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PbdBlue

5 days in Idaho + Props to the Seat Concepts Crew

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So just returned from a 9 day trip (4 days travel\5 days riding) to SW Idaho. Specifically the Owyhee mtns\desert. We had great aspirations of riding ~ 100 miles per day but it quickly became apparent the the challenges presented by the terrain  (not to mention having a 10 rider crew) limited us to more like 50 - 75 miles. In the desert floor area lots of STEEP , long downhills and hill climbs. Probably some of the steepest and rockiest hill climbs I've done in my illustrious riding career. Serious stuff:) Add to that the first couple of days we were dealing with a stuck float issue on one of the guys DRZ. That situation made worse when the owner decided on Day 2 in an attempt to unstick the float by tapping on the float bowl with a wrench actually cracked the float bowl about 30 miles out in the middle of nowhere. Yikes! I had some epoxy putty in my pack and that was successful in repairing the crack. That rider opted out of the rest of the week (to his credit). All was hunky dory until Day 4. We rode out of Rabbit Creek up into the mountains on a very challenging old two track that was severely rutted out. About 25 miles in one of the riders clipped a tree branch which ripped the fuel injector wiring out of the bike (KTM 350). Bike was DOA. One of the other riders worked on an attempted repair. Meanwhile I was about a mile and a half ahead. By the time  got back to them it was apparent that their repair efforts had failed and since it was late in the day we turned our attention to figuring out how to extract all of us (mistake - I should have looked closer at the bike - more on that later). We were in the bottom of a canyon with miles of steep difficult trail in both directions. There was no way we were going to be able to tow the bike out so the guy whose bike broke and another guy rode double and we headed out. Cayce is an exceptionally good rider and at 43 much younger than the average for this group. It was about 7 miles up to the top of the canyon and when I got there Cayce and his passenger pulled up beside me about a minute later. Okay I'm impressed:) From there the terrain got easier and we made it back to the truck before dark. 

Okay so now to the recovery. I recalled that Roger had worked at Seat Concepts in the Boise area but didn't have his number so I reached out to PMB who in turn contacted Roger. Roger hooked me up with the principals (Lendon and Robert) at SC. Robert graciously offered to take time out of his busy schedule and bring his SXS.  I had looked at another bike Friday morning to see how the wiring was connected since it was similar to Cayce's set up. Both had JD boxes on the FI and I realized that we might be able to bypass the damaged JD harness to get the bike running. Armed with a myriad of tools (crimp splices, wire, a butane soldering iron, etc) we headed out to the downed bike. Robert and Cayce rode in the RZR while myself and Frank (Cayce's dad) rode in on bikes. When we arrived Robert and I looked it over.  We found that indeed even though the fuel injector housing was damaged there was enough remaining that we were able to bypass the JD wiring and plug the stock KTM plug into the injector. Meanwhile I had a suspicion that a couple of fuses had blown since the fuel pump and the dash did not have power. I found two blown fuses, replaced them and with the injector reconnected the bike fired up! The last thing Robert repaired was the connection to the ambient air sensor. The wires were torn out and he attempted to kludge a connection. Not sure if it worked or not but our suspicion is that the bike will run without it anyway. At that point we loaded up and were able the ride the bike out. 50 miles round trip and about 6 hours. HUGE, HUGE, HUGE props to Robert and Lendon. For them to take time out of their day to help us was extraordinarily gracious. When Robert asked me if we wanted him to come out with his rzr I replied that I didn't want to impose but yes that would be helpful. His response was riders don't leave riders stranded. Stand up guys for sure. Also big props to PMB and Roger for getting us connected. All in all it was an adventure and as with most situations like this a big learning opportunity. 

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Doh !   Ride out there all the time.  It is pretty remote for sure.  How was the grub at the inn ??  Can be really good and really bad. Glad you got it sorted out.

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13 minutes ago, hobiee said:

Doh !   Ride out there all the time.  It is pretty remote for sure.  How was the grub at the inn ??  Can be really good and really bad. Glad you got it sorted out.

Hit it midweek so they were closed! 

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Yeah the stuck float was  not that big a deal other than he was going through fuel really fast. I think I figured at one point he was getting 10 mpg. This was the first time I've had to rescue an FI bike. That was a little more complicated. I wish I had looked at the bike before abandoning it but it was getting late and I figured we better not waste any more time before getting out of there.Maybe I would have noticed that it was the JD kit harness and not the bike harness. To be fair the guy who did look at it is more of a mechanical guy.  Would have been a very COLD night if we couldn't get out.

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There are some great like really great trails out there if one knows where to look.  If you are ever inclined to come back up this way i'll share some tracks with ya that I think you'd really like.  You could spend a few days up around silver city on some great stuff.

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11 minutes ago, hobiee said:

There are some great like really great trails out there if one knows where to look.  If you are ever inclined to come back up this way i'll share some tracks with ya that I think you'd really like.  You could spend a few days up around silver city on some great stuff.

Thanks. Over the 5 days we rode some great trails. Started south down by Oreana and moved our staging north each day. Some great terrain. We did spend two days around Silver City before day 4 when the bike issue struck. On day 5 three of us attended to extracting the down bike. The rest of the crew rode Hemingway Butte. 

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