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Holy crap!! That's not good. I'm glad you are OK.

Went to my third ADV Rally this weekend and it was epic!!! About 240 of us riders met at the Thousand Trails RV resort near Julian, CA. @Steve_Kamrad was there. Rob Dabney and @Spencer Hill were there. I wasn't dumb enough to ride with them again, lol! They had their own drama on day 1 I heard. Rode with @greedyg and Tyler Godwin this time. We had a pretty ambitious day one and did the "squeeze" followed by the drop off, steps and about 30 miles of deep sand along Fish Creek. Had a huge lunch and then did Grapevine or Jasper or something one the way back. LOTS of deep SAND! It's kind of like a scavenger hunt where you're given trail of varying levels of difficulty to ride with your team. The team with the most points wins. There were a LOT of injuries apparently which I guess is unavoidable with groups of this size. But important to remember that riding terrain like this requires you to be in good physical condition and take some lessons and practice! So for some it's about the social aspect mostly and then trying something new to get better. In our case it seemed to be just three of us who are pretty good riders wanting to cover some challenging routes and did so pretty quickly and luckily with no drama. I was proud we got through Fish Creek in three hours as it took the second place team of Meerkat Moto seven hours to do that! The terrain we did was pretty gnarly but we didn't compete for points as we missed Thursday and another team was already up like 106 points on us. Had a great time socializing with the San Diego crew with @WADE-O Potato and crew. Super nice group of people. It's all about community with them which I love. I had a meal pass but got to eat with them and loved every bite! Hopefully they'll post more of their pics shortly but you can follow event pics on Instagram by searching the #advrally hashtag.

I agree completely. That is why I did not blame Touratech for a bad product. We both know the abuse it has seen. In reality I think the shock seal probably failed and I kept hammering the crap out of it. I do like the shock and fork work ESP did better.

Hahaha I noticed when I tagged him on Instagram and noticed he had two posts from like 2 years ago hahaha. His wife was also very nice about waiting for him while he plugged my tire.

We had a seriously good time this year. Not that we didn't last year :). This is one of the things I love about this part of the motorcycle scene is how tight it feels and how great the people are. Especially when you get a flat and need a plug. Hahaha Dennis for the win.

Well, I have put about 700 miles on the Dunlop Trailmax Mission tires since the original post, and the majority of those were at the 2019 Geico Adventure Rally in Julian (Nov 7-10). I have some pics on IG (@shutterrev), including a short clip of how well they can brownout your trail buddies During the rally they were ridden edge to edge front and rear on the roads, and fared quite well on multiple levels out there on the trails. The down and dirty... (updates to my previous review) Handling, profile, cornering: Excellent street manners, you can chase down crotch rockets on your way to the trails just fine. They don't have as aggressive a fall-in while cornering as some of the other tires I have run, the front seems to have a gentler profile, just took some slight getting used to and they are fantastic on the road. Noise: None How do they work off-road?: Really well for me, I am just an Average Joe ADV rider, I will easily call these tires worthy of 50/50 title, all day, take it or leave it. I rode out to Font's Point and back which was relatively sandy the entire way with no "line" to speak of, and as long as I kept giving gas, I didn't fall on my ass, no herky-jerky feedback in the sand from the front, just pushed right through. Did Boulder Creek to the falls or whatever it's called and up to Eagle Peak, and that fap-worthy hard flat high speed dirt after that.... on the fast routes you can just riiiiiiiiiiiip, for the more technical black diamond bits, I never felt like the tires let me down. All the other blue routes we ran that had good-good dirt I think my buddies I was riding with would agree I was having too much a lot of fun browning them out with roost ripping around on these tires, the rear has such a consistent and predictable spin when grabbing throttle that you can probably get too comfortable going faster than you should be on a not knobby tire off-road. That being said I never felt like the rear or front were going to danger-level step out on me. Tire wear: Only 700 miles on the clock for these, can't tell if any tread-depth has been used at all... the fuzzys are gone though. The edges of the treads are rounded off slightly from sand, and wheel spin in dirt, but I think after I street these back and forth to work for a few weeks they will be sharpened back up. The tread didn't tear, or chunk out at all during the rally despite being used. I have high hopes for mileage on these... so stay tuned for the end of life report for this set... Sidewalls: The tread extends down the sidewall I am not an expert dirt or sand rider at all, but the tires did well in the sand I was in at my average level of sand things, I did feel more confident than I have in times past... Not sure if that's just a good day, or maybe these tires are doing something right with the extra grabby thingies on the sides. In summary, they did really well on the Rally, and continue to be great daily commute tires at the same time. We hit easy, medium, and black diamond last weekend and I was never anywhere thinking to myself "F these tires", instead I was continually surprised that they were just doing the things that needed doing for being 50/50 - If these get the miles I hope they do, I will be buying another set after these are spent. - Nick Heading home from the Rally shot:

ADV Rally was awesome again this year, and you are welcome to come down and hang or ride with the San Diego crew any time Eric, we had a blast - all the neighbors in camp were great, weather, riding, etc... all perfect. I'm ready to register for next year

If that's the shock made by Tractive I have to say it's of high quality. You have to realize that as a bigger guy on a bigger bike riding like you do (lol) there's not many shocks that can stand up to that. I got Wilbers on my old GSA and blew those out (broke at clevis) then got TFX and quickly used up the telelever shock.

Thanks! I did. I learned quickly that I could "float" on sand if I maintain speed and keep my weight back. I'm still very new to sand, but I managed to make it through that wash with 3 others on our first try. The other 8 eventually made it out of there too. It was fun in a masochistic sort of way. I still pucker when I see sand. 😄

Way to go! Couldn't help but notice all the riders down behind you. I assume you kept the revs up and the front end light and made it through that silt???? Just this one image demonstrates that you have better off road skills than 90% of the ADV riders out there. NC

vid too https://youtu.be/yN0qgI0oxi0