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Kawasaki Green...Ya Gotta Love It

1100 miles of riding the KLX 250 this summer and a few memories of the motorcycles through the years.

The first motorcycle I owned was a Kawasaki 350 Bighorn back in 1973, same green. Some great riding on that 350, it was a powerful 2 stroke with about 5 or 6 inches of suspension travel...The time I was hammering up 494 at about 70 MPH and seized the motor, or trail riding at Bald Mountain and tearing down the path along the railroad tracks. I learned how to rebuild the motor top end and was hooked on motorcycles from those early experiences. I went on to trade it for a 1974 Kawasaki 500 triple that just ripped. I saw 114 MPH on that rocket between Chaska and Waconia one summer evening. The next year I traded the 500 in on another enduro, a 1976 400 Yamaha, bright yellow and black. That bike was the street legal enduro rage, power and handling. I hit every river valley trail between Shakopee and Carver and used to find deer trails and blaze my own trails. There is a trail along the river that I would take home each evening from work along corn fields and right on the river bank, always wide open throttle. As I roared between corn fields the flocks of blackbirds would fly out of the fields and I would duck my head and feel the birds bouncing off my helmet and motorcycle, That was a learning experience to not flinch with unexpected obstacles. Those early experiences stuck with me and have save my life several times...don't flinch.

It was becoming a pattern, large enduro motorcycle one year and the next year fast road bike. In 1977 I found a new 1976 500 Kawasaki triple again, I would like to ride one of those rockets again. Early crotch rockets. My theory behind this was that I craved the speed of the fast road bike and became too comfortable with warp speeds, 100+ MPH, so the next year ride a dirt bike. Gain handling skills on the trails then ride fast on the road. AK Kenny Roberts, the primo racer of the 70s and 80s. The next bike was a TT 500 Yamaha, tiny head light and tail light, full knobbies, street legal, barely. Worked nights, so rode that dirt bike back and forth every night, 40 miles round trip from Shakopee to Hopkins. That bike, I learned to lean it over on the edge of the knobs on the roads and feel the slide. Then I took the big ride, a 1976 900 Kawasaki. That bike, set it up with narrow, low road race handlebars and a 4 into 1 exhaust. That bike ROCKED!! Got to the point where I could throw it into a 95 MPH power slide in the corners. This is the motorcycle that I started the back road trips through southern Minnesota, find the curviest roads and ride, also started plugging in a radio ear phone, still do this to this day. I came up with a system of cornering speeds, if it had an arrow and indicated a speed of 50 MPH, I would double it and throw the bike in and go. If the corner had an arrow and no speed indicated, it was at least 110 MPH. With the 900 Kaw I wore out a couple pairs of boots because they were used as lean indicators. The next bike acquired was another crotch rocket, a 1981 GPZ 550 Kawasaki...this was a giant killer. It was as fast as my 900 Kaw, 140 MPH, more ground clearance, lighter and had superior braking power. I rode with a radar detector mounted on the handle bars, it satisfied my need for speed. These were the bikes of the "good old days".

This is just a partial list of the 22 motorcycles I have enjoyed over the years.

This 250 KLX is a blast, fast enough for the highway. It will run up to 85 MPH+ if need be, with over 11 inches of suspension travel front and rear. Looking forward to riding it off-road this summer.
Kinda back where I started 37 years ago on a Kawasaki Green Enduro. GOOD TIMES...

Twisting Away a June Day on the Mountain Bike

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A much needed mountain bike day. Boy, it sure seems like it was a long time ago when I was prepping Jeffs' bikes for the Nationals and World Cups.

It was a great day to be in the country and enjoying a good mountain bike experience. Giving the bike a quick tune up and gearing up. A 2 hour ride. The trails are all singletrack and constantly twisting up to the ridge tops and then weaving back down with a flow of smooth transitions from pedaling to standing. Keeping a rhythm, and checking out the surroundings as I move through the woods. Soaking it all in.

Some kind of animal that likes to eat hairy critters left his mark on the trail...

With the narrow trails and deep woods, it was bound to happen. I had a near collision with 2 deer on a twisty section of trail. As I approached a sharp corner, deer #1 exploded within inches of my right hand and luckily cut away from me and ran across behind me. Deer #2 shot across within 2-3 feet in front of me. After hitting a deer with my motorcycle last summer at 65 MPH, I guess it wouldn't have been that big of a deal to hit a deer at 15 MPH on my mountain bike...GOOD TIMES!!

Corinth Jump by Robbie Maddison & My New Ride

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Picked up this KLX 250 Kawasaki last week. It's a blast.

Don't think I'll be jumping over any canals any time soon, but Robbie can.

A Week in the Spring

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Urban biking with Weez along the lakes on Monday.

City skyline.

A trail off the paved route. Did a nice loop of about 15 miles.

How about a Thursday noon baseball game? Outdoors at the brand new Target Field.

Got to the ball game early and the first thing, gotta have a hot dog.

Soakin' up the afternoon sun in the left field bleachers, 3 rows up from the fence. The boys brought their baseball gloves along. The Indians hit 1 home run just a bit to the side of us.

Kirby...yeah!! Tyler and Tanner strike a pose.

Starting the Spring landscaping season with the new trailer. Bought it Friday, I added the wood sides. Painted em black on Friday night and bolted them in Saturday night. Sunday the trailer starts to earn its keep with 2000 pounds of mulch, 76 bags.

Funny thing happened on the way to the job sight, bought a 250 KLX Kawasaki enduro. This is why a guy needs a 3/4 ton pick-up and trailer...to haul stuff. Ya never know.

Speed Riding an Avalanche >> Click on title for full page

Speed Riding - Antoine Montant - Can't Stop
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Digging a Snow Pit in Montana / Avalanche Pit > Recapping the Last Day in Montana

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5 mile ride in to the mountain slopes, for some snowshoing and snowboarding.

Base of the ridge that I started snowshoing up.

As I got up onto the ridge and it started to get a bit steeper, I dug a pit to check the snowpack. The avalanche danger was considerable so I was staying off open steep faces with any kind of rollovers.

I dug a pit and noticed the 2 pronounced crusts. The first one about 15 inches below the surface and the second layer 12 inches below that. At the bottom of the snowpack was faceted snow from earlier this winter.

I checked for hardness with my finger, the top 2 layers were soft and below the second layer it was considerably harder and compacted. At the bottom was sugar snow, coarse grain, with no structure.

The crust.

I isolated a block and did a compression test, it took 27 hits on my shovel to propagate a failure. It was not a clean shear, but it did fail on the crust. I was able to pull a block off with my shovel. at the lower crust. I decided that the snowpack was safe on this particular slope. When I snowboarded down, I stayed up high on the ridge and did not drop into the small bowl off the ridge. Better to be safe than sorry. It's all good experience.

One last look back on the mountain range. The trail in is a forest road and was full of moguls, but gotta have the sled for the 12 mile round trip.

The sleds travel in my enclosed trailer, 14 foot double axle FLOE trailer. Keeps them out of the road grime. Check out the video below. This was in the middle of the night on the way home. Road grime...

Hit the play button, kinda dark...

Sledboarding in the Bridger Range / Day 5 > Road Trip

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This day started out good as I was headed up north of Bridger Bowl with the snowmobile. The plan was to ride in the 5 or 6 miles to the mountains and check out the snow conditions and get in a snowboard run if avalanche conditions allow.

I pulled into the trailhead that I had used 2 years ago. It had 20 inches of new snow from the past 2 days. Well as I pulled into the lot I swung the truck to the right and hit a ridge of hard pack snow from a previous plowing that was covered with new snow. The front wheels popped over and started spinning so I hit the brakes. The solution was to drop the trailer and get the truck repositioned, hook the trailer back up and get it turned around and out of there. Got back on the county road and crossed over to another trailhead.

One always has to be ready to adjust to situations in the mountains, this made me very aware of the need to check my surroundings right from the get go. As I prepared the sled and my gear, a couple drove into the trailhead. It turned out that they were going up to check the snotel site at Brackets Creek. It was good to talk to these local people who knew the area. We discussed the avalanche conditions. They identified some of the areas I had explored on previous trips to that area, it is good to take advantage of any information I can garner from local people at the trailhead. Backcountry snowmobilers are very approachable and offer good info on snow conditions and area information.

The Polaris Dragon is loaded and ready to access the Bridger Mountains. I brought my Burton Fish for this trip, the relevant thing with the Fish is that I purchased it from World Boards, located in Bozeman, Montana.

We visited World Boards on Monday evening after a day at Bridger Bowl, they are right on Main Street in Bozeman. Great people to talk snowboarding with.

Some great up close views of the Bridger Range.

I was snowshoeing up a ridge with my snowboard and looked back down. With the avalanche rating at considerable, I checked out a couple of areas and decided on a ridge that rose out of this creek area. I decided that snowshoing up the ridge and snowboarding back down would be the best route. This was a ridge line that I had seen a few years back.

Looking across from the ridge, I could see the mountainside that I had snowboarded on 2 years ago.

This is a snowpit that I dug into the hillside that I was climbing to check for avalanche conditions. Note the 2 pronounced layers, also I probed the snowpack to check for hardness.

Snow saw.

This is the ridge I climbed up.

Snowshoes back on the pack and ready to drop in.

Played it safe and snowboarded along the route I climbed up along the ridge.

A view from the trail on the way back to the truck. It would be great to spend more time in the area. Every trip I learn a bit more about the Bridger Range.

Gota' have gear...the trailer packed.

The road down from Bridger, it was snowing as we left. I read that they received over a foot of new snow the day after we left. The Spring storms in Bozeman are the best.