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It's been a hellish summer, I haven't gotten much time to ride or read the forums (I am away a few months and ohwow the whole place is different!), but I did get a good evening ride by Lake Kachess in Washington a while back. And, I took the TW on a week-long camping trip. Not a riding trip, but a fun experience packing everything on to the bike to get there and back anyways. Also found out that leaving the oil filler cap off for a 10-mile ride doesn't drain much oil out of the bike, but it sure makes a mess! :/
Here's (hopefully) some photos of the Kachess lake ride (if it'll work):
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I'll be uploading more Kachess trip photos to my flickr account here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/akari_blue1/with/4996611345/
My friend and housemate had a business meeting in the area and was able to borrow the big pick-up truck from work for it, so we loaded up my TW in the back and I spent the late afternoon and early evening exploring the hills above the campsite. It was a lot of fun, I was out riding about 4 hours total. I don't have any photos of the last half of the ride because I was too busy getting down OFF the mountain before I got struck by lightning.
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If I had a helmet-cam, I'd have glorious shots of blue-purple lightning right in front of me, lighting up the whole sky. It was beautiful! But not exactly what I was hoping for, I had a hard time concentrating on the path in front of me with the lightning in the sky above me!
The path was probably easy to most people here. I found it a bit challenging, I'm just not used to dirt trails on an actual dirt bike yet. It was mostly gravel, bone-dry even in the deepest potholes, and a lot of it was obviously driven over in 4x4 trucks. The little TW had absolutely no trouble navigating it, but I found it unnerving to be losing traction as much as I did. Over the ridges in the road, the back wheel would just break free, and then come back, so suddenly that I'd have no time to react. Kind of neat! Also interesting loss of traction over large rocks embedded in the road surface, a but more "eek"-worthy but I never lost control so it must have been alright! Lots of wildflowers, no big animals or other traffic, warm but not hot, it was just about perfect.
Hopefully when my personal life settles down, I'll have a chance to go back and spend more time up there. Lots of trails I'd love to explore around there! And with how easy it is to load the TW into a pickup, hopefully I'll talk my friend in to taking me on more such outings. It was a nice change from my usual treks through the Olympic Park trails.
Akari
Here's (hopefully) some photos of the Kachess lake ride (if it'll work):
I'll be uploading more Kachess trip photos to my flickr account here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/akari_blue1/with/4996611345/
My friend and housemate had a business meeting in the area and was able to borrow the big pick-up truck from work for it, so we loaded up my TW in the back and I spent the late afternoon and early evening exploring the hills above the campsite. It was a lot of fun, I was out riding about 4 hours total. I don't have any photos of the last half of the ride because I was too busy getting down OFF the mountain before I got struck by lightning.
The path was probably easy to most people here. I found it a bit challenging, I'm just not used to dirt trails on an actual dirt bike yet. It was mostly gravel, bone-dry even in the deepest potholes, and a lot of it was obviously driven over in 4x4 trucks. The little TW had absolutely no trouble navigating it, but I found it unnerving to be losing traction as much as I did. Over the ridges in the road, the back wheel would just break free, and then come back, so suddenly that I'd have no time to react. Kind of neat! Also interesting loss of traction over large rocks embedded in the road surface, a but more "eek"-worthy but I never lost control so it must have been alright! Lots of wildflowers, no big animals or other traffic, warm but not hot, it was just about perfect.
Hopefully when my personal life settles down, I'll have a chance to go back and spend more time up there. Lots of trails I'd love to explore around there! And with how easy it is to load the TW into a pickup, hopefully I'll talk my friend in to taking me on more such outings. It was a nice change from my usual treks through the Olympic Park trails.
Akari
