after all these years of getting up before dawn to ride SoCal summer....in case y'all didn't know many off road folks here garage their machines for the summer here....yes they do until "desert season", meaning oct. Anyway my crew always rides 365. point of article/post latly we are doing afterwork/afternoon rides in a zone that is more mountainous so we get shadows and cool plus its @ 4k-5k ft so its cooler. Never really exploited the long days too often and when we did it was at another high dez spot that was still smoldering hot. Report well just epic from last eve got on the single track @ 5PM BTW thundershowers blasted the place 1 hour before......so needless to say the temps and trail conditions were as good as it gets around here, we had a 6 man conga line--made possible by close to zero dust. The trail boss is a solid 50A guy on a WR450 with infinite trail knowledge of the zone, P2 is our newest crew member former NETRA 40A#2 KTM350EXC, Me, PhactoryPhil on the exWelshman 300XC,Jacob(PNW/Ore)350EXC and the hero of the ride (Brit) Sam the Trials guy riding his XR650L through the gnar with trials like precision...... Pre-ride he was a little concerned and mentioned if he held us up he had his gps to track back, and WR450 Steve and I had an aside, because I talked Sam into coming along and even I was a little concerned with his fully DS OEM stock 650L, but I did tell Steve that Ive ridden with Sam on his trials bike us on bike bikes and he super well skilled---- LESSON Trials bike skills and what's possible on bike are over the top with trials training (he did fine) I think we have seen that with all the top extreme enduro guys these days. As usual our crew are mostly SoCal "immigrants"! from other states and countries, the accent differences are off the chaaaats (NETRAFred). WRSteve led us on an everything ride, grass track meadow tire wide looping 180 corners, arm scraping tight stuff,rocky nutty stuff, quad wide water break every 100 yard uphill trail that we rode silly fast and got more air due to following Mr WR and Mr NETRA than usual for me and due to impending darkness we even took the dirt road back for a few miles of really silly fast moist dirt road riding and sliding, so far that was loosest Ive ridden the 300 yet, on the pipe drifting with Steve and Fred just on the gas Baja Mil style.... Man crush wed.. like so many of you all my crew means a lot to me- good dudes all, some fotos were taken I will see if we can get em posted up.
Sam the trials guy (UK). and his trusty pedestrian DS Honda XR650L . It really is hard to explain what we just finished riding up............he is as sharp as a scalpel. and yes that is rain in SoCal
His nervous smile says a little bit anout how heavy them hondas are, am jelous fair play love views from tops of gnarly mountians, not got any proper ones in uk just some hillocks that people rave about.
I remember Chris Smith ('91 ISDE Junior Vase winning Team USA) riding all the hero sections of my club's wet DS ride, on a BMW GS100 with Bridgestone Trail Wings. Guys with full on Enduro bikes were struggling....
What a legend, rode in wales with a bloke on a super teneree 700 man that thing got places i didnt think were possible! Till it cooked his battery i shoved my kmx's one in there that thing would run without one and power lights. Got the battery back and a few beers at end of the day.
Fresh rain ride in drought conditions. I'll bet it soaked it right up and gave you back a truck load of hero dirt. Sounds like a heck of a nice ride. knowing how much you ride, for you to post up about it, it had to be cream.
gotta add after leaving that plataeu of solid granite what we rode down was double A as well not many guys even or can ride in this zone. even sams pipe is oem honda big ugly and read super heAVY
At the beginning its WR450Steve, Me and NETRAFred with visor cam. Well NETRAFred got me in all my glory.......every time we ride past that downed tree I say why didn't we just ride over it, so this time I went for it and as soon as I hit it I stalled!!! Its not even high!! then its all wet and I was high centered spinning on it just laughing at myself. PS on this ride I packed my safety glasses and took off my goggles just a little ways down the trail (I could not see anything from fog&water), the glasses were perfect all evening. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SQc7tzCWYQ#t=19
for this viddy its WRSteve, NETRAFred and me right behind with Sam the Trials Guy and Phil and Jacob back a bit further. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bel291anNdw
PS as most of you know from wide angle h cam those little canyon hills are steeper than they they look
Rob, I have ridden those trails too with my crew (MotoForza). Super impressed that a 650L could successfully navigate through there. I'm not really comfortable on my 511 at times (too heavy to manhandle) but I can make it through. It definitely puts a beating on man and machine.
doing it again this week, this time my bike should be equipped with the rekluse......for initial test
Fred posted up another one from our post rain ride evening!!! super cool WRSteve (WR450 Yam), NETRAFred (350EXC Kato) and Robertaccio (TE300) flowing on the field/grass track. Zero dust meant we were never more than 40ft apart!! soooooo much fun. As good as it gets for a summer eve SoCal ride. Note I had my goggles stowed and was wearing safety glasses it was a perfect set up. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfCiq0HUX6U
Love that trail but I gotta say the soundtrack overlay was weird. I'm more a fan of the raw vids. Anyhoo, rode the TE for the break in near said location. To say the TE300 is a cheater bike is an understatement.
