KTMrad

Holy C#@*,.......Kawee, a voice from the past. Glad to see you pop on the site, hope you can join us soon again. Hope all is well.

So is this ride Sunday May 13th, or Sunday May 20th ??

Simon and Lisa, I PM'd you but haven't heard back from you. You can stay at my place for a few days if you'd like. Call me on my cell phone....@619 -818- 8746* Hope to see you this weekend or next week.

Congrats on the new KTM Alex.....so, are you changing your name to Orange4me now ? :clapping:

Alex, suggestion......meet in Warner Springs and ride dirt out from there to Anza, then only a few miles of pavement, then more dirt to the Alessandro Trail. Are you guys planning on doing the Alessandro Trail ?? If you were going on Sunday, I would try to make it. I'm flying in from Vegas Friday night, and don't think I want to get up to go riding first thing on Saturday.

This is the most important service of all. And if you don't take it to the dealer, it may void your warranty. After this one, you're probably OK doing the rest yourself. Only way to find out how much it will cost, is to call and ask them.

Welcome DirtDame !! Glad you joined our group, hope to meet and ride with you soon. I ride alone also, usually on big trips out of town......I enjoy it, but would rather be with one or two other good friends on a long ride. See you soon,

From in the sand in Vegas, Welcome !!

Alessandro is a pretty tough trail. It was really tough doing it on a BMW R100GS......Mad Mike and I did it a couple years ago on Malcolm Smith's ride. Mike was already tired from helping get a crashed bike out of a ravine, so when we started up Alessandro, he was having a hard time on his Beemer. I swapped bikes with him and let him ride my 640 up, I rode his Beemer.....we felt like Manly Men when we got to the top of the trail, after riding his Beemer up without much trouble.

Finally getting some riding in.....out here in Scottsdale / Phoenix area and the surrounding mountains and high desert. I brought both the KTM 640 and the 950 with me (I'm riding the 950 with blown fork seals...even though I didn't get it fixed yet, I just had to ride anyway). So far, I've taken the 950 out 2 days in a row for some late afternoon - night riding. Tuesday, left 6:00pm and did a little 70 mile route, about 25 miles into the backcountry on dirt until it got dark. Had a beer as it got dark and decided going 60 miles on dirt to the next services (not knowing how much gas I had in the bike) was not a good idea in unfamiliar territory. Today, got rollin' about 5:00pm, rode out of town and did a 30 mile dirt road into the high mountains about 8,000 feet, east of Phoenix. Awesome !! I didn't have time to explore all the more challenging side trails off the main dirt road, realized I only had enough time to do the main route. Rode the last 10 miles down the mountain as it got dark. Then found a country bar in a podunk town called Jake's Corner. Had some fried chicken and a couple brewskis, talked with the locals...one of the band members was checking out my 950. Then had a 70 mile night ride home over the mountains on pavement. 130 mile loop in 5 hours....bitchin' !! No way to post photos now, but I do have some. Will post as soon as I can. Going riding all weekend....going to do some backcountry exploring on the 950 for all day on Saturday, possibly hook up with a guy from ADVrider who lives here. Then Sunday, a girl I know who rides dualsport is taking me on some singletrack in the local mountains. See y'all later,

Awesome single track trails on THIS VIDEO I did many of Damon's rides (Team Dual Dogs) in the Kernville area had some trails similar to that every year, and the 6 Days of NorCal had some, as well as a dualsport ride my first year on the DR350.....needless to say, my first time on a trail like that with only a few months experience made my you know what pucker a bit....there was a few hundred foot dropoff to the right on a goat trail up in the Frazier Park - Mt. Pinos area near Hungry Valley. Gotta get the 640 out for some of that this year. Perhaps a small group ride to Kernville, running some old rollcharts from previous rides. I really want to do this come May. Have to plan it out, possibly go prerun the trails this year, or carry a chainsaw with us to clear downed trees. Anybody got a small chainsaw that can be carried on a bike ? Or, I may just get in touch with Chris Horgan who lives up there, who is Prez of Stewards of the Seqouia, he knows all the trails. This type of trail riding will be for intermediate to experts only, and suggest no Big Red Pigs or KLR's (or any other big pigs), unless you've done that type of riding on those bikes and you're of the appropriate skill level.

New plans for the weekend.....I'm meeting a group of DAM (domestic adventure motorcycle) riders from ADVrider....we're taking a challenging route from Lake Pleasant up into the mountains north of Phoenix, then all the way to Prescott on dirt. At least one guy and his wife are staying overnight in Prescott after hitting the Prescott Brewery, so depending on things, I may stay overnight in Prescott also. Then ride bitchin' twisty roads back with them on Sunday, and maybe some solo exploring in the dirt on the way back to Phoenix. I like it out here, and have new friends who ride. Hmmmm......a new name....Southwest Adventure Riders

Check this baby out...... http://www.motorcycledaily.com/31august06_fischer.htm

The guy we're sponsoring for the Dakar in 2008, John Deykes, will be racing the Aprilia 450 Twin in the Dakar. Those bikes did finish the rally. From what I've heard, they are very peaky powerband, more for racing, not very suited to trail riding and dualsport.

3 sets in a year ?!! Something's got to be wrong. I damaged a seal in the first year on my 640 LC4, fixed it and put on fork protector boots, have never had another seal go bad in 7 years. Did you check the inner bushings to make sure they're OK....if they're bad, the outter fork seal may not hold the oil back.

I will not be able to make this ride, I'm working in Scottsdale for a week and a half, and staying there the weekend in between to do some riding out there.

Don't believe there is anything that goes through from McCain down to the desert floor. Problem with Google Earth and Maps is it doesn't show locked gates, closed routes, wilderness boundaries, etc.

There's a place in Ocotillo (off Interstate 8), right near the Old Highway Cafe. Don't know the name, but they rent quads and dirtbikes. Suggest you do a search on the internet also. Also, check this forum for posts.

Another thing about this type of riding......stock gearing is a No-No. For example, I think my stock KTM 640 gearing is 16/42 (or 15/42 ?)....for tight, nasty single track, I run 15/47 (or 14/47 ?). You have to be able to crawl in first gear up the difficult sections.

Party and riding at Schwinn's House in Arrowhead !!

Bagstr, I have a 950 and it is a very worthy trail bike.....if you really want it to be. There's quite a few 950 riders here in San Diego....some of them don't visit this site much, but they're out there. These ride reports might answer some of your questions.... Gnarly Trails on big bikes WMRS II High Sierra Ride High Sierra Adventure 2005 High Sierra Ride 2006 950 Attack

Excellent video.......RWynant sent it to me.......

Hey Louis, wassupppppp ?!! Glad you joined our forums. Look forward to riding up there around Vegas sometime soon, and let us know when you need help charting a route for a ride. You need to come down here sometime to do some riding in our neck of the woods also !! Talk to you soon,

Want to voice your opinion ?? Write a letter to the UT writer at the bottom of the page. LINK to article ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Protection, Acre by Acre Couple's long fight to preserve backcountry aided by powerful ally By Mike Lee STAFF WRITER March 27, 2007 Wilderness issues frame many land-use battles For the past decade, San Diego conservationist Camille Armstrong and her colleagues have combed California for pristine parcels that might deserve the nation's most restrictive land-use designation. JOHN GASTALDO / Union-Tribune Geoffrey Smith and his wife, Camille Armstrong, are longtime San Diego County environmentalists and advocates of increasing protected wilderness areas in Southern California. They've pored over maps, snapped stacks of photographs, camped far and wide across the backcountry, consulted managers of land-use agencies and lobbied politicians. They've found a big-time backer in Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., head of the Senate's environment committee. Recently, Boxer introduced her statewide wilderness blueprint for the fourth time. It proposes that more than 2.4 million acres of California – including about 45,000 acres in San Diego County – be designated as federal wilderness. It's the largest of several wilderness bills introduced in Congress this year. Still, it covers only half of the lands in California that some conservationists say could qualify for the status, which generally prohibits buildings and mechanized transportation – including bicycles – in favor of fishing, hiking, canoeing and other nonmotorized activities. Given the Bush administration's opposition to previous versions of Boxer's statewide plan, a bipartisan alliance in Congress is pursuing a more modest goal of marking some 125,000 acres as wilderness in Riverside County. It's all part of a decades-old strategy to secure new land protections wherever they can be had. “Every history book that you read about California starts off with its natural beauty,” Boxer said. “We designate (wilderness) to make sure that the population gets to enjoy God's gift to our state.” Boxer credits the persistence of volunteers like Armstrong for helping forge her California Wild Heritage Act. “They have been my eyes and ears on the ground,” she said. “Without them, I certainly couldn't have gotten as far as I have.” Armstrong attended her first wilderness meeting in 1987 hoping to protect oak trees and chaparral near Valley Center, where she grew up and now works as an elementary schoolteacher. “I was so disturbed by what I saw going on with the San Diego County development in the late '70s and '80s that I finally couldn't take it anymore,” she said. Wilderness in America Most acreage by state 1. Alaska: 57.4 million acres 2. California: 14.3 million acres 3. Arizona: 4.6 million acres 4. Washington: 4.3 million acres 5. Idaho: 4 million acres Source: www.wilderness.net But the Sierra Club's gathering was about something else: generating support for a bill by then-Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., that targeted huge swaths of the California desert as wilderness. To qualify for wilderness status, the lands must already be federal property controlled by the Forest Service, the National Park Service and other agencies. They generally exclude roads, buildings and power lines. After an area is designated as wilderness, the agencies can no longer reconfigure land-use plans to include development such as off-road vehicle courses, backcountry resorts and logging operations. Federal land managers typically step up their patrols to ban snowmobiling, mountain biking and other outlawed activities. They mark the territory with signs, block user-created roads and beef up walking trails to accommodate more visitors interested in exploring the newly christened wilderness terrain. They sometimes limit the number of people who can enter such zones in an attempt to retain their unspoiled character. Such restrictions resonated with Armstrong during that meeting two decades ago. She was tapped to lead the club's wilderness-organizing effort in San Diego County. Seven years later, President Clinton signed the Desert Protection Act, adding about 7.7 million acres of wilderness on California's eastern edge and establishing the Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks. “We discovered that a few people can make a difference,” Armstrong said. “It was such an amazing experience to be part of something so big.” Armstrong later married Geoffrey Smith, another longtime San Diego County environmentalist who had worked on the desert act. The couple focused on finding more untrammeled parcels for the next wilderness push. “In 1994, we all celebrated . . . but we never let up,” said Smith, now executive director of The Escondido Creek Conservancy. In fits and starts, about 107 million acres nationwide have been classified as wilderness through the 1964 Wilderness Act. It's considered a permanent designation. Wilderness advocates survive political swings in part because they see the issue in moral terms, said Mark Harvey, a history professor at North Dakota State University and author of a book about the man who drafted the Wilderness Act. “From their point of view, wilderness preservation would manifest the highest commitment that human beings could have to land protection,” Harvey said. “These are some of the best landscapes we have and we need to protect them . . . for the integrity of our own souls.” By the late 1990s, hundreds of volunteers – including dozens from San Diego County – gathered under the umbrella of the California Wild Heritage Campaign and fanned out across the state to inventory roadless areas. People assigned to specific parcels became known as “adoptive parents” because they became so familiar with the lands they studied. “What's so special about the Wild Heritage Campaign is that we truly have done it from the ground up,” said Steve Evans, conservation director for Friends of the River, an advocacy group in Sacramento. “It wasn't done by lobbyists in D.C.” Smith said the survey crews focused on lands between the desert and mountain parcels already secured as wilderness. “What was left over are lands that are pretty close to urbanized areas,” Smith said. The wilderness alliance identified several million acres for further consideration, then turned its list over to Boxer's staff. “We could only hope and cross our fingers that most of the . . . acres would get through in the legislation. About half of them did,” Smith said. The conservationists hoped that excluding some of the potentially controversial parcels, particularly in congressional districts likely to draw opposition from lawmakers, would speed the bill's passage. Things didn't turn out that way. One challenge is that even some groups sympathetic to environmental protections remain skeptical of new wilderness areas. Among them are legions of outdoor enthusiasts represented by the International Mountain Bicycling Association, based in Boulder, Colo. “A lot more conservation could be accomplished if there wasn't a single-minded focus on the federal wilderness designation at the exclusion of other designations,” said Daniel Greenstadt, who represents the association in San Diego. “A wilderness proposal in some cases locks out the No. 1 user group,” he said. “It puts mountain bikers in a very difficult, unfortunate and unnecessary position. We care deeply about conservation, but we're asked to ban our own access to the backcountry.” Such sentiments are common to debates about wilderness. In San Diego County, most of the proposed wilderness land is in the district of Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine. The largest parcel is in the Eagle Peak area of the Cleveland National Forest, with smaller segments at Hauser Mountain, Carrizo Gorge and the Sawtooth Mountains. “Far too often, areas are given strict environmental designations that prevent outdoor and nature enthusiasts from enjoying our natural resources,” said a statement issued by Hunter's office. Boxer's statewide bill – she calls it a “marker” of her intentions – is likely to linger until there's a pro-wilderness president. The senator and others are focusing on areas with clear political support for wilderness designations. “I am a pragmatist,” Boxer said. “I will get done what I can get done.” Last year, for example, more than 273,000 acres of the Northern California coast gained wilderness status after Boxer teamed up with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. In Riverside County, Rep. Mary Bono, R-Palm Springs, is preparing to submit a bill that would add about 125,000 acres to the wilderness list. Her staff is working out the details before it's introduced, likely in April or May. Meanwhile, Armstrong and Smith can be found tramping through the backcountry from as far away as Blythe, ground-truthing maps for potential wilderness additions. “We will just keep going . . . until these areas get protected,” Armstrong said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Lee: (619) 542-4570; mike.lee@uniontrib.com

Unfortunately I won't be able to be at the Open House at SDBMW. I'll be lucky if I have time to just stop by.