Rainy Day Dual Sport Fails in the Forest: Exploring, Road Clearing, Camera and Glove Failures

Hello everyone, welcome back to the dork side. As you can see, it is a crappy, rainy, September, summer day. And I, perhaps, actually, most likely foolishly, have chosen to go dual sport riding in the woods, so let's go get a little wet and have ourselves an adventure. So, how dumb is going riding today? Let's evaluate this objectively. After I get over it. Oh, this guy in front of me had to pass me, and then it's now going slower than I was going. Thanks, guy. Anyway, it's raining. It's decent rain. I was expecting showers when I first planned this trip, and I checked the forecast, and it's moved on into full-on rain all day, like, until, and it's supposed to switch back to showers several hours after I will conceivably be home. While I, like, I'm okay with going out riding, I'm not gonna go out and ride, you know, until 10 o'clock at night when I have to work tomorrow. I'm gonna get wet. I've accepted that. That's fine. So, I guess it's mildly dumb. It's slightly dumb to go riding today. I have mostly, see, here's where the slightly comes in, slightly dumb comes in. I have mostly waterproof gear. My jacket is very waterproof. I bought some new gloves yesterday. I'm really excited to try out, actually. Obviously, my helmet is mostly waterproof. I just installed a new product that I'm actually testing out for a company that I'm gonna do a review on in my dual sport helmet, and that is a universal pinlock style visor, anti-fog visor. So, today will be a great day to test that. That's part of the reason why I'm getting out today. So, I've got that. My boots are waterproof. My jacket, I said that already. Problem is my pants. My pants are water resistant. Maybe you can see. My built sort of motocrossy pants, they're the ones that are based on the Fox Diablo. I can't remember what the name is. Diablo? Can't remember what the name for the built one is, but they're the convertible zip-off bottom pants. So, they're fairly water resistant, but there are like a few vent holes in the zippers, I would imagine, leaking. My legs are gonna get wet. I'm gonna get wet. I mean, it's raining. I don't think it'll be as bad under the trees. It's gonna be fun. I'm just gonna go hit up Loggin' Roads and explore. I haven't even decided where I'm gonna go yet, but I need to decide before I get out of cell phone range so I can text my wife the area I'll be in. Always make sure someone knows where you're going when you go out in the woods, especially alone. So, mildly dumb to go riding today, but I'm gonna get wet and that's fine. I want to. Man, it is coming down now. You probably can't see that very well. This is better. Anyway, thanks for coming along. I hope you enjoyed the video. Oh, also, before I forget, I am The Dork on the Road and I want to be your internet riding buddy. And I'm better than your regular riding buddies because I'm available whenever you want and I come with a mute button. So, please consider subscribing and don't forget to turn on notifications if you do so you don't miss out on cool content just like this. Man, it is raining now. Yeah, I might be moving to mildly dumb. I might be mildly dumb. Mostly, moderately dumb. All right. Anyway, I'll catch up with you guys when we get up there. All right. Well, we're here. It's still raining. As you can see. But that's part of the adventure. So, I ain't here to complain. Except one thing. One thing I get to complain about. And then, obviously, I chose to be out in the rain. So, I'll keep it to a minimum. But the seat, I don't know if you can see it, but the seat cover on the CRF is soaked. And since my pants are not 100% waterproof, I'm going to have something of a moist bum for the majority of today. That's a one disadvantage of that seat pad. It's not great in the rain because it soaks it up. Whereas the stock one, it just kind of rolls off. So, I will have a moist bum. But that's okay because I brought a change of clothes for when I get back to the truck. So, let's get unloaded. Do some riding in the rain. It's gonna be awesome. Thanks for coming along. Before I hop on the bike and take off, I just want to give you a little walk around of the setup real quick. So, front to back. Giant loop. Fender bag slash number plate bag. My tube and all my tire changing wrenches and tire irons are in there just in case. This is the Diablo Pro tank bag with the dry pod installed. Got my camera gear in there, my wallet, my keys, my phone right here in case I have to use it to navigate later. And then this is my Cortec tail bag. And this ugly ass diaper looking cover is the rain cover that comes with it. This is a street bike bag, but it's all that I have right now. So, it's not, this is definitely more function than form. But in there is all my emergency survival gear. I got a tarp and a knife and some fire starting stuff. And just in case I got stuck out here overnight, I needed to make a shelter and keep warm. So, I like to try to take that stuff with me when I go into the woods. Probably unnecessary. In fact, I hope that it is. But I'd rather have it with me and not need it, than need it and not have it. And then I also have my backpack, which has got water, my firearm, and there's a flashlight in there and some snacks in case I get hungry later. These are my new Cedici Aventura gloves. Waterproof. Looking forward to testing these out today. And then I have my GoPro Hero 4. This is where you'll get all the third person shots from. Let's go riding. Going riding sounds really fun, I think. That's why we're here, right? I got these because the liner was less screwy than the other one. And apparently, same ----, different day, rabbit. My hands aren't that wet. What is it with gloves that you can't put your hands in when your hands are wet? That's why I got new gloves, because the old ones had this problem. We are off to an inauspicious start. That's a fancy word for bad. Bad start. I've been sitting here, literally for 15 minutes, trying to put my gloves on. And no, it's not because I'm a giant moron who doesn't know how to put gloves on. It's because the gloves, my new gloves, the Cedici Aventura waterproof gloves, that I was singing the praises of in the car, suck. They suck ass. Let me tell you why. God, I can't even shift. Because I put them on and then take them off, pull my hand out, which is a thing people do with gloves. And the liner in both gloves, this happened both times, in the pinky, pulls out and then you can't get your pinky back in. I spent 15 minutes trying to turn the glove inside out, work my pinky finger in there. I finally got a stick and managed to push it up a little ways, but I spent 15 minutes trying to get the right glove working. I finally got it on, didn't dare take it off. And I go to put the left glove back on and the same thing has happened from when I took it off to help with the right. So I've got my left, my right pinky almost all the way in, the left one not so much, which is actually making shifting semi-problematic. Anyway, I'm taking these gloves back. So if you are a glove manufacturer, I'm sure there's a ton that watch my channel, but just, I'm going to vent about it right now. It seems that, you know, when you're making gloves that are waterproof, right? They're for wearing them in the elements. It might occur to you that people may occasionally wear them, put them on or take them off when their hands are slightly damp. Okay. And so then that means your liner sticks to the inside of the glove and it should not come out from the fingers. It should be attached to the inside. That put a real damper on the beginning of the day. So frustrated. And that is the second car I have seen up here. That really surprises me on a rainy Sunday. Here we are. I wanted to get out in the woods. I'm out in the woods, riding in the woods on my dual sports. I do. I've always wanted to check out Longbow, but I can't get my bike around the gate and I don't feel like hiking in there right now. I'm wearing mostly waterproof gear. Pretty annoyed about the gloves. I think I'm going to return them. They've regraveled this since last time I was up here. Zero fog on my WeTek universal anti-fog visor insert. So kudos to them. It's a pretty simple design. Obviously there's wind, there's rain. There's rain on the outside of my visor. There's also a small pool on the inside because this Bell MX-9 has a visor that's a little bubbly. And so the bottom of the bubble, there's a lip and it's caught some water. Yeah, this is all fresh gravel. That's good. So I don't really have an agenda for today. My whole plan was just to ride up here a bit and see what's what. Remember the five reasons why everyone, why the dual sport is the perfect first motorcycle video? That was right up here. Remember how I got stuck and had to cut a hole? Cut a little hole with my silky saw and then I got stuck because there was a whole tree? Well, later this summer, later, yeah, earlier this summer, but later than that video, I came back up here in my truck with my chainsaw and I cleared the road. So let me show you what's up here. It actually, in the video I said, oh, I bet it just goes up to a landing right up there. And it totally did. It was like another 200 yards and that was the end of the road. But we're here, so let's look at it. It's a lot, yeah, this is it actually. That's where the tree was. This is the landing. It's a very short road. So this is a decent little camping spot, kind of close to the highway. Pretty exposed. I don't like how frequently it seems to get used, but it's not as nasty as it was before. There was just a bunch of garbage up here before. Looks like actual campers have been up here. I think somebody was living up here at one point in a motorhome. But this is the spot. Let me show you what we cut. My pinky is still not all the way in. So stupid. So stupid. So this is, somebody's cleaned it up a little more. Oh yeah, there was a whole tree laying out, like, and we cut the end off the tree and then these are the branches that were on it. But somebody's come and sawed up the tree and turned it into logs. So good for them. Somebody got some firewood. We just made it wide enough to get a truck through. We weren't harvesting timber at that point. Here's the other one that was across the road. But it's not as long as it looked when you saw up and chopped down tree and stuff. Anyway, that's a decent little spot. I don't hate it. I thought about camping there. I just don't like how close it is to the highway and how clearly well known it is. I would like, especially if I'm going to come up here and motocamp by myself, somewhere that I'm pretty sure nobody else is going to come bother me. Not somewhere that I know other people go occasionally. There's a couple good, decent spots up here, but the next two are right off of the main road, which I don't like as much. Plus side of riding out in the rain is that all my gear is getting rinsed off. So that's good. It's just been very dusty and dirty. A lot of dust this summer, all over everything. Yeah, they've come in and cleared the sides of this too. They've done a bunch of work up here this summer. That's awesome. There's a little moisture coming through my pants because like I said, they're not waterproof. So that's all right. So in a couple hours riding, and then we'll change when we get back to the truck. No worries. And it's great to be back up here. Not, I mean, I was up here a couple of weeks ago with my dad, but I haven't been by myself in a while. I haven't, you know, I go a little slower with the kid and with dad because they're brand new. They kind of cleared that road. That might be interesting to check out. Trying to get my bearings because I've explored all this, but it was a while ago. That's a decent little campsite right off the road. It's just good and bad. One up here that I like a little bit more, even though there's not, it's a great place to get off the road and set up a tent, but there's not a lot to do nearby because you're on the edge of a cliff and the road is on the other side. But if you're just trying to find a place to put up a tent, set up a fire and camp, it'd be great. Yeah. I mean, I had thought about bringing the kid today, but look at this weather. She does not have waterproof gear, so that would not have been good for her. So there's another good campsite. It's right here. I'll show it to you. They've rocked it a little. It's like, it's kind of muddy. Maybe you rocked them. Oh, wow. No, they totally, they took out the fire pit and everything. This is all brand new. They're like bulldozed it. This is, yeah. I mean, that's all anti-erosion stuff, right? That's why they throw the hay up or I bet they were storing stuff here. I'll get you a closer look. Anyway, this is now no longer a nice campsite. It's interesting. We found, Duff Ann and I came up here a couple of times. We like came up and just set up a campfire randomly and had lunch and smoked some cigars up here one time. It was in December actually. And there was like butane and like the caps full of paper towels and ---- all over. So like people were coming up here huffing and stuff. So I guess I see why they wanted to make it less appealing if they found the same things that we did. Now, this is where I like to park and unload. I guess I still can. There's a spot here too. It's not a great camping spot, but yeah. See down the road there, it would be a good spot if you were on a bike like this to ride down a ways and then set up. I've never taken this road to the right. So let's take it and explore a little bit. It used to go through. Obviously it doesn't anymore. Well, the road still does, but you can't get on it. You can on this bike. That's where I filmed my, I went past that little barricade and filmed the, my dual sport gear video. So I've been down there on the bike. This is 317. So last time we explored up here, we took the left. So we're going to take the right and see where it goes. Check it out, bro. I don't know how hardcore we're going to get today. I'm not very, tend to not be very hardcore when I'm by myself. I tend to not be very hardcore ever. Frankly, that's not really my MO. Oh, there's some water here. There's a bridge. Oh ----. I might know where we are actually. This might be that road that goes through to Canning Creek. I think maybe I've been on it before. Dude, I'm pretty sure I have actually. Huh. Interesting. Not taking my gloves off though. That's not a thing today. I'm not sure if these gloves have touchscreen thingies. So let's hope they do or else I will not be taking pictures. We'll just be using screenshots. Oh dude, it worked. I managed to execute that maneuver. So that's good. I took pictures. I think I know where I am, which means this road is probably boring. Should I ride until I'm sure? 90% sure. I think I want to go farther up. So I'm going to turn around. I'll go take the other road. I'm going to go back the other way. My dudes. Good to know that this is where this connects though, because I know how to get here. All these roads, it's fun. Once you start exploring up here, that's part of the reason why I wanted to come up to this side today. This is not the usual side. It's because I like to see where all everything connects up in the woods. Going up. I want to go fast. See how the runoff just destroys these roads slowly, but surely turns into a stream bed. Oh ----. There are a lot of cars up here today. That road actually looks pretty promising. Let's go look at it. That was all blocked off last time I was up here. No, there's a big pit right there. Shit. Well, people have walked up there. Yeah, I don't like it. It's too bad. All right, not this one. We're up in the cloud now. Good times. Oh geez. What the ****? That's like four cars today. Five? Are they up here getting wood? People camping? What's the deal? I thought I'd have this place to myself. Huh. This end is busier. The Canning Creek side. Yeah, it's real foggy up here now. We're literally inside the cloud and not the internet cloud, the literal rain cloud. Well, this anti-fog visor insert so far. I'm impressed with it. Now, here's that hiking trail right there. It's a parking area. A tree in the road. Big branch anyway. This is that one cool spot I found. This tree is still across the road. It's got to be a new one, but there's a little camping spot up there, but you got to walk in because there's big trees. And this is the road I tried to go down, but it was mostly, it was blocked. I wonder if it's been cleared at all. This big opening here has. Let's go look. What the hell? Get off the main road a little bit. It hasn't been cleared much. Well, if this isn't even clear, I bet you it's not much better down there, but let's go look. Because clearly no one's driven a truck in here, I don't think. At least my truck wouldn't fit down here. I mean, not like comfortably or, you know, safely. Yeah, there's a big hole. There's another one. I think this might be about where it was. Yeah, it's been cleared a little, I think, because right about there is where we got stopped last time. I'm sure this just goes to a landing, but it's fun to explore. Big mushrooms. There's a lot of mushroom hunters up here actually. It could be where, why these trails are getting cleared. People are walking through. Mushroom hunting is pretty big up here. Nope, there's the tree. Same one. Okay, well, not a great place to turn around, so let's turn around down here. Yeah, I mean, my Silky would cut through this, but it would take a really long time, so let's not bother. Yeah, we're gonna have to kickstand turn this bitch. I mean, this looks like a decent spot for a photo, yeah? But this maneuver, super helpful. Super helpful. Yeah, a chainsaw for this one. That's not a Silky Saw log, y'all. Anyway, that's fun. This will surprise you, but sweat. I don't know if you can tell. Things seem to be slightly moist. Actually, less. I think the rain is not as hard now that we're above the cloud. And we're back out. Onwards and upwards, quite literally. Onward and upward, I think. Oh, here's another split. Oh, there's a promising road. Let's go down this one. I wonder if it's that same road, if it just loops around. Yeah, let's go look. That would be an interesting... I mean, it makes sense. It's going the right direction, but I don't know. It's turning the wrong way, but that doesn't mean it doesn't loop around. I'd really like to find a decent campsite down one of these roads. To come back to. Ideally, I could get the truck down so I could bring the fam, but I had just a little bit more adventure-y tires on the Versys. I would think about moto camping down some of these places. Different tree, but right direction. Well, I mean, I have my Silky. What is the point of having a Silky if you don't use it for explorers, right? All right. This diaper bag. God, and the worst part is, if you ever see pictures of me sitting on it, it looks like this is my butt, like it's a giant wide butt because it blends in with the colors. So I'd really like to get giant loop bags. Oh, this waterproof thing isn't even that waterproof. The giant loop, what's it called? The one, the loop, the loop bag, but it has a name and I forget what it is. That would be ideal for this, or even the clam with tail rack bag would be enough to store everything I have in here. I couldn't camp out of it. I'd like to be able to do both. Anyway, let's clear a path. This long one right here is super in the way. This just goes back to a little camping spot, I think. Oh no, that's a road. Cool. If this doesn't work, I may just have to ride back to the truck and get you some foggy footage. I don't know. I don't know what to do. Yeah. Instant, instant fog. You see that? Instant. The second you put it in there, it gets way foggy. I guess we're just going to have to be footage-less. I don't even have the door to put on the GoPro to run it on the outside, which is shitty sound where I can't talk. All right, well, I guess I'm going to head back. I don't know what else to do. I thought I had a clever solution. I want to ride more in the winter, but if I can't take footage and talk at the same time, less than ideal. This mic adapter sucks ass. Stupidest thing you ever did, GoPro. I mean that sincerely. We'll head back. It's a video anyway. Back at the truck. So let's discuss just briefly as a debrief, the myriad ways my gear failed me today. Okay. So this is definitely an adventure fail. We didn't get a lot of writing in today and I'm sorry about that. I hope the video was still interesting to you, but it's a learning experience for sure. Okay. So gloves, Siddiqui Aventura. I'm taking these back and I don't really return things. It's not like I don't usually want to deal with the hassle, but they were $60. They don't do the job they're supposed to do. What I said in the truck earlier was completely wrong. You do get what you pay for. That's what we've learned today. At least with these gloves. I'm just saying, if you're making a waterproof glove, it should probably work when it's wet. Just a thought. The other big fail, and I was afraid of this, but it is the GoPro. I bought this case, as you can see, still foggy, but I drilled this hole on the side so I could use the mic adapter because that's what I did with my old GoPro and it worked fine. The GoPro 7s run so hot, that didn't work. I think it was fine. I hope all my earlier footage might be ruined too. I don't know, but I think it was fine until I pulled it out to put the new battery in and put it back in because the area, like I said, around the lens is the heat sink for these. I realize that GoPro doesn't design cameras specifically for motovlogging, and in fact, we're probably a minority of the people who use them, but it is impossible almost to use the mic adapter in the rain because while the GoPro Hero 7 itself is waterproof, it isn't waterproof if you take off the side door or open it, which you have to do to plug in the mic adapter. There's no good solution here. I either risk ruining this thing I paid $350 for, or I have foggy footage. Isn't it shitty foggy right now? Come on, dude. So the gloves are a fail. The mount here that I thought was such a genius solution is a fail. The case. This is only in the rain though, but here's the thing. I live in Oregon. It rains for six months straight, so I don't know. Today did not turn out like we planned, but I don't know. Sometimes I enjoy watching the real sort of life is messy videos that some people put up, so hopefully you got a little enjoyment out of this one. But the bike is here. I'm afraid to even take this out in the rain with that door open, but I'm going to load up and we're going to head back. I just want to say thank you very much for watching. I appreciate you. I'm sorry this video was not what it set out to be, but I hope you at least got some entertainment out of it. Some schadenfreude. That's a fun thing. Look it up if you don't know what that means, but thank you for watching, and as always, please don't forget to be excellent to each other. Thank you. Excellent!