Only a Dual Sport Bike Can Get You Here: Soggy Dual Sport Logging Road Adventure on my Honda CRF250L

We're gonna get wet today. Oh, he's still there. Remember the couch? This side road, definitely abandoned. Not maintained. Barely more than a hiking trail. There's just no good solution for all this much wetness. Some places, y'all, only a dual sport can take you. Yeah, and it's double whammy, so. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the dork side. I want to thank you for joining me on yet another of my imperfect dual sport adventures. So we're headed out today in the rain. We're ride the CRF250L up in the woods. No real destination. We're just gonna go explore, get rained on, and basically have a hell of a time. So thanks for coming along. That's right, everyone. I am the dork in the road, and I want to be your internet riding buddy. So please don't hesitate to subscribe, and don't forget to turn on those notifications so that you know when I post awesome new content just like this. CRF's all loaded up. We're about to hit the gas and head out, drive up into the mountains, unload the bike, and just see what we can see today. It's rainy. It's dreary. It's a beautiful winter February Sunday, and I'm going riding. Thanks for coming with me. Let's get out there. So it was a chance of showers today. I would say that chance has manifested into a definite amount of showers. We're definitely gonna get wet. Wet? We're definitely gonna get wrecked. We're gonna get wet today. I'm excited about it. All right, we are here at where we're gonna unload, right next to the highway, and then we're gonna head up this gravel road behind me. I don't know why I like riding in the rain so much. I'm just super excited that it's raining today. As you can see, I brought the Giant Loop Fuel Safe gas bag with me today, attached it with these pronghorn straps. Pretty solid on there. It's been in the back of the truck the whole way. Really, I brought that for two reasons. One, I like to play with new things when I get them. I brought it to kind of test it out, see how it fit on the bike, see how it stayed, see if it was in the way. Because this is the setup I'd like to run for a little bit longer adventures on the CRF in the future. I'm guessing I'm not going to need to refuel today because I'm not going to get that many miles. And two, because I want to remind you that Giant Loop and I are giving away one of these. So if you haven't yet, I'll put a link right now to the contest video. All you have to do is watch the video and leave a comment answering the question that I ask in the video and you're entered to win this Giant Loop one gallon gas bag. No massive agenda today. Like I said, there's a couple of side roads I want to explore and that's about it. We're just going to end up where we end up and have a good time doing it. And we're off. I apologize in advance for the giant water drops on the camera. I'll try to go fast occasionally to clear it. But when it rains, the camera gets wet. So that's a thing. I want to go around this back corner to check on an old friend of ours that some of you may remember from a video last summer. Good old friend. Oh, it's super muddy. That's that mean that's to be expected considering the weather. But oh, he's still there. A little worse for wear. Remember the couch or the couch from the couch in the woods video? It's shredded. I'm not going to go sit on that because I bet it's a soggy, tetanus contracting mess. So but there it is. That's our friend, the couch that we sat on back last summer. We're going to take the side road. We're going to attempt it. We'll see how muddy it is. We may have to not attempt it. I think we're okay. Except for this one little dip. Yeah, we're good. We're good. We'll be fine. This is way more fun than going the correct way. All right, we're off. It's cold. It's rainy. My face is getting wet. Thank God I have a beard. Oh, not on the AT today. I wanted you guys to see that I'm not going to stop making 250L videos. And like I said, the Africa Twin is going to be more of an overland. Like I'm going to pick a route up through the up and over the mountain in the backcountry. Ride it from home or ride out and motocamp in the middle of the woods or whatever. That's going to be its primary purpose. And it's these sort of exploring side road shenanigans that I like to do. I like to do that on the 250L better because it's much easier to turn around and maneuver in tight spaces and stuff like that. So here's our ridge that we like to climb. That's where I shot the Africa Twin reveal video. I didn't bring the drone today because I don't know if you could tell, but it's raining. I can't see anything through goggles. The camera's got to be just as bad. I've been looking at Google Maps and this road goes up and sort of dead ends. And that leads me to believe that it goes up on this ridge. And if it does, I'd like to see where it goes. So we're going to explore this one a little bit. I've tried this road before and been thwarted by downed trees. So I don't know what it's going to look like today, but we're going to find out. Man, this is, uh, it's wet. It's real wet. And we're technically in the National Forest. There's some National Forest gravel and it's natural National Forest habitat. There's a tree in the road already. I think we can get around it. Yeah. All right. Look at us doing stuff. Look at us exploring new places, strange, new worlds, and new civilizations, seeking out new life. It's Sunday. I'm guessing no one official will be up here today. That's why you get a dual sport. Can't get up here in a truck. Not right now. They've really cleaned this up. I'm actually pretty excited about it because we, I don't think I've even been this far on this road because of all the downed trees I've run into up here before. Yeah. Good call me. Way to spot it on the Google Maps. So that's a great way to find riding areas. One of my favorite things is to look at the Google Maps satellite because even all the roads aren't on there necessarily. Try to find interesting things like clearings or whatever looks like a ridgeline or water. I like to try to find ponds. I found a couple of ponds that way. And then to see what roads get you close and then go see if you can get to it because all these spur roads aren't always on there. We're going to ride over some logs today. Up and over. Surmount the obstacle. This is an interesting little ditch. Oh, they're getting bigger. What do we do, guys? We jump over it. That's what we do. That's what we do because we're getting up here today. So far, adventure. There's a lot of trees down up here, but they've also been driven over, it looks like. So the big storm was not that long, was not super recent. Yeah, I mean, they're not so big that people in trucks are feeling the need to cut them to get out of the way. Man, look at this. We're just dodging down stuff left and right. Yeah, this rain, she's not letting up. My hope of like scattered showers and only occasionally getting wet is not going to come to pass today. More trees, more branches, more stuff for our 21 inch front wheel to carry us over. That's why I'm pretty excited about the giant wheel on the twin, too, because it'll just roll right over this stuff. Same size. There's an interesting spur. Oh, OK. This connects. No, just the landing, as I suspected. You see this garbage? You see all this? People have camped up here, leave their garbage everywhere and then it gets closed off to everyone else. So if you go in the woods, pack it in, pack it out. Seriously, we've got to use our public lands responsibly or we're going to lose them. This is why we can't have nice things. That's all I'm saying. All right, let's go see where that side road goes, see how far up we can get. It looks pretty overgrown, so I don't know, but it'll get us out of the rain. So bonus, this side road definitely abandoned, not maintained. So we're probably going to come across a big tree up here. Oh, yeah, we're down in it. Here's why I love the peak on this helmet, because I can use it to just put my head down and deflect branches. No one's driven up here in a while. Yeah, seriously, don't take me or protect me. Getting branches right in the nose. This is a good camping spot. I like the secluded ones. Oh, we got more road. OK, that way there's a tree right there that I don't think I can get under. So should poke around over here. Why not? We're up here. That's what we're doing. It's in bad shape. Barely more than a hiking trail. This is the other reason why I didn't bring the AT, because I would not want to do this stuff on AT, because if I got if I have to turn around on all these trails, that'll be interesting proposition. But I successfully employ the kickstand turn in tight spaces very often on this baby, the 250L. I'm much drier in here, so that's good. Now there's a branch. There's a branch, y'all. This actually looks like, is it the end? Maybe we're going to go around it. This might be the end. Yeah, appears to be the end. Yeah. OK, so there is definitely a hillside here, but you can't see anything. Well, we're up high. We're up on the ridge. Like I said, mission accomplished. Cool. Oh, there's like an old chair right there. Look at that. That's scary. I thought it was like a tent, like a homeless guy's living in it. At least they hid the garbage they dumped up here. That's a little nicer. You guys have no patience for that ----. OK, back out. Now I can't see because my goggles are foggy again. And through some of you have asked me, are you getting rid of the twin? Are you going to get rid of the 250L? Because, you know, you'll just do everything you did on it on the twin. No, because I would not do this on the twin. That's what this thing's for. It's for where you would go hiking, but you're too lazy to walk like me. It's pretty cool, though, knowing that, like, nobody's been up here in a while. You know, you feel like an explorer. You are. You're just not discovering new things. You're rediscovering them. That's why I like dual sport ride. And back to the road. So let's go right over a bunch of logs again. This won't be amazing footage if it's just foggy, rainy the whole time. Try to avoid the broken off branches that can stab into your tire if you can. If you see them, look for the smooth parts. Not super worried about it, but why take chances? That one's pretty big. These two aren't small either. Just get a little weight off the front end when I go over the big ones. Not worried about not being able to get over. I'm worried about sliding sideways down the log. That's never awesome. That's happened to me more than once. I might have to go face shield. I don't know if the goggles are going to do it. So I ditched the goggles. Good news is shield down is keeping my face dryer, but I can't see ----. It's very foggy, even with the Wipro. So you get up out of the rain some and we can leave it open. It's problematic. There's no real great solution that I'm aware of for fogging. At least not a permanent solution. There's chemicals and stuff you can put on there, but it doesn't last and the Wipro is not doing it to the degree I'd like it to. Some speed will help get a little airflow and blow some of this water off the front, but that's okay. We're up here to make videos. All right, rain. I need you to be less pointy, less face savvy. Here's a waterfall. It's pretty. There's a new road here that they're clearly logging up here and they have just refurbished. I've never been up it. I don't think so. What do you think? Should we check it out? I'll show it to you. I don't think I've been up here. So what do you think? Should we go? Give this video a like if you think I should go up here. Check it out. Hit that like button. Really helps the video too. So appreciate you. You did it. You hit the likes. This is the shitty gravel, but we're going to make it work. Oh yeah, I'm bouncing all over the damn place. Let's see where she goes. My guess is a logging landing because this is obviously a logging road. I didn't think it had a number at the bottom. It had a big private property sign, which is what leads me to believe this is a logging company. This is logging company land. We're on the edge of the national forest, so we kind of duck in and out. That's interesting. On this road anyway. So there's a lot of logging stuff up here. Let's see where it goes. Damn, it's going up. Tell you that much. There's target fixated on that rock like a big dummy. Here's a side road to check out maybe when we come back. I like roads that go up. Oh, we are going up. Man, it would be sweet if there was a view spot up here. Oh yeah. Okay. This might've been a good gamble. Watch where you're going, pal. Watch where you're going. Man, if it was not raining, this would be a great view. The rain has let up some. We're high up though. We're very high right now. All right. This might be the top of it. Nope. This goes up higher. Oh, I want to go up. I want to see what's up. So let's go up. Fun. New territory. Hopefully the camera's not all real hard to see. I don't know if that makes it better or worse. Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. Gaining a lot of altitude. I shouldn't have said that about the rain letting up because it stopped letting up. It hates me. Man, we are way up on top right now. More fun road. So this is where they've stopped maintaining it. So now what's it going to be like? Or at least where they've stopped the new stuff. Oh yeah. This is fun. A little trickiness. We'll pick our way through carefully. A little rock slide action. You're not going to log talk through here. This thing's shifting on me. I don't like it. I need to sit more level. It's getting dirty, but otherwise it seems fine. Now my hand is very dirty, which is less than ideal. Some places y'all only a dual sport can take you. Look at this. You're not going to truck up here. Not without moving a bunch of rock. So adventure bike, dual sport, this is freedom. You can get where you can't get with any other vehicle. Not even a side-by-side could get through that. Gas back's chill. I'm doing good. Pronghorn straps. Pretty simple, but seem to hold very securely. I like them. Cheap too. It's just like 18 bucks for those two or something. These gloves are getting very soaked, saturated. So I'm just soaking through everywhere. And I'm also sitting, this seat pad is an ATV seat pad. It's not waterproof. So it just soaks up. It just sloshed when I sat down. So I'm just sitting in a puddle of water. We may cut today shorter than I thought if this rain continues like this. Cause I'm just going to get soaked through. So I'm less hardcore than you thought I was going to be today, but I'm up here. Nobody else is. I like to think of myself as 65% hardcore, like a D plus. D plus of hardcore. Unintimidating, authentic, imperfect adventures. There's nothing I'm doing up here today that you couldn't do with the right gear and the right bike. So I want you to see what is possible and what's out there. And weather doesn't even have to stop you. Cause look, here we are. Very muddy. This road is old, but it seems to be in relatively good shape. Ooh, fun. There's a little water feature. Some natural beauty for you. Oh, over there too. Cool. Whoa. I didn't even see that. Look at this. Off the mountain top. I'm going to try not to fall off a cliff. If I can avoid it. Coming down will be very interesting. I don't love steep downhills. So we'll take it slow. Hold on. What's up here? This is very pretty cool. Rock side, rock face, but we're going to get a look at the Valley, man. I wish it wasn't raining right now. And I come back up here cause it's ruined in my view. Holy crap. Nuggets. Look at this. I know I say that a lot. We've got to stop and get off. Obviously like that's that's required by law. I'm going to try not to fall down this cliff though. If I can avoid it. Yeah, we are very close to the top of this Ridge. The rain's just coming down. So I hope you're enjoying our rainy day adventure. Cool. Just super cool. Glad we came up here. Really glad. Cool. A little rock formation up there. Yeah. Getting this glove back on is getting more difficult every time. I want to see where this goes. Can't go too much farther. I feel like we're on the edge up here, but we're here. We're Thanks for coming. Oh yeah. We're coming out on top. It looks like, looks like the big rock right here. Can you see it? Not well. Big old rock. Cool. Rise has been no stuff, no downed trees across the road. I shouldn't say that. I'm going to jinx myself. Hmm. This is a different road it's connecting to. Okay. Well out that way, there's nothing but the highway. So I bet you that gets us to a landing. Let's go look. Can't go far because we're on the edge of this Ridge. So this road cannot go very far unless it goes all the way down some twisty windy path. It doesn't look like it. An opening up there or a big tree down. Let's find out. I think it's neither of the above. Huh? Yeah. Just a landing as I suspected and a little snow, but we are up on top of the world right now. Not much of a road up here. Huh? Interesting. Okay. Y'all. Well, all right. I'm going to keep going down this side road just a little, but we may be winding down because I'm, I'm definitely feeling water everywhere. Hopefully we're on the map still. I've been meaning to run my GPS while I'm up here sometime, but I'm not going to do it in this rain just to get an idea of how accurate and which roads are on it and which ones aren't. All right. This is continuing down the road we were on before. So we haven't turned around yet. More ups. Got more ups. Yeah. I don't know how much higher we can go up here. We're definitely going to hit snow, but keep climbing. Can you believe they drive log trucks up this stuff? I know it doesn't show up on the GoPro, but this is really steep. Oh, thanks mirror. I don't want to stop on this because it would be really hard to get going again. That's how steep it is. And they just drive giant log trucks, empty ones up and loaded ones down. It's crazy to me. This is what I was afraid of. We're going to get thwarted. Yep. Shit. Yeah. And it's double whammy. So yeah. And it's exactly the right height that you can't get under it. So I'd have to cut the whole thing off. Okay. Well, I feel like we're on the verge of something awesome right up here on this really steep hill. And I'm really not excited about turning around here, but I'm also not going to park my bike on this hill and try to silky saw through both of these trees. And as you can see, they both go all the way off the road. So yeah. And even, it looks like I could maybe get under this one in the ditch over there, but I can't get under that other one. So if there weren't two, this would be less annoying. So, all right guys, sorry. This is what you run into. This is really cool though. We found a lot of cool stuff. All right. Turning around is going to be interesting. So we're going to take it real easy. The idea is just work it down the hill without taking the back tire off the edge. If you can get sideways, we can turn down a little more. Actually, this is a good opportunity to practice the technique. So I'm right on the edge on the back tire. This is a good turnaround on a super steep hill technique. I don't necessarily really need to employ it right here, but I'm going to do it just for practice and to show it to you. Hold that front brake when you get more or less sideways and you can just work your tire down the hill. You see? Until you're pointing downhill where you're comfortable. Look at that. And you don't have to go backwards any. Now I'm pointing down and it's easy to just take off. So technique for you. Don't say I never taught you nothing here at Dork on the Road. Now we're going to head down a very steep descent. So this will be interesting. This was an unexpected adventure. Pretty cool to come check this out. I'm eager, maybe in the summer, to come do it again and see where this goes. So we've been up here for a couple hours. I'm thoroughly soaked. It's a real adventure because I'm very wet, but my hands are starting to go numb and I don't have heated grips and there's water inside my gloves from taking them off and putting them back on. I think it's probably time to head back and get loaded up while I'm still not super cold and have the energy and inclination to do so well. But when I get tired and uncomfortable, this is something to be aware of for yourself. I tend to make mistakes, take shortcuts, try to do things quickly and don't give the energy and attention to things that I should. You want to head back when you start to feel yourself heading towards uncomfortable or at least take a break so that you're not riding uncomfortable or incapable of giving it all the attention you should give it. So I've got some built gear, my built pants and my built boots and they're fine in light rain. They've been fine in the snow, but definitely getting a little water in right now. So just know nothing's perfect and when you subject it to like driving rain or submerging things, you're gonna get wet. I don't know how these gloves would do if I wasn't taking them off and putting them back on so much. See, I would not have wanted to take the AT up here. Just too much tight stuff, too much the steep uphills. I'm just not that comfortable on it yet. I hope to be someday. And that turnaround I had to do, that would have sketched me out a lot on that big bike. Would have made me uncomfortable. So just need more practice. Just learning. Just trying to be honest and share the real experience. A lot of channels out there are just like only the most super badass footage and I just feel like especially for a new rider that that's intimidating and you need to know that it's not always like that and you don't know you need to be that good to have fun. And I'm guessing that stuff is super heavily edited. I want you to see sort of the real experience which is kind of anti the machismo aesthetic of really this genre, this sport. So everyone starts somewhere and we're all crappy until we're not and we can all always improve. So the best way to ride is the way you like to ride. Ride your own ride. Do what you're what you're comfortable with and then maybe just I would encourage you to push just slightly outside your comfort zone every once in a while because that's how you grow your comfort zone. You know, in the safest most responsible way possible. So don't go sending it off of cliffs when you don't know what's on the other side and you're by yourself. But get it to a sketchy section that you're not sure about. If you got somebody else with you there's no reason not to attempt it. Life is not too crazy. This is really pretty. I want you to see it. It's beautiful up here though. This is it's just awesome to be up here in the weather. I'm cold. I'm wet. I'm by myself and I'm having a great time. This is what it's about. All right, well normally I'd try to make a video on the way back down. Separate video. I think we're just going to take it slow and easy and I'll just stick with you in this one so you can see anything exciting that happens on the way down. So there must be a way up from the other side. The only thing I can figure because why is this not clear? Unless this is recent. Unless this just happened. But there haven't been log trucks up here since this happened. I have to get out and clear it. But this is it. This is the kind of stuff only a dual sport is going to get you through there. No quad. No truck. No side-by-side. Just an off-road motorcycle. All right, super steep part number two. It's pretty over there though. There's a lot of downhill. Yeah, these are snowflakes. They're melty snowflakes but they are snowflakes. You can tell. It's snowing up above me. I'm sad we didn't get up in it. That would have been a lot more fun than this rain. I just don't like the super sketchy gravel going downhill. Yeah, I say sketchy a lot. Loose. Not firm which is, you know, the definition of loose. That's another word for what I mean by sketchy. Makes my tire wobbly. It's an unsecure footing. It's just sketchy. Inconsistent traction is really what I mean. If that helps. We're back on the main road. Cool guys. Okay, we're gonna head back towards the truck. We've still got about 10 miles. 10 miles of soggy cold goodness. So I've been... There's a waterfall. I've been live streaming a couple times. I missed it from back when I did Twitch. Attention Deficit who is another motorcycle... He's a vlogger, motorcycle rider, moto content maker, moto vlogger that I watch. You should subscribe to him if you haven't but he does a weekly live stream and I just thought I should do that. So I should try it. So I did. I did two nights in a row. The first night was kind of a shakedown run and the second night was just like a Friday night hangout and a bunch of you showed up. So thank you for doing that. So I'm really thinking maybe that should be a weekly thing. What do you guys think about that? Weekly live stream. Try to do it at a consistent time so you can be there if you want to and we could do topics. I thought about maybe like trying to review gear and then just talk or we can just hang out and chat like whatever. I was drinking a little whiskey and just chatting with the people. So what do you guys think about a weekly live stream? Those of you that were there, how'd you like it? Should we keep doing it? I had a hell of a lot of fun. So if you guys are into it, I want to keep doing it. I struggle sometimes with the consistently scheduling it but I will want to keep doing it consistently so. And maybe expand it. It would be fun to do like, I'm doing an oil change and just go live while I'm doing the change and y'all can talk to me because I'm your internet riding buddy and what happens when your buddy's working on his bike? You stand there and drink beer and watch him and talk to him. You guys can sit on the internet and watch me and drink beer and offer your helpful and not so helpful suggestions when I'm working on stuff. I just think that'd be really fun. Just a kind of a chill hangout. Really lean into the internet riding buddy thing because that's my whole aesthetic. It's been a good adventure. I think we got some good footage. Some interesting stuff going on so. It's worth getting soaked for all of you. It's worth getting soaked for me. Like just sharing with you guys is just a bonus. I had fun. It's a cool waterfall. There's a bunch of these. It's nice when it's raining. In the summer they all disappear. It's roughly the same amount of water that's falling from the sky and getting on me right now. Watch where you're going. Stop looking at waterfalls. Don't go chasing waterfalls. You will drive off into the ditch and die. It's a little known sequel. You probably didn't hear about it. I know that you're gonna go the dork way or nothing at all but I think you're riding too fast. Where did this come from? Hitchhiker. Here's our favorite hill. Hope you like to film all of our drone footage. Let's go visit our good friend the couch one more time before we head home. Why would we not visit the couch if we can? This is a steep hill. You can't tell. Trust me. It is. It's also muddy so difficulty factor of three. Oh there's a bed down here too. Damn. Damn. I want you to get a closer look at our friend. Remember the video? Is that a couch? It is when I sat on it. It's a soggy disgusting god knows what diseases infested mess right now but. So did like people cut this up or somebody the psoriasis medicine is here. That's good. Anyway that's the couch. Here's the bike. So I'm back in the truck. Had fun riding in the rain. It's still raining so I got pretty soaked and as I was taking off my gear and changing back into my. I don't like to drive out here and I'm in my riding gear and I sure as hell don't want to wear those wet pants the whole way back. I really noticed how bad how badly soaked I was. So just sort of a buyer beware. Everything that was covered by Alpinestars gear. Namely my whole chest and torso. Totally fine. Totally dry. My hands were wet. I'm going to go ahead and say that was 50% because I was taking them on and off. That's why the water got inside but the gloves themselves were definitely soaked. So those Tourmaster gloves aren't supposed to be 100% waterproof. Really what you need to know is that everything from my waist down. Here's. Can you see this? Can you see how wet this is? So here's where my Alpinestars jacket ends and here's where my built pants began. My built pants and my boots. I'm soaked. My feet are soaked. My whole underwear crotch. My whole sides are soaked. I have sang the praises of those Stormtube pants before and I think they're good. Good enough for a light rain. They've served me well enough in the snow but in a concentrated downpour or where you're sitting in water like I was on that seat. Because the way the seat pad soaks it up. I can't recommend them. I just. They soak through. So I just want you to know that. I'm not here to rag on any particular brand. I just think you get what you pay for and I think they'd hold up well enough in a crash. I think they're great for 90% of the riding that you probably do but if you really want to get out into the cold and wet like this you need a little bit nicer gear. So the Alpinestars jacket crushed it. The built pants not so much. So we're going to be looking to invest in a different pair of pants I think sometime soon. And the boots too. They're fine again all summer or whatever but they could be more waterproof and they're definitely not very insulated. So it would be nice to have a pair of Formas or a nicer. Icon makes a decent pair. Anybody want to send me some boots to try out? I would sing your praises. I don't want you to have taken a previous recommendation and be like oh dork said that those these built pants are fine. And then get out and get as soaked as I just did. I wouldn't recommend them. They're not going to hold up waterproofing wise. So just know that. So anyway I just want to say thank you all for coming along with me. I hope you enjoyed the video. I mean I sound like I'm complaining a lot right now but I had a great time. Like I love getting out there. I'm stoked that we got up on this ridge line up here and found a bunch of stuff I hadn't seen before. I'm excited to come back and check it out again. New roads, new areas, new discoveries. It's just that's what it's all about. If you wouldn't mind hit that like button if you like the video that really helps the video. That and comments really make it more visible and kind of get it out to more people so more people see it. So leave a comment below tell me what you think of the video. If you're really crazy you could even support me on Patreon like these fine people. Thanks patrons I appreciate you. But for now I just want to say thank you very much and as always please do not forget to be excellent to each other. Excellent!