Mini Swedish invasion !

[wachs]

Whilst in Italy earlier this month I was able to finally put a face to the name of a new friend from Sweden, David and his contemporary Leif. Funny to meet someone on the web, make contact in Europe and then see them pull into your driveway here in the USA!

We had loose plans to ride but I had some challenges - we’d just swapped out the huge Acerbis 6.5 gallon tank on the XR650R for the stock fuel cell but none of us had taken the time to actually finish the project. Just a bit of fuel line needed, shouldn’t be a problem. Long story short, a wasp had moved into the petcock of that tank and packed it full of wasp mud which rendered that system unusable within an hour’s time so I just moved over to our trusty XR600R and found the carb goobered up with varnish as it hadn’t been ridden for some time. Oh shit - now I’m down to the KTM 950 S which also would not start as one half of the choke cable snapped. I had made arrangements to borrow my good friend Steve’s KTM 300 but that left us with 2 dirt bikes (KTM 525) and our F800GS with Scorpions.

Fairly stressed and obviously embarrassed after promising these cool fellows a great ride here in Central Oregon I figured, I’d have to just struggle through familiar single track on a big and expensive BMW and hoped they’d still have fun watching me fumble around on the fat twin.

We rolled up the road to the dirt and hopped onto the moist, dust-free ultra-perfect conditions.





Leif on Steve’s 300







After the first few miles of single track Leif asked if he could ride the BMW as that was more familiar to him and the 300 is kind of a handful if you haven’t ridden proper dirt bikes for awhile. ‘Sure man!’ I was more than happy to hop on the 300 and get off that huge beast so we swapped and Leif rode up the 2 track that paralleled the single track. All of a sudden, I see and hear Steve’s super custom KTM 720 RALLY BIKE go blasting through the trees next to the trail and we meet up at a junction.








HA! Now we have 2 big bikes and 2 dirt bikes and we know how to put together the linking dirt roads that will connect with trails so we can all enjoy these optimum conditions.


But wait - we hear other bikes approaching through the forest.





YES! It’s the fellows I rode with on their traditional Thanksgiving day ride just a couple days earlier.




The wiley John K comes up and now we have a real gang!





Super cool to see my friends from Sweden meet my friends from here in Oregon out in the forest. It truly is a universal brotherhood.



Here comes Stan, Steve (?) and the rest of the posse - zero dust, comfortable temps and everyone is warmed up for the next section.




Peace back-atcha TJ!



Friendly handshakes and greetings.



Didn’t take any shots for the next hour or two but had a gas riding the chocolatey loam up to the snowline and back down into a forest that burned a couple years ago for a short break.



Todd got a flat and these grizzled veterans razzed the pit crew with good humor.






David and I took off ahead to clean up some recent blow-down on Stan’s sandy ditch trail and get ready for a quick photo op’ of the group roosting through.





This trail is not even worth considering unless it has just rained or the snow has recently melted - that is exactly what had happened so it was like velcro traction.





Yeah - team SWEDEN!



More abandoned ditch wonder.




John K





TJ



We separated from the big bikes for good and they headed back to the barn while we roosted the crap out of a big section and then rode one of our favorite trails toward home at about 2:30. David (sandbaggin’ Swede - couldn’t shake off my wheel all day dang it!)




So good to see Stan back on the bike after a long recovery - good job man!




Yummy!







And that was about it. Could’ve taken more photos but we were having too much fun.




Thanks for looking!

[Hayduke]

Where's the dust?

Nice, Wachs! Thanks for the pics!

[deadbird]

Roostafari!
Chocolate like soil....mmmmm

[Gitana]

Looks like fun, Wachs!

[NWBoarder]

Looks like great fun.
Next Thanksgiving I'm ignoring local advice, and bringing my dirtbike to Sun River instead of the Snowboard.

[Humunn]

Super!

[rich851]

Great photos of your ride in Central Oregon. I'm in the Willamette Valley and would love to come over and ride the area shown in your photos. Is it public land open to anyone? How would I find the area to ride?

[brad21]

Bam!

[StroupDog]

For f**** sake Ricky!

[monrcar]

Nice!

[wachs]

Originally Posted by rich851

Is it public land open to anyone? How would I find the area to ride?

HA! Give StroupDog a ring!

[Gaston Gagne]

[wachs]

Went out again with a hardy group of 8 or 9 guys (all of them WAY faster than my skinny old self). Dirt's still good, kinda dusty but 45 miles of single track through the forest in December?

Trouble in the rocks 5 miles from the start - yes, that is the 'trail'.




Busted clutch cover - JB Weld patch to get him back to the truck with his busted hand - ouch



Graham had a little problem near the end of the ride



oops -



There was other carnage too but no photos of the action as I was busy just trying to not get lost.