My Brother, his son, Jon and I pre-ran the August tour route last weekend. (August 20~22, 2010 Dualsport Sidecar Skills Mini Tour $600) I wanted to make sure the route was passable and wasn’t unreasonably long. It includes the old Barlow Road, a pioneer wagon road at the end of the Oregon Trail. This has a few very rugged sections which should provide us with a fun, challenging ride! We sure had a good time checking it out!

we stopped often so I could take route notes

My fan stopped working fairly early on. We stopped and did some field tests. I ended up wiring in a connector which allowed me to hook the fan directly to the battery via my gps power outlet.

When we got to the Barlow Road, we paused to wire our lunch to the mufflers. We soon were riding through the woods accompanied by the fragrant aroma of tamales cooking!

A hydration device, such as a camelbak, is a very good idea!

When we got back to pavement we felt we had accomplished something!

The Barlow Road is a rugged track. The pioneers had to lower the wagons down the steep sections with ropes and double up their teams to haul them back up the other side. It was an unimaginably hard trek and done after the cross country push across the Oregon Trail had worn them to the bone. Not every one survived the trail

For us, it was a challenging ride and an interesting glimpse into local history