Saturday, May 13, 2006

Un-Reconstructed

The horror. The horror.

Drudge linked up this story of a teacher in South Carolina who has committed the ultimate sin and stated the obvious. History is settled on the issue of north american slavery and its cost/benefit to blacks, yet a man makes some pretty innocuous comments and the PC crowd is in a complete tizzy. What fun!

The place I find disagreement with this fellow is with the idea that one has to be very intelligent or white to be able to implement, understand, and responsibly function within a constitutionally limited republican government. Short of lacking the mental acuity of being able to wipe the spittle from one's own chin it's not too complex to fathom. Sure, a succession of genius level intellects occupying learned, inquisitive, and observant minds was required to formulate western political philosophy, but the hard part is done. Understanding what they laboured to conceptualize hardly requires even a shadow of their intellect. We are intellectually standing on their shoulders and not required to be able to bear their burden.

Where we have fallen short is in succumbing to the temptation of what is (at it's root) marxist philosophy, which appeals to the less motivated among us of any colour, coupled with institutional enforcement of indoctrination.

It is worthy of note that the fearless reporter went straight to the school district and "informed" it of Dr. McCuen's comments. Note the use of "informed" rather than the most journalistic "when asked about". A look into the motivation of the reporter, wouldn't you say?

Do watch the video. It is informative of the goals of modern journalism in that the reporter does not ask questions pertinent to the subject being discussed, such as asking for comment on the espoused views of those making a living off inflammatory remarks "on behalf" of black folks, but continuously asks leading questions to generate a maximum level of controversy.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

The Bag Trick



Seems some things are universal.....

A KLR in action - bear in mind an XR650L was pulled out from this same hole moments before. I don't think that's much deeper than some of the mudholes we rode through Satrday.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

The Twelve Miler – Minibike heaven, KLR hell.

This is where a KLR has no business being anytime after wet weather, though sections of it were the most enjoyable. Lots of water holes and creek crossing, some pretty fast and high splashin' fun. There were however a lot of tight sections that the KLR is just too big and long (for my skill level anyway) to negotiate. We started out on wide gravel for a few miles then transitioned onto singletrack. It didn't take long to find lots of wet, slick rock outcroppings and eroded roots in the trail. SwampThing prefers plain old mud to this stuff and communicated this to me by some serious pounding through the handlebars that it was displeased. At the (ahem) stately pace I was maintaining it was easy to either lose traction altogether and thus control or kill the engine negotiating a particularly steep sided obstacle. I began to feather the clutch in tight maneuvering or application of throttle when negotiating steep obstacles. This seemed to help a lot, but got me into trouble on the only real even half-assed hill climb I attempted as I feathered when I should have been used the stick on SwampThing. No matter, it only took six guys, with the engine helping to get the beast moving up hill again.

We were denied much further exploration due to high water and a low bike The Kid brought, but found a long wide beach near a creek that served as a bullshitting stop and gave everyone a chance to ride each other's minibikes. I tried out Dr. Jekyll's KDX200 and found it amazingly user friendly with supple suspension, of course you have to shift every half second when on the gas.... No thanks.

Throughout all the riding Saturday, The minibikes periodically would “shed” parts and pieces. Inevitably, they would look to me for a solution. The KLR has a lot of parts that are extraneous for trail riding and became the designated fastener donor for at least three of the minibikes. I will note the only other Kawasaki had no such issues, even after the saw-briar patch with Brer Larry.

Babysister and stopped on the way home for a chocolate shake at a nearby burger stand and while we were there with his RM250 minibike and the SwampThing in the trailer a fella stopped on the highway to how much that Kawasaki cost, because he really had always wanted one. Babysister remarked there must be something wrong with people in those parts 'cause the Suzuki's were the good bikes to which another bystander explained, “KLR's are awesome!”

Like I always say when it comes to the KLR: “No matter what you ride, I can ride with you but you can't ride with me.”

Monday, May 08, 2006

The Nine Miler or "Larry Goes Gonzo"

The Nine Miler

This trail is a little misnamed because it is out and back across the same route. Of all the riding Saturday this trail is the best suited to the KLR. Except for one spot going one direction.

There are a lot on nice uphills well suited to the big fourstroke, and muddy turns, with little double-hump water crossings to get the front up on with minimal bottoming on the down side. Of course, the boys on the twosmokers were bouncin' down the trail like twitterpated rabbits.

All was going remarkably well until we came to a long steep uphill composed completely of rocky outcroppings. Lookin' at it from the bottom I was wondering what all the fuss was about and figured I'd just tractor up and over the shit and be on my way. Until Larry stopped. Because The Kid stopped.

One does not stop a KLR650 on a steep, bouldered hillside and expect it to just up and take off again without any fuss. As they say, “An ounce of momentum is worth a pound of traction.” and I was all out of momentum with no traction in sight. Luckily Dr. Jekyll (“Ed”, for short) stayed back to make sure everyone negotiated the obstacle. It was not pretty. Lookin' back, I think I would have made it up the hill OK had Larry not stopped for The Kid stopping, but the sharp obstacled left and the immediate sharp obstacled right would have at least called for stopping to maneuver.

Past “The Rocky Hill” it was mostly all downhill and the big fourstroke enginebrakes well so it was a blast. Coming back the other direction was the usual miles of smiles! The Rocky Hill was pretty uneventful going the other way. Zero pucker factor; Chug! Chug! Chug!, and away we went.

So far I had not dropped the bike and was rapidly building confidence in it. It was obvious to me that the front end was, at once, too stiff at the bottom and too soft at the top of it's stroke compounded by being just plain too short in stroke overall. The other fellas were flyin' down the trail and waiting on me periodically, but my babysitter (Claude) was always nearby.

I can't imagine what a pain in the ass that was, but I carried extra water to make the burden even. I didn't flaunt the refreshments in front of the others at stops on the hot d r y trail, but Claude did.

At one stop, Larry was beaming under the praise of everyone present for the apparent ease with which he was riding given his limited experience. Some more advanced watercrossing techniques were discussed and I guess Larry thought he'd give it a try, so....

Fifty feet into the restart Claude and I hear a twostroke rev to the sky screaming like someone had it by the balls, and see Larry hit a water hole with the front wheel up. What a Splash! It must have impressed him because Larry didn't let off before setting up for the next waterhole immediately following the first. That's when it got ugly. Or funny, depending on your perspective. The bike left the first water hole a bit out of control, hit the second completely out of control and entered the trailside briar patch airbourne. All this to the accompaniment of the sounds of breaking saplings and ripping cloth! Larry didn't stop until he was 15 feet deep into a saw-briar patch well over his head. All we heard after that was a loud pitiful wail of, “Heeeeelllllp!”. He had entered the saw-briar patch with all four appendages spread eagle and only his asshole still connected to the bike. The clenching is what kept him on the seat.

After much laughing at Larry's expense (Claude was forced to piss on a nearby tree lest he soil himself and I nearly dropped the SwampThing into the dirt I was so weak from hysteria), we began extricating him from the patch. Try untangling a spider web while laughing yourself silly. Sadly, we failed to express any sympathy for poor Larry. Luckily, he was laughing, too. Through the pain. That was the best wreck of the day.

I know this is off topic but....... Damn!

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Honest Dirt


Mission: Explore the off road capability of the my KLR650 (SwampThing) with an eye toward suspension evaluation and determination of required upgrades if any. Further, evaluate my own off road skills as relates to a heavyweight dualsport.



Modus Operandi: Meet with some fellas from work who are twostroke devotees riding from 100cc to 250cc Japanese twostrokes with a KTM 250 for good measure.



Personnel:

Claude and JACIII (me): Claude was my excellent host for this outing and rides a Suzuki RM250. Good steady rider who occasionally has flights of impulsive behavior like trying to follow Kyle up hills only the soft of head desire to go.

Eddie and his boy Kyle: Eddie hales from Monticello, Ky. and is a Jekyll and Hyde type of rider. Mild mannered and soft spoken off the bike but he changes when strapped to a KDX200. Nuts. The only time you'll see him is at the trail head and back at the truck. Some demon possesses him when he gets on a bike. His boy Kyle, at least, lets ya' know he is crazy from the get go. In the time it took to Claude and me to unload our bikes Kyle had managed to ride and drop all four of the other bikes there. On purpose. Kyle rides a KTM 250 and it's a beast.

Larry and The Kid: Larry is also a coworker and quite a large boy. He has limited motorcycle experience and rode one of Eddie's bikes as his guest. Recipient of the most creative waterhole crossing award. The Kid (don't know his name) showed up on an old Suzuki 100cc four stroke with no knobs in the center of the back tire. A game rooster if ever there was one.



The Tale:
We all met at an OHV area in the Daniel Boone National Forest called “S-Tree”. There are three trails we on the agenda: The Five Miler, The Nine Miler, and The 20 Miler. I don't think that's their appropriate designation, but these boys are from Monticello and Winchester. By God.
All was well and the bikes were unloaded without incident which led to some impromptu ride swapping. The others were dubious about the KLR's ability to negotiate the trails. I figured if ATV's could handle it the SwampThing could too. I chose what I thought was a light loadout of only a tankbag on the mighty SwampThing.



Five Miler:
This is a piece of work. The forest service has actually laid pavers down at water crossings and up some hills to prevent silting and erosion. It's pretty damned tight throughout and I kept worrying about the slime that likes to grow on rocks underwater making the front wash out and flopping me to the ground. I later learned there is enough traffic through there to keep such stuff at bay, but it was in the back of my mind nonetheless. I took the last position in the group so as not to hold anyone up with my behemoth. My biggest extra-trail excursion occurred in a deep left hander that looked to be a safe berm shot when my front tire initially refused to climb the berm wall to let me start my line high. The front then grabbed all at once and shot me straight up the three foot berm into a foot wide tree. Crunch. It took ten minutes to get the bike free and back on the trail. I eventually made it to where the rest of the fellas had stopped for a break when I noticed my temperature gauge pegging. I shut down and commence work to get the fan going again. Eddie and I worked at bending the radiator back into place and getting the fan some turning clearance, but became frustrated so Claude had to do it. It was then that I realized I was still running road pressure in my tires. While Claude was finishing up with the fan I aired the tires down to safe dirt pressures. What a difference! The rest of that trail was uneventful but really fun. Think rollercoaster with your own gas pedal and small jumps every fifty feet!