Black Dog Dual Sport Ride

Last winter, around January or February, my friend Ray talked me into entering this event, a two-day dual sport ride: http://www.blackdogdualsport.com/bd_events.htm.  I thought that with Ray also entered, although he would be riding the more difficult "A" course versus my less challenging "B" course, I would at least have somebody there that I could hang out with and maybe share a ride to and from the event.  Well, last weekend was the event, and Ray couldn't make it due to some eye surgery that he was recovering from.  So Carolyn and I showed up Saturday morning and tried to figure it our on our own.  Suiting up:

 

Before we even got out on the course they had us ride some little obstacles and I chose the slow route over some boards rather than ride over the tractor tires:

 

Once out on the course, the first challenge was learning to use a roll chart that the club had provided.  This gave turn-by-turn instructions for following the course, which only had rudimentary course marking.  I got lost within the first few miles.  The problem was that my motorcycle odometer was way off from the mileage on the roll chart so that I made a turn too early and then nothing matched up after that.  I went back to the start and gave it another go.  This time I relied on my Garmin Zumo GPS for mileage and it matched much closer. 

Within maybe the first 10 miles the course was routed down a god-awful rocky downhill that had me creeping along with one foot on the ground and releasing the brakes to gain a couple of feet and then do it all over again.  I wish I had taken some pictures, but I was in survival mode and not about to let go of the handlebars to grab the camera.  Back when I had a real dirt bike and the skill to ride it, I'm sure I would have been able to ride down that hill, but I still probably would not have liked it.  That was the worst of it, but the course continued to be really rocky, plus mud holes and steep climbs.  Finally, I fell over on an uphill and the bike landed with the wheels uphill and the tank and bars downhill.  I couldn't pick it up in that position and had to wait for somebody to come along and help me.  I was quickly getting exhausted and sweating like a pig. 

This was not starting out well.  I knew I wasn't going to be able to do 160 miles like that.  I decided to switch to the "C" route, which was supposed to be more for the bigger adventure-type bikes.  My bike is not very big, but then, neither am I, so it is more an adventure bike for little old men.  When the "B" route joined with the "C" route the riding got much more enjoyable and I ended up riding on the Old Barlow Road, which is part of the route the Pioneers took into Oregon.  I've been on this road once before and wanted to learn how to find it again, and this time I had my GPS to provide a track for me.  It had rained the two days before the even and it was cloudy and drizzling on Saturday, so the road was in perfect condition.  The only problem was that my sweat from the earlier exertion was now making me cold:

All was going well and I was beginning to really enjoy the ride, when I came to a place where the route chart just did not match the roads.  People were riding all over the place trying to figure it out.  I hooked up with another guy who said he thought the course went to the little town of Wamec, so we headed down that way.  It was a long way to Wamec and when we got there we still could not find the course.  About the only option by that time was to take highways back to the start at the Hood River county fairgrounds.  I did eventually cross the course and finished the last 10 miles or so on the correct route.   By the time I got to the finish, though, I had gone 212 miles instead of the 160 that was supposed to be the distance. 

Carolyn and I stayed in the town of Hood River, which was about 9 miles from the fairgrounds, and breakfast at the hotel was at 6 am and the riders meeting was at 7 am.  By the time we had breakfast and I suited up we were running late, so I was driving sort of fast to get to the rider's meeting.......and I got pulled over by a county sheriff.  I was lucky that he ended up not giving me a ticket. 

There was a guy behind me at the start and we seemed to be riding together for quite a few miles.  Eventually I stopped and we had a chat.  Imagine my surprise when I saw that he was riding a military motorcycle made by Fred Hayes, who used to belong to the same club as I (Chaparrals) when I lived in Southern California. 

 

 

 

The rider's name was Jake, and he turned out to be a really interesting guy.  He had been working his butt off in North Dakota in the oil fields and had saved up enough money to quit his job and go adventuring.  He bought the bike in Utah,  trucked it to the border below San Diego, and then rode it down to Cabo on the tip of Baja California and back.  He was next going to work his way towards Mt. Rainier which he plans to climb during the last week in this month.  He found out about the Black Dog while passing through Hood River when he stopped at a bike shop to buy a new shift lever, and decided to do the Sunday ride. 

I told him I knew quite a bit about the story of the military motorcycle he was riding and could maybe find out some details of his particular bike. 

We ended up riding the whole day together and had a good time.  The ride itself, though, couldn't have been more different than the day before.  It was basically a road ride with a lot of pavement and a few dusty gravel roads thrown in.  Jake and I kept a pretty brisk pace, which was all the more impressive because his rear shock was toast.  He had hit a ditch in Baja at high speed and blew the seals in the shock.  Consequently, it had very little oil in it and he would bounce like a pogo stick whenever he hit a bump or road dip. 

                                                                                        Jake

At the finish, after talking to Jake, Carolyn and I realized he had no place to stay and no way to work on his bike before he was scheduled to climb Mt Rainier (he was meeting a climbing partner in Seattle).  So we decided to invite him to stay with us and we would try to either fix the shock or get a replacement.  Jake stayed that night.....and the next......and the next.  We just could not find parts for the shock, or any replacement that could be obtained in a reasonable time.  We had a great visit though.  Jake is a real gearhead and biker.  He owns three other motorcycles besides the military KLR; two dirt bikes and a GSXR 1000. He told stories of the many varied and interesting jobs he has had in his 30 years of living.   I even put him to work helping me chip branches from trees I had felled in my firewood gathering work.  We put in a pretty full afternoon at it in between rain showers on Monday. 

 I also managed to get in touch with Fred Hayes and got this email response from him about the motorcycle:

"Hi Gerry:

Great to hear from you.  Hope all is well with you and Carolyn.
The bike was manufactured 04/2000 as part of a Marine Corps contract as shown on the data plate.  There were several hundred auctioned off between 2004 and 2009 that didn't get into the diesel conversion contract.  This is one of those units.

This unit is one of the earlier units as it doesn't have the vents in the front of the gas tank.  If he ever wanted one of the new tanks, he may be able to get one from IMS Products.

I'm still building diesel bikes and you can check out what I've been doing at www.dieselmotorcycles.com

Again, great to hear from you.

Best to all,
Fred & Kay..."

By Wednesday, though, we had given up on finding a solution for the broken shock, and just put some gear oil in the old one and put it back on the bike.  We figured the gear oil might not leak out of the blown seal as fast as real shock oil.  Jake left on Wednesday morning and Carolyn and I wish him well and safe climbing on Rainier.