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Bagstr

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Everything posted by Bagstr

  1. That road is tricky because of all the rain channels and many tight turns. For me, not a place to carry a lot of speed. As my eyes aged (71), seeing clearly the details became a problem. Note that the injury sight is in the shade. Transitions, I.e. in and out of shade at speed became a crap shoot. The good news is that there is help available. After three eye surgeries, the details have returned and my riding has improved. Plus, I feel much more in control. Bagstr, On the Trail.
  2. In the Spirit of holiday Giving, here is a quality radio that has the option of operating on the analog band and the digital band fairly seamlessly. Quality equipment. waterproof at a $125 price point when on sale. Listens to incoming and instantly transfers to FM or C4FM signal. Also consider the Yaesu 270R analog https://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProducts&ProdCatID=111&encProdID=87CE6C1FF54D5BBCA7F39179AB3B1511&DivisionID=65&isArchived=0 https://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProducts&ProdCatID=111&encProdID=7CDB93B02164B1FB036530FBD7D37F1A&DivisionID=65&isArchived=0
  3. Bagstr

    Greetings from Alaska.

    Offroadocotillo.com No personal experience. Web search of Ocotillo Wells (not the town of Ocotillo) show ATV MC and Razor Rentals. 30 minutes from Borrego Springs, CA. Good Luck
  4. Glad you are back on the trail. ๐Ÿ’ช
  5. Bagstr

    Borrego 150

    A serious adventure. Thanks for the report. ๐Ÿ‘€
  6. Bagstr

    Let Us Do a Radio Comm Thread

    And just as a reminder, Why do we need radio comms? A. We donโ€™t want to loose anyone out on the ride. B. We want to be Johnny of the spot if a rider goes down. C. The comms allow the ride to Flow smoothly and efficiently. Especially in adverse conditions, I.e. Dust, traffic or different preferred pace. D. Finally, If you are the only rider without comm, what position does that put the others in? They have to waste valuable brainpower looking out for you. E. Essentially, you are out with group because you would like to know what they have to say.
  7. Bagstr

    Let Us Do a Radio Comm Thread

    Thanks for the work Mr. Amgems. Good advice regarding the PTTs. Those are the most difficult to fit properly.
  8. Bagstr

    Let Us Do a Radio Comm Thread

    Amgems, No Worky
  9. Bagstr

    Let Us Do a Radio Comm Thread

    Pickiing Up on this thread,,, Zub, I thought you were contacting PMB for intel. Rugged Radio or PCI are sources for quality Comm gear. Noise cancelling microphone, military grade cabling and better ear speakers and ear buds. I find the earbuds work better for my hearing audio spectrum. As noted above, a pull down face shield makes for less volume needed and better quality output to your team. I am to only member of my team that uses Yaesu as they are Cheap. I just appreciate quality. Boa fang or whatever Amazon garbage that is current gets the job done for most riders. All this is for straight comm only. I donโ€™t mix music or phone calls with riding. The sand is hard enough without picking up a call. For that talk to PMB or others qualified to speak to it. ๐Ÿšถโ€โ™‚๏ธ
  10. Call Scott and chat. Go with a buddy or two, it gets remote really fast. Also, do not overlook the Abajo Mtns nearby. National Forest stuff 10k plus which affects when you go.
  11. Reminds me of guys I have seen sand washes. ๐Ÿšถโ€โ™‚๏ธ
  12. Bagstr

    Bow Willow

    ๐Ÿ‘€ ๐Ÿญ. ๐Ÿ˜Ž Congratulations on completion of the course. Look forward to seeing you on the trail. ๐Ÿšถโ€โ™‚๏ธ
  13. Bagstr

    Bow Willow

    In deed, There is. Much to see in the Park, from the legal two track. ๐Ÿ‘€
  14. Bagstr

    Bow Willow

    Bow Willow camp has very nice Hiking Trails.
  15. You Know,,, Try to keep him outta traffic on pavement. Being 71 and two eye surgeries in, I know of which he speaks. Geezs, take him down to a sand wash. I only ride rural neighborhoods on the street. No crazy streets. ๐Ÿคท๐Ÿผโ€โ™‚๏ธ
  16. Bagstr

    Renegade

    Diablo uphill will be Level 3 on anything larger than a Trials bike. Rather moguled by the 4 wheeler dudes at the moment.
  17. Thanks Goofy Footer for sharing Juanโ€™s nicely done review. Randy M and I stayed there a before the pandemic and had a wonderful time. Full service with gobs of character. Scott and Julie a very accommodating and flexible to meet all your needs. The place reminds me of Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. You meet folks from around the country and around the world. All with none of the distractions of a town commercial district. Very much recommended
  18. Five Hundo, Is about a decent days travel,,,,in my truck. ๐Ÿ’โ€โ™‚๏ธ Like any bike ride, the luxury of checking out for that period of time is why we do it. I checked the mileage to Flagstaff, 478. About 8 hrs with stops for me. After that the reactions tend to ossify. Re: The class. Formal training is time well spent. Other people see what you donโ€™t which gives you a better perspective.
  19. Five Hundo Days, That is funny. ๐Ÿ˜ฌ
  20. The Day in Anza Borrego South ( Carrizo Wash South Dec. 18 ) turned out to be a productive day setting up the bike's suspension. I had it pretty close to good, but I learned some good limits and how to get the best feel for my needs. George at Suspension 101 in Alpine got me set up with the correct springs back when I first got the bike. Since then he has done good work servicing the units and giving advice. The clickers were always straight forward and I have been comfortable with that for awhile. The Turning Feel has been the Holy Grail. Again, I have had it close but being unschooled with the finer elements I knew there was more to being the best it could be. Jimmy Lewis always says these KTMs are tunable, well then let's tune the thing. George advised me to get the Rider Sag to 112mm for my PDS '16, so that is where I have been. The manual gives a range of 105-115mm. Turns out That is a really big change in feel on the bike. I will give my feeling about the forks later. KTM gives no hint of what's going on there. With George's springs for my weight and the clickers, the bike tracks well and controlled in a straight line. I used the South Carrizo Road as the Test Facility as it has a nice mix of tight sandy turns and open DG type uneven straights. About 3 miles, I would guess one way. My technique was to systematically run up and back the same track with various settings and compare results. Run one @ 112 mm Rider Sag - Run two @ one full turn of the spring compression ring less R. Sag - Run Three @ one full turn more compression from the 112mm. After Santa visits, I will have one of those fancy sag measuring devices. At that time I will report back. To me the measurement is secondary to the actual feel when riding. The starting point of 112mm was pretty good in that I felt comfortable with the front end stability and could carve a controlled line. Still,,, I was feeling a little push wide or inside dive in some conditions. It's just a feel thing, I really didn't know if it could be better.Run two the rear sag was one full turn softer.and I immediately felt a more lazy unresponsive turn character. Stable but slow. So back the other way for Run Three with one full turn more compression from the 112mm starting point. Now the character was hyper sharp and fast reaction. Maybe appropriate for a track, but not the Dual Sport riding I do. The feel was not comfortable enough for me, nervous. The shock adjustment ring has 12 lobes for a complete turn. easy to figure 1/2 and quarter turns. The forth Run, I backed the compression off to 6 lobes or one half turn more compression from the starting 112mm. Each of these adjustments resulted in noticeable change in the feel. run four produced an improved result from my starting point. Confident, responsive turning action with a stable feel. Emotionally, I felt the confidence build as I got closer to the mark. Someone must be able to explain the physics of what sag adjustments are doing to alter the bike, but that someone is not me. Riding along I was trying hard to come up with a visualization to explain how the changes affect the tracking; Sharp knife / Dull knife; narrow water ski / wide water ski. Would think the angle of the fork changes a touch. This morning I think it could simply be the balance between more or less pressure on the front tire. There certainly is a gyroscopic energy going on when the bike and rider is in motion. The Carve of the turning line can a wide push or a grabby dive to the inside. A nice cut through a turn without that inside "grabbyness" is a powerful tool. In the end I felt that I had learned what character direction the Rider Sag changes were going to produce. That is a big learn for me! I will get the actual Rider Sag number later. As a side note: The traction conditions where pretty ideal for this exercise, damp sand and Dry DG soils. I managed to find some muddy conditions, but stayed mostly away from that. My next Learn will be what direction to go when the sand drys out and gets deep again. At least I know more about the dynamics. After I felt the rear was as good as it could be, I turned my attention to the forks. They are marked with two rings at the top. I have run both, lately running two rings out with the 112mm rear setting. I ran the test route with both and had the best result with two rings out of the top. One ring was heading back into the lazy zone. All this testing took me over three hours and 28 miles on the test road. Something I could never have done with a group of riders. Once I was content with the settings, I took 50 minutes to run up Arroyo Seco del Diablo and across the Tapiado Cut-across trail to the Tapiado overlook and back. Dynamics were great! Bagstr Whale Peak near Arroyo Tapiado
  21. Bagstr

    Suspension Tuning - Actually - KTM 450 XCW

    Talked with George ( Suspension 101 ) He does not work on bikes with electronic ride height adjustment.
  22. Excellent edit. Those Street bikes have nothing on the 500.
  23. Bagstr

    Suspension Tuning - Actually - KTM 450 XCW

    Looked On-line at the 2022 890R Owner Manual Read up on the Ride Modes and Shock/Fork settings Evidently the Ride Modes are limited to control of engine character and traction control. The forks and shock are manual adjustments for preload, compression and rebound. No electronic height or clicker adjustment. The shock sag recommends are 4 turns for every riding style and I think 8 for loaded. To me that would leave a good deal of room for off-road condition tuning. As typical for KTM, they give no advice about fork position. They do have several rings on the top of the fork. Possibly that is a liability issue. In terms of tuning for lazy or sharp turning feel, it appears to me the same rules mention for the PDS bikes apply. KTM is lazy about sag starting point for off-road. Hopefully the owners here on this site have intel on the state of knowledge on that subject. ๐Ÿšถโ€โ™‚๏ธ PS, Adventure Rider has a 890 Suspension thread. I do not vouch for their recommendations.
  24. Bagstr

    Suspension Tuning - Actually - KTM 450 XCW

    Since the Sept โ€˜22 rain in the Park, about 1/3 of the South Carrizo Wash road has disappeared. Unfortunately the Taco drivers are creating a web of routes because they donโ€™t have the original gps track to follow. So, that track may not be the best for awhile. Possibly something like Inspiration Wash might serve the purpose. Many soft and hard short radius turns. Also, I have only bike specific intel for PDS ktms. Do GS suspension shops exist? I am uninformed on the subject. Regarding setting sag on an electronically adjustable Shock pre-load: Do they have a manual mode that allows a tuner to measure and adjust based on track feedback? Likewise with KTM 890: I am going to look into their on-line owner manual. Possibly we have some in-house knowledge here on the site. I wish I had my 990 back. It would be fun to see how much the deep sand performance could be improved with rear sag and fork position. Back then, I didnโ€™t dare venture away from original settings. Fun stuff, to feel the change in performance.
  25. Bagstr

    Suspension Tuning - Actually - KTM 450 XCW

    Zubbโ€™s story telling from the Colorado passes got me thinking about Suspension settings and adjustments. My thought was to do a review of off-road basics. Then I remembered there was a post from 2018 (as it turns out ) buried in the Technical folder here at SDAR. So here is a bump as off road riding season approaches. Notes: Set rear sag and leave it alone unless you add camp gear or lose a lot of weight. Adjust the front fork height to suit trail conditions. As always, Thanks to George at Suspension 101. The source of all knowledge. Your numbers will very based on bike and weight.
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