Covered in Dust

That’s the reason this site died.

About a year ago I got a wild Idea to go for a ride in the Himalayas after seeing a few pics of someone riding there. I put some feelers out to a few of the guys I've done rides with in the past and to my surprise a few guys jumped on board. So I did some research and found a tour operator with a very reasonable price for 3 week ride with everything included. So the 1st of June we were off on an Incredible adventure. All of us are or were active on SDAR. Ted G and his son, Chris C, Van L, JohnnyBags, Brian B and I met up with our tour leader and a few other riders mostly from Australia and picked up our bikes and were off. We quickly became friends with the Aussie boys and are now planning rides in Tasmania and Vietnam for 2024. Here are a few pics. Not sure how many I can post these days. Random order

There are a couple guys that are planning on going in 2024. If anyone is interested I can put you in touch c

The ride cost was about $3500. This covered bikes, gas, lodging, meals while on the ride. There are a few other expenses. Tips for the ride crew, and a flight back to the starting point at the end of the ride plus you can buy insurance that covers the bike for about $250, I didn’t get the insurance because a new bike is only about 2.5k in India. So about 4K for ride, plus you’ll need hotel rooms before and after your ride and airfare. Also just about everyone takes a tour to the Taj Mahal either before or after the ride (before the ride is best. You’ll probably be ready to go home after the ride). I think all in I was around 8K but I like to fly business class so you could shave 1K off that if you want. Chris CiD

I have one

I have a stock 06 seat off an exc 525 in my garage. I’d part with for a 6 pack of IPA. i might even have an enduro engineering’s cover and foam.

I think the Flying Monkeys still host a ride every Wednesday in Temecula. CiD

What might be nice would maybe combine a tech day with a swap meet. I know most of us have a garage full of stuff to sell or swap. CiD I see by reading some of the other post that this has been mentioned before.

On all the BDR’s I’ve done 4X4’s are fine. There was just one section in Idaho that had a motorcycle only section. Pretty sure there was an easy go around. I’ll probably take my wife on a few sections of some BDR’s in the near future in my new off-road rig. CiD

We got froze out in either late September or early October. Can’t remember exactly, but it was a freak cold front that moved in so we had to bail about a third of the way through. They suggest doing it in 2 different rides, half in the summer and half in the winter or something like that. It would be luck to get the whole ride in at once without either it being really hot or too cold during part of it. Both times we were going to do it we missed a Goldilocks window by about a week. I may try again next fall. This was the 1st attempt. Loren tells about the 2nd attempt below. CiD

KJ6NUH expired and didn’t bother renewing it because I only use it on the bike.

I have it’s big brother in my garage. 97 360 EXC

CID PMB, he gets up a little earlier than the rest of the world. Photo by PMB

We need a Kug Mystery Ride. If you know you know. CiD

I would have liked to join in on this ride but I’ll be in the middle of the NVBDR. Tried to do it last year but temps in the teens and wind in excess of 50mph had us changing direction mid ride. CiD

That’s awesome, it’s so nice when the planets align and you get a great shot. I know professionals work for hours or days to get a perfect shot, and sometimes plan for months to get a shot like that.

Great write up. Makes me want to go back and do it a 3rd time. CiD

Going to knock out NV soon. Tried last year and froze. Probably hit CA this winter also. I’ve ridden about 80% of the California route but never all at once. The BDR crew asked me if I was planning on doing any of the east coast routes. I told them probably not, I still want to knock out Wyoming and maybe Washington next year. CiD

Here are a few pics from New Mexico. There were a few water crossings. Here's Tracy following an overflowing river close to the Colorado border. I'm pretty sure this was the 1st time any of us ever had a Llama walk through our camp. These were the only crashes we had on the whole trip. 1st my bike fell over one night in camp. Then Tracy fell over in camp and this is Van's bike after it fell over in camp. No flats, mechanical issues or crashes in 1600 miles on the trial. We saw Elk, deer, antelope, turkeys, bears, llamas and a few other creatures on the trail, and some pretty interesting people in some of the small towns including a guy in red underwear at a Subway shop that wanted to join us on our ride. This is called Teakettle rock. Always find a Kug sticker wherever we go. The boys Tracy, Ken and Van taking a break. Kug cutting some fresh tracks in the White Sands National Monument. Nice views on the northern half of the ride. Like most BDR's this one had it's good parts and some pretty boring parts. Getting back to the start was a bit of a grind on the small bikes, but it's all good. Already planning our next trip CiD

From what I remember the temps were fine the whole ride. We did hit a storm at the Colorado border that was interesting for a few hours. We trailered to some city and stayed overnight in a hotel where we left the truck until our return. I don’t remember what city but maybe someone else will chime in.

Dude! How long are you in town? Long enough to grab a few beers?

Let’s get Ted to host us overnight. He makes a mean Manhattan

I’ve got a meme for you and you won’t mistake it for passive aggressive 😂 It’s 1/2 of a peace sign. I really don’t give a hoot about memes, I just don’t care for arbitrary rules. Do you want to ride Big Bear if we get a little cooling up there? Covered in Rules

Here is a link to the Jeep forum. 20k plus pages in 4 1/2 years. No squabbles just good conversations and funny stuff and only a few people banned for not behaving. Plus a whole bunch of great info and a few new friends for me. https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/forum/threads/jeep-humor-waiting-room-no-politics.4525/page-20532 Hope I don’t get banned for having a link to another site, I forget if that is against some silly rule. CiD

On my Jeep site and the Landcruiser site I follow the meme funny pages are by far the most watched and used forums. I think this is very shortsighted. If someone doesn’t like them they really don’t have to read them. Not wanting to be like sites that are very successful seems odd. CiD