The Further 2-Up Adventures Of The Broken WoodsChick

Still unable to ride due to a broken shoulder, we copped a ride on our buddy Zak's (aka Slackmeyer) mighty KTM 950 for the New Years weekend. Our garage was kinda like the Motorcycle Lending Library for a few days. Thursday afternoon our buddy Mark picked up Eric's KTM LC4 640SM and took it home to Patterson. Thursday night my friend David dropped off Eric's TE610 and we reluctantly handed over his sparkly-clean Super Tenere after a week of blissful 2-up action. Friday night Zak dropped off his 950 for us and then rode away on my SM610, only to return at 6am Saturday morning to begin our long weekend together.

The plan was to leave Oakland at 6am and hook up with Mark on the LC4 down in Paso Robles. Eric was enjoying the 950 (except for the seat) and I was quite comfy and happy in the pillion spot. Things were humming along nicely...for about 30 minutes or so. Zak and the 610 started getting small in the rearview mirror and soon he was pulled over on the side of the highway. Seems that my case saver had come off and was jammed in between the chain and the foot peg...



Ironically enough, my case saver broke my case...




When Eric installed the case saver he commented on how he thought the supplied bolts were too short and he had planned on replacing them with longer ones. He never got to it.
A byway, no problem, we just threw the case saver in the tank bag and away we went.

Well, not so fast...a few minutes later Zak is on the side of the highway once again...


Dang...


What's missing in this photo?.


I'll give you a hint...


In the pre-dawn darkness we hadn't noticed that when the case saver came off it chewed up the chain pretty good. I think there were about 4 broken links on it. Again, no big deal. We got it off the highway and Eric rode back to the house to get the chain off his TE610. It didn't take them long to replace it...




We were on the road by 8:30 or so, only a few hours behind. Hard to believe I had almost 12,000 trouble-free miles on the 610...it has never let me down once...and we hadn't gotten 45 miles from home before Zak had to deal with two issues on the side of the road. Well, one issue, really, since one was the result of the other, and neither one attributable to any stock Husky part, but still...I felt bad for him. I would have felt worse had I known then that it wasn't going to be the last issue :teeth

We hooked up with Mark on the LC4 in Paso Robles, had a fine breakfast and gassed up the bikes...


We were behind schedule, but the promise of the long weekend stretched out before us. We headed south through the pea soup fog towards the Carrizo Plain to greet that promise head-on.

More on the way tomorrow...

Hey, nothing wrong with buying Huskys and riding, that's for sure! That sounds like way more fun than writing faux ride reports

We had tentatively planned on stopping in Santa Margarita and dropping off all our stuff before hitting the Plain. Our friends Bill and Monica have a place there and had generously given us the keys for the weekend. They even went so far as to tell us where the good scotch and keys to the tractor were located
Because of the delays caused by the 610 we decided to eschew stopping and instead made a rather frisky bee-line towards the Plain on the hyper-fun Hwy 58. I think it's safe to say Mark and Zak were getting comfortable on their respective loaners.
Eric and I made 4 or 5 trips down to the Carrizo Plain earlier in the year, the first one being in early January. It was stunning. Verdant green, clear blue skies...just lovely. This time, it was as if she hadn't known we were coming and just shuffled to the door to greet us in her bathrobe and curlers, cigarette in one hand and beer in the other...


Don't get me wrong...it's still one of my favorite places in all of California, and I was ecstatic to be closing out the year on New Years Eve here...but the landscape is so much more aesthetically pleasing when there is color and depth and moisture. Still and all, we had fun blasting down Elkhorn Road, thereby avoiding the dense fog that was hanging out on the western edge of the plain...


Someone must have thought it a good idea to drive a bread truck through the plain. Someone else must have thought it a good idea to tow said bread truck off the plain. Apparently this is how that idea turned out...

Mark and Zak employing a successful dust management plan...
Unable to ride myself, I'd have to say that riding pillion on the big 950 was a great substitute...



Eric was certainly getting along well with the big KTM...

And I think Zak and Mark were digging the supermoto action. They switched bikes shortly after this was taken...

With the day dramatically shortened, we decided to continue heading south to Cerro Noroeste Road through the Los padres National Forest. There was a trail there that we had bypassed last time through and we wanted to hit it up before the sun went down. This road is usually closed in winter but it's been so mild and dry this year that if felt like a late spring day...




Normally on a ride I stop and take photos of whatever looks interesting to me. I was at the mercy of Eric on this ride and he stops for nothing. Consequently, most of my photos either have the front end of the KTM or my helmet and pigtail in it. Sorry about that. Trust me, dear reader, it's much more annoying to me than it is to you. Anyway, it was beautiful up on the ridge and I did manage to get Eric to slow down enough for me to actually get a photo of the scenery...

Zak getting ready to turn down Quatal Canyon Road...

It was a beautiful time of day to be headed down the canyon, although we'd pay dearly for that fancy bit of timing a little later on...


I'm pretty sure that trail crosses the road around the next bend...
More later :-)

need more...

It was a 7602 case saver. Don't know exactly what failed, but the bolts were pretty short. I'm guessing maybe one of the bolts came loose and caused it to tear off, thereby chunking my chain. I don't know exactly... I gotta get the case welded up, too, where it broke off. I had hardly any miles on that chain and had to order another one today.

We ran into a little bit of ice on the trail, but nothing too bad. Man, it gets cold when the sun goes down, though!

There's more on the way, including some 2-up video on a trail that was slightly more than we bargained for, complete with ridiculous running commentary from yours truly

I gotta go to a "meet and eat" down at the Pacific Coast Brewery with Zak and a few ADV friends tonight. If I drink enough wine I might post up when I get home...

Aww, shucks, Muddy...I think you're just saying that because you've got a secret crush on me
Don't worry, though...I won't tell anyone!

And, yeah, the 950 is the business, for sure. Eric agrees that it is more offroad and less comfortable than the Yamaha. It's also 100lbs lighter and has more suspension travel It's a pretty sweet machine. I was totally digging it!

Yeah, it's hard to say what caused the failure. All I know is my bike is kinda chewed up from the broken chain (which had to be replaced with not very many miles on it,) I have to get some welding done on my case and my new case saver is chewed up.

Eric and I had come across a trail on this road the last time we were out here, but for some reason we didn't take it, saying we'd catch it the next time around. That "next time" was now...

It was a little rockier than I'd have preferred since I had my camera in my good hand and wasn't really able to hold on that well with my other hand...

It eventually turned into a really nice little ribbon of single track...


We were holding up the supermotos so we had to let them by...

Uh-oh...ice. Good thing it's not on the trail...
Crap...

That wasn't bad at all...

What's weird is it was a really nice day yet there was no moisture on the edges of the ice. No mud or anything...it was frozen solid...
Here's a nice little slice of comedy Please forgive my language. Also, be kind: I was using my hand-held camera, mostly using both hands to keep it steady while trying my best to maintain some semblance of contact with the bike and Eric...



The trail just kind of spilled out into a wash that went on for miles and miles...

More in a minute...

The end of our ride in the wash...








It was time to start heading north to the Carrizo Plain.
These clouds looked just like angel wings to me...









Adjusting the LC4 headlight for the long, dark and cold ride back to Santa Margarita through the Carrizo Plain...

It's 6:10pm in the waning hours of 2011 and the boys are ready to go...


We rode north on Hwy 33 and then went though the Plain.
It was pitch-dark and fuh-fuh-fuh-freezing through there! We stopped at the KCL campground to pee and thaw out a little. A few campers were cranking' out some serious campfire action and I longed to pull up a chair and the flask of scotch. It was not to be. We wanted to get back to town and find someplace to eat. It seemed like it took forever to get back to town, and Santa Margarita was buttoned up tight for the holiday when we got there. We headed down the grade...the incredibly gusty windy grade...into balmy San Luis Obispo and stopped to eat at the first place we came to, which was the Apple Farm. The food and drink was hot so I'm counting our dinner a success

We got back to our palatial digs and fired up the wood stove. I had a great time the rest of the evening, just sitting in front of the fire enjoying the company of friends and reliving the fine day we'd just experienced. We did some reminiscing about all the great times we had in 2011, and made plans to continue the trend in 2012 the next morning. Happy New Year, indeed

More to come...

These fancy shmancy media-heavy ride reports will be oh so much more fun if and when I get a new computer.

Yeah, I had a pretty good chuckle the first time I watched it I don't do much video and haven't learned to keep my mouth shut yet. Heh...like I ever will

Hey, at least I'm making the photos smaller now

It's a computer problem. My computer is so old, it can't burn DVDs. I have a Gopro camera that will be outdated before I even use the dang thing, because I don't think that the 'puter will handle video uploading. I already removed all 10,000 pictures from my computer so that they don't get stuck on it when it goes down in flames.

Sounds exactly like my computer I am absolutely smitten with my new MacBook Pro! Best thing ever!

Ssshhh...don't tell anyone! You know how uptight and jealous Eric is...



I wouldn't exactly call what we were doing "gliding" But, yeah, that thing just purrs along like a kitten. It's got some pop on the pavement, too, but it's way too easy to outride those brakes. They need to be beefier, considering the size and weight of the bike, but they work great off road.

I rolled over in bed, lifted up the floor to ceiling curtains and was greeted with the first dawn of 2012...
A few of the neighbors came over for breakfast...

Don't let the early morning sun fool you...it was freezing!

"Hey! Go grab the keys, will ya?"

While making some adjustments to the rear suspension, Zak and Eric discover a missing subframe bolt. A quick trip back down to the shop produces a bolt from Monica's XT225 that will make a fine substitute. Thanks, Monica!
Hey, look! I was there, too!
The 950 even makes the LC4 looks small...no small feat...
If you're ever lucky enough to find yourself in Santa Margarita at breakfast time, Tina's is the place to be...
The plan for the day, hatched sometime during the New Years Eve drinking the night before, I believe, was to rip out 58 and enter Pozo from the La Panza Ranch side, ride the Black Mountain Trail and go down the Stairsteps. You all remember the Stairsteps, right?...

Well, our plan was thwarted before we even got on the Black Mountain Trail. Seems there was a Hangover Hare Scrambles going on. We got to the juncture a few minutes before the 1st of hundreds of bikes came flying through. Eric and Zak waiting for the leader...

And he was hauling...

Mark figuring out his route home...

Mark took off for home and we continued on up to the High Mountain Lookout Road...




Hmm...I smell gas...