Snowy Dual Sport Adventure on DRZ400s + Icon Raiden Gear and Giant Loop Bushwackers Field Test

My goal is to test some of my new winter gear. I found some white stuff. Oh now we're getting into some real snow. Interesting. It's slippery bro. This is steep. Probably not coming across. Steep and snowy. It is amazing what you can find. Couldn't get my foot down. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Dorkside. I am the Dork in the Road and today it's raining and I'm riding and I'm gonna get wet. That's right everyone. I'm the Dork in the Road and I want to be your internet riding buddy. So please consider subscribing and don't forget to turn on those notifications so that you know when I post awesome new content just like this. I'm here in the Willamette National Forest and I came up today with two missions. My goal is to test some of my new winter gear. The first thing I want to test is this Icon Raiden jacket and pants. This is their all-weather dual sport setup and I was really hoping to get out into a torrential downpour today. 98% chance of precipitation in the forecast. I thought today's my day. I'll come out and get poured on and it is barely raining at the moment. So let's hope we get some more up above because I would like to get a proper test and maybe even some snow if we get a pine up. The other thing I'm testing is the Bushwacker hand guards. You can see on the bike there's the things that look like Mickey Mouse ears and those are supposed to protect your hands from the wind and the rain and the elements. So in order to test those I got to get up into the wind and the rain and the elements. So let's go see what we can find and put this gear to the test. It's worth mentioning that I'm wearing fleece lined softshell pants under my Raiden pants and the jacket I'm only wearing the down puffy liner it comes with under it and a base layer obviously. It's about 45 degrees according to the thermometer in my truck. And we're out here on the DRZ. Let's go see what what's going on up here. This is one of my favorite little ups. Right here's where McLevin almost dropped my Africa Twin. That's good times always. Always like oh there's people up here. What's up? That surprises me. Beautiful day to be in the woods. I was not expecting that. See I like coming up on rainy days because I'm usually the only one up here and today not so much. Not so much. Onward and upward. That's the spot I like. That's fun because there's a fun exit over there. Unsanctioned. And we're out. I know there's snow way up on top. I don't know if there's going to be any snow anywhere that we can get too easily but I'm hopeful. Look what I found you guys. I found some white stuff. I was worried I wouldn't today. Yeah we found some snow. So we're testing our Raiden gear and our Bushwacker handguards in the snow. This road was fun a couple years ago in the snow. It doesn't look very snowy right now. I don't know. Let's go see. Maybe there's some pristine undisturbed snow down here. You never know. Could happen. It's just a short little down. Let's explore it. Now look at those Bushwackers doing their job by the way. Look at them whacking bushes. Can you see that? Watch them. Whack! Oh man they're magic. My hands are not getting hit at all. Hope the camera's low enough for you to see that. Excellent product Giant Loop and really not expensive. It's kind of cool. Yeah we're getting all the way out of the snow. I was afraid of that. All right we might head back up. We came for snow not garbage. I think this is a cool gate. Pretty cool. You actually can get around it. Look at that. I could ride around it if I wanted to. I bet it doesn't go anywhere cool. Like it's all downed trees and sh** up there. We can explore. Let's take a look. I'm sure that doesn't go anywhere cool. I don't really work my time. Well fun little detour. Not that useful. We got to whack some bushes with our Bushwackers though. That's fun. They live up to their name as I suspected. Oh here's a good... Here's a good bush to whack through. Watch it. Oh yeah. Got some more bushes. Whack whack whack. Yeah. Good job. I mean I'm not really worried about my hands like getting smashed or anything but they're not even getting touched by this brush. So I'm supposed to keep some drier which is a good thing. All right let's keep going up. Yeah okay still slushy. Not bad. It's definitely slippery. There's some snow. Let's slow down so that when I crash I'm not going as fast. Yeah slushy. Slippery. See that see that um whoever's driving up here is spinning a lot. See you can tell they're tearing up the road. Oh now we're getting into some real snow. Interesting. Well thankfully there are some ruts. That is helpful. Snow. It's no big deal. Whoa this is this is six inches deep right here and there was like none on the road just not even a quarter mile ago. Interesting. It gets deep. Whoa fast. Okay okay okay. Interesting. Fun. All right well this was not what I was envisioning but let's see what we can do. I'm gonna push on a little farther. It's slippery bro. Slippery. All right well that was stupid. I don't even know what happened. I slid around. Let's see how these bushwhackers hand up stand up to a drop. Bike is heavy dude. All right well got a lot of snow. Definitely dislodged it some. Okay well we might have to do a little bit more of a side road explore. Not a less of a main road explore today. Although this was a freak thing because I was screwing around not putting my feet down. It is slushy but slippery slushy. Okay well I want to press on but by myself it's probably not a good idea. As slippery as this is to keep going up to steep stuff and it's gonna if it got deeper this fast I don't think it's gonna get much better. So I'm gonna go try to find a side road I can play around on and explore a little bit that way. Three minutes ago there was no snow on the road at all and now it is. I don't know if you can see this. It is wrist deep. So that is not insubstantial. This slushy is pretty slippery. So like I said by myself abundance of caution. I'm just gonna go back down and try to find some a little bit less snow to play in today. If I wasn't by myself we might push on a little more but I just don't think it's prudent today. I try to model reasonable decision making behavior on this channel. So there you go. Take a look at this roaring stream over here real quick. I mean look inches and inches. That isn't this beautiful. I'm gonna fall down this cliff trying to get a view of it. There you are. Crisp, refreshing, icy mountain stream. Yeah so Trackmaster's in the slushy crap. The multi-layered slushy crap are just as bad as... See right here? I can get my... the tires are back on the road. But up there I was on multiple layers of packed down snow. Honestly might have been better off in the powder in the middle. Give it a shot while we still have some. Right up here maybe? Let's try the Trackmaster's in the powder. Oh yeah this is actually not bad at all. So this is about two inches of powder. Yep I mean I'm going downhill so that's cheating but not bad. Not bad Trackmaster's. Yeah see this is this is a few hundred feet maybe. Not even a quarter mile and how much better it is. That corner was sudden and unexpected. I know there are some side roads down here but I don't think any of them go up. I think they all go down. Yeah I mean part of the reason why I dropped it up there was because I was sitting. Should have stood up when it got dodgy. Maybe that slide wouldn't have dismounted me. Yeah man see now there's none. Like we are just right around the corner from that. It's crazy. Oh flinging snow everywhere dude. Good spot for some snow pics I bet. No rain. I am astounded that it's not raining. 98% chance in the forecast. No rain. Now I'm really going to test the waterproofing of this gear in the most manly and awesome way I know how. Doing a snow angel. Oh I saw my backpack on. That's not going to work. What a dork you know. Just smashed my sandwich to hell. Oh I saw my backpack on. All right snow angel test successfully passed. I feel dry. Let's see what it looks like. I mean it's not the best snow angel ever but it'll do. All right that was a fun detour. I know exactly the side road I want to go check out now that I think about it. Always room to improvise and find different types of adventures. That's the great thing about dual sport is you go out expecting one thing and you're literally prepared for just about anything. If plans change, conditions change. So I laid in the snow and did a snow angel as you saw. And I don't feel wet at all. So the waterproofing on this gear I still want to test it in a lot of rain but in terms of laying down in the snow it's waterproof enough. My seat was wet when I got on it and my butt is still dry so I take that as a good sign too. I've had that trouble with so-called waterproof gear in the past where if you sit on a wet seat long enough it soaks through and if it's waterproof I feel like that should not happen. So far so good. I'm not cold. In fact I'm quite warm when I stop and move around off the bike. Here's my junction I'm looking for so we're going to go left. This is the road with that random weird campsite that McLevin and I found with the weird stove and stuff. So let's see what's down here. That weird campsite is right here. Somebody's hunting camp or something. It's cool. A little fireplace. I'm just afraid they're going to show up while I'm here. But what a neat spot. Someone's been here because effort has gone into tweaking and changing it and stuff. But it's a neat little spot just tucked away back here. It's the kind of thing I'd like to build somewhere but farther off the beaten path I think I would prefer so idiots like me can't stumble across it. Oh what's this? What's this? Let's go up. Get in the white stuff. The white stuff. Okay this is promising. Got some white stuff. Oh hill climb. Oh almost put it down. I got you a good video there. Almost. Okay this is interesting. This is steep. Probably not coming across. Steep and snowy. This is interesting. Yeah okay this is looking good. This is looking good. This is what we were hoping to get into. And pristine. No one is here. Look at this. This will be fun going down. This is... This is a snowy hill for sure. Awesome. Well I've never been up here before. This is kind of exactly what I was hoping we'd find. Kind of exactly. I love it when it's kind of exactly what I'm looking for. That's a pretty little waterfall. I'll get to it for you. How's that? Oh I could probably get a better view over there. Pretty. Oh and it goes up too. Okay let's go look. It is amazing what you can find. The road is right there. This is 10 feet off the road. Beautiful waterfall. Never seen this before. How many people ever see this stuff? It is buried deep up an abandoned road. 10 feet from the road. Look how gorgeous. That's what it's all about. That was a fun hill climb. Going up. And if I crash, even better. Oh we're sliding. Yeah it is uneven underneath for sure. Standing up is the move. Yeah because it's hopping around at the back. When I'm sitting, I don't like that. When I'm standing, it's not so bad. Does it turn? Looks like it turned up. This is the end. This is our spot yo. Okay. Good times. Well this is not a bad little camping spot at all. The river is right there. A creek or whatever it is. Oh. Damn it. Couldn't get my foot down. Didn't just keep going because I'm stupid. All right cool. Well I've smashed both of these bushwhackers. So that's helpful. And I got on the cell phone cam. So that's awesome. Yeah this is very uneven ground. I tried to put my foot down instead of just going. I always do that. Going too slow screws me up way more often than going too fast ever does. I'm gonna have lunch here. It's a good spot. This spot is really awesome and a good camping spot I think. There's the bike. The fire pit right there. Looks like the road used to keep going but doesn't go very much farther. But there's a stream right here. It's right back here in the trees. There's probably a little trail here. Well it's not covered in snow. That's my guess. Glad I came up this random road. 10 of 10. We'd go up random snowy hill again. Weather might be about to turn on us. We shall see. Well there's a pool there. It was a waterfall down the hill I just climbed up. Neat. Cool. You can see how far we are from the camp. A little bit of a trek. Sorry about the breathing. There's a mic right next to my mouth. And I'm fat and I'm exercising. So you do the math. Bye awesome campsite. Stopping on this snow almost impossible. So we're just gonna try to go real slow. You don't want to lock up your brakes because you'll definitely just slide. So standing up. Very light on the brakes. Two fingers on the brakes. Standing up is really important for all this bumpy stuff. Finally getting a lot more comfortable standing on downhills. I'm seeing the benefit. It used to terrify me. So that's a step I'd encourage you to push toward. You just feel like you're much more stable. I have a lot more control when you're standing up. And those little slides and bumps. The bike can just dance underneath you. But when you're sitting they feel disastrous. And I dropped my bike earlier because of one as a matter of fact. That's why I stood up coming up this hill. Because it made a difference. I'm glad I did. So there's one other spot I want to check out. Let's just see if we can get a view of some snowy area. And then maybe we'll head out. It's been a good day. Got up in the snow. Got to test this gear. Had to whack some bushes. Dropped the bike a couple times on these hand guards. Oh yeah. Okay. This was worth it. What do you think? Not terrible, huh? Beautiful. All right. Let's take a look around. Not bad, huh? I mean, I would like to see more snow. But it's December. Hasn't really come in crazy amounts yet. And we don't get a lot of accumulation at this low level. But you can see we're just below the snow line. Where we do get quite a bit more. Give you a panorama. There's the DRZ. Okay. So I think I'm about ready to turn around and head down the hill. But before I do, I kind of wanted to give you my in the field sort of impressions and thoughts about this gear. So this is, like I said, the Icon Raiden gear. I'm wearing the pants and the jacket. And I am warm. I've stayed dry. I made a snow angel. Crushed through a bunch of wet brush. I had trees dropping water on me. But we didn't get the rain today that we wanted, unfortunately. Before I do a full review, I got to get out and test it in a lot of rain. So I'm definitely going to do that. But I'm warm. I don't feel constricted. I can move around. I mean, the gear is top quality and has a ton of really awesome features. It should for the price. It's not inexpensive gear. So it should be feature rich. And it is. These pants have a zipper that goes all the way up to the crotch. Oh, speaking of which. A lot of pants say that you can pull them on and off with your boots on. This is the first pair I've seen where that's actually viable because of that zipper. And it's a waterproof zipper. So I'm not worried about it leaking. But big, big deal if you're taking gear on and off, especially in the field. Gear's comfortable. I think it looks cool. That also comes in a blue, which I like. Looking forward to putting it to a further test before I do a full review. But that's kind of where I'm at right now. I like it. It's comfortable. Keeps me warm. Protects me. Feature rich. And the Bushwhackers have served me well today. Two drops, one on each side. Sturdy. They're all wet. You can see they're deflecting the elements. And I can't believe how warm they're keeping my hand. I don't know why I didn't think it would matter. But damn, they really work for that. I'm impressed with them. I'm going to run them all winter. I seriously thought I might throw them on for the test and then stop running them. But damn, I'm enjoying having them on there. And I don't think they look too bad. They look fine. I've gotten used to them. I like the bow tie pasta look. I'll put a link to the Raiden gear and obviously the Giant Loop Bushwhackers in the description. And the cool thing about the Bushwhackers is they come with pronghorn straps. So you've got two 18-inch pronghorn straps that you can use all year. I mean, that's $20 value right there. I just want to say thank you very much for coming along. I want to say thank you to my channel members and patrons, without whom content like this would not be possible. Channel members get early access to videos, merchandise discounts, and other perks. So if you're interested in becoming one, just hit the join button below this video. Also, be sure you check out dorkintheroad.com for all of your dorky motorcycling needs. But for now, and as always, I just want to say thank you very much for watching. And please do not forget to be excellent to each other. Thank you. Oh, there's a Suzuki Samurai. That guy's going to get stuck. You're about to hit snow, buddy. You have snow idea what you're in for. Bro, that's another samurai. It's like a samurai club. It's like seven samurai. Seriously, I can't believe how much traffic is up here today. I don't want people in my woods. Get out of my woods, you interloping whippersnappers. It's an old man voice.