dirt dame

Oh B.S. It's the Italian ones But like tntmo sez, good to see you here.

Oh, and I forgot to add that you should never run a worn component with a new one. Always replace your sprockets and chain together as a set.

It was not a fluke or a problem, it was a mistake. Hammer installed a 10 yr old chain as he wrote in the opening sentence of this thread. Oh yeah , well I've ridden on chains that were a few years old, but not worn out. He should have specified that his chain was a ten year old chain that had the catpoop flogged out of it as well and wasn't worn the same as his sprockets

I have been in motorcycle service professionally, and I have almost never seen bikes, even big ones, pop masterlink clips. The links and clips need to be installed properly and securely so that the open end of the clip is trailing on tire rotation and the chain is properly adjusted and nothing is damaged or bent on the chain guide. If in doubt, I have seen riders use a little RTV on the clip to keep it in place, but that shouldn't really need to be done. Maybe there was a defect on the clip or masterlink pins that caused the chain to throw or maybe Hammer damaged the clip or link in a really rocky section.

That guy makes me want to get new knees

I don't know Sounds like you might need some new friends

I used to ride a Beta in the eighties. Don't ride that stuff anymore. My knees can't take it. If you go out to McCain Valley to the first OHV staging area at Lark Canyon on Saturdays, you can usually find guys on trials bikes out there. Plenty of rocks and boulders to practice on .

I liked those shots of Diablo, especially the one where the guy veers right into the big ditch. Nothing so dramatic on my attempt though. I made it about a little over halfway up and parked the Husky by burying the rear wheel up to the hub Haven't been down the squeeze or the drop since 1991.

Right you are about being prepared. And glad to hear that crash wasn't TOO serious. One thing you might want to invest in, if you do alot of remote rides is a satellite phone. I know an older gentleman who does alot of adventure riding all over the place, often by himself and he takes a satellite phone with him everywhere he goes. He claims that it has helped him in some out of the way locations. Admittedly, the phones are expensive, cheapest ones go for about 800 bucks and service is more expensive than regular cell phone too, but you pay for access from about anywhere in the world, so you are paying for a certain amount of peace of mind as well.

I don't know about dragging ass That sounds tiresome But I might drag something green or orange down that has a wonderful exhaust note, frisky power and the dreamy fragrance of burnt synthetic oil Aaahhh, two strokes

Hmmm. the ride is starting to look pretty interesting. Green stickers, eh? And here it is, also the start of legal red sticker season.

Maybe members of the club could do a weekend Arizona ride some time . I am still thinking about Utah too. Post one sometime, just do it about two weeks in advance so I can beg two days off of work in a row.

Nothing like being bondable

Sounds great, especially right now with everything closed around here. I like the part about plating everything too. I can picture frolicking around on my KDX or EXC for the day . Seems strange to see a post not slathered in orange bikes in every photo

As soon as Spaugh gets his gearing set up, we can ride even more fun stuff. There is still plenty left that we didnt't ride

Poor Papaalex He had to cancel his big Ocotillo ride due to lack of interest. I had originally planned to go with him, but I have been feeling under the weather for the past two days and decided that I wasn't up to a long day in the dez, so I bowed out. Sadly, that left nobody.... But by 9 AM this morning I found out that Papa had joined with Spaugh and Stingray for a late morning meeting at Lark Canyon. That would be just the ticket for me. So off I went, dragging the TE along. The four of us met at the first staging area near noontime. It was actually kind of cool and breezy, with a pretty fair turnout of OHV lovers out for the day. As usual, most of them ran around in circles at the staging area, leaving the trails nice and clear for our group. We took a network of trails to the far end of the legal riding area, made our way down to the road and headed north. Some horsie club was putting on a ride, so we had to be careful around all the equestrians. Other than that it was fun as usual. Spaugh was trying out his new used KTM 450 that was overgeared and Stingray had his no-magic-button XR400. We stopped at the picnic lookout, headed for the legal trails near the end of the road. Papa took Stingray through a sand wash, while Spaugh and I took what we thought was the fun way. Spaugh had lower gearing on order, but what he was pulling was not suitable for deep sand and really tight steep stuff with rocks, so I was trying to make sure that our routes were fun enough without being too taxing for him. Heck I was making sure our routes were fun and not overly taxing for my lazy self . We took another loop around the OHV area, riding a bunch of the fun secondary trails and then came back to load up and head home around 4 o clock. I stopped in Pine Valley for soft freeze ice cream, as usual. And I can't wait for another weekend, preferably with some rain Good mellow ride, good company. Thanks to Papa, Spaugh and Stingray for a fine day of trail riding :mega_shok: Now for da pix. We got a desert overview complete with veiwers.

methinks that last shot ends up under the heading "do not try this at home" :mega_shok:

dame... I know that tastee freeze (or whatever it's called) well... It's Frosty Burger, but that doesn't really make any sense. I can't picture biting into a frostburned frozen cheesburger! :mega_shok: And also you make it sound like an unlucky spot somehow

Sorry that I(and for that matter anybody else)could not make it out for your ride this weekend. But there are alot more weekends where this one came from :mega_shok: , so see you soon on another ride

By the way, that Youtube stuff IS the main part of Rodriguez Canyon. Sand practice #2 went up the part that the SUV is coming down. We were going to split left and take the Chariot Canyon fork, but it was longer and a couple of us were concerned about making it to the next gas station.

By the way, you should check out Racetechs website. They are good with Japanese suspension and probably carry springs for your shocks and forks and cartridge emulators for your forks. They also have a spring rate calculator on their website although you have a little extra weight problem thrown in there in the form of your honkin' gas tank. I am good at calculating spring rates too, so if you need help, I can get out my little calculator and punch up some numbers based on things such as machine base weight, lever ratio, your weight and what your honkin gas tank adds in to the factor. Fork oil levels can affect your ride too. Then you just have to set all to a specific preload to achieve your unladen sag (you not on bike) and laden sag(you on bike). Proper sag is terribly important. It isn't all rocket science but it is all math. I had to research and learn all this stuff because of all the bad advice so-called experts were giving me.

Seems like near Poway.

I had the same problems with premature failures on my Ohlins shock. After I found another shop to service my shock other than Precision Concepts, my reliability issues went away. what shop did you go to? By the way, I went to Precision Concepts in El Cajon after I switched out my fork and shock springs so that they could revalve everything to match. They were quick and thorough and turned around a good product fast but the girl at the front desk I found to be very condescending. She treated me like I was some kind of dumb bell and didn't listen to anything I had to say. She was RUDE, I thought. I would consider going back to Precision Concepts for other valving work, but I would try the one in Temecula next. I work on my own suspension, change out springs, oil, seals, seal heads, set the sag etc., and have personally revalved two of my Japanese machines. I am not going to pretend that I know as much as those guys, but I know a little bit, it works for me and I don't cotton to being treated like a dope.

Gosh Papaalex, you still haven't gotten enough sand in your bloomers? I will see how things are shaping up for me this Saturday. But it is a long drive to Ocotillo for me.

Sounds like the one we just did last weekend