c't'd
Paused with just a little trepidation, before dropping the nose down into a V shaped wash full of rocks:
It worked out ok...
Got to kiss some more sage on the way around this...
This was a point where I decided that I like the slightly deeper gearing that swapping a 45 tooth rear sprocket on gives. Just idled up it with little throttle and no wheel spin:
More brush dodging:
Things were turning spectacular colors as the sun set...
Just when you think you are getting close to black top, you are greeted with about a final quarter to half mile of 1ft+ deep sand in a river bed. Things were fine, as long as you stayed above 20 mph on top. Steering was a bit questionable, but that is what throttles are for, right?
And alas, back to pavement, just as the sun went down behind a mountain.
All in all, was less than 20 miles, but was a whole lot of fun. The kicker is that it is less than 10 miles from my house, so I can pretty much play on it any time I want to hone my skills or test some welds!
@miles-ladue Ha! The Hippo Hands come off later each season! 😎
You do a great job of stopping to take awesome pictures. 👍
Having a "test track" close to home is epic! 🤩
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
Well Friends,
It has been a very pleasant past few days, with a fair amount of riding incorporated, so will call it a win.
I also set up a YouTube channel, for the purpose of throwing video clips in to embed here, so we will see how that goes. Not much for video editing, just some short ride clips on occasion. Feel free to subscribe if you what to see what stuff I am putting up. I can guarantee you that the production quality will be below par, though!
Whilst chatting over lunch, it came up that one of my friends had never ridden in a sidecar, but was interested in seeing what it was like.
We planned a little junket out to Tortilla Flats and beyond a bit on the Apache Trail to let him get a taste of the experience.
By and large, I think Jason had a good time; here are a couple of photos he shot and a little video from the chair:
View from the chair...
It was a nice day, with time to stop and chat about life, the universe and everything, along the way!
Upon returning, I packed up the chair with a little gear for a long weekend, 3 day adventure down south, along the US MX border with a pair of Davids from north of the other border...
We met up at a truck stop on the I-10 south, and proceeded down towards Patagonia, AZ to wander the ranch country on our way to Sierra Vista for a base of operations to ride out east from, over into NM.
This wasn't new country for any of us, but it was a very nice ride through the old Empire Ranch, with a lunch stop in Patagonia at the park and a picnic table. It was a pretty easy 202 mile day with outstanding weather in the mid 60's F (18C.)
After lunch, we headed up and around the ranch country past the Worlds Fair Mine.
We all managed to get through some easy water crossings without getting our feet wet..
When we popped up out of the forest and twisty switchbacks, the view opened up out across the ranch land and was more impressive than this picture conveys...
c't'd
c't'd
When riding with two wheeled friends (BMW R1200GS and an Aprilia Toureg 660 in this instance), the questions always comes up, where does the hack rig go?
On this trip, we mostly decided "in front" when I had some clue about where we were going. I could frisk along at whatever pace I wanted too, and the dust clouds more or less settled by the time the lads came through. I could then stop at intersections and shoot a picture or two. We traded off like this, so some of the pics come from one of the Davids.
Roads were wide with moderate washboarding, lots of very fine dust from a lack of rain for the past few months:
We pulled in to Sierra Vista in the mid afternoon, got situated in the nice apartment complex that David had found us rooms in, and headed out to "The Angry German" restaurant. If you are in Sierra Vista, The Angry German is about as good as it gets, if you like heavy German style food. It tasted good after a full day of sidecar wrestling on the switch backs.
Next day we dug out a paper map and studied it over breakfast to plot out the main adventure of the trip:
I then put a couple of way points in Google Maps to keep us on track, as we selected a ride out east through Douglas AZ, up the Geronimo Trail and around through Animas NM. This put us in the Coronado National Forest for a good part of the day, with coolish weather in the mid 50's F for most of day.
The road out along the MX US border is a super wide dirt road in pretty decent shape. It gives you the feeling of racing down a landing strip with lot's of room for errors, so a good time to test suspension at speed.
A little video as the lads came by: Border wall off to the left.
As we progressed up the Geronimo Trail, we gained some elevation and the scenery changed to rocky cliffs and forest.
A little side car teaser video on the Geronimo Trail:
Well, just when you get to thinking the road is getting a little rocky, you come upon a marker describing the pleasant misery the Mormon Battalion had, before there was a road, in 1849:
A little more shade was found, but temps were cool enough, anyway.
c't'd
c't'd
The area has burned in the not distant past, so there were a few dead trees standing. This one wasn't.
Grass fed beef!
We then looped around through Animas, NM, and came south back through Rodeo, NM, where we found the Ned Hall community park a convenient place to stop for a late lunch. We had it to ourselves:
Rest of the ride back was pleasant and uneventful. Got a little chilly at altitude, coming back through Bisbee AZ, but not bad. Maybe high 40's F.
Dropped the gear at the apartment and headed out for Vietnamese cooking at Indochine in Sierra Vista. Seems prices have gone up and quality has gone down, when compared to prior visits. However, there are not a lot of choices, and this is still one of the better ones.
Next day was pack up and go home day. We plotted a route back up through Benson on the Cascabel Road that runs along the San Pedro River. It is always fun, with lots of twisty gravel road to enjoy:
Lunch stop where the sidewalk ends:
River valley is quite scenic along the way:
Toureg blasting by... sorry about the slurping; helmet mike must have been on.
And the GS...
We then cut over to San Manuel and stopped for some snacks where we spotted this Saguaro out for a ride; not at all sketchy:
Stopped and chatted with a gent on a Triumph Tiger out of the Tuscon area; then provided words of encouragement to a lad with an old Jeep CJ with a chevy v8 retrofit that he was attempting to start on fire at the gas pump. He failed, and one of his friends finally got the engine running without catching fire.
We then headed home up the familiar Willow Springs Ranch Rd towards Florence AZ. Road was in good shape and all was well in the world.
David captured me sailing along without a care in the world:
Here is a video glimpse of Willow Springs Ranch Rd, as David sails his BMW along:
The trip was a resounding success with little drama and no signficant equipment failures. There may be an aftermarket bash plate bracket to to weld on the Aprilia, but pretty minor stuff, all together. Black Betty (that sweet girl) behaved herself admirably with zero problems. I think a fine time was had by all!
Looks like a great time was had by all. Video additions are pretty cool. This is getting serious! 🤩
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
@scott-h yep, having some fun with the vids... might mount a camera setup.
Got to thinking about that a fixed camera would capture a lot more of the wildlife that is too fast for me to stop and photograph.
Saw a setup with a solid state drive and two cameras for something like $250. Thinking about it, at this point.
Anyone know how to insert YouTube embed codes into posts, here?
I think you can just copy/paste the URL, like this:
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
@scott-h Thanks Scott, I was definitely over thinking it with the embed codes! All fixed now! 😉
Well Friends,
My friend with the KTM 790 got his bike back from the dealer with some fresh camshafts, followers and other misc. parts to take care of a failed cam lobe on an intake valve side. Also got a decat midpipe and tuner box with it all dialed in, so we had to go out in the desert and see what was what.
We headed out west of Skunk Hollow to explore roads we had not been on before. We turned off north of the 238 and caught the road under the power lines to find some very deep, fine, silty sort of sand to spray around on each other.
I think Greg was rather pleased with himself!
He was kind enough to shoot a little video of Black Betty (that sweet girl) huffing through the powder...
We played around in the stuff until we got a little tired, then cut over across a little mountain pass to rip around in some slightly harder packed stuff.
A compilation of a few short clips:
After another hour or so of recreational hooniganism, we decided to climb the pass again and take a little break:
We then continued exploration back towards Skunk Hollow, but had not completely worn ourselves out, so decided to do that little loop I discovered and posted about a couple weeks back. Hindsight says that we probably were done before we headed down that loop, but hey, no one wants to stop having fun while the sunshines and the rigs are running fine!
Last break of the day, then back to what passes for civilization:
We parted ways, then I came home and had just enough energy left to crawl around under the rig and inspect for damage. I had heard a pretty good impact on a rock in the center hump between two deep ruts that I did not do a very good job of line selection on:
There was a witness mark on one of those shiny new A arms the TSC was so kind to provide a while back, but nothing appeared to have cracked. Even my lousy welding held together.
ctd
ctd
Last break of the day, before returning to what passes for civilization around these parts.
We parted company and headed our separate ways.
I had just enough remaining energy to crawl around under the rig and investigate for damage from what I heard of a sizeable rock hit as I straddled a hump in the road between two deep ruts.
Left a witness mark in the powder coating on one of those shiny new A arms, but no welds appeared to have suffered in the endeavor. In fact, the only casualty we detected was my pair or el cheapo HF gloves that I left on the seat, sometime before burying them in the sand, somewhere.
Chuck's @54vintage">@54vintage front end continues to function flawlessly, at about the 40,000 gentle mile point:
I was pleased to see that pulling the nose of the tub down resulted in immediate, linear motion of the front end of the bike suspension. This was not always the case!
This was about the longest amount of contiguous time that I have spent in deep sand with the rig. I think I learned a few things that you fellow sidecarists probably already know. They might include:
1. In deep sand, the hack wheel really want to sink in, then pull the pusher around it to turn it cross ways to the road. Some strategies to overcome that seem to be:
a. Hook a the front wheel in a rut to keep it from getting pulled over to the right.
b. Feather the gas to just enough to keep momentum, not lose it nor gain it. Lots of little throttle inputs to kind of steer a little, when the front wheel isn't super responsive.
2. Momentum is your friend, stopping is bad. It seemed that 15mph was about the minimum to stay sort of top of the sand, 25 to 30 mph was a lot better. Anything faster than 30 mph proved too interesting when curves were hit, especially with brush around the curves.
So anyway, I have lost my fear and loathing of deep sand that I thought was a permanent personality defect. I had a really good time.
So I think we will call the day a win. A great time was had by all, with the only apparent casualty being a pair of el cheapo gloves that I left on my seat when I took off across the sand. They apparently were buried deep, as not trace was to be found.
I think Greg is pretty happy with his KTM getting a 2nd life with some new hardware. He says it is a little zippier with the decat/tuner, and losing the weight can't hurt anything.
I think it is nap time, now!
What a fine ride and good time. I hope Greg enjoyed it as much as I did!
Dane...air filter ! With all the dusty roads and trails you are traversing, and the miles you have been putting on Black Betty, that sweet gal....have you been paying attention to the air filter ?
Two Million Mile Rider...All 7 Continents
Exploring the World in Comfort
A friend will stand upwind and take videos of riding through deep silt. A good friend stands downwind to become enveloped by the dense dust cloud, for dramatic effect. Greg is obviously a good friend. 🍻
Greg's bike has a bitchin' exhaust note. Glad to read all is swell.
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
@miles-ladue Yep. The filtration on the twin is pretty decent, changed filters out recently (again), and have a pair of new ones sitting on the bench for next time.
