Dual Sport Adventure Exploring Logging Roads on Suzuki DRZ400 and Honda CRF250L

Hello everyone, welcome back to the dork side. It is I, your friendly neighborhood dork in my truck. And as you can see behind me the CRF is in the back of the truck. We're headed out for a weekend riding adventure with my buddy Justin and his uncle Rob. Gonna go up to Lost Lake which is in the Clatsop State Forest. Hit up some forest roads up and around there and do some camping in the woods. It's gonna be a good time. So I'm taking you guys with me. Thanks for coming along for the ride. Hope you enjoy the adventure. Alright, travel update. We are off the highway and taking a back road, forest road through. We're gonna meet Justin at Lost Lake which I've never been to and hopefully it doesn't live up to its name but according to this we're about six miles away. So we're gonna keep driving along this road. I didn't bring the car mount so I can't like set it up so you can see but look forest. It's raining a little which I did not bring rain gear like at all. I brought not a single piece of waterproof gear because it's August. It's Oregon for you. I've had the weirdest luck with weather this year. Anyway, should be there in about 20 minutes and then Justin will be arriving shortly thereafter. Look at this. It's raining badly but look at that view. Look where we are. Man, Justin used to work for the Department of Forestry up here so the plan is for him to show us some of the sites but there's some amazing stuff. Still driving. About two miles away. Found the lake. It's a boat ramp. Yep. Man, somebody's parking where you're not supposed to park but whatever. Wow, this is not what I was expecting. I didn't think it would be this nice. I didn't think it would be this packed either. Check out the lake while you wait for Justin. About 20 minutes early. Might have a little lunch. Might have a little The one and only. The illustrious. Now head back. Knock it, Justin. What's up? I like your gear. This is my uncle's giant jacket. I didn't bring any rain gear. I didn't either. I did not anticipate needing it. In fact, everything I have has giant holes in it for airflow. We're not that far away. We're about a mile away. Okay, I can follow you. I just wanted to get your arrival. Following Justin back to our campsite that they set up when they got up here yesterday. Pretty good view. Well, that's coming across but he's signaling. How helpful is that? So helpful. This is fun, right? I like being secluded. That's for sure. Crazy part is I'm pretty sure they got a motor home up here. Reasonably certain that's what they're camping in. Which is gonna be real handy in this rain actually. Oh yeah, there we are. We're gonna head out and ride around a bit. As you can see, it's still drizzling. Hopefully, it's not too bad. Hopefully. I want you to lead. You know where everything is. I didn't adjust the... I don't know what the angle of the camera is because I keep having to take it on and off to use it. So, sorry if it's funky. It's on super view though. So, you should still be able to see. So, as I mentioned before, Justin used to work up here. Work for the state forestry department. So, he kind of knows this area pretty well. I am not equipped for rainy day riding. Wearing my mesh jacket that I wear on hot dual sport logging road days. This has got a little armor and slide protection. But it doesn't have any rain protection. So, we'll see how wet we get. Hopefully, it doesn't rain too bad. My pants are mostly waterproof though. Justin's got his motocross armor on under that rain jacket. I'm just gonna cruise around and check out the area. You see how crooked is... how the license plate is not exactly right over the tire. Once he got into some heinous trail riding, I really like tweaked the subframe, I guess. He bent it back most of the way, but still not perfect. Should not be chewing gum right now. It's gonna be really loud on the microphone. That's some target shooting. So, we'll see how cold and wet I get. I mean, it can always change and warm up by the fire. So, I'm not super worried about it. And fires are technically illegal out here right now, but look at how wet it is. I'm not that worried about it. It's literally raining. I gotta get this clutch replaced. It's just getting worse. He's actively trying to roost me. So, coming in, these roads, there's a ---- ton of traffic on almost like got into a head-on collision with a minivan. So, it's not like the woods where I usually ride when there's... I never see anybody all day. There's hiking trails and stuff up here that looks like people in regular passenger cars can get to. So, we can't go too crazy on these roads because there literally could be a car around every corner. I passed. I had somebody pull over for me on the way up and then I must have had, I don't know, four or five people pass me going the other way in the six miles of gravel roads I did to get here. Justin's riding a DRZ 400. That's yellow. I don't remember what year it is, but I want to say early 2000s. He just got it this year. Trying to get into some dual sportage. Grew up bumming around the same logging roads I did because we are from the same hometown. In fact, we've been friends since we were 10 years old. So, my oldest friend in the world and he's an avid dork in the road watcher. So, he's probably watching this very video with you right now. So, you can shout him out in the comments. Be like, what up, Justin? Well, it's not coming down from above right now. It's just damp. I almost said moist. It's just moist. It's just damp and, you know, the air is a little chilly, but I prefer that. It's just super hot every time. Every goddamn time. It's funny when you're following, you don't pay any attention. Like, I have no idea how to get back where you were and I usually have a very good sense of direction. I know which turns to take when, but I got my phone so I can always navigate back. It's funny. I take this type of riding for granted. Just seems so normal and boring to ride around in the woods on these logging roads, but some people never even get to do that. So, you don't stop to look at the trees, you know. It's just nice to be out here. It's a joy in and of itself, even if you're not going anywhere specific or not always epic views, you know, or technical riding or whatever. Just cruising in the forest is fun. There's a cat, big cat. People always say we got big cats in the woods in Oregon. There's one. It's the right color and everything. That's going to be annoying if there's any good riding footage. I'm ditching the gum, you guys, just for you. I want to chew it, but I've got to be obnoxious to listen to with the microphone mere inches from my mouth. Well, the good news is I'm pretty sure my GoPro is not going to overheat today. Nice for a change. Hero 7s are notorious and I've had a myriad of issues with it. Lost some decent footage. Like that ride with my dad, there was a whole nother covered bridge and really cool ride up to this church on a hilltop, some decent views. Camera had frozen. I had to stop and pull the battery out to get it working again. Hero 7 is not amazing on some fronts. Stabilization is nice though. It's weird how comfortable I am talking to myself while I'm riding these days. Hopefully it comes across as more at ease and natural in the videos, but it feels weird when you step outside yourself and just think about, oh, you're just talking to yourself like a schizophrenic while riding around in the woods. I'm not talking to myself. I'm talking to you guys. You're all watching eventually. It's just a time delay. That's all. Oh, hello. This is interesting. All this garbage though, guys, pick up your ----. Probably a bunch of broken glass and ---- out here. I'm just asking. I have my tire punctured. Oh yeah. See that? There's like an old helium tank. Oh, there's a chipmunk. You can't see it. What's that? Oh, this has been like cloud recently. So this is where the high school kids party. Oh yeah. That'd be cool. What year is your DRZ? Oh six. I said early two thousands. I was close. It might just dead end up here. I don't know. Well, let's go look at it. Whoa. Oh yeah. Look at that. Dead ends up here. Here's some gravel. You know, if you need any gravel. Well, my goggles have water on them, so we're definitely still hitting some of the air, but I don't feel very wet, so it's good. Those things hurt. They whip you hard. They're sturdier than they look. This little one of the like weeping bells. That's a Pokemon. You know what I'm talking about though. These little purple flowers. Here's a, here's a decent view. Looks like. All right. Decent view off to the right, but I may pay attention to riding up this hill. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's something. That is something. Oh, this looks pretty clear. Ah, these clouds, man. I bet you can see halfway to the ocean on a clear day. Going up. Gotta go up. Oh man. That's something. That is something. Oh, there's a cell tower. No wonder we have cell service. This is just a landing. It looks like. Yep. Just a landing. This is not a bad camp spot. I bet. Oh, it looks good coming down. Not bad. Not bad. Whoa, dude. Check this out. Amazing. You're looking at this. I say look at this a lot, right? No? Do it. There's a house up there. Wow. I'll try to hold my breath. Very gorgeous. Super gorgeous. Clear cut makes it slightly less gorgeous, but logger's going to log, right? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Look, I got a leaf. I have a hitchhiking leaf. How long do you think it'll stay there? Keep an eye on it. I won't move it. Just for you. It'll be a fun little game. Pheasant. Look like. Still there. Still got the leaf. I'm going to leaf it alone. Just for you. It is hard to stop on gravel. I don't know if you knew that. Oh, here's some more views. Another landing. Yep. Of course. Oh, no. No, it isn't. Do you like my leaf? Well, it's not raining, but it's definitely. I don't think it's clearing up like I hoped it would. So it'll be interesting if I end up sleeping in the tent. Definitely have to put the rain fly on properly. Oh, another landing. How faboo. Pretty cool, right? Them views, though. Them views. There's another grouse. That's dinner. There you go, y'all. Back where we were. Oh, that's a shitty road. I like it. It's not going anywhere, though, I'm guessing. Oh, it does turn down here. I thought it ended. Nice. That's a little campus spa right there. Now we're getting into the dual sport territory. Yeah, this remote stuff. I mean, nobody's been up here in a while. Let's see how tall the vegetation is, especially in the middle here. It's pretty awesome. Pretty awesome. I love this kind of exploring. This is the kind of riding that I wanted to do and why I got a dual sport. Looks like just another landing. Good camping spot, though. And we're back. Look at all these shoots, little trees. The turn signals are actually helpful. And he remembers to turn his off. Unlike me. Damn, though. Look at this. It's not nothing, y'all. It's awesome. This is the ----. Dual sport life. Hashtag dual sport life. This is not gravel. This is graded. Recently graded. All right. We definitely have not been this way. There'll be something up here, though. Oh, man. Being in the woods is awesome. I don't do it enough. I don't know if all of you see the community posts. I'm guessing you probably don't all see them. But I just mentioned recently on YouTube that in the community post that work is really starting to ramp up again here in August. And so as much as I've enjoyed doing three and four videos a week for you all summer, I think we're going to go back down to one or two going forward. Some of them are going to be longer form, obviously. But just a heads up, I haven't died or given up on making videos. I'm just going to have less time. So one or two probably I'm going to shoot for Mondays and Thursdays. And if I only do one in a week, it'll be one of those days. But, you know, three and four, five on a couple of occasions was fun. But yeah, I just don't have the time. I was spending a lot of time doing that, which I like, but got to work a little, I guess, because YouTube pays me almost nothing. And my job pays me, you know, my whole salary. So just a heads up that you're going to see a little bit less content as summer ends. Here we go. Here we go, everyone. It doesn't look like it stops. Does it keep going? Does it keep going? Do you see? I bet it ends up here. This hill doesn't get much higher. I'll just go look. Oh, yeah, literally right here. Okay. Oh, ----, dude. I mean, there is definitely a view here. Whoa, look at that, you guys. I'm gonna take a picture. Here's some views. It's clearing up a little. So you can see the mountain, mountains. Look at this. That's Saddle Mountain over there. The top of it is still in the clouds right there. Pretty cool. And the coast range, so it's not as high. So, you know, your view gets blocked off by all the other mountains, but still awesome. Very not bad. Get some, get some. Yeah, this is all new. I don't remember seeing this before. Or that. There's a lot of gravel up here. How do they get so much up here? Like, how do they get a pile this high of gravel? It was old. There's some roofing down there. Old shed or something. Well, this isn't the way we came, but it is the way back. So I don't know. All right, we're headed back to camp. So good first round of exploration. The batteries are over halfway dead, though. So I got to figure out what to do about that since I didn't bring my charger because I'm stupid. Oh, rabbit, rabbit. Oh, he's going to hit it. I was a dumb ass rabbit. You're dumb. Man, it darted right in front of him. There's a pond. Well, that's just a little shitty bog, but there is a pond around the corner. There it is. There's a pond. Pondybunk Ponderton. Ponderosa. All right, camp is right up here on the left. Yep. All right. I remember that. So that's good. All right. Well, I hope you enjoyed the adventure today. Thanks for coming along. Please don't forget to like and subscribe if you want to see more dual sports genetic. It's another motorcycling accoutrement. But for now, I'm going to say goodbye. But please, and as always, do not forget to be excellent to each other. Thank you. Here we are. There's a beautiful cement tundra. It's just beautiful. Whoever owns that must be like a super badass. Super badass. Excellent.