Total Motorcycle Community Forums

March 13th, 2006.

So, yesterday was the Big Day. I type Big Day with capitals, cause well, it was. First (real) ride of the season. About half a week ago i finished the work on my bike (carburetor rebuild, rear brake, still need to do front brake, chain, sprockets) and rode around the yard in a relatively small area for a good 30 minutes, practicing circles and trying to wheelie. Unfortunately, wet ground and bald (by knobbie standards) tires, i just did a lot of wheel spinning, especially with that new +3 tooth sprocket in back. Really glad I got that thing too.

Note to self: Put in new shoes on front brake and put the right side plastic on. I kinda forgot that too. Whoops.

Well, anyway, i suited up. Tossed on my Tourmaster jacker and my Joe Rocket pants, both of which are meant for street bikes. But who cares, they both did their job on this particular ride. I also grabbed my helmet and boots, which unlike my jacket and pants, are meant for the dirt. Forgot my gloves in my room so i just used my mechanic's gloves that were sitting on the table in the stall where my bike is kept.

After gassing up, I push it out of the barn, flip the petcock to "ON" and kicked it over. Niiiiiice, started 2nd kick. Adjusted the idle mixture screw a little high so it could warm for a bit while i put my gloves and helmet on. Lowered the idle back down to normal, clutched in, shifted to first, and took off. Well, into the yard anyway. Few laps around the driveway and I pulled out into the street, pinned the throttle, and shifted through 2nd then 3rd. bout 20 seconds to the trail, click down twice on the shift, and pull into the trail. At first, it was fine, then i hit the snow/ice. Melted snow, that decided to semi freeze, covered parts of the trail. So much for opening the bike up.

The ride was all nice and dandy (for about 1/4 mile) then i got to the first of the water. Small stream, frozen on the sides, about 5 inches deep with a good 3 inches of ice on top. What a pain in the "O Ring" that was to get over. After a little exploration of the first couple off shoots of the trail, I decided to head to the river. At one point, i misjudged the length of a stick pointing into the trail at chest height and BAM catches me in the chest. Caught for a couple seconds, then snapped. I'm willing to bet my bike it would've been a lot worse without that jacket on. A few more tricky spots and i made it. Well, here's where the trail splits and follows the river, and smart me, i take a left and go over the semi frozen mud with roots and ruts. Well, i TRIED to stay in the middle, but that back tire decided it needed to be in a rut and the ice really helped it. And WHAM, I'm on the ground. CE rated foam armor in your knee helps, trust me on this. After a few minutes i make it to the land that's posted. Rode through that a little until i found a good spot to turn around. Get back to the split and go the other direction. Then out of no where it opens into a nice mud/ice fire road. Though couldn't really go much past 2nd gear cause it was getting way too squirrelly for my tastes. Though once it gets warm out, it'll be a nice run. Eventually, i get to the end of the fire road to the paved road, turn around, and head back.

After another “my back wheel decides to go one direction while my front wheel is going another” mishap, resulting in my bike dropping on my foot, ow. I think it's time for some new boots, my current ones are creased permanently at the ankles. Then there was the mishap when i hit the front brake, it did nothing, and my front wheel hits a wet branch that's crooked across the trail. Again, i like armor. A lot. Especially when the FRONT wheel decides to say to itself “hey, I'm going go go over HERE instead of where I'm SUPPOSED to go.”

Well, i got back to the entrance, quick jaunt down the paved road, back into the driveway. Hosed the mud off the bike, and put it away. I was covered in mud, exhausted, and ready for a nap (did i mention i left at 9:30 AM?). Get inside, change, and fall asleep. Didn't wake up until 10 that night. Though i blame this on my complete and total lack of sleep the night before. Damn World Of Warcraft... Anyways, I'm defiantly looking forward to when the trails thaw out and dry up, it'll be a better ride then.

Props man, many guy's would have just shivered, went back inside and poured another Jack's. You would love SA, year round riding, did I mention my Daughter is looking for a boy friend

sapaul wrote:Props man, many guy's would have just shivered, went back inside and poured another Jack's. You would love SA, year round riding, did I mention my Daughter is looking for a boy friend

HAHA yes, you have. And if she looks anything like her mother, I wanna come by.

Though even without that... incentive, I've been feeling like selling everything I own and and leaving this area... Hey, how's the job market in SA?

March 21. 2006

Well, as I woke up this morning, I looked outside and well, went back to sleep. 6 AM was way to early. Fast forward another 4 hours and I'm out in the barn, tweaking the front brake. Take it into the yard, viola! It works right again. Grab the helmet and my mechanic's gloves and ride back and forth across the yard/drive way trying to wheelie for about 20 minutes. I got a few good ones in, along with scaring the "poo poo" out of myself. At this point I think 'okay, it's warmed up [the bike] time to take it for a ride'. BUUUT my step-mom has other plans for me. "Before you go across the street again, talk to the people that live next to the trail and get the OK from them" "Sure thing" I yell as I pull out into the road and start slamming through gears. Now in fourth gear and ALMOST on top of the driveway, probably doing 35-40, so I panic stop and turn in. Rats, no one home but the dog. Who is barking at me. And kinda intimidating, so I stand still and let it sniff me before turning my back to it and walking away. Pull out into the road to ride back to the house. As I clicked to second UP the front wheel goes but luckily, it was just a little hop and settles down. More practice, tight circles this time.

Anyway, about 30 minutes later, I see the neighbor pull into his driveway so I give chase. Talk to him for a few minutes, nice fellow, name of Todd. Rides a quad and a Harley Night Train or some such. And of course his kid is getting bored so he's riding his bike around (the kid's 7, on a huffy-esque bike) and just wipes out in front of us. "Oh hey, I've done that a few times..." ANYWAY, I go back home, get the proper riding gear on (sans pants, I was lazy) and take off down the road and hit the trail.

A lot of the snow that was on the trail last ride is gone. BUT a lot of the ice has a sheen of water on it. One such stretch I got too “OH "poo poo"”. I'm telling yah, it looked graceful when I fell. Figure Falling I call it. Got the bike up, left it off, and push/fell the bike to dry ground. Dealt with that stream from hell (mentioned last entry) without as much problems and motored on. I'd like to interject on the story at this point to mention that it's 25 degrees out. Okay, back to the story. Make it down to the river, hang a right and follow the shitty access road down to the main road about 1 mile away. Now, along this access road, there are a bunch of offshoots of smaller, large ATV or Jeep sized trails. None of which are maintained very well, perfect for an enduro. Decided to go OFF the trail, and found the only unfrozen mud in the forest. And it was so thick I had to PULL the bike out. That sucked. At this point I'm beat, so I take off the gear, find a tree to relieve myself on, and take a minute break.

Get back in the saddle, and go back to the path I was on and keep going. Come across a semi-clearing, thinking I see a path on the other side, I cut through it. In this clearing, there were some nice big rocks, so I pretended to have a trials bike for a few minutes and turned around. Eventually, the path came out just after the Stream From Hell (which is easier heading out of the woods, which I was). I got myself to the road, flew down the road to my house, and put the bike away.

Ahhh... Good ride. My step-mom asked me if I had fun when I got in. I replied “yes and no. But if I hated it, I wouldn't be doing it”. Went to my room, played a game for a couple hours, and now here I am.

March 28, 2006
So there it was, about 1 PM and i'm on the bike, letting it warm up. Get going, realize my rear tire is a tad low, so i go home, fill it up and leave again. FYI, i lost the stem valve cover.

Okay, that's done, back to the ride. Not as many details today. But there was a LOT of mud. At one point I got stuck and had to pull the bike out of about a foot of mud. NO SNOW ON THE GROUND!!!! At lest that i saw. I took the long, easier way to the mud/dirt/access road (that's where i got stuck too. Heaven forbid we have a forest fire now, there's no way a fire truck would make it more than an half mile.)

I found a nice field at one point, but it was surrounded by electric fence, so no luck there. I THINK it belongs to this old guy down the road that bought the field so no one would build across from him. I guess he owns like 50+ square acres AROUND his house, all wooded except for that field. I think he mentioned something to dad about him being okay to hunt there if he comes down and asks, may be worth looking into (for riding).

ANYWHO I took some after pics. Unfourtunatly, the ride home shook a lot of the mud off
PS - The bike was fairly clean before I went out, as were my boots.

EDIT: A cautionary note. Easy on the brakes in the woods with that much mud around. A hill is liable to give way and go california on you. Though only for a few feet. Trust me on this, I almost dumped the bike a few times when it happened.

March 29, 2006
Bit from another thread:

GeoffXR200R wrote:LOL i'm fine. The back protector did (somewhat) it's job and it was rather slow hitting it. Basically, i was going to go up this 4 foot hump to go around this tree, and i TRIED to click down to one. But it hit neutral. And over i went DOWN the hill. So, about 4 ft up, the bike tips ove the wrong way, i hit the ground on my left side/chest and right against the tree. The biggest pain in the "O Ring" was lifting the bike back up

Other than that, ride was the same as yesterday, straight down to getting stuck in the mud.

Also, my friend Dan HAD to bring up the fact that his girlfriend just got a new (used) bike. Upgraded from a Rebel 250 to an older sportster. And after i got done oogling at her in the picture *cough* some things about the bike started clicking together.

Made me want to make a cafe racer type bike out of a sportster 1200.
Some things off the top of my head to do:
-Lower the front
-Stifen the front forks (if possible)
-Jack up the preload on the back (if possible)
-Looow bars, almost clip on style with out actually running clip-ons
--Flip the top tripple tree so the bar clamps are underneath (if possible; wasn't there a member that did this on his bike?)
-Dual rear exit exhaust so that foward exhaust pipe doesn't have to hang as low
-New seat; firmer
-Upgrade brakes where I can
-Jet carb
-Depending on age/condition do rebuilds on various systems

Basically, I'd want to make the seating position as "extreme" as you could get a sportster, and do your most basic performance mods.[/quote]

Hope this isn't hijacking your blog, but I've always thought that Sportsters in this form were the sweetests. the original XR's were dirt racers.

Here's a cool one in my flavor!



So it can never be said I don't love a Harley, or that I would never own one. These are sweet.

YES! That's awsome, that's clost to what i want to do. Or rather, form one after that. Awsome pics, thanks.

woot woot, I got me a job!

And no, this isn't an april fools joke, like my "Oh shoot" thread.

PS - Sev had it called within 10 mins of me posting it. Very tricky sev

April 19, 2006
So, that job I mentioned previously. It's pretty good. I work for J&S Oil, a small gas station/home heating company in the greater Augusta and surrounding area. 7 stores, 10 trucks (tankers, etc) but a really good place to work. Hell of a lot nice than my last job, even if I'm physically spent after each day. Basically, I wake up at noon, at work for 2pm, out at 10:15pm, home by 10:45pm, sleeping by 1am. That's been my life for about a week, but it's getting me out and I'm finally intereacting with people. Which is a BIG change from shutting myself in my room like I've been doing the past 3 motnths.

The store manager is pretty cool, 2nd shift lead guy is awsome to work with, the attendants i work with are cool, and the 1st and 3rd shift guys are cool, despite not interacting with them too much. But I'm getting transfered to another store, the plus side of that is that I'll only be driving 5 mins to get to work now, instead of 15. Oh well.

The BAD news is that I've only hopped on the XR ONCE since my last ride report. ONCE! And that was all of 20 mins tops. But hopefully that will all change in the next few months when I get rid of the 200R for the 650L. That reminds me, there's this AWSOME looking hill I'm DYING to climb on the XR next to where i work.