tvscum

It's driving me crazy. Might be a custom Ducati. I like the high fender. Wish I could find a full photo shoot on the bike.

Here's another. EDIT: looks like an XR swingarm

Cleveland Forest alert page says there is a halfway gate on Upper Santa Ysabel TT from Pamo Rd. to Black Canyon Rd. But it has Black Mountain turnoff gate open. I don't remember a gate halfway up. Has anybody ridden through Santa Ysabel TT recently from Pamo to Black Canyon Rd? Where is this halfway gate and road damage? I put some numbers on the gate positions I already know about for reference. http://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/cleveland/alerts-notices/?cid=stelprdb5340229 UPPER SANTA YSABEL WEST: Road is opened from the west gate access off of Pamo Rd. Subject to closure depending on weather. It remains locked at the half way point due to road damage.

Vista motorcyclist to cross Madagascar Benjamin Myers, 38, is one of just six people worldwide chosen for one-in-a-lifetime off-road adventure By Pam Kragen | 3:59 p.m. March 9, 2016 Vista resident Benjamin Myers will head to Madagascar in April for a two-week, all-expense paid motorcycle adventure hosted by a German motorbike equipment company. Don Boomer VISTA — Benjamin Myers is a resident of Vista, but on April 7, he’ll become a citizen of the world as a hand-picked member of the United People of Adventure. Myers, 38, is one of just six people worldwide — one from each inhabited continent — chosen to take part in a 10-day, 1,000-mile motorcycle trek across the African island of Madagascar. The all-expense-paid trip is sponsored by Touratech, a German company that makes and sells accessories for adventure motorcycles, and led by the company’s globe-cycling founder, Edward Schwartz, and his wife, Ramona. The Schwartzes have warned the six finalists this will be no pleasure cruise. The off-road adventure is likely to include riding, pushing and pulling their 500-pound-plus motorcycles through mud, rain, difficult river crossings, mountain climbs and lots and lots of dirt. And Myers couldn’t be more thrilled. Since he first sat as a toddler on his father’s dirt bike, Myers has had a love affair with motorcycles and the open road. “When I ride, I feel like a modern-day cowboy,” said Myers, who commutes to work in Carmel Valley each day on a BMW 900 adventure motorcycle. “There’s that sense of the wind in your face, the adrenaline and the pavement rushing by. When I’m on a bike it gives me an incredible sense of joy, even more when I’m out exploring new places.” Madagascar is on the wish list of most veteran world travelers. Located off the coast of Zimbabwe, it’s the world’s fourth-largest island with 226,000 square miles of land and 17 million inhabitants. It’s known for its variety of climates and topography, from rainforests to deserts, and for its diversity of wildlife (including lemurs, civets, fossas and aye-ayes) that can’t be found anywhere else on earth. Myers will be traveling with the Schwartzes, a documentary film crew and the other five winners of the United People of Adventure contest. They include men and women, ages 25 to 42, from Egypt, India, Australia, Iceland and Brazil. The winners went through a grueling selection process last month in Germany that included three days of interviews, psychological and cycling tests, and multiple team-building exercises. Two semifinalists were invited from each continent (Myers’ competitor was a man from Quebec) and the winners, chosen by the Schwartzes, were announced Feb. 27. Besides seeking good motorcyclists, the couple wanted riders with diverse viewpoints, an adventurous spirit and unique qualities they could bring to the team. Myers has only been adventure-cycling for a few years but his skills with cooking, languages and artful trip documentation were likely key factors in his selection. Myers grew up in Spain, the oldest of four children born to a pair of traveling missionaries. The family moved to Seattle when he was in his teens, where he attended high school and started college. But after taking a backpacking trip with a friend to Mexico at 21, Myers decided there was more to learn by traveling the world than sitting in a classroom. So he quit college to hit the road and ended up in Germany, where he learned the language and spent the next three years. At 24, he came back to the U.S. and settled in Orange County where he put his artistic skills to work, first by designing auto show exhibits and then as the art director at ZCity Tv, a startup television network. That’s where he met his wife, Marlise Kast-Myers, who was working as a script writer. After the recession hit, the network went belly up in 2008. Both lost their jobs, but Kast-Myers landed a contract to edit and update several travel books for Fodor’s. For much of the next year, they traveled throughout Central America as well as to Sardinia and Corsica. Needing an outlet for his artistic energies, Myers decided that instead of taking photos and videos of their travels, he would instead make ink sketches and collages of the places they visited in a series of Moleskin journals. “I remember as a kid watching ‘Indiana Jones’ movies and he always had these cool leather-bound notebooks filled with sketches and I thought they were so cool. I always dreamed of having my own someday,” he said. During the next six years of international travels with his wife, Myers filled six journals with elaborate ink, colored pencil and ephemera-filled artworks depicting street scenes, trees, flowers, people and other sights that caught his eyes. When they weren’t traveling, the couple enjoyed restoring their 1950s-era home near Vista’s Brengle Terrace Park. She has continued to write and edit travel books, and since 2013 he has worked as a visual designer for Intuit’s TurboTax software division. He’s also at work on his second acoustic folk album and he and Kast-Myers sponsor four children in Tanzania. While the couple share many interests, motorcycling is more his passion than hers. He got his first dirt bike in Spain when he was 12 years old and over the years worked his way up to bigger bikes, even picking a motorcycle over a car during his years in rainy Seattle. Three years ago he bought his first adventure bike, which is a heavy-duty cycle with storage that’s designed for long-range trips, both on and off road. Last fall, while competing at the BMW GS Trophy adventure riding challenge in Santa Clarita, he heard about the Touratech contest. With some script-writing help from his wife and footage from a videographer friend, he made a three-minuteaudition video — featuring close-ups of his journals — and submitted it two days before the deadline last December. He was surprised to be chosen as a semifinalist and over the moon to make the final group. During the selection process in Germany, Myers impressed his fellow contestants with his pizza-making skills, something that will come in handy when they camp in Madagascar’s wilderness. He also presented the Schwartzes with a mock journal filled with several illustrations of Madagascar scenery and wildlife and he promised to create a real journal during the trip if he was chosen. Each semifinalist received $4,000 in Touratech gear, and in Madagascar the winners will each ride a different brand of adventure bike. Myers will ride the Ducati Multistrada 1200 Enduro, a bike that’s not even on the market yet. Besides making many new friends around the world, Myers said he expects the trip will be the adventure of a lifetime. “I feel like I’ve won the motorcycle lottery,” he said. pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com © Copyright 2016 The San Diego Union-Tribune. All rights reserved

If the lower Black Mtn gate is closed can you get your mountain bike around it?

Thanks for checking 'cause that Cleveland Forest link above says Lusardi and Orasco are open. They must have shut both in anticipation of rain Friday night.

"I see," said the blind man!

It's not me... just copied and pasted from UT San Diego. Is Benjamin Myers a member here?

Just don't try it on a Triumph Scrambler http://youtu.be/7lcKGlsyMr8

Hello, I have a XR440 with an old-school FCR39 pumper carb. This carb does not have a choke or hot start button. It has a 168 main jet and 45 pilot jet (which I think is the stock setup). The bike has a Supertrapp exhaust and open air box with Uni air filter. Stock headers. It seems to run best with the fuel screw about 2 1/2 turns out. I have only very slight poping on decel. The bike runs great, really. It starts to sputter a bit at high altitude, but I figure that's normal. Float is set at 9mm. The carb is a horizontal FCR39 with plugs over the choke and hot start spots, like this one: http://www.thumpertalk.com/topic/823860-xr400-pumper-carbs-fcr39-installed-comments-and-suggestions-welcome/ The bike starts fine cold. The bike starts fine hot. But when I lay over the bike the baby floods and it's a pain to kick start. Really a pain. 15 minutes of kicking to get her back running. I have tried the technique of holding the throttle open and running it through with the compression release. No luck. Probably because this is a pumper carb. I emailed Sudco and got this response: Does it start super easy cold? Maybe your pilot jet is too rich then when the bike gets warm it gets overly rich making it hard to start. When you stall it when warm, do not touch the throttle because that is just going to squirt more fuel in the cylinder with the accelerator pump making the problem worse. Try turning off the fuel and kick the bike a few times, then turn the fuel back on. The TM36 if very similar and most likely will be the same situation. I have not tried turning off the petcock and running it through. Maybe I will give that a shot the next time. I also asked Sudco about installing a hot start on the carb. They replied: I know Four Stroke Works used to offer a kit to make the standard FCR like yours have a hot start, not sure if they still do, their number is 760-948-0325 I emailed Four Stroke Works but no reply. I will give them a call soon. Any other magical advice for starting a flooded XR after a fall? Thanks!

Thanks. I will tip over the bike and try some of these tips the next time I am at the top of a hill.

Got the wheels back on and took her for a test ride today. Also, the radiator is polished up.

The two overflow tubes were melted shut by the exhaust. I replaced them. Man that would be great if that fixes the issue.

I have a 1997 xr440 with this old school FCR39 carb, no hotstart, no choke (not the MX). I think it's this one: http://s600.photobucket.com/user/Perc82/media/FCR%20Carb/JATFCR.jpg.html?t=1291575100 Check out this fuel screw. Do you think it originally needed a tool to remove? Or do you think that chewed up piece of brass was once a flat head screw? sorry for the blurry cell phone pics

New post started here: http://dualsport-sd.com/forums/index.php?/topic/21419-xr440-flooding-after-falls/

Thanks all. I removed the carb and we got it out. Now if I can just keep it from stalling every time i lay her down. Maybe I'll post in a separate section.

Definitely not worth it.

thanks guys

Oh never mind... dooooh... my camera was screwed up

Lurking

I'm looking for for a lead down Bunny Hill... Me and my buddy had fun on Otay today because he just purchased a DRZ... still, he declined to descend bunny. I'm going down that bunny soon. The fail in the video is an attempt to go around.

Drop a pin map please.. where the gate is

Did u guys go down bunny hill or around? Is there a go around to the west?

It's been a couple weeks since the El Nino storms hit. Went out riding with some buddies today. Found Thing Valley Rd. gate closed at Sunrise Highway. Also found Fred Canyon Rd. gate closed at the campground at Kitchen Creek Rd. Upper Pine Creek Rd. Gate is also closed. Got back home and checked out the Forest road closure page and it says both Thing and Fred are closed and "to be re-evaluated for opening." I wonder what this means? http://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/cleveland/alerts-notices/?cid=stelprdb5340229

See postings here for Cibett flatts campground info: http://dualsport-sd.com/forums/index.php?/topic/21236-thing-and-fred-being-re-evaluated-for-opening/