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So like I mentioned here, the BAJA RALLY™ is now on the schedule for me to race! I've wanted to do it for nearly three years now but didn't have the budget. I'd missed a recent nav class and decided to let it go another year. But I spoke with Señor Scotty last night and he wants to make it happen. So I will still pit for @NavyNuke in our XLADV effort to tame Vegas to Reno and then our pit crew will also have the opportunity to crew for my efforts at the BAJA RALLY™. I was going to go to the Baja Rally anyways to cover it for XLADV. I figure why not race it if I can? So why not do both? Well budget mostly but also there's a decent chance I'd need significant repairs after V2R and would have to do that in time. Plus, I need to train for just one. I don't have the deep well of racing experience it would take to do both essentially back to back. So I have a lot of work to do. I need to register. I need to attend a nav class in Baja in July. Bike prep, etc... This year the rally is October 9-14 and typically goes five days from Ensenada south to Cataviña and back but the course always changes and this may not be the same way as in years past. It's rally raid meaning there's navigation, roll chart, etc... and none of the racers know the course. Our t shirts we're selling will have the BAJA RALLY™ added and those will be used to raise money for both these races. The pit crew shirts won't change.

Picked her up today at Honda!

You guys like sand? I can show you where it is in Mammoth... Or how 'bout rocks? Or flat out graded fire roads? Its all for the taking at this event. Not to mention all the raffle prizes and benefiting a great cause in Lost For Reason!

XLADV is the big bike version of ThumperTalk and they have a store. I figure why shouldn't we? I'll be putting together some ideas and wanted to get your feedback for the store. We obviously have our XLADV stickers (2/$5) and Beyond Starbucks stickers ($5) and soon (Jul 17) we'll have the Team XLADV race t-shirts to sell but I have bigger plans. I'm talking with a friend with years of experience in the motorcycle apparel market and knows all the factories and the design process, etc... He's made a lot of stuff you would know. The jacket would be probably the most functional jacket out there but sort of an "Un-Jacket" in that it's not going to have shiny bright logos all over it. I think riders have grown tired of being rolling billboards for apparel makers and want something not just un-branded, but something they themselves can even customize with their own club (PNW Riders, GS Giants, SoCal DualSport, etc...) patches. Not a price point of $400+ but perhaps $250. Also talking with a make of soft panniers for something rugged, versatile and functional. And of course I'm sure we can drop-ship any number of tire makes we have a good history with already (Motoz, Shinko) that will give us good coverage for the 50/50, 60/40 and 70/30 segments. Also considering carrying a line of tents and sleeping bags. Thoughts?...

Honda's decided that they'd prefer I had more experience with their Africa Twin so they're providing me a bike to test out for a while. I'm very honored by this and want to thank you the XLADV members for making this such a vibrant community for big adventure bike riders. Honda is also an amazing motorcycle manufacturer and even with their traditional conservative risk-avoidance culture went out on a limb to resurrect a bike for the adventure market that many of us have been clamoring for for years. Their sales seem to indicate the bike's been a hit and I'm sure is the reason why KTM brought their 1090R out as well as Yamaha's new T7 concept and KTM's "790" concept. No idea yet whether it will be DCT or standard transmission or even the color. My guess is that it's a fleet bike they've used for journalist demo's. They typically loan them out for about a month. I will bring this one to High Sierra. My only real preference is that it comes with knobbies! Obviously it will be fun to get a feel for this bike and be able to compare it with the two bikes I have the most experience with; the BMW GSA 1200 and the KTM 990. I will take care to be fair in comparing it with my relatively heavily modded 990 not to say anything like "well it's no 990." The DCT will be fun to explore should I get that model. I'm also going to want to experience for myself if there are any issues with the bike that we've heard about. Honda of course will say these are "isolated incidents" and things they've never had pop up in any of their demo bikes which may in fact be the case (they usually are unless you're BMW this year). I'm going to do some homework on the bike so that I can fully understand how it works and what it's designed to to really well. This is one review I thought stood out well on the AT done by Jimmy Lewis at dirtbiketest.com

I made a 2 part video to help people better understand just who AltRider is as a company and who they want you to be. Part 2 will be out tomorrow around 8pm est.

Browsing through the site and noticing I haven't properly introduced myself. So the basics are this, I am a 26-year old rider from Belgium. I started riding when I was 16 with a Derbi Senda SDR 50cc and then when I passed for my motorcycle license on my 18th birthday I started riding with a Cagiva Raptor 650cc. Did my first travel and trackdays with this strong fella and then I switched to bigger sportsbikes, Suzuki GSXR, Yamaha ZX6R and an Aprilia RSV Mille in the end. When I met my husband at a French track in 2012 my goals took another horizon. He had an R1100GS that was so suited for travel, that after some offroadtrips (soft-gravel) I decided to trade in my GSX600R for a BMW F650GS Dakar. We did minor offroad at first, going to Norway with it etc. And from then on I got carried away on the "adventure" part of life. I got an R1100GS last year myself and that was one of the best decisions in my life. At the moment I am planning a bigger project that involves all the XL Adventure Bikes, trust me, it will be exciting but I will post more of that later. For the rest, look up my posts to see and read more about all my bike shizzle... Greetz Jessica

Eric thanks for the post. You mention some really good points, thanks. Before I ramble on: PikiPiki_Overland_Blog " Take a look at an account's ratio of followers/post. We are at 12.9 " " Try following someone! I absolutely detest some of these celebrity riders who have tens of thousands of followers yet follow less than 50 themselves! &%$#@! do you think you are? " This is one thing that is quite important to me and tells so much about people. Social media is exactly what it says, Social, and by that it means to me follow others and try and engage on their post and be social, be part of the community of people. Why else are they posting? It's to tell the world a bit about themselves. The prima donna posters who only has a hand full of people they follow I rather pass on them, surely it's not to much to spend a bit of time to follow others and comment on their post or at least just like it? Same goes for the celebs, I rather avoid them. There are a few people who get products to use and gather a huge following but does not follow others or engage and it just end up leaving me with a bit of spammy taste in the mouth. Then the brands who has thousands of followers but never engage with their customers, tells em a bit about their business attitude and mentality. There are so many normal people with cool pages I would rather follow than waste time on the me, myself and I Not everybody is as skilled with photography and video to make Steven Spielberg clips and have brand catalogue type photos to show, but it is still interesting to see what they are up to. And to go dig a bit and find the ones with the cool trips that does not have internet all day to post but their stories are really cool. Many of the cool people we have met so far travelling was due to social media. I see many people still don't really understand the etiquette behind sharing photos. They think by posting a photo the rights are given away and it's a free for all and businesses to use to make money from. Sharing a photo is just part of being courteous and showing respect to the person who took the photo. I don't think people want to make money from it but it's just the recognition. The copy and paste sites like DualSportDelinquents and the one you mentioned are either oblivious on what they do or they don't give a damn. Sites as WhyWeRide actually makes money of their movie. But then use normal people's photos to gain exposure so that they can make money and they never add credits to the people for it. Surely that's not fair?

Let’s share femme-friendly techniques, tools and hacks for working on and around bikes, because she can do anything he can do, right? When it comes to know-how? Sure! What about the plain old brute force strength that occasionally seems to be required with moto-maintenance? Hmmm… I’m a fairly new rider - I’m celebrating the 4th anniversary of buying my first bike in about a week - but in these 4 years, I’ve put 70,000+ miles on my Transalp throughout North and South America. For me, understanding the mechanics of my bike and learning how to work on her has made me a better rider. I’m not sure if it’s because the more I learn, the better I understand how to manipulate my machine while I’m on her… Or maybe it’s just another component of building confidence around motorcycles… The knowledge that, if necessary, I’ll be able to self-rescue is HUGELY rewarding. I’ve been really fortunate that the men I ride/have ridden with have been really supportive of helping me to increase my technical know-how. Sometimes, this is relatively pain-free for them But sometimes, when I’m stuck on something and insist on not having any help, it can require a massive amount of patience (the above tire change, rear and front, took HOURS)… Advice is easy to find - post a photo like this on social media, and you’ll get dozens of “Try this!,” “You’re doing this wrong!” comments… many of which are useless if you’re 5’4” and under 120lbs. I understand it can be hard for someone who is a foot taller than me, has 50-75 pounds of muscle on me and has been working on bikes for YEARS to understand that methods that work for HIM might not work for me. So I wanted to start up a thread where we (both men and women) can share femme-friendly techniques, tools and hacks for working on and around bikes... Like the hack below... I’ve found that my GoGirl is actually much easier to use as an oil funnel than for it’s intended purpose I have a few other tidbits I’ve picked up along the way and made short videos of that I’ll share when I have better internet, but for now, please throw in your two cents and let’s help one another out!

There are also hills with foul language

I figured I'd post this for people to understand what to expect on an organized tour as well as what will be expected from you. A friend of mine from Facebook post this unfortunate story, written by another friend, of how she went on this motorcycle tour and nearly died and goes to to assign blame to the tour operator. My comment was "trial by Facebook?" The point being that we've only heard one side of the story. And of course there were tons comments falling on either side of the argument but I was pleased to see I wasn't the only one skeptical. I was able to find the other side of the story you can read here. Read them both and then I'd like to know which side you think better reflects the truth. The theme of this story is about disclosing medical issues but I can go into many others I've seen on group rides, organized or not. I did once do a trip to Baja with a guy who not only could barely ride a motorcycle off-road but had some kind of serious medical condition that required him to bring a special IV bag just in case he had to be hospitalized in an emergency (if is ailment flared up). Once we saw all that we told him he should probably go home but he opted to follow us via the pavement. There was another rider I heard about out of a local dealer where they'd planned to ride the Mohave Trail (bad idea on big bikes like the 1200 GS/GSA) in hot weather and one of the guys has a heart condition he didn't disclose then ends up dying of a heart attack on the trip. I've also been on trips where the other riders just aren't honest about their ability. One particular trip I did we had this guy who was beginner level for an intermediate trip. The really frustrating part though was that he wouldn't take direction or he'd do it correctly once but not again! He was as bad a rider on the last day as he was on the first. That was really frustrating. On another trip I had a rider get mad at me because I didn't allow them to do a certain section of the route and asked them to take the highway for that section. Then a bit later in the day I suggested they ride with us and then the rider got mad at me because it was above their level! Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

https://www.asphaltandrubber.com/recall/bmw-motorrad-usa-stop-sale-recall-bmw-r1200gs-adventure/

its totally doable. Lots of ride reports from guys who have NEVER rode desert, or very limited trail riding experience. Its desert racing, just need to find your pace, race your own race, and have a bit of luck. some stuff you just cant predict....weird stuff. First year I tried to race it was going to be on a KX500. 2 other KX500s were racing, neither finished. One snapped a peg off the frame (how do you prep for that?) and the other split 2 pipes and eventually cooked the motor. Having a scavenge bike handy to pull parts is a huge plus for all the weird stuff. You never expect to have to swap things like calipers, forks, triples, subframes, etc but you will be amazed at how many people do and how many people could have finished if they had that odd ball spare.

Let's just say the over 500 lb club is well represented. Almost exclusively big bike. Although this one blurs that line better than most...

I'd be down to help chase, train, wrench, ride with when I can. Ive wanted to do this for almost 8 years now. Done a lot of research, but either partners bailed, bike issues, or just bad timing with life. Its actually a fairly good "moderate" event. Its a relatively flat and high speed course. It can be chased with 1 vehicle and out side of rawhide, you can drive a minivan to each pit. Max distance between pits over the years has been about 70 miles max, but average about 50. You dont have to worry traps, medical emergencies out of the country, and its affordable. Train for the heat. Everything becomes harder in the heat. Almost as bad as altitude. One of those things where the only way to train for it is to immerse yourself in it. Ive got the XRR now and its on the list to do one of these years. You want race training in sand, whoops, and high speed, get out to a district 38 race. They average about 100 miles each race out in superstition. Its all about high speed sections out there. You dont have to necessarily maintain high speeds, but it mentally trains you to maintain a speed your body can sustain, even though a dry lake bed is screaming to you to do 100 mph. I'd love to help where I can.

i wanted to update this once in a while, hope u like it

I left yesterday, hopefully out of Beatty and over 3k feet by the time the heat starts to build. More photos fro. Tech etc in a bit

Here it is: the new Tractionator Adventure II or "mark two." Motoz didn't tell me exactly what they did or why. We all suspect the overwhelming feedback on the first gen tire was that it wobbles and weaves too much on pavement. Looking at the more rounded crown tells me that's exactly what they've attempted to address here. The first one seemed to rely too much on the center strip of knobs on pavement and that just wasn't enough surface area to stabilize the bike. This rounded crown now tells me that it's going to settle quite nicely and give it proper big bike manners rather than the small bike knobby weave. Motoz did say they view this mark two version as actually even better off road too. I will test it out on this new Africa Twin that Honda is allowing me to play with for about six weeks and report back.

Part 2. We are here to party.

This year BMW will do their GS Trophy competition for women too (finally). There some fantastic lady riders out there too! I am lucky to know a few of them. Here are a few video submissions

250 miles over the weekend, now for final prep. Just a few little things to do and one bigger project.

Race number o57. Total mileage 539 miles. Getting excited

Hey, new member from Parkland County Alberta, member of AlbertaDualSport. My wife and I are new to bikes after all this time and will not try to explain why... I've got an '08 KLR and my wife is on an '05 Super Sherpa. Action shot from me on a ride around Rocky Mountain House Alberta on the cut lines from yesterday. Super stoked about more like this as I gain experience on 2 wheels. Cheers, Matt.

If this guy can seal a screen door on a boat, it should work for your Zippers! Maybe Klim should use this. ~insert sarcasm~

Where I would love to regale you with tales of amazing offroad adventures, river crossings, defeated mud and sand I can't...if you've even looked at a weather channel in the last few weeks you've seen we are in the wrong side of the country at the wrong time for off-road adventure to do at the level we wanted. In two works 'IT SUCKS'nothing else for it but to race from place to place, avoid rain clouds that cover whole states and dump for days on end. In turn, it has been the case to wait on a new GPS as the rain destroyed my ever faithful Garmin Montana after over 200,000 miles of riding and now I fear my new DSLR may be going the same way.Before we even rode mile one we had an agreement that if it was a Sunday we would ride into Manhatten as Egle has never been, it's all too familiar to me as I used to work out of Hells Kitchen for a while in the mid 90's...so Gotham on the horizon, here we comeWe stopped to pay out respects at the 9/11 memorial in NJEven Adventure Minion looks happy about our direction and the very rare blue sky outside the city...and then down on Wall St.It was a quick ride thru the big apple just as an experience and boy did we get some stares riding in full MX gear among a sea of yellow cabsA check of the weather leaving NY stopped our plans of heading to Long Island to see friends and hours of riding in the rain so we diverted to VT instead to see other friends for a day which turned into 5 (thx @VTbeemer and Julie) you guys were amazing in more ways than we can ever thank you for and that stop may well keep this RTW on the road for a very, very long time as talk turned from bikes to investments and fingers crossed a very good one was made.In between working deals, tires were changed and the amazing Metzeler mc360 mid-hard bought for JUST riding dirt managed 5200 miles with only 1000 miles of dirt, you honestly might want to consider it, we'll be running them again for the TCAT and hopefully all dirt, we can't wait to see the result.A few miles after crossing the NH state line and 'oh snap'This cut short our clear day and dirt options thru New England on a Saturday afternoon with every bike shop in the area closed until Tuesday. With a mishmash of chain parts from my tool kit and an ATV mechanic we found in his garage we pieced it together but with confidence waning we decided the better part of valor was pavement just incase the fix unfixed itself!We had an invite from @Peculierboy in Bar Harbor but he was heading out of town, we met in the middle of Maine and he told us he left the door open for us and to let ourselves in. This ADV community is amazing and so are you, Steve and Jane.so a little chill out on the island to sit and wait for new chain and sprockets to arriveDown time and brass era cars at the Seal Cove Auto Museum were a good option to see some amazing vehicles from the past and learn a few things, and opinions My new Garmin arrived but can you imagine if you were navigating the world with the first 'GPS'?Stopping one afternoon an old man approached us asked us where we are headed - we told him "RTW but firstly Newfoundland then across Canada on dirt roads to the west coast and hopefully, the weather will improve".Like a messiah he looked up at the sky and said, "for you and only you I predict fair skies and following winds, your riding will be great from here on out!" and walked away before we could respond.We'll see I thought...so it's goodbye 'Merica for a while and hello Canada tomorrow...

Quick set of photos of the install I did of 1 x water and 1 x gasoline Rotopax packs (1 gallon each) underneath the OEM panniers of my 1200 GSA for my 6 month trip next year in USA + Canada. The reason for mounting them this way was to keep the weight as low as possible on the bike (the packs will not necessarily always be full in any event) and to avoid them getting in my way. So far, I have had no issues while riding, even on very tight and/or very curvy roads. In case of a fall, both panniers have been reinforced to be able to take the additional strain. Although I don't necessarily expect them to survive a more severe crash on asphalt. Rotopax are heavy duty. So no, I am not too worried about falls when off-road, or even on-road to a certain extent. And don't expect to go up in flames either. Should one Rotopax end up being damaged enough, I will simply replace it So here goes. 2 aluminium plaques were cut out to reinforce the bottom of the panniers. And were installed on the inside. Holes were drilled in the plaques to be able to access the rivets at the bottom of the panniers. Aluminium spacers were also cut out, to be fixed on the outside of the panniers. The black plastic corners on the panniers would have caused the packs to rest on them and therefore put more stress on the pack mount and especially the screw used to tighten them. Didn't mind drilling holes in the panniers. Which were never waterproof to start off with anyway ^^ And turn into swimming pools whenever it rains. And no, I was not unlucky with this set of panniers. I have another set with exactly the same problem (even drilled holes at the bottom of each pannier of the 2nd set to help evacuate the water). Pack mount and spacer mounted. View from inside the pannier. The pack mount, spacer and inner aluminium plaques are all held and tightened together. Everything can be removed in a matter of minutes. Gasoline Rotopax on. Water and gasoline Rotopax on. They are centered underneath the panniers and do not stick out from them. No chance of the right one ever touching the final drive either.

I did a tour about four years ago with BoliviaMotors in Bolivia for two weeks on an XR650 that was a LOT of fun. This time it looks like I'm going to go back down to South America but this time with Epico Moto Adventures. Dennis Godwin and Chad Warner did a tour with Ricardo Congote of EpiCo about six months back(?) and they cannot stop talking about what an amazing time they had. I'm still trying to get Dennis to put his ride report up here so you can all see it. Apparently they rode each day until about 4:00 or so and ended with some kind of activity whether it be horseback riding, zip line, bungee jump or whatever. I think I'll pass on the bungee jumping! They have top notch rental bikes too: Yamaha Super Tenere 1200; Yamaha Tenere 660, KLR 650, BMW F800 GS. The trip I'm doing is called "Untamed Colombia" and will be November 2-15. I will document the whole thing via photo and video which is why I could use YOUR help! If you have a Sena comm (or are willing to get one) please come join me so we can do this together! Colombia is very peaceful (much more civilized than Bolivia) and has extremely nice people living there, great food, beautiful scenery (if you know what I mean), etc...

Just using the brace over the jacket (rear strut in the rear pocket provided: Tried folding the collar like in the booklet It;s ugly but I guess it works. Still battle to get the tabs over the NB wings nice and securely

Signed up for the Rally, Will be making the trip down from Portland, OR.

Show of your goodies in this topic ladies! What do you ride, do you name your bike, what adjustments did you do to it, tell us all about your favorite Big Bike ! I'll start with my BMW F 650 GS Dakar, named Grasshopper I started offroadriding with the BMW F 650 GS Dakar. In the beginning all went fine because we only did modest or soft offroad with our big bikes. But then we took an offroadtraining with it, my husband with his BMW R1100GS and I with the Dakar. It went to fast hardcore for me, and I couldn't keep up. There was a patch of dirt that no matter how I tried, I was not able to get through it. I probably fell 25 times in that one patch of dirt and lost all my selfconfidence that day. The instructor drove me to the asphalt and after getting my bike back, he kinda stated that I did not had what it took to ride offroad with big bikes. I should go with the cross or lightweight models to pitch up with my husband. This really got into my head and I almost got to the point where I was going to say : I am NEVER riding offroad in my life again. Luckily my husband doesn't take no for an answer, and he got me back on the Dakar, trained me, pushed me and got me to the point where I am now. Ever since the offroading with the Dakar slighty improved, my hopes and dreams only got bigger. I silently dreamt of my own R1100GS and when my husband let me ride with his 1100 during an offroadride, I did not want to give it back to him. ;-) In october I bought my own flat twin GS. Hyperion is a R1100GS from 1994 and had 147 000 km on it when I bought it. I have full confidence in that he will take me everywhere to see the world and explore what our earth has to show. He had Wilbers suspension front and back and a set of R1150GS Panniers and pannierrack attached. They are my first pannierset ever and I do like this. I don't ride the car, so I had to do groceries with my backpack before, so the panniers are heaven. I can even bring more than 1 bottle of wine with me at a time ;-)... So, this is him when he first got home. I know he doesn't look like much, but he is mine, and I love every inch of it. And this is us, during our first modest offroadride.

We arrived in Santa Fe after a little CDR action to meet @D-Train (Dusty) he and his partner Paul (not me, but what a great name ) started a new training and touring company called West38moto. We had arranged for El to do a little training and me to take some photos and then join them on a short tour from SF to OX. If you do any training you know the first thing they always want you to do is to be able to pick up your bike, a DR is too easy, what you really need to pick up is a fully loaded GSA!!! Dusty is a fun guy and motivates all the students really well, always smiling and laughing but teaching fundamentals at the same time. I won't go into detail about what the training entails, you can contact them to find out, just need to say a good coach to student ratio and at the end, some riders who struggled at every challenge became very accomplished in unique off-road situations If Alpha Basecamp is not your thing, then this might be...andwaaayyyyyy cheaper The cool thing about the training location in Santa Fe, it was in an abandoned gold mine, an amazing location for sure see the riders over the far side? leaving the gold mine to find some sand to play in a few miles away Dusty showed the way on street tires ...and someone liked riding sand and mastered it with ease and that kinda looks like this... other riders not so much... training done, we headed out, destination OX, there were just a few of us going. I have a certain dislike of riding in groups, my last two group rides include a leg busted into about 50 pieces and a kidnapping, so needless to say I kept my distance and just shot photos of the group We covered a few sections of the NMBDR on graded roads and in the woods and the first few days out with the group were great with the highlight being a massive fire wild camping at around 6000' from the fire the night before I find a bizarre photo on my new camera that I guess it decided to take itself when inadvertently I'd turned it on, set it on timed release, hit the shutter and moved it all at the same time...I have a learning curve with this new Pentax bear with me!!! but I guess we were getting transported to more fun riding, around the fire over a little too much alcohol we came up with a slogan for W38M (that probably won't be used) - We'll come up with shit...and it'll be awesome!!! The next morning was a slow start, not surprisingly. Up and walking around it appeared we were at an impromptu Mosko Moto convention, between us we had almost every piece of luggage they make the next few days we a mix of dirt and pavement and a ride around the Mogollon Rim where one of the NY'rs with us had very little travel experience in true NY style described the view as - "a total eye &%$#@!!" We arrived at OX and the motorcycle section was totally detached from the rest of the event and at times it appeared like a ghost town, but at the end of the weekend I was talking to one of the organizers and she said they have plans to integrate the bikes with everyone else which is a good thing as a separate unit I doubt many vendors would return. For me, it was a few shots in strong HDR to keep my interest peaked, of some of the vendors to let you know how it looks and how about this for a very rare (food) truck in these parts...anyone? For us, OX was a chance to meet up with friends and talk about rides to come which I'll cover in the next post as it's the real reason we actually came, for us, it's a starting point of sorts that I'll detail.... for us Overland Expo is a start point, a few weeks back I changed the title to add ..."on as much dirt as possible". The reason for this is - back in December 2016 we applied to create a new Guinness World Record As Dusty had changed the name of his company and was in the process of starting a new company we decided to use OX as our new start point, I have messaged Guinness more than a few times to let them know what we are doing but they are the least responsive corporation out there. They claim that they will respond in 12 weeks or less, well its now been 161 days or 23 weeks and absolutely zero communication from them from multiple emails from me. ...but regardless we continue... So why do this? Well over time I have had more than a few requests for a photography book, I thought why not put a few things together. A good North American loop of dirt tracks in the US and Canada that most anyone could access from approximately 500 miles from their front door. Full GPX tracks of the route, a book and maybe a Kickstarter to help the project. I have spent over two years collecting tracks and trying to make them join up into a fun ride. But I am getting way ahead of myself here, in reality, it's just a ride to go and find dirt, cool views and take some photos and maybe meet a few inmates along the way, I am just putting this here as additional documented proof to Guinness about my communication attempts, and their lack of response. The last thing I would like to happen is to have to use the same line Austin Vince did at the end of Mondo Enduro!!! The first 5 days of the ride almost singlehandedly looked like the complete opposite of what we had planned and detailed to do above. We left OX to head to 4 corners area to start hitting dirt but instead, we hit high winds, snow, blizzards and torrential rain instead, Days that we expected to have highs in the 80's and 90's were in the 40's and 50's with nightly lows all below freezing. A stop in a BLM office in Utah and a long talk with a ranger told me that virtually all the areas we had planned to go were either snowing, snow drifts in place, flash floods or mud and washouts. Where we planned to be riding 90%+ of dirt we only made 11.2% or 79.8 miles of 708 miles covered...damn!!! But when life gives you lemons...this has to be one of the most scenic areas of the country so it was great to show Egle some amazing sights via pavement. Canyon de Chelly - She stood there amazed and when she did turn around proclaimed "this is where freedom lives" at the bottom of the canyon are some of the original dwellings Then onto Monument Valley and we finished the day in the Valley of the Gods after a short stop at Goosenecks as the sun was setting The next morning even thought we had a brief blue sky temps were around freezing, but a little dirt to play on fine snow was falling as we climbed Moki Dugway and there is a bike in that photo... From the top of the Moki Dugway, we headed to Halls Crossing to take the ferry to Bullfrog to ride the Burr Trail (a little dirt) the elevation was lower so the snow turned to torrential rain and the captain of the ferry was debating about cancelling the ferry due to the severe condition, luckily for us he didn't. We ended up after drying off in a gas station for 3 hours then finding a place to wild camp on the Burr Trail in the saturated sticky red mud, the following morning in theday light we got to see where we picked The blue sky only lasted a short time then the temps dropped again and we had snow at 5000' as we left the switchbacks our first 4 days looked like this, we saw awesome scenery but we need to find more dirt!!!

Looks like I'm IN! Riding from Santa Barbara area with my route still open and unplanned. Can't wait!

Here's the details on the 4.5 X Flow Jacket from Leatt: Super Vented, X-Flow Mesh Off-Road Jacket The lighter off-road jacket, the GPX 4.5 is made of a lightweight shell as well as front and rear panels made of X-Flow mesh material, and a Spandura stretch panel on sides of jacket enables comfortable movement. Its neck collar was made specifically for your neck brace to be worn over the collar, to go around your neck brace, the neck brace to be covered by the collar, or to be worn without a neck brace. It is also designed to be worn with or without your body armor. It has pre-curved, zip-off arms and for added protection the elbows are reinforced with brush guard, an ultra-thin flex film that is feather-light and increases scratch and abrasion resistance properties of the jacket’s base material. And then specs on the 5.5 Body Armor: Optimal Hard Shell Body Protector with 3DF AirFit Impact Foam The hard shell 5.5 Body Protector offers chest, back, elbow, shoulder and flank protection. CE tested and certified, it scores a total of 25 points in the Leatt protection rating system. The maximum level of full-body protection that we offer riders currently, the 5.5 is the ideal piece of safety gear for any rider. It has a 3D multi-layer, multi-plate articulating design that proves to be comfortable as well as ventilated with 53 ventilation slots. Premium hard shell protection integrated with 3D AirFit soft impact foam, the protector will conform to your body’s shape, yet the soft foam will harden immediately when subjected to impact, protecting you during a crash. The hard shell areas are made of made of high density poly ethylene (HDPE) for high impact or stone deflection. A new feature is that it has a mesh base layer as well as new anti-odor MoistureCool and AirMesh wicking fabrics. It is also compatible with Leatt neck braces.

They are dramatically different. The GSA will do a lot... if you bulk it up (and lighten your wallet). I had a 21" front wheel and suspension from TFX that made it handle pretty well but still not close to the 990 off road. Of course the GSA was better on the highway but I did a 14 day trip to Idaho and back and really had no complaints of the 990 on the road. The GSA just doesn't represent the kind of off road capabilities I want in a big bike. I do miss it but if I still had it would reserve for touring, two up and very light off road. We had a garage feature here on the forum before the switch to the upgraded software and we expect to get that back eventually but I have the GSA in my "garage" and you can see all the stuff I added to it to get it off road-worthy. Actually, I made a video that has nearly 64k views: I also wrote a blog article about it here

Stay tuned I will be sharing here and I am sure Eric will as well.....

I think both the ADV and the Dual Sport community has a lot of things to gain in this endeavor which is what prompted my idea and I believe Eric's as well. I have thought about doing this race for several years but I have recently formed No Limit Dual Sport and part of my reason for creating the brand is to break the dual sport stigma that dual sport riders only ride the "easy stuff, roads, etc." but as the readers of this forum know this is not the case. We ride EVERYTHING! thats the difference so showing we can compete in an event like this I suspect will be an eye opener. I will be blogging my efforts both over on my site and I will post here is Eric will allow. Competing with multiple bikes/teams will only help in my opinion.... To those who wish to ride and would like some help let me know I have some resources to help with prep, logistics, etc

The new rear showed up yesterday so I took some time to install the new sprocket (45 tooth vs stock 42) and the new Galfer floating rotors. I forgot to put the new brake pads on but I may just wait until the old ones wear out. $$ I went ahead and ordered a new front sprocket as well (17 tooth oem) from Rocky Mountain ATV with the $10 gift card I got from LAB2V. With free shipping it was just $17! Wanna see?

I recently moved from beautiful BC, Canada back to my home state NY after an 18 year leave. Adjusting has been weird living in the USA no less living on LI...FLAT. I traded my '13 F800GS in for a '15 1200GSW and loving every bit of this new machine. Have over 1300 miles on her after 3 weeks of ownership. Got my Pro settings added after my 600 mile service and HOLY there is a big difference in the riding modes. Took her off road, really easy off road at the TT rally a week or so back. She did great. I now have a full set of Jesse Luggage and AltRider protection. She looks great, is protected and now all I need to do is head off of LI and find places where people do not go. I have been riding my whole life but on the road since 2008. Too many bikes I have been through before I found the GS family in 2010. "10 F650GS my intro, '13 F800 step up and crazy good off road and now my '15 1200 because I have a passenger and although she will share in my ADV world I will continue to do solo long distance trips like I hve in the past. So, that's it. Looking forward to this forum and reading as well as sharing stories.

I live just a few blocks north of the 49th Parallel,which gives us access to some amazing scenery,mountains and lakes abound both here in B.C and Washington State. we are the gateway to Alaska with both pavement rides and countless numbers of off road miles, you can actually ride off the highway north almost to the northern BC border if you have the urge to go to Alaska via a little different path. ride safe ,ride often!

Ken's feeling tired. He's drank enough but maybe not enough food. Not too hot here luckily. Trophy trucks just came through pit 6. #maga Saw 556baller and gf Tiff Met some cute girl racers too! [emoji7]

*nods regally from my pedestal* ;-)

Just don't follow @bruinjon up the lower Dunderberg rd. At least not if I'm sweeping! The OHV area north of Mammoth and west of 395 is spectacular and very doable on a big bike. @Cam McConnelland I spent hours over there just racing each other around up and down the hills and thru the trees. https://a.rever.co/rides/203533

YAAAAAY Dominique ❤ I finally figured out that I can't use this site very well on my phone.....but works perfectly with the laptop! And YESSSSSSSS.......can't wait for you to start your adventure and follow along. Even if you aren't coming close to me.....I will ride out to meet up with you somewhere 🏍

somewhat predictable. quality going down. service going down. and customer service... ranges from lousy to non-existent (at least for a few of the Touracket stores i dealt with over here in europe). and with the competition they have nowadays... finished are the gool old days when they enjoyed some sort of a monopoly.

I carry a HUGE mother of a wrench! It helps to create an extension to any other tool I have to loosen anything I don't have enough grip strength for. Because let's face it, guys like to tighten everything stupidly tight and when you need to loosen it you don't have the grip strength for it and that's uber annoying!!!! I also once used it to threaten a dodgy stranger that was getting a little too close :-P

I think there's more than one dimension to why this is such a great looking bike. One is of course that it's a classic. But another is that it represents what BMW used to stand for, which was real off road capabilities. Not the 600 lb street bikes with knobbies they've become. This bike is light, has 21/18" wheels and REAL front forks; not a telelever. This is what we want BMW to make NOW. The closest thing to that was the HP2 which was fraught with its own set of problems (weak frame, small tank, clown like rear shock and $20+k price tag). I happen to think there's a market for a ~900cc boxer platform where they could make a series of these bikes for both street and off road. But it will never happen. Because... scarf boy.

hi rob. just noticed the distinctive design of the front mudguard. very similar to the marlboro rooftop design of the packs ^^ and the color scheme.

Wow, You kids and your new-fangled boots. These things were good enough for Roger DeCoster, Tony DiStefano and Bob Hannah back in the day. Still being used by the likes of "Feets" Minert, Jody Wiesel and others. No longer being made, mine are 2012 models with about 30,000 US miles. Probably go with Sidi or Gaerne when they finally give up the ghost, but that will be a sad day for me. I, like Jody have broken my ankles many times necessitating a boot with abundant free-moving ankles and the good old Super Victories fit the bill nicely. I've got other Moto boots but none that I will willingly wear out into the middle of the desert like my Hi-Points, I've hiked for MILES in these and they are so sprung and broken down they don't feel much different than sneakers with the exception of the weight and the soles. And their propensity for leaving nice deep scratches in my gas tank's finish. But enough of that. Eric what is the deal with t-shirts? Get me a 2XL and a couple of reflective stickers to help fund the effort. Can't quite afford a pit shirt what with my personal finances at an all-time low but I'm definitely in for at least 50.00 right away.

I've actually considered those, but then I slapped myself in the face. Why would anyone powder coat solid gold parts black?

I'm getting use to the Jacket, it works if your temps and climate vary. The desert where I live can swing the temps by 40 degrees or more. Jacket works for that scenario, but if its a afternoon day trip the jacket can be overkill. The Goldpoint trip we did is a perfect example, dry hot sections, long snow covered sections, cold in the shadows, and hot in the sun. All day, zippers up, zippers down, zippers up, zippers down... In a nut shell, if you have ever froze, and sweated you ass off on the same ride, consider a enduro jacket.