Ride Report - North Cascades, Reiter, Index, Monroe

[Nimh]

Hello?   Is anybody still here?    

My wife had to work Saturday, a rare event, and while the weather seemed uncooperative, I figured it was the perfect day for a dual sport ride in the North Cascades.  I planned to revisit Reiter, one of the few ORV parks still open in Washington State, that my wife and I hadn't been to since we sold the ATV's years ago.  It was getting packed then - too many near misses and then some guy mowed down my wife in a blind pass so fast her axle was bent nearly 20 degrees after being hit from behind.  

Hot Dog Central -  Angie and I used to park the truck here years ago when ATV'ing and BBQ hot dogs and enjoy a beer at lunch.


This road used to be near highway condition.  Now it's washed out and very rough.  Not a big deal on the DRZ, but a vehicle would be a trick to get up here.








The roads and trails were fun if not pretty well saturated, but after nearly being involved in three head-ons, all of which I had already stopped on the right side of the road, I figured the forest service roads might be more my speed...

1.5 lanes wide and no guardrails for 20 miles.  Pay attention.


This view is from, of all things, a small housing development in Index, WA.  Amazing views from everybody's deck.




An actual saw blade used in a mill years ago.  10 FEET across.


Interesting bridge at the "main" intersection of Index.  HEY!  Get off my ROOF!


Busy Downtown Index.  I should live here.


So after Index, I jumped back on Highway 2, but felt like I wanted more...  A forest service road flashed by me on my left, so I found a  safe place to U-turn and came back.  


The sign basically says, You're on private property, and if you keep dumping garbage, starting fires and vandalizing our equipment, we'll close the gates for good.  I can't blame 'em.


The road was perfect.  Hard packed and slightly wet to keep the dust down, and only enough loose gravel to make drifting really easy.


I stopped in a gravel pit to find thousands of shells, broken records and shot up computers.  Somebody hated Barbara Streisand and their PC enough to haul this trash up here just to shoot holes in it.  Go Figure.


I'm not sure if you can see with this pic's resolution, but in the gravel is more shot gun shells than you can count.


We all hate computers, and this proves it.  Malice and disdain were the last things these systems felt.


RIP


The clouds are rolling in...














I thought it was a wild lupen, but my wife says I'm wrong (again) and it's a fox glove or a honey suckle.  I was just impressed by nature.  


I ran back to Hwy2 and detoured down the Ben Howard Road for some twisties.  There was little traffic, but a State Patrol was hiding on somebody's driveway shooting radar, but the guy on the dirty dual sport doing seven over didn't even get his attention.  Lucky day.

Tired and dirty, but home safe.  I'm pretty happy I got back into dual sporting, to say the least.  

[nwconk]

Sounds like a good day was had.  
Here' to more.

--chris

[bizarro]

Fitting end to that Barbara Streisand record. And yeah, that's a fox glove.

Nice pics and report!  

[Nimh]

Thanks guys - it was a great time... smiling the whole way home.    I was starting to think the dirt section of STN was dead. 

There were dozens of broken and shot up records in that gravel pit, many were Barbara.   Somebody was on a mission.

[Mr Sunshine]

So I finally decided that my next bike will be a DR-Z400SM with a set of dirt wheels for just days like...can't wait to buy one....should be inwithin th enext 6 months.

[MuddDawg]

Mr. Sunshine, check out Thumpertalk dot com.  Lots of good DRZ info there.  As far as dirt wheels go.  The front it the same as a Rm 125/250 and they are DOT if you care(runs about $150+/- depending on condition).  But the rear is specific to DRZs and KLRs(the Green DRZ). The rear tends to run about $400.00 +/-.  Lots of people doing this swap or running street tires on the 18/21s.  The other option is finding hubs and getting them laced or going aftermarket (Excell or Baher or?) The big front rotor will take some getting used to off road, and the the suspension is stiffer on the SMs.  I do mostly dirt and some SM, so I did the DRZ400S conversion to SM.  This way seems to be the best for the Off-Roaders/full on dirtbiking.  You can typically pick up a used 17" setup for $800+/- for stock SM or $1200+/- for aftermarket used or $1800 for new Excels.  If your sticking to Fire roads and general Dual-Sporting you will probably be fine going SM to (S)Dualsport. Good luck and they are pretty fun. I need to put my SM stuff back on and so some railing.  But the Dirt keeps calling.

Added note:
Be careful with the Bridgestone Trailwings AKA Deathwings .  The work fairly well on the pavement, off road they don't work so good.  On grass/mud its like Ice.

[Nimh]

Sunshine – it’s the least I could do with all your Track Day advice, coupled with my wife’s incessant nagging, “go find yourself a track bike and do it!”  Thanks.  

The DRZ has been pretty good time.  Like MuddDawg mentioned, thumpertalk is a great resource for these bikes.  There’s quite a few cheap performance mods that can be done (and a few not so cheap), and roosting around on a dirt bike in traffic is a unique experience.  

S versus SM is a tough one.  Kinda depends on what your plans are.  If it’s just another track bike for you - just a different medium, I would stick to the SM… but if you plan to use it as a woods bike and use occasionally as another road bike, I would likely choose the S.  The suspensions are a little different and expensive to swap.

…and yeah, I’m itching to pick up a supermoto setup.  Hey MuddDawg - does one loose the speedometer hookup with everything but the stock SM front rim if converting from an S model?  Which of the setups you mentioned did you do?

[Mr Sunshine]

Mr. Sunshine, check out Thumpertalk dot com.  Lots of good DRZ info there.  As far as dirt wheels go.  The front it the same as a Rm 125/250 and they are DOT if you care(runs about $150+/- depending on condition).  But the rear is specific to DRZs and KLRs(the Green DRZ). The rear tends to run about $400.00 +/-.  Lots of people doing this swap or running street tires on the 18/21s.  The other option is finding hubs and getting them laced or going aftermarket (Excell or Baher or?) The big front rotor will take some getting used to off road, and the the suspension is stiffer on the SMs.  I do mostly dirt and some SM, so I did the DRZ400S conversion to SM.  This way seems to be the best for the Off-Roaders/full on dirtbiking.  You can typically pick up a used 17" setup for $800+/- for stock SM or $1200+/- for aftermarket used or $1800 for new Excels.  If your sticking to Fire roads and general Dual-Sporting you will probably be fine going SM to (S)Dualsport. Good luck and they are pretty fun. I need to put my SM stuff back on and so some railing.  But the Dirt keeps calling.

Added note:
Be careful with the Bridgestone Trailwings AKA Deathwings .  The work fairly well on the pavement, off road they don't work so good.  On grass/mud its like Ice.

Nimh do you mind the hijack?  

What I plan to do is mostly commute with the DRZ and I'll likely bust it out on the track for some entertainment.  I want the bigger forks for off-roading too.  If the suspension is too stiff for dirt that isn't hard to change (swap spring, oil, whatever) and I'll likely make it more setup for the dirt than the street considering the use I'll do on the street.  When you look at the WR series you'll see massive fork tubes with them being USD's.  So I figure I might as well get the stronger front end for the dirt anyhow.  If you think the forks are so different that tuning them won't make a difference I'll think about it more.

I know I don't want to run a compromise on the tires...so the 18"/21" setup will have some DOT approved agressive knobbies and the 17" will likely be running Pilot Powers (or my race take offs if I'm on the track).

My goal of the bike is to get a reasonable dirt/trail bike which I can commute to work and around town with since it'll be my only street bike.  The '06 SV is getting race prepped and one of my two SV's is going to slowly get the superbike treatment and the other will stay supersport.  The only problem is it will limit my "long" distance riding but i've found with my involvment in the track I don't have that much time for it....so might as well get something I can play with around home.

[Mr Sunshine]

Be careful with the Bridgestone Trailwings AKA Deathwings

Don't worry...I'll likely look to Michelin's first.

[Nimh]

Nimh do you mind the hijack?  

Not at all.  Whatever I can do to help.  

[UFO]

I so want to do this to my work laptop.  It's such a POS!    Nice pics BTW.  

[XLR8]

Very cool pictures. I love it up there because it's so green. I need to trow the 610 on a trailer and come up there and ride with you guys.

[Mr Sunshine]

Very cool pictures. I love it up there because it's so green. I need to trow the 610 on a trailer and come up there and ride with you guys.

wait until I get my dirt bike.  

[Mrs. DantesDame]

Very cool pictures. I love it up there because it's so green. I need to trow the 610 on a trailer and come up there and ride with you guys.

Yes, come and play!!!

[Nimh]

Yes, come and play!!!

Agreed!  Come on out!  

[Nimh]

wait until I get my dirt bike.  

When I picked up my DRZ a month or so back, Everett Powersports had a bunch of leftover 06's that they were looking to dump.  I got mine for around their cost... maybe you could do better now if they have any left?  

[Mr Sunshine]

When I picked up my DRZ a month or so back, Everett Powersports had a bunch of leftover 06's that they were looking to dump.  I got mine for around their cost... maybe you could do better now if they have any left?  

Thanks for the tip.  But I'm not quite in the market....likely won't be until close to October.

[XLR8]

OK then when everyone gets all set with bikes I'm coming up to play. Sounds like maybe next spring.