Chattanooga Area Ride This Saturday Oct 20

[Doulos]

Driftdragon rode his million pound beast (GS1200) like it was a 250 on the steep and tight trails of Houston Valley last night! Very impressive!

I look forward to seeing him some more in the future - especially when he is catching some air!

Sorry about the sheered off bolt Abhuligan - I was looking forward to riding behind you and watching you ride that KLR!

[mb90535im]

Are all the trails there as nice and wide as the approach to that water crossing? If so, I might have to venture over there on my GS.

[Steez]

Hey guys, just thought I'd pipe in and introduce myself. Currently live in the East Brainerd area. Just sold my Bonneville, so I'm looking to get back into the offroad community! Hopefully if I can find the right bike at the right price soon, I can actually take advantage of this beautiful fall riding season!

Steven

[SquirrelyGrl]

Woot!
MB ~ most of them are the width of 4-wheelers, but some are steep and rocky in some spots. Keeping momentum, I would imagine is key. BTW ~ great to see you yesterday!

Glad to see peeps out! Tim ~ golly gee, you did awesome, glad to know you found your way home

Twisty ~ Great leadership skills! Also what route did you take home? I know you were spitting out some roads and had a plan in mind, but I might have been spacing out when you were telling at the end

So much fun!!! Hope Andre and Jman made it home as well.

ABhulgan made it home and when I rolled in I called him up and he was still in his riding pants! Great to meet some more people

[DriftDragon]

I assure you guys no one is more impressed with my perfromance than I am so I am not sure if it is skill or luck or survival from pure terror or stupidity... maybe a little of all. The more I think about it the more excited I get about it.

Had I been smart enough to walk in a bit and look the trails over I doubt I would have tried it on my 1200gsa so I am kinda glad I didn't. It was awesome. After the first foray into the woods on the first time when Twisty stopped to see if everyone was in one piece I was like, what the heck have I gotten myself into! But I was grinning. The sudden shock of that first stretch still takes my breath a bit. The transition from highway riding to that was abrupt to say the least.

A few things are for sure... the pictures are VERY misleading as to the nature of some of the trails we hit. If I go back my panniers will certainly come off first! My new Heidineau tires ROCK! literally actually. That is without a doubt some of the steepest stuff I ever took a bike that big on, The climbs and sudden steep drops and sharp turns where awesome. If it had been muddy I would not have faired so well that is for darn sure. Luckily the trails were pretty dry other than the creeks and occasional puddles. Momentum was definitely the key to my success. Carefully controlling your speed on the steep drop sections was also critical though. If in doubt don't go over a crest with too much speed because you might be looking at a thirty foot steep drop and tight turn to avoid trees at the bottom. In my case I had no idea what was over those crests but almost all had huge drops and another steep climb at the bottom.

At one point when Ab broke his bolt off I shut off my bike while we checked on him. I restarted and neglected to turn off asc and abs... I had two steep hills back out to the main trail and did not realize what I had done. I was like holy crap, I am NOT going to make it all of a sudden! It was like kryptonite was all of a sudden sitting on my gas tank. Those two hills where a nightmare. I thought to myself... did I just stop long enough to freak myself out so much I can't perform anymore or was it the lack of momentum or what? I then realized what I had done and I was back in business. So... make sure you turn off ASC and ABS... lol.

On the big water crossing after I came out the other side I almost ran into a huge water filled rut running against the side of the trail that looked to be a good two feet deep. Applying power is the only thing that kept me out of it and even then I had to put a foot down to stay upright for the turn. When I got it stopped my windshield was totally steamed up and opaque.

I only got out of first gear a few times as you always need ready power. I was airborne constantly (often by choice, grin). I enjoyed the chance to practice staying on the pegs and moving my weight over the jumps. A tight grip on the seat with the knees was key to that. If you need to turn around on a big bike here you need to be looking for a good spot well in advance. Only once did I find my mind relaxing and taking in the scenery and I quickly reminded myself to pay attention to the riding!

It really is kinda a miracle I did not whack a pannier off on a tree... lol.

The GSA can do ANYTHING.

I wanna do it again!

[mb90535im]

I've had mine in some fairly gnarly stuff (for a GS) like trail 82 from Buck Bald to 68, but was concerned that I was destroying my clutch.

Do you feel like you were abusing the pig's clutch yesterday?

[DriftDragon]

Originally Posted by mb90535im

I've had mine in some fairly gnarly stuff (for a GS) like trail 82 from Buck Bald to 68, but was concerned that I was destroying my clutch.

Do you feel like you were abusing the pig's clutch yesterday?

You know... I have heard some people concerned about that due to the dry clutch design. My understanding is that is way more of a issue if you do so at highway speeds and very high rpms. When you are working at slower speeds as in an offroad environment I really don't find myself feathering the clutch at that high of an RPM. Maybe 4k but certainly not up in the 7k range. once I got rpm that high I am off the clutch. If your throttle AND clutch work together I don't think you ever really get in the abuse range.

Many of the major offroad GS riders seem to concur and report very long clutch lifespans despite heavy offroad usage and lots of bottom half rpm feathering. I would be more concerned with second guessing what I need to do in the heat of battle than worrying about early clutch replacement but that is just me. I focus more on keeping my arms relaxed than most anything else while riding... to me that's the first concern and worry about anything seems to increase that tendency. I believe paying attention is more important than analyzing while riding. It seems to me the real brain work does not have time to reach our conscious minds. In other words riding teaches us best if we keep our conciousness working on observing and let the inner mind make the decisions. Does that make sense? I often wonder how much our real mind bothers to even share with our conscious mind about what it knows. But I do ride better when I focus on observing than when trying to help make decisions. That seems to be true to me.

[GaM]

A weekday afternoon is a good time for Houston Valley. The last time I was there was the day after Christmas a few years ago and everybody that a new ATV for Christmas was there. Gotta watch those ATV's at that place. A woman from Chattooga County got killed on one over there in April.

[VIPDRE]

Originally Posted by GaM

A weekday afternoon is a good time for Houston Valley.

Agree on the timing of going to Houston Valley. I've only been there during the week nights and it has been so quiet each time. We had about 1.5 to 2 hours riding which was perfect on a work night to work off the stress but not get totally worn out.

Great group to ride with. Thanks for leading us Twisty! I think the stopping every 5-7 minutes was a good pace considering the variety of bikes, riders and turns we took.

[DriftDragon]

Squirrly, are you gonna create us a new regular thread... something like "Chattanooga Area Impromptu Group Rides" or something like that?

I wanna see if anyone wants to do Prentice Cooper anytime soon. I am tempted to check it out Tuesday after work a bit.

[SquirrelyGrl]

Very soon Tim! We're working on that pronto. I may not be able to ride Tuesday, I need to purchase a new rear tire and possibly a clutch for the DR & throttle cable.
AB ~ He still has to fix his foot peg.
Maybe David, Andre or Jman could meet you over there. Or some of the other guys in the area. I'll spread the

Be on the lookout Tim! We're gonna come up with something cool for our hood here

Also if you wanted, I think AB & I could meet you at the Terminal if you wanted after your ride, and anyone else is more than welcome to join as well.

[ABHulgan]

Squirrely's got a new thread....

http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=837457