Phat Phryday

04.26.02

I thought I knew what mud and puddles were until today… Mike, Josh & I had a great soaking wet ride...

Josh and Mike with our bikes after the ride.  Look at Mike’s pants — some of the puddles/streams were almost THAT deep!
Mud Puddles

What can I say? It had rained severely the day before, and EVERY single indentation on the surface of the earth that could hold water did.  There was no way to avoid getting soaked, even if you tried.

 

This proved to be the ultimate ride — every single thing you could think of riding on or over we did today — rocks, roots, trails, mud, huge puddles, streams, sandy areas, even cutting through uncharted woods off the beaten path (Josh played trail blazer for a while).

 

Mike and I dropped tire pressure on our TKC80’s to 16—18 PSI.  This turned out to be a very good move. My front wheel only washed out once — when I going 2 mph on a 90 degree turn. Going fast was the only way to maintain balance and get you through.  Needless to say, I turned OFF the ABS so I could play hard and kick the back end around at will :)

Josh ripping through the puddles

Mike about to submarine his F650

OK—this sucks. I always get stuck taking the pictures for my own damn website.  But anyway, you can see from the excellent shots above (by me, of course) that we had a really great time.  These puddles were the EASIEST ones near the entrance to the trails. I didn’t dare take the camera into the trails — it would have been destroyed.

 

According to Mike’s odometer, we did over 28 miles of off road work this day. My body felt like we did 128.  Afterwards, we hit the Hyde Park Brewery for some burgers and beer, but the highlight wasn’t the “Big Easy Blonde” beer I had — it was the kids yelling “Look, Mommy! Dirt bikes! WOW — BMW!” Are you listening BMW? People of all ages dig the fact we can abuse these bikes (and ourselves) and keep right on going. Tell you what, Germany, you send me a 2002 K1200RS in exchange for any F650GS testing you want done using real people in a real world — deal? I need a street-only bike to ride so I don’t have to wash my F650GS all the time :)

As usual, I have a small collection of MPEGs for you to enjoy. I made them a little smaller this time.

 

Bill and Mike hitting puddles (925K)

Josh rips through puddles with front wheel up (733K)

Mike does puddles solo (925K)
Mini Movies Other Notes

Mike’s uphill crash was the best of the day — his bike was stuck to the side of a dirt embankment like a magnet to a refrigerator! Luckily, no damage to his F650 or to himself.

F is not only for F650, but for

 

FRONG

My bike after the ride.  Notice, no mirrors. Frong said it would get tight in the trails and it did — plus, I didn’t tweak my mirrors when I went down. The hand protectors and bar ends saved my brake lever!