Anza Borrego

What a neat place!  Truly I can say that Anza is a gem in the SoCal area and should be on any offroader's bucket list.

Day 1:  Its about a 3 hour drive from my house to the American Legion in Borrego Springs where I spent my first night.  I was meeting my buddy, Chuck, who knows Anza and was just finishing up his own spring break trip.  He was leaving the following day so we didn't waste any time and hit the trails.

We cruised through some sand washes into the badlands and headed up to this overlook.  Make no mistake, Anza is SANDY!  We dropped back down to the road via Thimble Trail and made it back to camp just as the sun was setting.

Day 2:  We made an early morning run out to the pumpkin patch over on the Ocotillo Wells OHV area border.  Chuck didn't want to ride the KTM for fear of it leading to another toy purchase, but he was happy to pose next to his Christmas list gift idea.

From the patch, we headed out to Calcite Mine, up a fairly steep and technical trail.  My fan got a lot of use and the bike held up well to the 1st gear crawl through the uneven road.

Our next goal was Sheep Tanks - somewhere I'd seen in the guidebook but Chuck had never been to.  Unfortunately, we spent all the time we could looking for the trail but never found it before Chuck had to head back to camp to pack up and leave.

I saw Chuck off and he offered a friendly warning as he departed: "Beware the sand people, they come out at night."  Mostly thinking this was a joke, I moved my rig to a free camping area out by Coyote Canyon where I planned to spend the night.  Since it was barely lunchtime, I decided to get a head start on tomorrow's ride to explore the Coyote Canyon area.

Coyote Canyon was my most likely spot to find some water while riding this very dry area.  With temps in the low 80's, any trail near water was a worthwhile goal. 

Despite the drought, Coyote delivered with 3 water crossings, the last of which was deep enough to give my pants a good soaking which kept me cool for the next 10 minutes.

Way up near the Middle Willows turn around I ran into a Land Cruiser with one of Chuck's "Sand People."  This thing pulls up and the driver leans out to ask about the trail ahead.  I'm so bummed I didn't have my helmet cam on because my brain suddenly realized that sand people were real.  First thing I noticed was the passenger - a very attractive brunette.  I mean she was at least a solid 8/10.  Then I look at the guy driving and I'm immediately thinking he has to be a brother or kidnapper or something.  The guy is straight out of a trailer park.  Then he spoke and I almost lost it when I realized his jaw was wired shut!  "Heysh wash dish roash rike up aheadsh?"  Wow Chuck, good call.  I bid farewell to the drooler and his hot girl and finished exploring a few other side trails.

On the way back, I made a detour through town to grab some gas and stopped to snap a few touristy photo ops near the desert art pieces scattered along the main highway.

The wind was starting to pick up so I headed back to the truck.  Since I'd pretty much covered all the ground I was planning on doing the following day, I decided to move camp over to Ocotillo OHV down the road and spend the following morning looking for the elusive Sheep Tanks.  The wind continued to build with the setting of the sun and I was forced to hide out in the pickup bed as 40mph+ winds blasted sand across the camp.  Thankfully around midnight the winds finally subsided.

Day 3:  Having spent 12 hours hiding in the truck, I'd had plenty of time to study the guidebook and map and felt reasonably sure I could find Sheep Tanks.  I set off early as it was already in the mid-70's and looking to be another warm one.  I retraced the path Chuck and I had taken from the Calcite Mine and discovered the trail about 300 yards beyond where we had abandoned our search.  Whoops.

The deep sand wash became narrower as I continued upstream, until I found myself in a slot canyon riddled with large boulders, deep sand, and some very very technical ascents.  I spent a lot of that ride Flintstoning with both feet on the boulders as I babied the clutch trying to find traction.

Finally I hit a fork that I was 60% sure was the one right before Sheep Tanks.  Progress up the left fork was nearly impossible while the trail up the right fork was only marginally better.  Leaving the bike here and exploring on foot seemed like the best option.

My GPS didn't show any of these trails, so I couldn't be sure that this was even the fork I was looking for.  I concluded that if I climbed up out of the canyon I'm sure that I'd have a better idea of my location.  Lemme tell ya, scrambling up loose class 4 in motorcycle boots is no picnic!  Unfortunately at the top, I still couldn't see the tanks.  The left fork here just gets narrower and narrower.

The right fork continues from where my bike is just hidden behind that bend.

And leads up into this:

Having no definitive answers I slid back down to my bike to sit on a rock and consult my map.  I finally concluded that this must be the fork in question and, if the map was accurate, the tank couldn't be more than a quarter mile up the left fork.  I decided I'd hike for 10 minutes and then turn around.  Some 100 yards of scrambling up some really steep inclines and I finally found it!

Now I should mention at this point that its god-awful hot in this canyon and there's no wind at all.  While doing all this climbing around I kept thinking, "man if I see that thing I'm just gonna dive in!"  Reality, however, suggested that maybe swimming in this cesspool wasn't the best idea.  The area all around is littered with animal feces and the pool has an unnatural algae green to it.  It didn't look deep enough to dive into, although I do think it was deep enough to conceal a few animal carcasses just below the surface.  Adventure can't always end in cool refreshment it seems.  It was a long, hot descent back to camp, with deep sand after each of the dropoffs threatening to toss me over the bars.  

I loaded the bike up and headed down to Fish Creek, my final camp for the trip.

Day 4:  BUGS!  Ugh so many gnats and flies at this camp!  Its a shame too since otherwise it was the nicest camp I'd been at.  Riding was the only thing that kept the flies away.  Luckily the riding here was superb and the trip through split mountain yielded some of the best sights of the trip.

It was dry, it was dusty, it was buggy as all get out.  But an amazing canyon nonetheless.  The canyon continues several miles before hitting some pretty difficult terrain up into the mountains.  I was feeling pretty haggard by now and lucky to have not had any falls or mechanical break downs.  I decided that playing it safe and only exploring the flats was probably my best course. 

All in all I concluded that it was a great trip.  I would have liked it to be at least 5-10 degrees cooler, which maybe would have helped with the bug situation at Fish Creek.  My goal was to get a random sampling of some of the terrain that this area has to offer and I feel that I accomplished that.  The new bike handled wonderfully and gave me no surprises.  I'm truly looking forward to my next trip and hope that I'll have a friend to share it with and cover my ass in case something goes wrong.

The problem with blogs

No I haven't fallen off the face of the planet, nor have I abandoned this blog.  I'm just eyeball deep with school and I've had no time to ride, let alone update a silly blog about stuff that I used to get to do when I actually had free time.

The KTM hasn't seen much dirt yet, but I've gotten a few miles in on the street (mostly commuting ugh).  Sad to say I'm still working out the bugs and putting the few remaining 'must-have' mods on.  The gasket on the clutch cover had gotten sucked into the case and was pissing oil all over the engine every time I rode at higher speeds.  Took me forever to figure out where all the oil was coming from since I couldn't duplicate the leak even on a bike stand.

I slapped on a radiator fan with a manual switch to keep the temp in check and an aftermarket stator to give me some juice to play with.  

The old battery was shot and would only hold a charge for half a day after leaving overnight on the trickle charger - sneaky one Mr. Previous Owner.  I swapped it out for a Ballistic battery and saved 3-4lbs in the process.  Spent the day today hooking up my LED offroad lights and a 12v socket for the GPS.

I was a bit on the fence about my fairly ghetto mounting system for the lights.  But once I installed everything I really liked the utilitarian look of it.  Some might say the lights stand out and don't flow with the lines of the bike, I say it just looks beefy and mean.  They're the same Rigid Industries 1 spot/1 flood that I put on the XR months back.

So next week I'm off for Spring Break.  Its the 1st time I've ever actually needed a break from school and I'm desperately looking forward to it.  I've set Anza Borrego in my sights and I refuse to cancel the trip.  I've been wanting to check that place out since I moved back to California 2 years ago and this is my chance.  Hopefully the bike behaves and I have a safe and rewarding vacation.

Used bikes sure are a lot of work...

     I love the used market.  Usually you can find a bike in good shape with a lot of mods you want for less than the price of new.  That said, there are a few pitfalls.  

     So far it seems I've been pretty fortunate.  The P.O. of my 450 seems to have taken pretty good care of the bike, with a few exceptions.  First, I don't think he ever cleaned the airbox.  This is the area where your engine breathes from - wouldn't you want that to be as clean as possible?  Yeah I know there's a filter to keep out the gunk but I view air filtering as a process and not a single element.   If it wasn't then why bother with a box at all?  Why not just have an air filter clamped onto the carb intake?

   

     Second, lets clear the air about the proper uses of duct tape.  The stuff is great if you need to temporarily secure something in a dry and preferably clean environment.  The stuff turns to crap after a few weeks or almost instantly when exposed to water.  So for the love of all that is holy, spend $2 on a proper rim strip and don't use duct tape!  When I removed the rear tire and found the crusty tape rim strip I was really optimistic that this had been done in a pinch.  Busted rim strip, miles from a shop, use tape!  Unfortunately the front was the same which tells me this was most likely done intentionally.  You spent $8000 on a bike, DON'T USE DUCT TAPE ON IT!  My guess this is probably another one of those "racing tips" that makes sense on the track, but not for real world use.  Yeah if you're changing your tires before every practice or race, replacing rim strips would be a silly expense.  I can see where tape would be a good replacement.  The key factor here is that it's being replaced often enough that it doesn't have a chance to get crusty.  Some stuff that's great on the track just doesn't work off the track.  It's like brakes.  Get a set of race brake pads and you're not gonna be able to stop worth a damn when you use em on your local trail.

     So yeah I've been busy with the new ride.  I took apart most of the body work and gave everything a good cleaning.  I swapped out the almost-new MX tires for my DOT-legal MT-43 rear and a D606 front.  While I was at it, I ditched the heavy duty tubes in favor of a couple Tubeliss.  The air filter had probably been cleaned with some nasty solvent and was starting to fall apart so I replaced it with a Uni Filter.  The chain was pretty crusty so I cleaned and lubed it in an attempt to salvage it - why you'd neglect a brand new chain like that I'll never know.  It might not last too long, it was pretty caked with goo.  I also added a couple of cheap fender bags since I tend to use those for carrying day to day stuff like my helmet bag and disc and helmet locks.  I changed the oil, a practice that everyone should do immediately after buying a used bike or car - (ProTip:  Every seller says its just been changed - change it anyway).  I've got some Engine Ice and a radiator fan is on the way to help keep the temps down in traffic.  While I have it apart, I'll do the valves and see what kind of shape those are in.  Valves are a vastly different job from the XR.  I have to drain the coolant and remove the radiators to adjust them.  Worse than that, the biggest weakness of the RFS engine are its soft intake valves, so until I can replace them with some Kibblewhites, valve jobs and removing the radiators are going to be the norm.

     All in all I'm happy with the switch so far.  It feels like it has 5x the engine and twice the stopping power of the XR.  Plus its just fun to see a KTM finally in my garage.

BAM!  Mmmm that orange Kool-Aid is goo-ooo-ooooood.  My new-to-me 2007 KTM 450EXC!

Yeah okay so my last post said that this bike was my runner-up and I was gonna hold out for a 525.  That was before I talked with several riding mates (big shout out to all the guys at District-37!).  So yeah the consensus was that this looked like a clean bike for a decent price, and had some nice mods that I'd want to do right away anyway.  I found a few 525's but they weren't as nicely equiped and most seemed to be in some state of repair. 

The folks I talked to said that the 450 was plenty of power, especially coming off an XR.  Also, and this was what sold me, its not terribly expensive to change the 450 into a 525 if I ever feel the need.  The bike is pretty clean, although the plastics have some decent wear from your usual dirt spills.  They're fine for now, but I might eventually pick up a set of street plastics and keep these for off road use.

So on delivery it has: 

FMF Powercore silencer, Scotts steering stabilizer, Clarke 3.2 gallon tank, extra high cushion Enduro Engineering seat, Enduro Engineering aluminum skid plate, Baja Designs blinker/headlight control switch, Promoto kick stand, Fastway adjustable extra wide foot pegs, Z Racing tuned and jetted, Clean Racing valved tuned forks/shock. 1 ride on new Dunlop tires, heavy duty tubes.

Not too shabby!  The tires aren't DOT so those will go.  I'll swap em to Tubeliss again of course.  The previous owner ran it without mirrors usually but included the stock ones.  I put my Doubletake mirrors on as soon as I got it home.  I'll need to pick up a different ram ball mount to get them where I want but that's easy enough.  Anyway all in all a nice find and I'm excited for the new project.  Stay tuned...

SOLD!

     The XR is no more.  That was a damn good bike and I'm really hoping I didn't make a huge mistake in selling it.  I keep telling myself that I can always build another one - those XR400's aren't exactly rare, even with Ca plates.

     So now begins the dash to find a suitable KTM to replace it with.  My preference is for a 2007 525EXC, although a 450 would easily suffice, as would the same bikes in the 2004 year.  Why only those 4 bikes?  KTM made some nice upgrades to EXC line with the 2004 bikes, so I don't want anything older than that.  After January 31st 2004, California made it illegal to plate dirt bikes, so I can't go with the 05 or 06 models.  In 2007 however, these models came street legal from the factory, which is a nice selling point, plus it saves me some time of having to run registration history reports.  In 2008, KTM switched from the RFS to the R engine, a poor move from what I've read.
  
     So having a narrow search parameter can be both good and bad.  There's a nice 07 450 that has most of the mods I'd like to do already installed, but its at the top end of what I would consider a fair price and is lacking one of the major mods I'd like (a $500 oil cooler).  While I'm tempted to jump on this bike, my gut is telling me to wait a few days to see if a nice 525 pops up.  I know I don't need the extra power, but I've read that the 525 has a bit more low end grunt, which is great for those slower, more technical climbs.  Plus one of the things that I hated on my 400 was any freeway.  While it would do em, it just felt like I was buzzing my engine to death at those speeds.  Both of the KTM's have a 6 speed tranny so that should alleviate most of that issue, but while I know that the 525 will handle a freeway with relative ease, I'm not as confident about the 450.  While I don't think you should buy a dual sport based on its freeway handling characteristics, it certainly is something to consider.  Given that both bikes are almost identical except for displacement, why not get the one that has that extra go-anywhere factor?

     So that's it then.  A 2007 525EXC, unless a 450 pops up for the right money or I can't find anything else in which case I'll grab that 450 I already found and drop the extra $500 for the oil cooler.

DNF

DNF, or Did Not Finish.  That was my 1st LAB2V.  I am, of course, disappointed, but really it was as gentle of a DNF as I could possibly have.

Day 1 went well enough.  I had a flat on my front tire after only about 40 miles in.  With the Tubeliss, this just meant I lost 15 minutes while I plugged the hole and stripped off several layers of clothing as the temperature was already starting to climb.  I took it pretty easy all day, knowing that I had 280 miles to do the next morning.  Had one dismount late in the day.  No biggie, I was getting kinda lazy and didn't really notice how deep the sand berm was on the side of the trail.  I dropped off some rocks and let the bike drift into the sand and out went the front tire from under me.  Got to Barstow with plenty of daylight to spare.  All said, 215 miles, 62.7 max speed, 7h 8m moving time, 9h 39m overall time, and 30.1mph average speed.  Not too shabby considering half the route had a 30mph speed limit due to it being a desert tortoise habitat area.

Speaking of that speed limit.  I seriously felt like I was the only one actually adhering to it.  Both days I'd be cruising along at 30 and I'd have bike after bike go flying past me.  I honestly felt like I should be wearing a traffic cone on my head given what a hazard I was at that speed.  Pissed me off too.  I'd really like to do this ride with my kid in 14 years, and with all these yahoo's ignoring BLM requirements for this ride, I just don't know how they'll keep granting us access.  I kept thinking; its a flat, wide open dirt road, and 499 other riders participating in this event are just as "skilled" to ride it at 45.  The only reason I'm not is because the event organizers specifically told us that breaking this speed limit is the #1 way we're going to lose our permits next year.  Best of all, without fail I'd catch up and pass every single person that blew by me when they stopped for a break and I didn't.  5 minutes later I'd be choking on their dust again as they flew passed me - still in the tortoise area.  Dumb.

Anyway day 2 started off decent enough.  Very dusty and sandy as we rode from 1 sand wash to another.  Everything was fine and we finally got out of tortoise territory (and out of the sand washes yay!) when I had a massive blowout on my front tire.  Pulled over to find a 3/4" gash in my tire.  Well. Shit. On. Me.  I considered my options.  The tubeliss was useless.  I could try to plug the hole with multiple plugs but knew I wouldn't be able to maintain any sort of pressure for very long.  I could try a tube, but honestly with a hole that big I knew that the tube wouldn't last long.  I had just dropped out of the mountains and was only a mile or so from the 40 freeway so running a tube was likely to just get me further from rescue before it failed.  I was bummed but I called my support crew back home and told them to come get me.  I'd try to do what repairs I could and see if I could get the 38 miles back to Barstow via the road. 

Several plugs later I had a tire that actually held air better than expected.  It leaked like a sieve until about 7psi but then it slowed to a rate that actually allowed several miles between inflation stops.  I limped along like that down to Route 66 and took that back into Barstow.  Once there, I pulled into the nearest dealership and bought a new tire and got it all installed while waiting for the wife to show up with the truck.  My hope at this point was to try to drive to Sandy Valley and rejoin the ride before sweep pulled out of there at 3pm.  She arrived, we loaded up and hit the road as fast as we dared.  Unfortunately, at 3pm we were still some 30 miles from Sandy Valley.  Damn.  Not wanting to risk being stuck out in the desert at night and with no support, I decided that my day was done and I'd do the safe thing and just finish the trip to Vegas in the truck.  It wasn't an easy drive.

So yeah, I am disappoint.  But to be fair, there were several lucky aspects to my breakdown.  For starters, I didn't crash when it blew out.  Also the bike was repaired and ready to finish the ride the same day, and would have if we were 40 minutes faster.  Also, if you're going to break down on a ride like that, you have to consider yourself pretty lucky when it happens so close to a major paved road.  My support team came through for me.  Not just my wife who drove out to get me but my parents who took my kid so that we didn't have to attempt all of this with a 2 year old in tow. 

So yeah I'm thankful that it happened like it did, but still wish it hadn't happened at all.  Next year I'm hoping that the offspring will be old enough that my wife can drive the truck out to Barstow on day 1, thereby being in the area if I have an issue.  Plan A is to have things like spare tires on hand in the truck.  Plan B is to just have another bike ready to go, and I'll just swap my rider number onto that and keep going if there's an issue with bike #1.  Either way, I hope the 30th annual LAB2V is my first one to finish.

Last Minute LAB2V Work

     It's finally here!  I read about the LAB2V back in July of last year but I just couldn't gather up the funds needed to make it happen in 2011.  So for the last year or so I've been prepping my bike for longer excursions away from potential rescue.  While the LAB2V isn't exactly isolated from rescue, it is 500 off road miles over desert terrain and I really don't want to break down.  I've spent too much effort on this ride to bail out 20 miles in on day 1.
     Well since I'm planning on selling the XR after this ride, I really tried to not spend money on parts that I can't put on my next bike.  In some cases, like grip heaters and a new 18" wheel, I failed miserably.  In others, like new off road lighting and Cycra handguards I did quite well.
     Also as a side note.  I sold the DR200SE.  The wife never put the time in to learn how to ride it and so she was never comfortable with it.  I broke even so at least it was a free test to see if the dual sport bug would bite her.  Going to hang onto the money and put it towards the purchase of the KTM when somebody buys the XR.  Yep, I put it back on the market for $4500 - a pretty fair deal when you figure that's about the cost of just the aftermarket parts it has on there.  Buy the accessories, get an XR for free?  Plus this is California where a plate adds $1000 to the value of the bike.  I've seen plenty of clean but stock XR's being sold for $3000+ with a plate out here.

 

Just some overall pics of where the bike is today since I tend to swap things around a lot.

 

Couple pics of the engine bay.  Finally cleaned up the oil filter plate, plan to do the stator and clutch covers as well after the ride.

 

Finally!  Everyone raves about these Pirelli MT-43's for dual sport use.  My 19" wheel always limited me but a new wheel fixed that.

 

Only reason I snagged these Cycra Pro Bend handguards is because I plan to put them on my next bike.  Way too spendy for handguards in my opinion and they don't fit nearly as well on this bike as my Uniko's.  I just wanted the lever protection for the ride and when I swap to the KTM hydraulic clutch I'll really need to run them.  The Uniko's do a fine job for bug and gravel deflection, they just don't do anything for crashes.

 

Had to move the blinkers for the new lights.  I'm not crazy about their placement.  I found some nice LED blinkers that mount to the handguards so I'll be replacing those soon.

 

 

Rigid LED lights in spot and flood.  They're a seriously nice upgrade over the Cyclops but not DOT approved for on road use.  Another mod I'll be removing right after the ride so the wiring is all just sort of wedged behind the headlight.

 

My dash as it stands now.  Swapped the CR-High bend bars for the slightly higher Windham bend to make riding while standing more comfortable.  I mounted the switches for the 2 LED lights and the grip heater hi/low switch up here as a temporary solution.  Actually I really like them there and think that's where I'll keep em.  Very convenient location and looks good too.  You can also see my twisted strand grip heater wires which are just sort of laying across the triple.  I'm planning to completely gut the electrical in the very near future because I'm getting more and more of these semi-temporary electrical solutions.