California to Montana- All off Road

Gather Up for IGG'S BIRFDAY BASH @ DOVE SPRINGS!! March 16-18 2012
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csmith
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Joined: October 17th, 2011, 9:05 pm

California to Montana- All off Road

Post by csmith »

Hey all, this is Camron Smith. I may have ridden with most of you.

I have been planning an off road trip from California to Montana for upwards of 2 years now. My original plan was to include my brother, James Lewis in the ride, but unfortunately he broke his wrist this past week. We were scheduled to leave the 11th of July and now I'm sunk.


Anyone interested? I know this is short notice, but I have been planning this for some time now and as a medical student, I don't get very much time to do, well...anything.


Synopsis of the ride:
we will traverse 1,100 miles of trail that have been planned/constructed from satellite imagery and gps. (I tediously matched dirt roads and trails on google earth for months). I also plan to fly the trail in the next week from private aircraft and scout for any potential issues. We will aim to average about 200 miles a day, and complete the trip somewhere between 6-8 days.

We will be carrying most of our own supplies- most of which will be stashed in an offroad saddlebag that I purchased a few months ago. We will be carrying a tent, food, necessary equipment, extra fuel, 10liters of water, and anything else we will need.

My girlfriends dad- who is a retired fish and game warden- will be our support vehicle, and we will exchange exhausted supplies at planned waypoints along the ride.

We will be crossing two major rivers, by way of 48" truck inner tube. (sounds ridiculous, but I tried it with my rolling chassis after spending about 4 hours doing physics equations and Archimedes principle like a total nerd...I've put alot of thought into this.) If you want specifics, feel free to pm me.

Im taking a .45 and some bear spray as precautionary equipment; Idaho can get pretty dense with forest and bears.

Attached are some pictures of both the ride, and of the bike setup.
If anyone is interested in coming, the dates are from July 11-20. You will probably need/want a four stroke.


Image

This is my restored 1983 xr500. It's quite a step up aesthetically from what it used to be. Notice the 55L Saddlebag, the 10L water bladder, and bear spray. I will also utilize a backpack for additional storage. Excuse the paddle tire. I will be running a Dunlop D606.


Image

These are the constructs of the trip. The yellow is the path for the bikes, and the blue is the support vehicle route. The orange is an exchange route if necessary. If you are interested in the trip, I can email you a .KMZ file that will open on your computer, so you can check out all the minutia of the trip. (trails, waypoints, terrain, etc.)

Image

This is one of the rivers we will be crossing. Pretty beautiful if you ask me.

Please let me know if you, or anyone else you know will be able to come with me ASAP



Thanks, Camron D. Smith
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AlisoBob
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Post by AlisoBob »

Sorry to hear about James...


:cry:


Looks like one heck of a trip!!!!

You cant get Jay on board??
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other
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Joined: January 25th, 2010, 5:11 am
Location: Perth Hills, Western Australia

Re: California to Montana- All off Road

Post by other »

csmith wrote: We will be crossing two major rivers, by way of 48" truck inner tube. (sounds ridiculous, but I tried it with my rolling chassis after spending about 4 hours doing physics equations and Archimedes principle like a total nerd...I've put alot of thought into this.) If you want specifics, feel free to pm me.
Wow, looks like a great trip. I've done a lot of long distance off road in Australia, and the one comment I have is about your truck tube plan. I did exactly the same thing on a 'wet season' trip to the tip of Cape York (from Perth WA !), and the tubes aren't practical. They work, for sure and certain, you could float a Fireblade on one, there is that much displacement ! BUT : a) You cant put a hot bike on one, so that involves a loooooong wait for cooling down, and lots of splashing water on the poor bike. b) they take forever to inflate, even with the onboard compressor I had. c) It is extremely difficult to actually get the bike laid down on them and into the water without puncturing them. It requires about 3/4 hour of gathering branches and cleaning them up, and lashing them to the tube to facilitate this. d) They are IMPOSSIBLE to control on the water (we SO nearly lost a bike to a relatively mild current . . . ) e) after all this, it takes even longer to deflate the buggers ! It was also nearly impossible to get enough air out of them so that they could be stowed away again. All in all, it turned out to be much quicker and more efficient just to bung rudimentary plugs in the bike's fundamental orrifices, put a plastic bag over the air filter, and submarine them. The drying out on the opposite bank doesn't take that long (spark plug out, kick water out of bore, drain plug out of carb float bowl, sump plug out until water stops and oil starts flowing, wring out air filter, tip water out of exhaust, off you go !) We had 3 major rivers and numerous smaller streams to cross, and this was the best way. I hope you have more success with the tubes than we did, and have an awesome fun ride. I'm jealous !
Greg
PS. Love the old XR, I have a soft spot for the air-cooled beasts. Still have 2 in the shed myself. (one of them with CR500 suspension, 59 litres of fuel capacity, dual air filters etc, a real long-distance offroader setup . . . )
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Rhino89523
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Post by Rhino89523 »

Looks like you are starting just north of my house, somewhere near Bordertown. Looks killer!!!! Wish I could go but as a family man short notice is tough on me.
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Kuma
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Post by Kuma »

Looks like an awsome trip Cam! Hope to hear a long ride report, also please if you have a file with all the gps tracks it would be nice to post so fellow hoons could make some shorter rides out of it.
Are you planning to bring a smart phone and be able to post your progress along the way?
I'm sure you have a good plan for the innertube, you might be able to locate some kevlar material to strap over the tube to protect it, seems like you will need enough rope to cross the river 2X, one attached to each side well and the other attached to a carrabeaner around the rope to guide it and pull accross, be sure to do it in a calm spot I imagine a strong current would put alot of load on the system?

Have fun, hope you locate someone to go with you!
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lewisclan
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Post by lewisclan »

Cam you can use my 650
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TYSTYX
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Post by TYSTYX »

That is going to be one hell of a trip !!!!!Awesome !!! Ive always wanted to do something like that.....Ive even considered selling my CBR1000 and getting a KTM 990 Adventure just to do trips like that.
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iggys-amsoil
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Post by iggys-amsoil »

Sorry to here about James too.

Hope it works out for ya.

Awesome pics.
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Danger4u2
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Post by Danger4u2 »

Were you able to go on your trip?
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