Ghetto skid plate

Riding off-road without a skid plate is risky business: a hole in your engine case means game over, and it will be very costly to repair. I haven't bothered to get one so far because I haven't done any real off-roading and have spent my money on other farkles. But having agreed to go on a trail ride with BMA club members, I figured I needed some kind of engine protection -- and quick.

This will get me by for a few weeks, until I order a proper skid plate. Sure, it's ghetto. But on today's Calabogie hyro line trail ride, its value was proven.

odo: 15,054

Re-discovering off-road riding

Late Friday afternoon, I agreed to meet a couple of BMA members for a casual dual sport ride on Saturday. Apparently, once word got out that some riders were planning to explore some trails along the hydro lines around Calabogie, some 20-odd riders showed up at the rendez-vous point in Almonte.

Riders arrive at the meeting point

We split into two groups: group A was for the wussies who were afraid to get wet and dirty, and group B was for the hardcore offroad enthusiasts. Wanting to prove something, of course, I chose group B. This group was made up of several 250cc bikes (a bunch of WRs, a KLX) plus a number of larger 650 dual sports (an XR560L, an XR650R, and 3 or 4 DR650's). I thought to myself: I should be able to keep up with these guys. There were no young punk hooligans, it seemed. In fact, most were older than me, and by and large the group appeared to be a bunch of middle-aged, beer-drinking, out-of-shape motorcyclists. Perfect.

We left the Esso in Almont and quickly got to some gravel road I've never seen before. I was able to keep up fairly well in the beginning, but when we hit the hydro lines I was struggling to hold my own. Big rocks, loose gravel, steep hills, slippery mud, swampy water holes, river crossings, and that was the easy stuff. And these guys were ripping through it all like nothing. I realized my early impression of this riding group was way off. These older, out-of-shape dirt bike bums were a deceptive bunch. And skilled.

Then the big red pig (XR650R) rider dumped his bike in the mud and sprained his wrist. And one of the DR650 riders had an unintended get off, and his luggage rack snapped (not from the crash) and lost his pelican case. At that point, those two decided to break away from the enduro speed demons and do something less intense: go for a bite to eat, coffee and some leisurely riding, group B-style. Count me in!

the start of the hydro line trails

break time

BMW's dirt gem...what a rig

As we split from the hardcore group, we ran into the group A wussies and chatted for a bit. Then, two of them decided to join us, and our new group of five ended up at the cafe in Burnstown where we enjoyed a bite to eat and chatted for a good hour. I was obviously the newcomer to this tight group, as the other four seemed to know each other quite well, but they nonetheless made me feel welcome. None of them were involved with the BMA, rather, they had just heard about the ride and showed up for the party. We had a spirited ride home on the back roads into the city. Great day! Next time, I'll need to pace myself and not bite off more than I can chew.

DR650 parking

The lone Big Red Pig

Dirt !

Well the rain has stopped after nearly a full week of louzy weather. And even better than that, I found a new dual sport riding buddy who lives nearby. We decided to explore an area a little south of the city, not far from the airport.  Turns out that my newfound KRL buddy was scouting the place out last week and found a way into the area that the locals refer to as the airport pit. It's a big maze of dirt, sand, gravel, and shale trails and pathways, big hills, little hills, trees, grassy fields, and  dense brush -- all types of riding terrain in this area that seems to be a few square kilometres in size.

We saw a number of people walking their dogs, and a handful of motocross bikes. We played around the area for a couple of hours, then we buggered off to browse around the local Kawi-BMW-Triumph dealer to finish off the afternoon. While there, we chatted with another KLR owner for a good 30 minutes or so.

The airport pit

teenager on a two-sroke RM125 ??

KLR rider we met at the dealer

Continental Twinduro TCK-80 tire wear

I've got just over a thousand hard Kilometres on the Twinduro tires, and all but about 5 of those Kms have been on the street, and most of that has been hard city riding with lots of wheelies, and almost always full throttle acceleration. I'm impressed with how these tires are holding up, considering how much abuse I've put them through in the last 6 weeks or so.

Rear tire after 1,000 Km

Front tire after 1,000 Kms - almost no wear

The rear has some visible wear, but very little. At this rate I expect to see at least 6,000 Kms from it, and more for the front tire. So far, I'm quite impressed at how they're holding up. Last summer when I bought this bike, the previous owner had just installed a brand new original equipment Trailwing on the rear --- I had that thing worn out in about a month, with about 1,500 Kms, and traction sucked. These Twinduros handle quite well on the street for a knobby, although they don't stop nearly as quickly as the Avon Distanzias when a cement truck suddenly makes a left turn right front of you. I've locked up the rear tire several times, and rather easily I might add. The Avons had great stopping grip when you grab the brakes really hard in a panic stop.

While I've only done a few short offroad Kilometres with these tires, I am very impressed with their grip. I found a trail along some hydro lines and it quickly turned swampy. I was able to plow through like a bulldozer. If these tires last as I expect they will, then I'll surely buy them again. I also hit a Kilometre or two on a dry packed dirt & gravel road and they gripped as well as any offroad tire.

Riding buddies

With the early arrival of spring this year, I've been able to go riding with a few friends already (Evan, Andrew, and now Prashant). Until this past weekend, Prashant had yet to dig his Katana out of his garage. Last Saturday morning he installed the battery but wasn't able to get the bike started. He had removed the battery last fall and stored it inside the house, charging it a few times over the winter months. He called me for help, so I went straight over to his cookie-cutter home in Suburbia (I actually got lost for a few minutes because all the homes and all the streets look the same). Fortunately, it only took a minute to discover the problem: he didn't tighten the battery terminals properly -- finger tight only! We had the engine running 30 seconds later. Then we put on our gear and went for an hour-long ride. It was sunny, but with strong gusting winds. We rode south of town for about 1/2 hour and we decided to swap bikes for the ride back from North Gower. That little Katana has an extremely smooth revving engine, and Prashant likes the instant arm-straightening thrust of torque my big single provides. We went back to Prashant's place in Barrhaven (commonly called Farrhaven by us downtown city folk) for a nice feed of home cooked curried beef and chicken. It's nice when your riding friends are back on the road.


odo: 14,560

The weather during these first few days of April has been truly and unusually spectacular. I took day off work and went riding around the Calabogie area with Evan on his 600RR. It was so great, we went back a couple of days later and Andrew joined us with his VFR. Too bad these guys don't have dual sports because I spotted some very nice fire roads in the area. Oh well, we still had lots of fun even though we never left the pavement.

Stopped for coffee and fancy pastries at this place in Burnstown on Hwy 508.

Then we stopped for pub food and beer at this place at the edge of the Mississippi River in Almonte

After a weekend of riding and covering about 500 Kms, I have come to realize that a larger gas tank is definitely in order for the DR. I've been considering a larger tank for a while but after this past week, a larger tank has now moved up a few notches on my priority list. With taller gearing (15/43 vs. 16/42 stock), the pumper carb and jetting, open airbox, K&N filter, GSXR exhaust this bike sure honks but the fuel range is downright louzy: 200 Km to reserver if I'm lucky, and that's relaxed highway riding. In the city, I might see 140 Km (that actually works out to 42 mpg hwy and 37 mpg city). With the Canadian dollar now at par with the US, you can bet I'll be ordering an IMS 4.9 gallon tank very soon.

Relocating VisionX LED auxiliary lights

Ever since I bought these awesome LED auxilary lights last year I've been trying to find the best way to mount them. I want them to be in the best position to provide maximum lighting, plus I want them to be out of the way and I want the mount to be solid.

My fist attempt was to drill out the holes for the OEM reflectors on the steel brackets that are attached to the lower triple clamp. That was OK, but not quite perfect. Then I decided to buy some special brackets from ProCycle that mount to the same location as the reflector brackets. Those were better, but still not ideal. The main problem with mounting them to the lower triple clamp is that the front fender blocks some of the light. Somewhere in there, I also tried mounting them to the front turn signal brackets: that wasn't bad, but then I didn't have a good place for my front turn signals...a catch-22 indeed.

After taking a good look at the front of the bike to examine all my possible options, it finally came to me. The aluminum hand guards are solid, they're up nice and high, and there is nothing obstructing the view (or the light that would be projected from there). So I drilled a hole in each one to mount the brackets. Problem solved. Now these awesome lights are nice and high, out of the way, aimed a little downward to light up the area directly in front of the bike without offending oncoming traffic, and the mount is very solid.

Not bad, but there's room for improvement.

More solid -- but where to put the turn signals?

OK, this is almost perfect...but the front

fender blocks a little bit of the light.

I think I finally figured this out.