The Summer of Stupid: 7400+ miles of 2up - OBCDR, CDT, TAT West and more...

[redog1]

"Aren’t they cute together?"

Long lost brother?

pm'd ya.

[LittleWan]

Day 42: 8/17/10 home 180 miles




Not much to say.
I was really sad to be going home.
But, the bike was in dire need of an oil change and some love.





















































How do we know we’re home?
Traffic.






No Norm.

180 miles
43 average
79 max
7449 odometer.
considering the times we rode without using Norm,
I‘ll round that up to 7500 total miles.


So, how did we do with our goals?
1) Don’t wreck the bike - woo hoo! Bike’s in one piece.
2) Don’t get hurt - Yay! except for a bruised ankle in the La Sal Mountains, we’re good.
3) Have fun - Oh yeah. We definitely accomplished that one - knocked it out of the park!




Number of flats: zero
Number of crashes: 1, if you count that tipover in the rocks on Crane Mountain.
Number of getoffs: not sure. Maybe 4? The one in the nasty water outside of Virgin Valley was the worst.


Still, it was a fantastic trip.


Wow, this ride report was a real time-suck, huh?

I’m done, but BigWan will be taking over with some kind of gear wrap up.

Thanks for reading, everyone!
Sorry it dragged on for so long...
Now, go RIDE!

[larryboy]

Originally Posted by LittleWan

Thanks for reading, everyone!
Sorry it dragged on for so long...
Now, go RIDE!

The best report, ever.

[nevermind]

Originally Posted by LittleWan

... it was a fantastic trip.


Wow, this ride report was a real time-suck, huh?

Thanks for reading, everyone!
Sorry it dragged on for so long...

It was a fantastic trip, thank you so very much for taking many, many hours writing this and sharing it with us!!! FWIW, it never dragged on and NEVER sucked!!!!

[WOXOF]

Please don't say it is over, Please Don't !
Now what am I going to do with my sorry unemployed a$$ to pass the time.
Guess I'll have to start looking for a job.


Great RR LitleWan. Loved every minute of it.
Thanks for taking the time to write it.

[Tn. Walrus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acYDNlMYAaI

What else can I say. I'm going to miss reading the report. You guys are an inspiration to a noob like me!!!

[Krashdragon]

The End.
Damn!

Now to go find a job...
must. buy. dirt. bike.....

Many thanks!
Mary aka Krashdragon

[redog1]

You guys ROCK!!!

[Bob]

Thanks for taking me along! Thanks for dragin it out so I have been able to look forward to something new every day.

Between this and Mobius I have been subjected to great pics and dialogue.

Your last hill climb/hike in OR brought back memories from your last time up it, You will need to go back get a run at it and conquer it!

[dustyrider]

Originally Posted by LittleWan

Day 42: 8/17/10 home 180 miles




Not much to say.
I was really sad to be going home.


I’m done, but BigWan will be taking over with some kind of gear wrap up.

Thanks for reading, everyone!
Sorry it dragged on for so long...
Now, go RIDE!

Oh sure, leave us hanging. Only 59 pages. Now what are we supposed to do with our none-riding time? Huh? What?

Fantastic report and thank you for taking the time to write it up. Ya'll need to go to Africa and connect up with MetalJockey and friends. Go two-up among the elephants and other mega-chipmunks.

Well done, and thanks again Wans.

[Gale B.T.]

Congratulations you two, great RR , one of the very best. I have favorite spots that I have written down so I can ease back into your trip and gets some smiles all over again.

Two of my trips I put a string of pics to music, always a hoot to see. This RR in a slide show would be "sellable" , I know I would purchase one.

Enjoy your time and start planning your next one for those of us looking forward to same ASAP

gale

[Questor]

See Littlewan...

Those of us who have jobs lost productivity because of your Ride Report, but those of us who don't have jobs are now inspired to get jobs so they can earn money to get a bike, and then quit so they can do a trip like yours.

So in the short run, you decreased overall productivity, in the medium term you created a net increase in employment, but in the long term, were all going to quit our jobs.

I bet KTM sales go up as a result.
Nice job!

Q~

[SlowRide13]

Make LittleWan your favorite!!!

Bring on the gear reports BigWan!

[Moraflex]

Over, Done, No More

LW that was one hell of a good RR. Over a month of lunch time viewing.

[BigWan]

Now that Littlewan has finished the riding bits I guess I will have to do some kind of bike prep, gear review type thing.

We were really lucky this year, all of the mechanical issues we had were quite trivial.
Early on in the trip the bike started spewing coolant and overheating whenever pushed just a little.
Like all LC8 owners, I am always looking for signs that the water pump has failed.
The bike was using or loosing coolant, so I assumed the worst and started to think about where I was going to replace the pump.
After keeping a close eye on the water level and the engine oil for a couple of days, I ruled out a failed water pump since the oil never got that creamy oil water mix look.
After a quick look around Orange Crush I found a plausible culprit, a dirty or bad radiator cap.
I took off the cap cleaned it up and replaced it. Problem solved.

I have to say that without ADV and Orange Crush in particular, I can’t imagine owning a KTM 950/990.
It’s a vital resource, the first place I turn to whenever there’s a problem with the bike.
So thanks to all those who take the time to share their experience and expertise with the rest of us.

The only other mechanical trouble we had was a dead battery on three different occasions.
This was always a problem on the 950 also.
Maybe the stock battery is a little undersized, I don’t know.
It just can’t keep up with the charging demands we place on it with the intercoms, AA batteries for the camera and gps.

I’m really not one to preach about bike prep and what you have to do or not do, but I don’t mind sharing what worked for us.

For the big Katoom specifically:

-Changing out the stock clutch slave with one from Evoluzion gets rid of one potential problem.



-Replacing the low fender with the high fender was a big help.
Last year we got bound up in the mud and it made forward progress really difficult.
We had the same kind of sticky mud this year and were glad we made the change.




-This year we went with Ned’s 2 into 1 pipe and extra gas tank. http://www.advtank.com/
It was a very convenient way to carry 2.1 extra gallons of gas. When we are loaded down we get 25 to 40 mpg, more often closer to 33.
It was nice to know you could always go 200+ miles if need be. I liked it much more than carrying the Kolpins like we did last year.
With the ADV tank we were able to have saddlebags, which allowed us to camp.



We did have a bit of rubbing and scraping on the swing arm from the ADV Tank mount. I think we can find a fix for it now that we’re home.



-As for gearing, we went with 16/45.
We tried to be in the dirt as much as possible, so I thought I would rather have a bike that would be comfortable in the slower tight stuff- even if that meant a slower top speed.
We rarely have the need to go over 90.

Things we did to the bike in general, mostly commonsense stuff people do when doing this type of travel.

-One of the most important improvements we made was to our skid plate. We went with the strongest one we could find made by B.D.C.W. http://www.blackdogcw.com/
And we're glad we did. We had a (hopefully) once in a life time hit, directly on that little piece of armor that knocked the wind out of both of us.
If we had been using the stock skid plate, I think the trip would’ve ended back in Oregon.
I used the stock skid plate on the 950- until it broke into 3 pieces, that’s when I got this one.



I transferred it to the 990, but after this trip we decided to upgrade to the latest version.
It looks even tougher than the original. I can’t wait to test it out.



Our original Black Dog skid plate (below) was the first generation.
While it had some kickstand protection, it was in need of more.



Checkout the protection on the new one.
The kickstand switch is the Achilles heel of the 990, a good hit here and you’re walking.



-Another addition we tested on this trip were the Acerbis hand guards, any decent bark busters will work.
Bikes fall over, that’s what they do.
It’s nice to not have to worry about broken levers, however you still have to carry extra levers. Oh well.

-Luggage: We tried the new Wolfman Expedition Dry Line and loved them.http://www.wolfmanluggage.com/
Barring any high speed sliding crashes they should last for years. I have nothing bad to say about them.
They are well designed and stay put.
We also switched tank bags from the KTM bag with the zipper to the Wolfman Explorer Lite.
The Explorer is 2” shorter then the KTM bag and I could really feel a difference in how far forward I could get.
The Explorer uses 4 parachute buckles instead of a zipper to attach to the bike, much easier to deal with.

-Tires: Everybody has their favorite tires, mine are 908 rear and 606 front. I think I might be changing the front favorite to a Pirelli Scorpion Rally.
It didn’t cup like the 606 as it wore out.
To be honest though, I only used one so far, but I liked it.
We also used ultra H.D. tubes and had zero flats.

G.P.S.: Littlewan did a pretty thorough job documenting the exploits of Norman the Delorman.
All in all we are very happy with the PN60. It did everything we expected it to do and more.

-Intercoms: The Interphone 4’s worked perfectly, they provided clear wireless communication with batteries that lasted all day, 10+ hrs. per charge. http://wirelessriders.com/
That being said, It was a bit of a pain to charge them while camping.
Also we were unable to listen to the same music and talk.
Our old Motocomm st1 did that really well.
I feel like a whiny yuppie after typing that. Oh well, if the Latte fits...

I guess that’s about it, I’m not really into this whole gear thing.
If you have a specific question that I might be able to answer, go for it.

One more pic of the bike, just because I love to look at it.


I would like to say thank you to Kelly for doing a great job and thanks to you all for reading.

Matt