dirt dame

What day do you want to ride? I have Saturday off. In fact I might go up on Thursday, as I have been going up to pinnacles alot lately, exploring new trails and I really have had alot of fun.

I will add my two cents in. Admittedly I had a strange problem with the electric starter on my TE 450, but other than that, no problems. I have talked to other Husqvarna owners who beam and brag about how reliable their TEs are and how they never have to do a thing to 'em, and you hardly ever have to adjust the valves, etc, blah blah. So I will wait and see. On the other hand, KTM owners always seem to have a leak or a squeak or some dang thing happening to their machines. That is one of the reasons I decided on a Husky instead of a KTM. I had (and still have) a KTM. While it has been a great handling bike and has never left me stranded anywhere, it has had its share of annoying problems. Almost immediately, the rear subframe broke, then the chain adjusters seized up, all the engine gaskets seem to sweat all the time right from the git-go and there were electrical problems, poorly made switches that needed to be replaced and my exhaust pipe split (and not on a welded seam) twice before I replaced it with an after market pipe. As some of you may know, I am a light person, don't beat my bikes too much and I lavish lots of care on them, so I would expect a machine that costs that much money to have more nicely finished details. My old KLX300 barely has had anything go wrong with it, other than the gas tank splitting about 4 years ago and Kawasaki was nice enough to warranty that, even though the machine was long out of warranty. And I finally had to adjust a valve after six years of running. It is slow, has no electric start, a bear to start if you dump it and not the greatest handling machine, but really trustworthy in the long run. Same with the teeny Honda, it requires an occasional oil change and air in the tires.

I woke up this morning and thought to myself, what did I want to do today, shop or ride? What a STUPID question, I want to do both of course! So I loaded the TE onto the Jeep and headed up 15, arriving at Chapparals shortly after they opened. Two jerseys and a pair of really orange boots later, I headed back to my car and continued to Pinnacles/Arrowhead to make up for missing Digdugs ride last weekend. The weather was warmer than I thought it was gonna be, but when the breeze came up, things weren't too bad, and I had my new hydration system that makes water taste just like a new shower curtain Yummy! I spent as much time trying to stay off of the fireroads as possible, taking every little single track "blue square" trail that I came across. I had a map in my pack, but it never saw the light of day, and I motored around, blissfully lost for the most part and lovin it. These little routes must have been some of what the guys referred to as "rollercoaster"trails. Whee! They were a blast! One fire road I did take, was the one to Deep Creek and Devils Hole. I noticed that alot of spots that were water crossings back in June were now just dust and rocks. Devils Hole had been knee-deep or better back in June, but I walked across it today, and it was only ankle deep. I thought about riding across...never mind. Instead I meandered on foot, downstream to a still pool with my camera. Last time I was here, I wondered if there were trout. Standing in the shade and very still, I spied several little trout about 7 or eight inches long in the gin clear water just lazily chillin' near some vegetation. Suddenly I wished I had some ultralight fly gear along, but instead I tried to creep up on them with my camera. Startled, the trout fled into the weeds. So much for a trout shot I ended up clocking 41 miles on the odometer. It was another wonderful ride on a weekday.

Here are some more pictures from Pinnacles. Now don't go thinking that I ran back up there today just 'cause I have different clothes on in the photos! I swear I didn't go up and ride more trails and meet a guy named Gary who lives in Arrowhead and rides a TE 510, and crash and break my turnsignal on a downed tree, etc, etc

I am pretty sure all your lighting should be DC out of a regulator/rectifier. That is the way all the bikes I have ever seen are wired. If yours isn't maybe that is part of the problem I am guessing your bike didn't come wired for street from the factory. Maybe you just have some things wired wrong. A wiring disgram will tell all, if you have one for your bike. Maybe you gotsa burnt bulbs. If any part of the wiring was done inline ( no, not inline-the word I was looking for was "in series") and not "in parallel", that would screw things up.

I think that SIDI is tops, but they don't build anything serious in my size

Hope you can post the next one for a Saturday

Oh Hey there Bruceh, I think of challenging beginning where you might start falling off of your bike if you aren't paying close attention to every move you make on your bike. If your're moving around, but not in any danger of falling off, then you are consistently making all the right moves easily and there probably is a rather low chance of you falling off. Difficult begins where the stakes get high and so do the odds about whether you can stay glued to the machine, upright and moving in the direction you want to go. Difficult for me starts somewhere just under 50/50 in that respect or maybe a tad lower For instance our Jacumba ride was a challenging or intermediate ride, and I think that the other riders from it would agree, but while it kept me busy, the odds of me having a bad crash or mess-up were low, and in fact I had a stall or two, one plop in the sand and got stuck on one ugly hill. Pretty good day for me, except for my tree-bit arms!

Looked like fun, but I already know it is from last time. I was really wanting to go and had the green slug washed and prepped after the days dez ride, but was pretty contented with our Jacumba adventure and decided I would sleep in and finish overhauling the carb bank on my street bike that I started working on a couple of days ago. I kept thinking about you guys up there funnin' around and will try to make the next ride there if I don't have to work (or sleep in ) I know Heart Attack hill has a reservation waiting for me and sooner or later I have to go up it, even if I have to radio for vessel assist.

Iz no purty pitchurs to go with?

4:30 am came little too soon for me, this morning. I shut off the alarm and rolled over, thinking that if I could just have another five minutes, everything'd be okay. I opened one eye and spied the clock....Holy cow! It was now 5:15 and I had to leave the house in fifteen minutes to meet carguys gang at Valeros. No time for a proper breakfast...mixed up the instant breakfast and hopped into the car. Arrived at 7:00 sharp. Carguy, Joliet and Ste63 were all just about geared up and ready to go. I hurried off to the little adventure riders room for a pit stop and was soon geared up myself, then off we went, headed for who knows where, literally. Carguy led us on an exploration tour. The morning was sunny and relatively cool for this time of year. We wended our way over hill and dale, poking around every little trail until each dead-ended, then we'd pick up another. A word of warning: DO NOT PET THE TREES. THEY BITE! I got a little too close to some of the scraggly little trees out there and found out that they weren't as scraggly as I thought. Rather, they were sort of solid, so I have new scrapes to add to my faded collection on both arms With just four of us on the trail and lots of rocky terrain, the dust wasn't too bad. Hooray for that! Around mid-ride, we stopped for a moment and Carguy discussed the fine features of the rest of the trail that we were on. He said that once we got over the hill, that the trail was "straight down" to the end. At this point, I decided that it was time for my nap, so I bid the others farewell and stretched out in a cool, smooth depression in a huge boulder that was close to a good photo op of the guys when they returned. By and by, I heard the rumble of bike engines in the distance, so I scrambled up onto a big rock and took some pics when the three riders came up. ( I still can't see a dang thing in the sunlight on the moniter of that little Kodak so you guys'll just have to wait for me to get better with guesswork when I am shooting pictures Still not ready to lug along the Nikon, but it would be easier to get good pix with.) I guessed from the conversation amongst them, that it was a pretty butt-kicking trail down the backside of that hill. Lazy Dirtdames need not apply We then headed back, but Carguy had one more surprise for us(and for himself) a gnarley uphill, that bogged everybody down. It split into two tracks. I saw Carguy and Joliet just roosting rocks and sand, but not really moving over on the left and I saw Steve struggling near the top of the righthand track. I was already pointing to the right side so I gunned it and got a little over halfway up before I had to call for a tow truck. Steve and Joliet took the bike to the top of the hill for me. Thanks guys. After we rested and all agreed that the hill was a bleep, we continued homeward. We got back to Valeros before eleven, everybody in good spirits and in one piece. I would rate the ride as an intermediate or challenging ride, but nicely doable on small to medium sized machines, except for the two steep loose hills, which I would rate as difficult for all. There were rocks, ruts, steps and steep inclines mixing rocks with steps and switchbacks, cambered traverses, sand washes, sand washes with rocks and of course, trees (okay, they were bushes, but they were mean) that bite you if you get too close. It was about 28 miles of fun four-stroking. Thanks, Carguy for leading us and thanks to Joliet and Steve coming along. Thanks too, to all for great company

Okay, I've loaded up something green (but not the old twostroke) and now it's time to wind up the cat and throw the alarm clock out, so I can get up way too early and join youse guys.

In river kayaking, they rate the degree of difficulty, by physical characteristics of the river itself. As the flow of water get swifter, the rate of drop steeper and the more rocks, the higher the rating. A slow flat surface would rate a one and a flash flood through a boulder field would rate a five(nearly impossible). Maybe we could have a rating based simularly on the physical characteristics of a trail.

Kernan trail west of Corral Canyon road: somewhat challenging Kernan trail east of Coral Canyon road: not too challenging East side of Bronco peak: somewhat challenging West side Bronco peak going to campground: ouch! ThingValley road: easy Rodriguez Canyon: some challenging parts Hixon trail: lower part challenging Allesandro trail: challenging And let's not forget that some trails are easier in one direction than the other. There are trails that are easier to go down than up, but not always Oops, somebody already mentioned that

The problem I have is that on good days a trail full of rocks and switchbacks may be sorta challenging, and I might ride it feet up and no hesitation. Off-days create a situation where if I'm worn out or the weather is TOO HOT (or a combo of both), or I think about how I am going to aproach the terrain too much I might stall alot or even crash alot on the same trail. I know I should have made the trail easy, but I didn't. Maybe I just need a shrink or maybe I just need to ride more, till I am not so conscious of every little move I make. Maybe I'm just old folks. And don't get me started on how easy everything is on my minibike! Shut up and ride, yes?

that's one of the trails I was google-eyeing a couple of months ago. Looks interesting. Is it very difficult? Are the morning temps still holding up as far as being cool out in your neck of the woods (or dez)?

Hooray, I got vacation time! So now I could go on this ride and ride all week up till next Saturday if I wanted to So you might see me along.

Aw nutz A great ride posted and I have to work on Sunday :dance3:

Saturday works for me cuz I work on Sunday

Waaah! I wanna have a good time too. I'll go if we get what you said, a fearless leader, and it is still relatively (relative to getting cooked alive) cool like last timeyou guys went. Whoops, what day?

I've been thinking it looks like a good ride for a little two-stroke, like maybe this one Good ol' Bentley would like to come out of retirement for a ride in the dez without too much pavement.

Sounds nutso to me. I can barely ride the pavement at night! I have ridden in the dirt at night, In the desert. With no lights. Peeking over the top of my prescription sunglasses. So, your ride could have been worse :curtsey:

Shoot , from looking at both posts, there are so many orange bikes, you guys almost need to all be numbered so I can tell everybody apart Looks like the KTM club ride with a Honda thrown in!

Saw both posts. Glad you all had a good ride. I decided I wasn't even going to try another desert ride during the summer after what happened to me the last time I was out there, and then to add to that I saw the article about the border agent who died of heat exhaustion (they think) just yesterday in the same area. But it looks like nobody was suffering any noticeable effects from too much heat and you all had lots of fun, so maybe next time I'll give it a try Nice pics, all.

That is correct. Red sticker season used to be really short, like Dec 1 through Jan 31, but they lengthened it to Oct through April I think.