DS Ride 12 - May 2008 - Recap

THE NARROW GAUGE ROUTE

What When Where Dualsport Skills Practice, partial day Meet Saturday, 24 May, 7:30 AM Meet @ BMW Motorcycles of Ventura County

“Sorry I couldn't finish the whole ride. Went to the shop and they fixed the problem. Apparently, if you turn a 1200 GS upside down enough times you need to pull the gas tank and add fluid to the break servo assist reservoir. Bad design. Anyway I got it fixed and all is well. I hope you all had a good day.”

“He’s never going to make that climb. Let’s go back and help him.” “What?! I’m not going back down that!”

The weather always seems to pull through for these, the last best and worst rides of the Dual Sport Ride Series. It gets cold and wet a day or two before, like the formulaic rainy movie scene that comes on and you know, instantly, that the hero is going to get kissed or blown up or audited, or whatever. Only in this case, you know some one is going to bury their axles in mud or ride their HP-2 off a cliff…

We have – as planned – come near to the limits of what can be expected of the big adventure bikes. The field of this group was mostly smaller models. However, we have not yet found the limits of these amazing machines; I suspect we are much closer to finding the limits of individual riders. Witness the awesome performance of Tony Lovegren on this ride: He did make it up that climb – on a KTM 950 Adventure with a mostly bald rear tire. But I get ahead of myself. Let’s see what story the photos tell…

the ground was wet when we met at the shop; a storm had blown through the day before, and it looked like we still might catch a few raindrops.

We headed north out of town, loosening up for the day on some winding backroads.








We met Rachel in Fillmore. She was the best prepared for rain of the group...







After a fuel stop in Castaic, we embarked on a day of single track riding. The trails were quite narrow. The weather was cool, and the ground was wet enough to keep the dust down without being mucky. Even better, there were still flowers in bloom. Lilies on the roadside, yucca spires on nearby hills.

It was somewhere around here that So Cool missed a turn and ended up temporarily topsy turvy. It was small trouble to get himself on track again, but that's when the braking problems began.

We eventually met a fire road that emptied us out onto Lake Hughes Road beyond Castaic Reservoir.

Lake Hughes Road is a festival of curves, but So Cool was stymied by braking difficulties. After several rounds of trouble shooting, including a few calls to the shop, he decided to head back, and have it looked at. On the one hand, that left only one BMW in the group -- mine. On the other hand... the only BMW was in front of all the other bikes...





A short while after passing Lake Hughes, we veered off the slab onto a tightly twisting fire road that climbs onto the Sawmill Mtn ridgeline. The weather was gorgeous; clear air, brilliant views, patchy white clouds.








Near the highest point of the ridgeline, the visibility dropped to a few hundred feet. At one point a truck with no lights on loomed up out of the fog; dicey. Luckily, we were about to leave the road for a less traveled path.








... A path less traveled... the oak woodland was incredibly beautiful.







The brush was quite close in spots; imposing but passable.










Finally we began to descend out of the mountains. The track that had been merely winding through trees and fields and chaparral wound across a steep slope, descending steeply at times. A lapse in attention could easily result in spending much of the rest of the day hauling a bike up a shale-covered hillside. There was also one particularly sharp switchback -- to be honest, it was far more visually stimulating than physically challenging. We had fun watching each other dogpaddle around the corner, and in short order, we were all descending the last leg of the single track. We emerged onto Old Ridge Route Road, somewhere near Gorman.








Heading for Frazier Park, we could see snow in the mountains above Hungry Valley. I began to wonder if we would once again find ourselves blocked by snow. Hello? Southern California? It's nearly June...






We stopped for lunch in Frazier Park, and bumped into some friends of Tony's. They were willing to take a group photo for us.






After lunch, Rachel opted to turn for home. Can't imagine why; it was only 4 o'clock... The rest of us wheedled through Frazier Park, exiting on a rocky foothill trail edged with Fremontias in full flower.







The road became a trail, and soon, the rocks became, well, more rocks:


We followed the ridge through several changes in substrate, and eventually found ourselves in Cuddy Valley. a quick ride south and we were climbing the cool north slopes of Frazier Mountain. The going was even more rocky in places here than it had been on the ridge, but the real challenge was a long steep climb in loose soil.

Terry stood looking at it for a long time. He had come down it once on his KTM 950, and was pretty sure he wanted no part of it. It was bad enough descending loose and dry soil. This was an ascent, and we had seen the snow on the peak. Who knew what this would be like.





"I'll go first," he said finally. And up he went:


As the video shows, Eric simply lassoed my tail rack and held on... Tony had a tough time -- though not so tough as we thought:


Our hats are off to him; seeing him maneouver his KTM 950 up this hill with a nearly bald rear tire was awe-inspiring.

Calvin, of course, seemed to have no problems at all -- as ever. He makes it all look way too easy.

BA, FUBAR, Faceman, Murdock, Kickstand, Hannibal, Lizard King, Loverboy... Wait. How many of us were there, anyway?.. Where's the guy with the cigar?..

We figured the single track descent, being on the south side (er, more or less) of the mountain would be drier.

Oops.









It was a blast -- but a lot of slow riding. There was all manner of terrain, including some steep switchbacks lower down.







This (left) shows the narrow track ahead on the far slopes... and this one (right) shows the narrow track we are on right now: Way to hug the corners, Tony.






The single track descent took a good long time. It was getting dark as we emerged into Hungry Valley. All that was left was traversing the valley, and a jaunt down I-5. We were all pretty eager for a stop at Starbuck's in Castaic.

Eric knows HV like the back of his hand, and so we put him in front for this section. After a fit of moto-narcolepsy (left), during which his bike suddenly and for no apparent reason laid down on the ground and stopped snoring, he lead us up a blind canyon full of rocks. Come to think of it, how often do you actually look at the back of your hand?...

We gave Eric a hard time, loudly, hoping he'd forget that none of us were sure which way to go either. There was only one option left, however, and pretty soon we were all blazing down a sandy, rocky dry wash in the dark, after being on the bikes since 8 am -- nigh on 12 hours. I took the rear, thinking: "We're tired; I need to keep an eye on everyone, in case there's a problem. Don't want to lose someone behind, in the dark..." I was right behind Tony. We were pushing through sand, dodging rocks... The whoops looked to be giving him trouble and I was thinking maybe we should take a short rest break -- then he whacked the throttle and jumped clear over one of the troublesome sand mounds. Oops, my mistake. Not tired.

So we continued down the wash in the dark at breakneck speed over whoops and through rocks in, as I said, the dark, after 12 hours of poking around on our bikes, until we found a sandy road, which lead us to ratty pavement, then a gravel road, and suddenly, we were hanging around an I-5 offramp, adjusting tire pressure or practicing wheelies -- as preference or neccessity allowed...

In front again on I-5, I lead us off in about 25 miles, at the first Castaic exit. Eric & FUBAR went ahead to Starbucks, and I watched for Tony and Cal. As I watched Tony pull up to me, I realized that the two bikes I had been keeping track of by their headlights were actually a car. Tony had been behind it, and Calvin was nowhere to be seen. Turns out that when we stopped in Gorman, around midday, for refueling, Cal thought to himself, "I wonder if I can get all the way back without getting gas..."

Through a tedious series of SNAFUs involving dead cell phones, intermitent walkie-talkies, and brief, gustatorially unsatisfying visits to Starbucks, Tony & I found ourselves in the midst of a 30 mile round trip to deliver fuel to Calvin, who was waiting near Pyramid Lake. Poor Eric & FUBAR had to lounge around at Starbucks for almost an hour, waiting for us. They were looking ready to go, when we arrived.


With a little luck, Cal still has the marks from the flogging. I for one arrived home around 11:30, if I recall aright...


Of course, we'd all do it over again in a hot minute! Well, a hot 15 hours...

Chief Lesson of the Ride:
The BMW R1200GS: If you turn it upside down, refill the brake servo assist reservoir!

[More videos & pictures online. Check the
VCARS IN WORDS & PICTURES
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