Grapevine canyon 12/26. Fires, melons and flats Best I’ve ever seen

[Pokey151 246]

Wow the conditions were perfect. I’ve never seen this trail so good.  I’ll fill in more,  but had a bike fire, saw a lot of wild melons and had to deal with a randoy flat.   Downloading pics

[Pokey151 246]

So, glad we wear Sena’s.  My buddy who had not been on his bike in a while, decided to join me for a ride.   Were we’re riding through the sand and my buddy calls out and says “can you turn around, if feels like my rear brake is locking up”.  So turn around and pull up and you can smell the brake.  We both look and see flames coming out of his caliper.  As I was coming over he was throwing sand on it and I was reaching for my camelback hose.  Got it out before any real damage. If you know 690s the fuel tank is in the rear of the bike and he was carrying spare fuel in his bags which is directly above the rear caliper.    Not sure if the flame would have ever gotten larger or not but from my experience if a bike catches on fire, chances are, it ends up being really bad.
 

His rear brake adjuster’s locking nut backed out and the treaded screw was very loose.  Best guess if when he used his back brake, the screw popped out of the landing and got wedged  between the pedal and the master cylinder holding the pedal down enough to load it down.  We were is sand so the bike feels loaded.  He is very rusty and usually is not sensitive to changes with his bike until it’s at an extreme. (More on this subject later)

Now that the fire is out, we waited for it to cool off and did a bolt check.  We continued on to find the absolute best conditions on this trail. Since the Geico Adventure Rally they must have graded the hills and towards Ranchita it would say 80% of the ruts have also been graded. The moist soil would have made a heavyweight adv pretty easy to ride there.  Anyways we saw lots of wildlife. I saw a few big coyotes then say what I thought was a pile of apples. So I thought coming was feeding the wildlife.  As we reached the end, I saw more and more piles of what I thought was dumped fruit.  That made no sense. I walked over and  saw they were small melons.  There was patches everywhere???   Well the rookies we are, I looked up at the sign we were parked next to, only to see a picture on the same melon.   lol. It was a coyote melon.   Completely new to me, never seen or heard of them but there were everywhere

We turned around to take the same way back,  when we hit the pavement, I aired back up, gave him my pump and gauge, he pumped up,  back on the road, maybe halfway up the mountain to Julian he says “hey can you pull over, I think my front tire is going flat”  I pull over at a turnout, he comes up and his tire is full flat and half off the bead  (as I mentioned before, he only notices things when it’s full extreme)   So I search for anything sticking in his tire   Could not find anything’ so I want to put air in the tire and seat the bead   I use my Co2 set the bead and it’s holding air   Looks like he had a pebble pushing the valve which released the air   I told him why he needs caps on them for that exact reason   lol  made it home safe and sound    Super fun day and he kept it interesting   

 

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Pokey151

[bfar33 166]

Gnarly. Not sure if it's a similar issue but I took my KTM 200 to McCain a few months back and when I unloaded it the rear brake basically wasn't working (no problems on previous ride). I had to push it all the way to the bottom before it started applying 5% braking force. So I loosened the jam nut and adjusted the engagement and got everything working perfectly.

Then after riding about 10-15 minutes the brake started dragging extremely bad, almost completely locking the rear wheel unless I was hard on the throttle. Re-adjusted it back where it was originally and everything started working normally again. Still works great 5 rides later.

 

Did you eat one of those melons?

[dirt dame 561]

31 minutes ago, bfar33 said:

Gnarly. Not sure if it's a similar issue but I took my KTM 200 to McCain a few months back and when I unloaded it the rear brake basically wasn't working (no problems on previous ride). I had to push it all the way to the bottom before it started applying 5% braking force. So I loosened the jam nut and adjusted the engagement and got everything working perfectly.

Then after riding about 10-15 minutes the brake started dragging extremely bad, almost completely locking the rear wheel unless I was hard on the throttle. Re-adjusted it back where it was originally and everything started working normally again. Still works great 5 rides later.

 

Did you eat one of those melons?

The brake problem that you have described happens when a bit of air leaks into the system.  Best is to pump the brake a few times, and then without any pressure on the pedal, slowly crack the bleeder and retighten.  Repeat until pressure returns to normal.  My 2011 Husqvarna WR300 has this problem.  First I tried readjusting it and got the same results as you.  Then I tried bleeding it thoroughly, but found that the method described in my second sentence worked the best.  The best I can describe it  is that it's like burping your brake system system.😂

Even coyotes wouldn't eat coyote melons.

Edited December 28, 2023 by dirt dame

[bfar33 166]

Great info, thank you for the tip!

[Pokey151 246]

On 12/28/2023 at 1:52 PM, dirt dame said:

The brake problem that you have described happens when a bit of air leaks into the system.  Best is to pump the brake a few times, and then without any pressure on the pedal, slowly crack the bleeder and retighten.  Repeat until pressure returns to normal.  My 2011 Husqvarna WR300 has this problem.  First I tried readjusting it and got the same results as you.  Then I tried bleeding it thoroughly, but found that the method described in my second sentence worked the best.  The best I can describe it  is that it's like burping your brake system system.😂

Even coyotes wouldn't eat coyote melons.

Thanks, I have seen that issue before. This instance was his adjuster bolt. The locking nut backed off the the bolt was flopping around and got wedged on the rim of the brake pedal where the bold normally fits in the recessed spot

[Pokey151 246]

On 12/28/2023 at 1:41 PM, bfar33 said:

Gnarly. Not sure if it's a similar issue but I took my KTM 200 to McCain a few months back and when I unloaded it the rear brake basically wasn't working (no problems on previous ride). I had to push it all the way to the bottom before it started applying 5% braking force. So I loosened the jam nut and adjusted the engagement and got everything working perfectly.

Then after riding about 10-15 minutes the brake started dragging extremely bad, almost completely locking the rear wheel unless I was hard on the throttle. Re-adjusted it back where it was originally and everything started working normally again. Still works great 5 rides later.

 

Did you eat one of those melons?

Sounds similar for sure and no, did not eat any.  I read they used to make soap out of it and coyotes do not eat them