Time on your hands...Go for a local ride

Shake Down Ride

Well it seems the past few years of riding has put quite a few miles on my off road dual sport Honda. So naturally it seemed like the perfect time to upgrade since a buddy had a line on a seldom ridden bike with all the aftermarket accessories already installed. So I buy this bike at his recommendation, sight unseen! Thanks Little Chief! (Aka Doug Smith, one of my Baja partners.)

The bike is very clean and has some good stuff on it but not quite set up for the long haul I like to put these bikes through. So I am figuring I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 hours of prep time to make it #33 dependable. I don’t like to walk on some of these 80 to 400 mile jaunts this bike will do. The bike this one is replacing has a lot of miles on it and has never let me down except when I crash it or run into a boulder or some other kind of bonehead move.  I am looking for the same kind of dependability out of this newer mount. I took it out for the first time on a very short (60 miles) shake down ride to see if I missed anything or if it needed adjustments. What a pleasant surprise to find out in all that prep time all I forgot to do was set the rear tire pressure to the correct psi. I noticed it was a little busy and harsh in the rear with 40 psi. I forgot to let the air out when I changed the tire, oops!

It was a great close to home ride that had me come across a couple of things I have never seen before and reminded me to not take for granted the rides close to home. I was riding on some railroad tracks in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and came across 3 teenage kids sitting on the tracks in a slight curve.

 I found this odd so I stopped to talk to them and take their picture. I think they thought I was some sort of Railroad Police because they were a bit standoffish at first. So we were talking about how they live close by and are in the area around the tracks a lot. They also said this was the first time anyone had even slowed down so as to not throw dust and rocks when they went speeding by, much less had anything to say to them. I found it interesting and sad at the same time. It is sad that we as motorcycle riders are looked at like that from even teenage kids. I took their picture and we wished each other well as I continued on my shake down jaunt. I was not far from home when I next came across a railroad undercrossing with a lot of colorful graffiti that I had never seen before. How was it that I have never seen this so close to home? I guess I need to get out moreJ.

The new/used dual sport bike performed almost flawlessly and I had a great time meandering around and evaluating my surroundings and the bike. Try it sometime and you may be surprised at what you find so close to home.

#33