Hey there friends, and welcome back! This last Saturday 11FEB17, I proved once again that the ADV community is the friendliest, most welcoming, and passionate group of people you could possibly associate yourself with. I mean every word of that! What started as a purchase over FaceBook turned into the most fun I’ve had in years. I was in the market for a center stand for my RX3, and decided to check on the used market. I started on the CSC RX3 Owner’s Page. Straight away I found one for sale and decided to scoop it up. The guy selling it, Matt, ended up being a great guy and invited me to join him on an off-road adventure through the desert! So here I am, trying to decided if I’m ready to trust a stranger, drive 130 miles at 5:00 AM to meet up with another group of strangers, and follow them blindly another 100 miles through the desert on a bike I’ve never taken in the dirt, then (Assuming my bike was still in one piece), drive the 130 miles back home. Of course I said yes! I could not be happier that I did!
The Meet-up point was a small lot full of truck with empty trailers. I assumed they were already out in the desert having fun. But I’m jumping ahead. Let me take a second and start from the beginning: My house. I left at just after 5:00 AM, wanting to make sure I made it the 130 miles to the meet-up point before 8:30 AM. Should’t be a problem, right? My weather app says it’s going to be partly cloudy with no rain, so things should be smooth sailing. Wrong. I made it about 70 miles before the fog rolled in. It was so think I could’t see the tail light of the car 5 meters in front of me. Can’t get worse than this at least, I though incorrectly. At about the 80 mile mark it just dumped water on me. My RX3’s windscreen was doing a decent job of keeping my chest dry, but it was also keeping the wind from blowing the water off my helmet’s face shield. I was wearing jeans and a pair of tennis shoes (I know, I know), and I was drenched. My teeth were chattering and my fingers were aching from the cold. I thought more than once about turning back. I got to the meet-up point a couple minutes late, and the whole gang was already there. We made our introductions. As I looked around I noticed the guys were all wearing tennis shoes as well. I don’t feel so stupid now! I thought. As we were making our final preparations, to my horror, every single person in the group took off their tennis shoes and strapped on a pair of riding boots. I groaned inwardly.
We made a final stop a few miles away from our meet-up point for fuel and a final route & safety brief. We set up our riding order with Evan in front as our leader and navigator, and me right behind him since I had the least amount of experience in the dirt. Evan had a KLR650 which is up front in the above photo. I was behind him on my CSC Rx3, and behind us were three CSC TT250 dirt bikes! The ‘China bikes’ were out in force today! Except for that big ol’ Japanese bike leading us of course! The route was to be about 80 miles of mixed hard pack dirt, loose rocky terrain, and loose sand. Suddenly I was thankful for the rain. I have zero experience in the sand, and rather than get too nervous about it, which I was to an extent, I decided to think of it as a great opportunity to get the experience I need to be competent the next time I ride through it! Then we were off!
We started off innocently enough, with a trip around the Lockheed facility. We kept our distance from the barbed wire fences and stayed on the road. These roads were large enough to have full sized vehicles on them with no issue at all, which I think was the point. Just as I was starting to get nervous that the whole trip was going to be on these easy roads the trail just dropped. Literally. Cut right across the road was a two foot wide and about a foot deep trench. Not a big deal, for everyone but me. I went straight into that ditch and at the last second I throttled back hard, trying to get the front wheel up in time. I didn’t get it up in time… After smacking my helmet onto the top of my windscreen I decided to pay far, far more attention. I managed to stay on the bike, but I may have bent my front wheel. I’ll talk about that at the end.
As the hard-pack fell away we found a few hundred feet of loose sand. The rain had managed to firm it up a little bit, but this was new to me. I managed to muddle through it (Pun intended) by placing both feet out and ‘walking’ the bike as I carefully loosed the clutch to keep my rear wheel moving. If worked out okay, and I made it through! I probably looked like a baby deer trying to stand for the first time but, hey! I was walking damn it! By this point we had one of the TT250’s go down with no damage. The sand can be merciless.
Evan is great at finding interesting stuff for us to see. We found a gutted out house with an in ground pool. We decided this would be a great spot to take a quick break. We got back to the ride a few minutes later and started heading towards lunch! On the way there we found a cool train underpass and decided it would be a great idea to snap some pictures!
There were two ways to get to lunch: The road, or the dirt. What the hell are we here for eh? Dirt it was and this was the most challenging part of the ride for me. We followed the railroad tracks on what I think was a very unkempt service road. This thing had it all: Soaking mud puddles, sandy ridges, steep hill climbs, and the most nerve wracking steep decent I’ve ever seen. The route was tough for me, as it would go from mud, to hard-pack, straight into sand at some points. About half-way through the route, we came across a house on our left. It had a small chicken coop in the back yard, and a six foot fence around the property. I remember looking for a quick second at the chickens, it registered that they existed but I paid them no more mind. I felt the ground under me get really soft, my front wheel was beginning to wash out. The sand was about to get me again. Suddenly, from out of no where, this rooster flies (jumps!?) over the fence and right toward me. I’m in the middle of trying to save myself from a face full of dirt, but this rooster was having none of my shit. He nearly jumped right into me. I was so startled I righted my bike and throttled down to get away from the little monster. I think he actually saved me! I later found out there was a second one that jumped over the fence and hassled the guys behind me. What a day! If you own that farm, I apologize your animals got out, but I think they scared me as much as I scared them.
It may not seem instantly obvious from the above photo, but this was a monster of a hill. As we got to the top of it all I could think was, If I drop it here I’m done for, and the bike would have been done too. This hill was a curving drop about 80 feet down at a severe angle. I’m gonna make an un-educated guess and say it was at least 40 degrees.Evan gives me a few words of wisdom on how to get down this thing, and takes off without hesitation. He made it to the bottom without a hitch. Since I’m next, I took a deep breath and just went. If I was going to wreck, than I was going to wreck. No use thinking about the consequences… And besides, this was the only way down… I start slow, and as I make it around the first immediate bend I start to pulse my rear brake. Evan made it incredibly clear not to touch my front brake, and I took that as gospel. The tire kept locking, the sound of dirt tires dragging against rock, and the clanking sound the bike was making when I pounded on the pedal were difficult to drown out as I focused on staying up-right. Even with the pulsing I was picking up speed at a rapid pace. Near the bottom of the grade the slope got even worse, and the pulsing was no longer working. I was having a hard time steering, and finally I just let off the brake all together, and grabbed the clutch lever in. I coasted to the bottom where a pool of lose baby head sized rock smashed against my skid plate, my front suspension bottoming out hard. I made it. I was sweating bullets as I pulled up to Evan, who gave me the thumbs up. Everyone else made it down without incident, and learned a few very valuable real world lessons. Finally, it was lunch time!
We ate lunch for about an hour. The rain had just started as we arrived, and we discussed whether or not we were going to keep going. We agreed that we would, but we would take a shorter route.
The rain was really starting to pick up again as we started our trek back. My face shield had to stay up to prevent fogging, which just got my glasses wet. Visibility was an issue. All my clothes and gear were soaked again.
We decided to cut the route even shorter, and started directly back to the highway. We made it to the highway a short time later. We had another spill on the way there, but nothing serious. The TT250, again, took it on the chin without any issues. The rider was okay too! We made our way to a gas station to get some hot chocolate and warm up for a bit. Evan treated up, he’s a stand up guy!
After this we made our way back to the start point, said our goodbyes, and headed home. It was 3:30 PM, and I had another few hours of riding ahead of me. I realized when I got home at 7:00 PM that I had been in that saddle of that RX3 for the better part of 16 hours that day. When I finally post my review of the RX3, the seat is something I’m going to have to criticize.
To wrap things up I just want to say I had an amazing time with these guys, and I would ride with any or all of them again in a split second! The bikes held up amazingly, with only a bent clutch pedal and some scratches to show for the day. My RX3 got about 330 miles, and it handled the day far better than I did. My back was killing me and I passed out just as soon as I got home.
My only real issue for the day was my front wheel. I’m getting some shake (up and down) on the handlebars that is very noticeable at low speeds up to 50 and less so at highway speed. It was doing this before the ride, so I don’t really think I bent my wheel. I’ll look into it soon.
For all you guys that took me out there, you have my sincerest thanks! I had an amazing time and I cannot wait to do it again! And thank you all for allowing me to use your photos on my page. Feel free to leave links to your videos and pictures in the comments of you like!
-Mike
The Greasy Spanner 
Awesome report, Mike. Thanks for sharing. On that wheel up and down thing, give Gerry a call on Tuesday. I’d check the spoke tension first (see our Shop Talk video on wheels and tires from about a month ago).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for dropping by Joe! I’ll give Gerry a call and see what he thinks. I’m not overly worried about it but I want to see what’s causing it before it gets worse.
LikeLike
great write up man. I was going to send joe a recap but I think there is no need!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I HATE riding two-wheelers in soft sand! I remember going out to a place called Jawbone Canyon off the 395, probably not too far from where you were, with two friends, way back in the 90’s. We were planning to ride dozens of miles on dirt (er, sand) roads. One friend had a CR500, the other had a Kawasaki KLX500, and my friend with the Kawi brought along his other dirt bike, a 250 four stroke Kawi. The whole ride, it felt like I was falling! My friend thought maybe I should ride his CR500 because it had so much more power (it would push through the sand better); no improvement. From that day forward, I am of the belief that the only way to tackle sand is on a quad, the way God intended!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for the comment! I was upset with how I handled the sand, but the more I do it the better I’ll get. Or at least I hope that’s how it works!
LikeLike
I’m with you; soft sand is not a lot of fun.
Power doesn’t help much (if at all) in soft sand. What works best for soft sand is avoiding it. If you can’t do that, what works second best is dropping the tire pressure down to 20 psi and increasing speed. That increasing speed thing seems counter-intuitive until you try it. If you get up to 40 mph or more, you float across the top of the sand; at low speeds the front tire just digs in and allows itself to be turned by the sand. Increased speed makes the bike more stable. Then, of course, you have to remember to up the tire pressure once you get back on asphalt.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very nice write up! I was just down in the Mojave and Death Valley last month and got to ride sand for the first time. I was riding with an instructor for RawHyde Adventures and the tips for sand were:
1 – Use the clutch as ON or OFF, no slipping it in the sand
2 – When you feel you are starting to fail, give it a shot of throttle and the bike will straighten up
3 – The faster you go the better
4 – When things start to go wrong do NOT let off the power, do not pull the clutch, do not brake…accelerate
5 – Stay very loose on the handlebars and let the bike wander
6 – Stand and pinch the tank with your knees but not so hard as to try to crush it. Stay relaxed
7 – You don’t steer with the bars, you steer with your feet. Weighting a peg and counter-weighting with your butt.
8 – Find the right grear that has the right power-band so when you blip the throttle to straighten up there is instant power to do so
These tips worked well for me. I agree on the seat so I got one of the Seat Concept ones and did a LONG days on it down there and it made a world of difference. Hope the front wheel thing is something simple. Take care!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this comment! Lots of good info in here that I will be applying the next time I’m in the sand! How did you like the Rawhyde course? I’m pretty interested in going.
LikeLike
The RawHyde instruction was excellent. The Intro to Adventure is all about going slow and learning all the basics of bike handling offroad. Everything from proper body position while standing, bike fit like risers, counter-weighting, peg steering, clutch slipping, braking (multiple ways). I want to take the next steps class which then takes all the basic slow speed work and speeds it up and includes things like steep climbs and descending and skid turns and such. It was also great to go from taking the class to immediately heading out on their base camp alpha ride and the mid-winter adventure. If I get the chance to go back and do the next step training I want to join in on the Expedition CV ride which takes the toughest route into Death Valley that takes a full 2 days just to get there. There are some great YouTube videos on what they do there that I enjoyed watching. It seems very expensive to take the class and in some ways it is but it does include a top notch facility, amazing coaches, a place to sleep, an open bar and amazing chef’s turning out some crazy good food. You also get a chance to really hang out with a bunch of other adventure riders and made some good friends which will come in handy as you continue to adventure ride and hook up for riding with them or getting tips on areas to go around the country and world.
LikeLiked by 1 person