Dakota Dual Sport Riders

Depends on my next assignment. Hoping to get closer.
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Day 3 in LaSal

OK, decided to do White Rim trail.  Really don't want to do all those miles, but it's an Iconic trail - bucket list type place.

I get up a little early to do some lite bike tiding and prepping.  Oil the the chain;  the broken weld on the right guard should be fine for the day;  load up my tail bag  ......  what is that high-RPM-hesitation I bumped into last night?  Maybe I should check the air filter.  NASTY - it is clogged bad!

Out comes the filter but there's a big tear in it.  Crap, game over - I go to announce this to my riding buddies - no WRT today.  Scott overhears the discussing and talks about going old school and put a stocking over the busted up filter.  It makes sense; lets do it.  I wolf down some breakfast then run out to the shop to clean the broken filter and fashion a pre-filter something to go over it.  I put some mineral spirits in a tray - as soon as that filter got litely kneaded, it dissenegrates to nothing.

As this has been going on, Scott has sauntered out and has been digging around corners of his shop.  He takes one look at those foam parts that were a filter and says I'm screwed.  He digs up a WR250R filter as says this is all he can find - probably won't work.  I play with it around my filter basket frame  and - dang - I think it could work.  Shapes are somewhat different but it's not bad!  A couple of minutes oiling and greasing that filter and then install it on the 640.

We're off! - a little later than hoped. 

We slab it hard to the North side of Moab and then fill up with gas.  Husky guy has borrowed 2-1 quart bottles - he's thinking his range is 130ish.  We head up Potash road and then Schafer trail to check in.  From the Ranger station, we head North another 7-10 miles and then start the WRT in a counter-clockwise direction. 

So, the WRT is cool.  More scenic on the South side than the North.  There is a fair amount of traffic on it from mountain bikers to 4x4's to people heading down the river with canoes.  To beat yourself through it in 1 day, you don't get to stop and see the variety of vistas and land-scapes.  So pretty much, we just flogged ourselves through a 120-140 trail of rocks, curves, and dust with random others who had the WRT on their bucket list.  No good stories to tell.  No good wipe-outs.  A couple of Dick drivers - but we ran across some nice people to make up the difference.

We popped back out at the upper side of Moab about 5:15.  Husky guy ran out of gas 3 miles from the gas station.  We laid his bike down on the left side  to get all the gas out of the Right wing.  It made it to the station.  One quick beer stop and then we slabbed it hard South to LaSal. 

Arrived at 3-steps 6:31pm - 1 minute past the ringing of the supper bell.  I needed a shower.  The food will probably stay warm for a while

I have to work so won't be able to make it, catch ya next time.

Friday came and the usual group dynamics kicked in ..........   who to ride with, where to ride, can they ride, yada ....  yada .... yada

Went out east with 3 others towards Island Mesa.  Tiger 800 from Denver, Short dude on a KTM500 from CA, and Husky 350 from WY, and me on the 640.  It actually turned out to be a pretty cohesive group with similar riding styles.   Island Mesa is a high desert area with some scenery.  A lot of rocks, and a gnarly downhill that smoked my rear brake - Nothing.  It wasn't there.  Threw some water on it to cool it down and got a lot more intentional about using my front brake for the rest of the descent. 

Scenery was OK, but I like the stuff westward towards the river a bit more.   Made it back to camp after about 3 hours and debated our next journey.  I was pushing for Lockhart canyon BUT as we put some numbers/timing to that route, we decided we'd only have a hour  of trail time.  Nix'd that idea.  Per Scott's suggestion, went to a Riding area about 15 miles away to the NW.

This riding area was fun!  Just random trails that wove around 1 or 2 scenic mesa's.  Most of the trails were in rough shape and 1/2 washed out.  Slower pickings on the big bike and wishing the Princess was there.  We rode until someone pulled the "I'm flogged and tired card".  We turned around and went down all the stupid stuff we'd just come up .......   That's when my front-end washed out and I got to use my head as a cushion.  Bike was OK - good boots and knee pads were also a plus for this particular "Off".  Somehow got my foot pinned and knee twisted during event.

On the next big descent, Husky guy had his bike fly off trail and down into a tree - That was better than 10' on either side of the tree because that would have been WAY down into the ravine and we'd have been lifting that bike outta there into the night.  While waiting for the Husky situation to resolve, I bent the left side of my Hepco tank guard back into place and noticed that my right guard had a broken mount/weld.

Finally got down into the valley and slabbed it back to 3-Step.  On the way back, running it at 75 or 80, I noticed some super lite hesitation/lurching.  Whatever, not in the mood to think about it for now.  Made it back in time for a shower and great Pork-Chop dinner.

There's some push for a White-Rim-Ride tomorrow.  Hmmmmm...   That would be a 260/270 mile day and I've sworn not to go over 200 miles or 8 hours because it just gets painful.

We'll see. 

RTWPaul spent time as a chopper builder if my memory serves me correctly.

He had a 12 S10 and many of his mods I did to mine. He road that S10 for quite some time with a girlfriend.
He's a talented ride report writer.