Post 18 Video of M&M crash

TAT-2016 Post 18 – Sunday 31 Jan 2016

Hard to believe on 22 Jan we had 7” of snow and today it was in the 70’s! We had to go riding today but more on that later.

A couple days ago Steve and Terry finally got around to replacing a broken spoke on Terry’s KLR rear wheel. I arrived later and gave moral support but didn’t have to get my hands dirty; just the way I like it. We’re still not sure which incident actually broke the spoke but the repair was straightforward and gave us good experience removing the wheel on the KLR. I’m thinking we will use that experience a lot in the future.

Yesterday I finally decided to install my speed-o-meter correction circuit I purchased several weeks ago. This is the 12oclocklabs SpeedoDRD unit that is supposed to correct your speed-o-meter especially after changing your gearing which I did when I installed the 13T front sprocket; original 14T. I had watched a YouTube video showing how to install the unit on my CRF but it was still a challenge. The problem is you must plug in the circuit between the speed sensor and the speed-o-meter. The unit has compatible plugs installed so you would think it couldn’t be that hard; IT IS on the CRF. Although the speed sensor is on top of the transmission, the plug for the sensor is up under the gas tank embedded in all the CRF’s harness. I took all the side panels off and I still could even see the plug. I then started cutting tie wraps off the harness and pulling it apart and finally could just see it but could not reach it. I finally unbolted the gas tank and pulled it up as far as the connecting lines would allow and just then I could get to the plug with needle nose pliers. I made the connection then started tying all the harness back together. I routed the circuit up under the seat and used Velcro to stick it to the seat pan for easy access in the future for adjustment. Previously I had identified the difference between my GPS and speed-o-meter during a long ride; GPS 123 miles and speed-o-meter 132.8 miles. 12oclocklabs has a calculator on their web page to compute the correction and it said I needed a -07.4% correction. The instruction on how to enter the correction on the circuit is very interesting. It is all done with a single small button and green/red Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). Today’s ride was my first test with it installed. AMAZING, my GPS odometer said 78.2 miles and my speed-o-meter was exactly the same 78.2 miles ridden today. The unit is a little pricy at around $65 but it definitely works.

In anticipation of todays group ride I finally dug my ole GoPro 1 out and charged the batteries hoping to get some video during our ride. Of the core 4 only Steve and I rode today. Dale and M&M joined us on their KTM 530’s while we were on our 250’s. After our mandatory stop at Duncan Donuts we decided to head north and check out the MX track on Hwy 89. We missed our turn and ended up at Vilonia, refueled a couple of the bikes and took a different rout back to the MX track for variety. We told Dale we took the 45 mile route to get to the MX track although it is really only 12 miles from North Little Rock.

After paying the $15 per rider fee at the MX track we were told to ride anywhere we wanted and that they had 500 acres of trails behind the MX track. What we soon found out was a lot of it was muddy and all of us had a few close calls riding the trails and hill climbs but still had a good time. My CRF made several climbs up steep hills with rocks and muddy spots with ease, I really like this bike. We finally went back to the MX track and watched the crazy young riders risk breaking their necks on the jumps. There was actually a smaller MX track that wasn’t being used so we 4 took it over and rode like we knew what we were doing. This is where I dropped my bike while trying to climb a berm without enough forward momentum. Steve had already dropped his in one of the muddy trails so I didn’t feel so bad. M&M and Dale are much younger and more into MX style riding so they were working the jumps but even M&M dropped his bike on a muddy turn. Only Dale did not drop his bike today.

We were getting our money’s worth of riding so I decided to stop and take video of the other guys with the GoPro on my handlebars. That’s when I captured M&M making a jump and landing sideways with a pretty hard crash to follow. During his roll across the ground he took a hard hit to his left hand and wrist. It soon started turning blue and swelling so we knew it was time to head home but we weren’t sure he would be able to ride his bike.

After about 30 minutes M&M decided he could just barely operate his clutch or shift without the clutch so we headed back to meet his wife who was bringing the truck and ramps to meet us halfway. We made it to our meeting spot and loaded the KTM into the truck and they headed home. We followed a short time later on our bikes. After meeting M&M at his house to unload the KTM we all split off to go home.

Summary:

1               The SpeedoDRD is great and works.

2               My GoPro is rock steady on my handlebars where it vibrated like crazy on my Harley Davidson; is that a surprise?

3               Even with 4 GPS units on the ride we still missed our turn to get to the MX track.

4               Mud means dumped bikes, guaranteed

5               If you jump a bike you must come down, hopefully on both wheels but not always.

6               Video never lies

One last thing out of todays ride. M&M and I leave on a weeklong business trip in the morning and he is my expert at a briefing I have to give on Tuesday. What do you think the chances are he will be at the airport in the morning?

I will try to upload video of M&Ms epic landing in next post.

TAT-2016 Post 17 – Sunday 17 Jan 2016

This post is a summary of the last couple of week’s activities.

1 - Post 16 described our first ride of 2016 with all 4 core TAT-2016 riders; Mike, Steve, Terry and Woodrow. The next day I rode 123 miles solo in the same general area as the day before. I wanted to meet some of my kayaking friends who were running a river 50 miles north of Little Rock. I got there just as they were getting ready to launch so had to take a lot of guff why I was riding instead of kayaking on such a beautiful day; cold but sunny. I did use my electric jacket liner and gloves today and they worked perfectly so I’m ready for cold wx riding this year. On my way back home I decided to take a look at the power line road we had passed the day before. I stopped on the pavement to evaluate the moderate climb up to the top of a small hill where the road disappeared and decided to give it a go. It looked solid enough considering the heavy rains of the last few days. I made it to the top of the hill OK but then saw a gate about 100 yards down the road with several muddy spots on the road. The ground was saturated so I decided to ride to the gate and turn around. I made it about half way and the bike decided to go a different direction; down! It happened so fast I don’t really know what caused the decent but I remember flying over the handlebars and skidding head first into the soft ground, pics below. No injury and the new hand guards protected the left side of the bike perfectly. Remember I had tested the right side the day before. I’m getting pretty good at laying this bike down.

This is when I realized that the bike was not going to be easy to get back up considering the soft ground and slippery footing. I finally got the bike back upright and that’s when I discovered that my new aluminum shift lever with the spring loaded tip was bent almost 180 degrees backwards! That spring tip did a great job protecting the lever – NOT. The bike was not going to be ridden the last 30 miles home with the shift lever like that. I actually stood on the lever and got it bent back towards the front enough to shift gears and that’s how I rode it home. While trying to get the bike to set on the kick stand so I could work on the shift lever I soon discovered the soft ground would not support the bike. I had to start the engine and walk the bike another 50 feet to semi-firm ground but still had to put a piece of wood under the kick stand to fix shift lever plus get back on the bike. Lesson learned – on both AK1 and AK2 I carried a round plastic pad (6”) to put under my kick stand on soft ground. I have to find where I stored it at home because I’m carrying it on TAT-2016 for sure.

The Tank bag had departed the bike during the fall because it is held on only by magnets. The same thing had happened earlier while meeting my kayaking friends when I rode through a gully with steep sides. I had hit the bottom with some speed so I could get up the other side and the tank bag flew off. I had to stop the bike, get the bag and had similar issue with soft ground parking the bike and getting back on. As a result of problems with my magnetic tank bag I ordered today a strap down Giant Loop Fandango Pro tank bag. More on this later.

I finally made it home with the CRF muddy, my clothes and boots muddy and even my helmet muddy. As a side note, I do a lot of things in back country or wilderness areas such as Mountain Biking, ATVs, dual-sport motorcycle riding, white water kayaking and rafting. I take my SPOT with me whenever I’m doing these activities and especially when solo like I was on this ride. I had advised my wife I would be doing some off road riding and gave her a link to my SPOT tracking web page on WWW.Spotwalla.com so If I turned up missing, she would know where to look. I highly recommend using a SPOT for adventure riding and Spotwalla is a more user friendly way to post tracking maps based on the SPOT data.

2 – It’s interesting how many friends we have that would love to go on the TAT-2016 ride with us. I had mentioned in an earlier post that one of our co-workers Dale had bought a used KTM 530 and is tentatively going to hook up on one or more of the legs of our trip. I had also mentioned that another co-worker M&M was thinking about getting a bike to join in. Well M&M just bought a used KTM 530 from a guy in Birmingham, AL and picked it up this past week-end, pic below. There are a lot of significant others (wives and girlfriends) that are not pleased with us for generating this crazy urge in their husbands/boyfriends to go riding across the country on a dual-sport.

3 – We continue to get the bikes ready for the TAT. Steve and I helped Woodrow add heated grips to his CRF a few days ago and install his Giant Loop Fandango Pro tank. I decided to get the same bag after seeing how well it worked on his CRF.

A major enhancement was that we finally sprang for bike to bike intercoms for the 4 core riders. I already owned a dual set of Sena SMH-10 intercoms I used on several large touring bikes so my wife and I could communicate on long rides. We split the cost for another dual set so all four riders would be on a common system. We have spent the last several days getting them installed in our helmets and will use them for the first time on our next ride.

4 – On Saturday 16 Jan we four rode another section of the TAT from Beebe, AR to south of I-40 close to Hazen, AR. The total ride was 137 miles with about half of it on the TAT with the rest spent riding to/from the TAT starting from Little Rock. Weather was pretty cold from med 30’s to low 40’s. We met at Dunken Donut at 0930 with temperature just above freezing. In addition to the core four, Dale was joining us on his KTM 530 but had stopped for fuel while we waited at DD drinking coffee. After a long time we started looking for Dale when he walked up without his bike. He had changed the oil the day before and while fueling up saw that the oil plug was missing (top one where oil is added). He figured he didn’t tighten it after adding oil. This put us behind schedule while we put duct tape over the hole and drove the 2 miles to Steve’s to leave Dales bike. We talked Dale into going with us but use Steve’s KLR 650 (Steve used his WR250R). Around 1030 we finally headed out with five bikes in trail.

I used this ride to try out my new Giant Loop bag and the tie down approach I planned to use. This included having it set on top of my tool bag and 1 gal RotoPax fuel container. Although it looks bulky it actually worked great. I filled the GL with rain gear and other items plus every piece of cold weather gear I had at home. I knew several of these guys would not be dressed for the cold so wanted to have extra gear if they needed some. We stopped about 10 miles up the road to see how everyone was taking the cold. Dale’s face was bright red since he had only a helmet and goggles with no face protection. He used a spare balaclava while Terry use a heavier set of gloves then we hit the road again.

Intercom – I already knew that an intercom on long rides is a fantastic addition from my AK1 and AK2 experiences. This was the first the other 3 core riders had used one and everyone was very pleased with how much it added to the ride. Syncing all 4 units is a bit of a pain and I’m sure we aren’t doing it exactly right since occasionally one or more would drop off line.

As we were nearing the end of the TAT section and crossing I-40 it was time to fuel up both the bikes and the riders since it was after lunchtime. Several of us were using our off road GPS units to follow the TAT but I also have my car GPS mounted for finding gas and food. I put in Hazen, AR and it took us down two different roads that ended with gates blocking our path. By then several of us were getting low on fuel and it had started getting colder. I was the only one carrying extra fuel but 1 gallon won’t go far for three bikes (all running low). As we entered Hazen we found fuel but rode another 10 miles to get to a place to eat; Nick’s.

Nick’s was pretty full and everyone took notice of 5 cold and fully geared up riders coming in to get warm and eat. It took two booths to hold our gear and have room for us all to set down. I have always found it interesting how strangers will start talking to riders who are obviously on some type of extended ride. This happed over and over again on AK1 & 2 and did again on this ride. Several folks talked to us as we stripped to eat asking where we were going, etc.  I guess they figured we must be crazy riding in such cold weather just for fun.

From Nick’s we still had 35 miles to get back home, the temperature was dropping and the sun had not been seen all day. Everyone was cold except me because of my electric jacket and gloves. I believe in buying the right gear rather than freezing. I used this same gear on AK1 & 2 and it saved me several times when the weather got cold and/or wet.

As we pulled into traffic in North Little Rock, Terry and I got caught at a stop light while the other three had not. When the light changed green, I gunned my bike and the next thing I know I’m doing a full wheelie across the intersection. Not exactly the perfect wheelie but I kept it under control and finally got it back down safely. The extra weight in back of RotoPax fuel, GL bag and tool bag made the front-end light and it came off the ground with not much effort. I had noticed this earlier on some of the deep gravel roads on the TAT section and is something I will have to remember in the future.

Total ride was 137 miles in around 7 hours. Weather was COLD and cloudy but no rain (40% forecasted). CRF ran great with plenty of power (remember the wheelie) and the seat was comfortable. With the new tank bag coming any day now I should be about done with all my bike mods. I will install new tires before the real start of the TAT-2016 since the stock ones are showing some wear. I have 1871 miles on my CRF; not bad since I bought it only 6 months ago and 3 months of that I had hand surgery and wore a cast. My hand feels strong with no ill effects of this past ride and the original pain is gone. BTW, Woodrow went over the 600-mile break-in for his CRF on this ride. Dale also commented that he was glad he rode the KLR because the seat of his KTM would have been painful on this long, cold ride. Dale also commented it was his first ever cold weather ride since he lives in Florida.

TAT-2016 Post 16 – Saturday 2 Jan 2016

Well it’s a new year so we had to get our first ride with all four TAT-2016 riders participating. It was forecasted to be low 30’s at 9:30 a.m. and even though there was some grumbling about starting before noon, everyone arrived at Dunkin Donuts to get fueled up for the ride. This was our first joint ride in several months due to my hand surgery. My hand was a little weaker than normal with a bit of pain using the clutch but it finally loosened up by the end of the day and feels pretty good now.

This ride was also a test of our gear and clothes for cold weather riding. By the time we hit the road around 10:30 it was still pretty cold; high 30’s. We headed out to ride back roads and gravel north of Vilonia. Total ride was almost exactly 100 miles with the GPS track provided below. We had to stop several times early in the ride to warm up and add or adjust our riding clothes. I had added an electric outlet on my CRF for my heated jacket/gloves but never even hooked them up for this ride. I have pretty good cold wx clothes so never got cold enough to need the heated gear.

This was Steve’s first ride with the TAT team on his WR250R so we were very interested how it would perform. It clearly slowed him down some compared to his KLR650 but he said he is real happy with it and the loss in top speed wasn’t a problem. Steve was trip leader today since he was the only one with the GPS track loaded. We still had to get him to slow down to 50 mph so the rest of us didn’t have to strain to keep up with him. Steve had added heated grips on his WR a couple of days ago so was hoping to have toasty hands the whole trip. He ended up having only a left warm hand and a cold right hand. Something quit working on his throttle grip heater. If he gets the bugs worked out, I might add them to my CRF.

This was the first ride for me using new boots and I quickly realized the gear shifter was too low for these heavy riding boots. I managed to shift using the edge of my boot but several times missed a shift or even down shifted by accident. Woodrow was also using new boots and had the same problem. As soon as I got home I moved my shifter up for the perfect fit.

Other than being cold most of the ride it was pretty uneventful except for one instance. We had been going down a back road and got blocked by a flooded stream. We backtracked and rode several miles around to the other side of the flooded area with the road down to the water being a steep decent. I wanted to get a joint picture by the flooded road so stopped and put down my kickstand. I could tell the slope was too much for the bike so moved it a few feet to get on a more flat place to park. Well I didn’t move it far enough and when I started to get off my bike it fell over throwing me off hitting the back of my helmet on the road. No injury except to my pride but I took a couple of pictures before picking up the bike. I had actually planned on laying the bike down (easily) to test my new hand guards plus see if I could actually pick the bike up alone with my weak hand. The answer is yes I can. This incident also tested my hand guards strength since the bike landed hard and not easy as I had planned. One picture shows the scratches to the hand guard bar.

The temperature was 57 degrees when we finished the ride so we took a short detour through some mud on our way home. No problems and everyone had a great day.

Everyone is anxious to get started on the TAT adventure and we are working picking the launch date based on several projects at work. Right now it looks like either 3^rd week in March or 2^nd week in April.

My bike is ready to go so all I need to do is pack up and go. Some of the other guys still need a few items but no showstoppers.

Time is flying!