn fastener. Super convenient for oil changes, but I’m surprised it took this many miles to finally disappear. A little trail side zip tie surgery and we were back in business.







From there we descended out of the Desatoyas, down into Edwards Creek Valley, buzzed West on Highway 50 before heading South through Eastgate and back to Middlegate via some single track over Grayback mountain.

Day 2 route



That’s all she wrote for this one. All in all an excellent short trip with some killer riding, great camping and no major disasters. 321 miles total.