Dual Sport Motorcycles in the Willamette National Forest: Adventure Riding in The Woods

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the Dorkside. It is I, your friendly neighborhood dork in the woods. And behind me is the Duck Fan. Say hi, Duck Fan. I am behind you. Down there is Canyon Creek, various ways down. I wonder why they call it Canyon Creek. It's a creek at the bottom of a canyon. Weird. And we are out on our dual sports checking out some National Forest Service roads today. We're about 15 miles from the town of Sweet Home, Oregon. This is Canyon Creek Road. And I wanted to get out and I haven't had my new tires out anywhere but on the road yet. And the weather is not awful today, although we were going to ride even if it was raining, I think, this time because we have okay all weather gear. Duck Fan's got his ARC Battle Born head to toe, which is really nice. And I'm just wearing my Tourmaster jacket and my Tourmaster pants, which are waterproof as hell, so golden. And we mapped out a route through the woods, a loop so we can hit the highway and come back to where we parked. And there's a pond or something up here we found on the satellite view that we want to see if we can find. I am already, I'm not wishing I had my liner in, but I'm questioning my decision to open all the vents on this jacket. Yeah, I'm pretty happy that I closed mine, actually. So we're testing out some new gear today. Not super well. We're just riding with it. I put my Tusk fender bag on, you can probably see that. Makes my fender very wobbly. And it's got a tube and some tools in there. And Duck Fan got a Giant Loop. Which one is that? Which Giant Loop saddlebag set is that? I don't remember. I don't think it's the Coyote. The famous Giant Loop, don't remember. And it seems to be working excellent. It's smaller than I thought it was going to be. It's a little smaller, yeah. But it goes on pretty slick. It's not in your way, it doesn't look like. The only thing I'm really worried about is melting it off my pipe. But you built a cool custom Flash Ghetto. Yeah. It's half professional, half I threw it together in my garage while I was drinking. This type of riding is why I bought this ******* bike. Get up in the hills and check it out. I'm going to do it for it. The trail riding stuff is fun, but that was not my primary idea. This was what I wanted to do. Just get out and explore. It's funny because we're limited by this. These bikes only have two gallon tanks, so it's like we trailered all the way up here. So it's not the ride from home adventure that I'd hoped for. But we could set stuff for gas a lot. Well, we could put four gallon tanks on these damn things, but they're heavy and ugly. They are ugly. And the TRF ones are supposed to be pretty hard to put on because you've got to take the fuel pump out and re-mount it backwards. I didn't anticipate enjoying the trail riding as much as I do because with my mountain biking background, I thought I would like mountain biking way better. It's not like it. It's an unexpected like. It's a different kind of intensity, I think. That's like exercise. This is not all the time like exercise. Here's a picturesque spot for a picture for the gram of Insta. You've got to tag EverRide in these pictures. You should go get in that little cave. He's under there. Be careful. Dude, if you're wearing armor, you'll be fine. I'm definitely getting wet. All right, well. It's coming from everywhere. That's pretty. So how many miles do you have on your tires now, do you think? Ten. Oh, not many then. No. Oh, there's another one. Damn, lots of good shots up here. That was definitely a pretty spot to fall. Oh, cool bridge. Well, the gate's open, so that's good. I kind of want a picture of this. Oh, look at that. Look at that. Traffic concerns me a little. I am a little worried about my car at the bottom of the hill, but not too much. Look at this. Look at that. God, I don't even need to talk in this video. There's just so much beautiful video. Look at that, you guys. Look at that. They had this closed off a couple of years ago because there was a rock up on top of this cliff that was going to fall, and so they wouldn't let anybody up here. Wow, look at that. Look at that. Look at that. I hope the camera's getting it. We shouldn't stop right here because this is where that crazy rock is. Yeah. Oh, yeah, they did the netting stuff up there. Yeah. Some dude had to rappel down and set all those rock anchor things. Yeah, that was, and it was closed there for like a year. Just that section from the bridge to the end right there. That's another one. Yeah, there's a little water in here. That's interesting. That's just, I mean, they, the gravel they used to make this road. I still think you should get on and off Lone Ranger style. Just run and jump on the back. How many of you think I can jump that high? I'm going to record you so you're just going to go up that side there. Just launch off and just come back down. Okay. It's going to be a sweet video. I think I could half pipe it right there. One way or the other you're going to get on Moto Madness, so either you ******* kill yourself or you do something super rad. But you can kill myself. Or you kill yourself or do something super rad. There they are. It's actually oriented correctly. Nice. I really should have attached it to the speaker so that I don't have to watch it. That's a good spot. Good looking view. What have we here? Oh, a little river view. Nice. I'm impressed with this creek. I was expecting it to be like two feet wide. Well, I mean, it is snow runoff season. I don't know what it looks like in the summer. There's some snow up on the top. Snow, our I'm not a huge fan of the clear cut, but I do like the view it affords us. Wow. We've got nine miles. I thought it was like 35 or something. Total. Fire up here, huh? Or they're burning flash piles because it's not everywhere. Look at this. Someday you were going to fall off doing that. I'm going to have to wait until I know if you're hurt or not before I start laughing. That, I appreciate. You definitely get to laugh. I'm going to be like I'm the dumbest. Do you think you can do an overnighter on that bike? I think so. With backpacking gear, I'm going to have to wear a backpack, I think. Unless I got a set of bags like that. Whoa. Almost. I got to start putting, I got to get a kickstand cookie. I'm actually getting pretty good at keeping my weight over the bike. It's just getting my foot down that's problematic. This reminds me a lot of that place we went that first time out. Yeah, pretty similar. That was my first time riding a motorcycle off road. Yeah, that was a fun video. Now I can link to it. Thanks for the opportunity. So that's not where we're going, but it's like a good spot for ----. So the major roads all have four digit numbers and the side roads are three. That's good to know. So the four digits tend to be a little bit better maintained. No. Yeah, no big deal. Big rock in the road. Target fixation. Don't look at it. Don't look at it. Playing. Well, if you go over the handlebars with your cameraman or whatever it is, we'll be able to see it at least. You'll probably get a good look at my, right in my face as I go over the top. Upside down and terrified. Big eyes, mouth open. Look at this. Look at the rocks up there. It's cool up here. Man, being up here on bikes is every bit as fun as hiking and way less not fun. Oh, look at this. Oh, damn. Yeah. Well, it's too crazy on the road. We're going to learn from last time. Oh, yeah. We're going to be in ruts right here. Look at this. Well, I had a bad experience once and I thought I learned. Did I? Power through. Oh, it's slippery. Oh, ----. That is slippery. I did want to try riding in it, though. There's my chance of my tire tracks. Are they rad? Yes. This is about four inches of snow, my dude. Ice right here. Remember yesterday when I was like, I think we'll hit snow? You're like, nah. Well, huh. Okay. Why am I stupid? It's probably a ditch right here. Hey, my tires work. Oh, there's no run. We're not going up there. Excellent.