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BMW's GS LC Fork Stanchion Issues Linger

I've said this previously but more recently even, BMW has been having quite a lot of social media blowback over their stanchion problems.  I first noticed this in November of last year and posted on Instagram these three images, one of which I took myself and another from the same event I was at: Now we have reports of injuries related to apparent failures of these fork stanchions: Woody Witte (of Woody's Wheel Works) in his caption to this story above he sha

Eric Hall

Eric Hall

Credibility

I try to be nice.  But I still have to be true to who I am.  I’m a market researcher by trade and we’re paid for our objectivity, accountability and transparency.  I’m paid to tell the truth whether or not that’s convenient to someone’s marketing objectives. That may be in a way how I’ve shaped XLADV.  I want this community to be real.  I really do want it to be positive though as well.  I embrace the vendor community (some say too much?) but I also have to stay true to the objectivity and

Eric Hall

Eric Hall

March Madness: A Month of Racing, Riding, and Living in a Tent

March Madness With a rough plan for the next two weeks, and a bit of optimism, I set out to race the Sandblast Rally in South Carolina and then continue down to Florida to catch bike week if all went well. The plan was to work out of my company’s Florida office and to rough it in a tent for as long as I could cut it; hopefully long enough to combine my return trip with a detour to Tennessee to catch March Moto Madness. Despite some ups and downs the stars aligned and it turned out to be qu

onewheelwheatley

onewheelwheatley

XLADV: Adventure Motorcycle Media Playa!

I wanted to share with our members a bit of a progress report on how far we've come in just two years.  It was our objective to create an online community that was all about big adventure bikes that had a user experience unique to anything else out there and I'm extremely proud that many of you have found that to be the case and have chosen to make your ADV home here with us.  Facebook is fun but it's still a mile wide and an inch deep and isn't the best place to ensure your adventures persist b

Eric Hall

Eric Hall

Slow down!

Tyler of Everide just posted a new video (see below) with some really epic scenery and riding in Maui with some perhaps more philosophical than literal discussion on "slowing down." I thought there was a lot more meat to that topic, especially for us big bike riders. Too often I see riders who ride way too fast; too fast for the conditions; too fast for their ability. I'm guilty of that sometimes myself. Speed oftentimes masks bad riding which is something I was taught by Jimmy Lewis. If y

Eric Hall

Eric Hall

Pendleton Whisky Meets Burgdorf Hotsprings

When Dave and I arrived at Burgdorf Hotsprings on Sept. 28, he announced we were going to stay the night in one of the rustic cabins. I was totally down for that as the original plan was to find a campground down the road and pitch our tent. The nights were starting to get very chilly and there had been talk of a wolf pack in the area that would howl all night. This created some eerie imagery, which a storyteller loves but I could do without wolves sniffing us out. Read more here.

ridingfullcircle

ridingfullcircle

MaGruder Corridor on the IDBDR

My right shoulder was becoming an issue on the trip, an old injury that would sear after a long day of trying to keep the bike in position amongst rocks and boulders or just around tight, dusty corners. I drank a beer and took two Tylenol with it. Recommended by doctors world-wide. Read full story here.

ridingfullcircle

ridingfullcircle

Urination Rock. A Crash—Uh—Blast From The Past.

Dave and I wanted to officially complete the few miles along the Idaho and Utah BDRs we’d missed when we first came through the year before and then again this summer on our way up from California.   And I had another mission.   I wanted to ride back along the trail just outside of Avery, Idaho where exactly a year ago I’d clipped the boulder that had caused me to break my wrist. I wanted to pee on that boulder.   Full story here.

ridingfullcircle

ridingfullcircle

The Rest of the North

Another rider came in and took the booth behind us. He told us about a time he’d organized a group ride with 43 bikes down into the U.S. and almost everyone was turned back. Three guys even had their bikes impounded. I began to think they were just victims of the U.S.’s increasingly paranoid hoop-jumping but our Tim Horton’s friend went on to say that part of that group stole a truck later and backed it into the impound yard to retrieve the bikes. Full story here.

ridingfullcircle

ridingfullcircle

McCarthy, Alaska and Kennecott Mine

We were under the impression vehicles were not allowed in town but once we started walking around, we noticed cars and trucks parked along the streets and in people’s driveways. We figured there must be another road and were left with our curiosity for the moment. For now, we had to solve an immediate problem of hunger. We found The Potato and tucked into a late lunch around 4:00 p.m. then caught a shuttle up to the mine around 5:00 p.m. We were the only two people in the van and I asked the dri

ridingfullcircle

ridingfullcircle

Valdez, Alaska

Ronetta laughed while Joseph lit the candle and we all took her photo. She seemed very happy and I swallowed a little choke in my throat thinking about this kind woman losing her husband so early in life. She told me later it was hard to see all of us working together with our partners as a team as she had done with her husband but said being around all of us was bringing her and her dogs a lot of joy and helping her heal. Read full post here.

ridingfullcircle

ridingfullcircle

The Rainy Wet Sog

If we hear rain on the tent in the morning upon waking we’re pissed, even if that very same sound lulled us to sleep the night before. It’s nice at night. It sucks in the morning. We have to pack up outside so all our stuff gets wet, the tent never dries out and unlike some road trips, we can’t escape into a warm, dry vehicle and get away from the sogginess. Weather is our travelling companion whether we like it or not. It rides right along with us, clinging to our pants legs and getting all up

ridingfullcircle

ridingfullcircle

Not Enough Toys

At various points along our trip it’s been tough on both of us to be right there in a place of the world we’ve long dreamed of being, and have no gear for playing. Our motorcycles are great toys but can only hold so much. Although we are very grateful to experience this trip from the seat of a bike, it does have its limitations when you also love hiking, climbing and ski touring and are in world-class places where you may never get another chance to be again. We felt this about not being able to

ridingfullcircle

ridingfullcircle

Testing Out The F800 On The Denali Highway

Testing Out The F800 On The Denali Highway   Blog pull: I stalled the bike and started to go over. My foot skidded out on the rocks. I had to jump off and let it fall. I swore so loud and long that swans on a nearby lake fluttered about frazzled and an old couple standing about ½ mile down the road got into their RV and quickly drove off. In a matter of days I’d have had crash bars and my bike would have been protected. Now it probably had a gaping hole in the plastic or a ding in the tank.

ridingfullcircle

ridingfullcircle

Breaking Up With My Bike

After a series of bad luck spills, break downs and financial distress, I decide to break up with my G650GS and trade it in for a younger, more handsome model with a better body and more endurance. If you know what I'm saying...   Blog pull: After the experience with my bike on the Dalton, I had a big decision to make; do I keep the Frakenbike and put thousands into fixing it up or invest in another bike? There were a few sleepless nights wondering if it was worth it. If I should just fix th

ridingfullcircle

ridingfullcircle

Midlife Crisis?

I saw this article featuring Bill Dragoo this morning and it reminded me of how offensive I find this kind of labeling that what we do with big adventure bikes is some kind of “midlife crisis.” This is a midlife crisis I was just 43 at the time, hardly mid-life, when my ex wife first saw the 2011 BMW GS Adventure I’d bought a few months earlier. “Midlife crisis!” she said, nodding her head, in a way intended to cut deep. It reminded me of this girl in the fourth grade, Susie We

Eric Hall

Eric Hall

So Were Simon Pavey and His Son Lel Racing Dakar Separately Or Together? Yes!

"That's an awesome question," answered Simon Pavey this past weekend at AltRider's Taste of Dakar where he was the signature guest.   I had posed this question last year and took a lot of heat for it. Honestly, I feel the jerk in retrospect for asking it too, but Simon was a good sport and shed some never-before-heard insight into this matter in ways that made not simple good sense but in a quite endearing way that, given the fact I have my own son of 14 years I hope to ride with one day to

Eric Hall

Eric Hall

What Makes a Grown Man Cry?

It was one of those buddy road trips to the KTM Rally in Crested Butte, CO with TG Woody Witte (Woody’s Wheel Works) recently when I found myself quite stirred to emotion when trying to convey what it is I like so much about adventure riding. Woody’s what we call a “kindred spirit” so he knew right away where I was coming from.   But before I was so stirred, I gave an intro I guess from my head which was what I always say… there are three things I like best about adventure riding. The first

Eric Hall

Eric Hall

Panamint Springs Resort.......So a guy walks into a bar.....

This is my second visit to PSR....both thanks to Mr. Hall...   I just wanted to share how awesome the team at PSR is.   The photo above is a Tiger 1200 laying down with a holed oil pan, somewhere near the bottom of Saline Valley....see the close up below of a "bash-plate-fail".   The crinkled corner of the bash plate damaged the oil pan....and hopefully not the crank case.   So....these guys roll in around 8pm ....they've had a long haul back to PSR (couple hours), and need to go

werx

werx

RawHyde California Adventure Rally in Panamint Valley, California

I dropped in on RawHyde's California Adventure Rally this weekend in Panamint Valley, CA. The camp looked like a great group of people and a nice variety of bikes. This was the first time I've rode 2-up on the dirt...needless to say I was a bit nervous.   After a couple hours of riding and getting used to the weight and getting a feel for the bike, 2-up was actually more fun than I expected.....I was planning to be a nervous wreck the entire time riding 2-up. I was able to cruise quite comfo

werx

werx

Going from an '11 BMW GSA to an '11 KTM 990 Adventure

Since we've started this project bike, the most frequent question I've been getting is "so how do you like the 990 vs the GSA?"   I can tell you it's been a lot of fun! I really like what is obviously better off-road handling and the highway comfort is not as bad as I expected (my Seat Concepts seat sure helps!). While I love my GSA too, I can't say that I'm missing it that much yet.   There are a few interesting surprises though that I didn't expect. For example, I thought the 990 was l

Eric Hall

Eric Hall

LD Comfort – a performance base layer designed for riders, by a fellow rider

From Gerald Massey: LD Comfort – a performance base layer designed for riders, by a fellow rider http://ldcomfort.com/ Mario Winkelman likes to ride his motorcycle. I’m not talking about bar-hopping or making a few runs to Starbucks, but rather Iron Butt-class runs spanning thousands of miles over a few days. Like many of us Mario found that at times he was suffering from a pain in the ass… so to speak. So Mario hooked up with a friend in the garment business and fo

PNWTenere

PNWTenere

Rider Selection: Don't Be "That Guy"

I'm getting ready to do the IDBDR later this week. One guy I've ridden with before and one I haven't. They guy I haven't ridden with before has ridden with other guys I have ridden with and he seems like a great guy so I'm not sweating it. But this got me thinking how important rider selection can be, especially for a big trip like this.   Think about it, you invest lots of money in new gear, farkles, etc..., not to mention time off work and away from family/loved ones. The last thing you ne

Eric Hall

Eric Hall

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