2022 Giant Loop Ride: Camping, Riding, and Shenanigans at Oregon's Best Adventure Motorcycle Rally

We're about to head out for this year's giant loop ride. I spied out in the prairie a very famous Oregon landmark. They took him to the helipad and are life-flighting him. There it is! We're here! All the way from Canadia! What a bunch of douches. Oh yeah, make sure. Yeah, it's mustard. Thank you, everybody, for showing up. Beer garden, fellas! Sunny desert one day, and now we're in a floodplain. Hang out for 15 minutes. Think about how big the universe is. Is that the first time anyone's called you a lightweight in a while? You can cut that out. Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Dork Side. I'm the Dork in the Road, and we're about to head out for this year's giant loop ride. I'm the Dork in the Road, and I want to be your internet riding buddy, so please consider subscribing. Giant loop ride is an annual event that takes place out near Burns, Oregon, out in the desert of eastern Oregon. Three days of awesome free beer and awesome riding and awesome people. I'm excited to be heading out again this year. I went last year, made a series of videos which I'll link for you. I had a great time, and actually that trip was the beginning of a lot of changes for me. It was basically the beginning of my journey to start doing this full-time, and so this marks a year since that journey began, and I'm just really excited, and the giant loop ride will always be special to me for that. It's a great event put on by Harold and the Giant Loop crew, and I'm so excited to go out again. I'm taking the trailer. I like to camp in the trailer. It's what I bought it for. It's about six hours from here, but I'm not going straight there. I'm actually going to stop tonight and camp with my dad and his friends. They're all out at Christmas Valley at the Sand Dunes, so I'm going to meet them there and then hang out for a while, and then I'll leave in the morning. It's about a two-hour drive from there to Crane, which is where we're going, Crane Hot Springs. Take a look at what's in the trailer. Obviously, all my gear, and yes, I'm taking the Tenere. I can hear your questions already, so I'm going to answer them. One, Dork, does that mean that you like the Tenere better than the Norden? No. I'm taking the Tenere because I realized about a week ago that this trip was creeping up on me, and I needed to decide which bike to take. I already had the tires on the Tenere, and it was close enough for me to get out and knock out the miles to get the first oil change done because I didn't want to be doing break-in oil out there in the desert. We're going to do a couple hundred miles. I just wanted to have it done. So it was just closest, and it was only closest because I got the tires on it first and had done like one extra trip, so don't read too much into it. That's why I'm taking the Tenere because the oil change is done, basically. I'm going to close this door and get on the road, and I'll catch up with you along the way or when I get to Christmas Valley, but thanks for watching. Hope you enjoy the video. So I've been on the road for a few hours now, about half an hour from Christmas Valley, so probably an hour from where Dad is, but along the way, I spied out in the prairie a very famous Oregon landmark that I've never actually been to, so I had to stop and check it out. This is Fort Rock, and it's hard to see from here, but it actually goes up like in a circle, and there's like an entrance right here, so that's why I call it Fort Rock because it looks like the walls of a fortress. This is a massive piece of rock. They film movies out here. I think they did part of the Postman out here. So, kind of a neat, cool, famous location. Not a bad little pit stop, but time to get going. I made it. Look who's here. Hey, hey! That's Dad. We are in some sandy surroundings. What do you say? Good to have you here. Hey, it's good to be here. Sweet. Well, I think it's probably time to have a beer. I don't know. It has been an eventful evening. Right after I got here, they were out riding, and they came back, and the guy hurt himself, flipped the quad over onto himself, called the ambulance. It took them about an hour to get here, and they just took him out, and there's a helipad out here in Christmas Valley. They took him to the helipad, and they're life-flighting him to bend. So, I think cracked sternum is what they're worried about, and they just don't want any, like, contusions in the cardiac area. But two of the guys here are paramedics, retired paramedics, so it's all good. Like, no life-threatening anything, but more eventful than I was expecting. But lots going on, and gonna enjoy some beverages and some good company, and catch up with you guys later. Good morning. It is Thursday, so I'm gonna get some coffee, some water, some ibuprofen, probably. Hang out, maybe have breakfast with the boys, and then pack up, and it's Giant Loop Ride time. That was a fun evening. Camped out with my dad and his friends. Now it's time to head to the main event. So, we are leaving the dunes, as you can see, and I got about two and a half hour to drive to Crane Hot Springs and the Giant Loop Ride. I see the sign! We're here! Then your destination will be on the left. I see my destination on the left. Thank you, very helpful Google lady. Oh, there it is. We're here. Alright. Sweet. Giant Loop Ride, baby. We're here. But here's the coolest part. Ewww. Look at this. Look at that. I'm a vendor. Mostly because I gave everyone stickers, but I'll take it. That's Travis riding away like an a-hole when I tried to film him, but important people are still here. So look! Chris is here. Critter Moto, all the way from Canada. Bonafide Canadian, crossed the border, so you can't complain about how long it took you to get here when he came from Vancouver, BC. What do you have to say for yourself? No dude, bo-de-de. That's Canadian for, great to meet you. And Wes is here. Hi. Travis is here. Explored Venture Moto. Not Beards, Bikes, and Camping. That's a relic of a bygone era. It is. Well, it's about 8 o'clock, and the weather has taken a turn. I think my pop-up may achieve lift-off. I'm glad I staked it down, but I'm literally underneath it getting wet, because the water's coming in sideways. Andrew's here, so definitely go and check out finnashmotorsports.com. We're going to visit him in a future video. Critter's here. Travis is here. Wes is here. We're trying to stay dry and failing badly. It's windy. It's June. Come to the desert. It'll be great riding. What are all these YouTubers filming? What a bunch of douches. Do you have to film everything? God, I went lame. Good morning from Giant Loop. Officially day one of the ride. Everybody seems to be up and moving around. Interesting evening. A little bit festive, as always. But I'm feeling okay, so we're going to make some coffee. And Ryan, I think, is cooking breakfast, so I'm not going to say no to that. And then try to go ride on motorcycles, because that's why we're here. Here comes Critter wearing a very fashionable shirt. Oh, well, I mean, it supports us a great cause. We can't let those things go extinct. That's right. We need to adopt and care for them and extract their juice so they don't explode. Chef Ryan out here. Coffee. I like your setup. Burritos. All right, we are headed out to ride. So we got Travis in front of me, Charles, Critter, Chris is here. And we're going to head out to the Albert because Trav's never been. And it was definitely the highlight of last year for me at the beginning. And then it turned into the low light of last year simultaneously. So I'm pretty excited to re-experience it. But it's going to be a lot of highway and then a bunch of gravel. So I'll give you a little snippet to the trip, but I'm not going to bore you with the whole thing. But there's the sign. Giant Loop Ride. Officially the riding has begun. We made it to Fields. Oh, great ride in the desert. Ben, your lunch is ready. My lunch is ready. Good timing. We're here at Fields Station. World famous for their milkshakes, which I already got. But let's go get a cheeseburger. You're just going to leave that at your camera? Yeah, I did. People need to come here. Are you Ben or Travis? Ben. Okay, they're both the same. This guy needs a quick copy of me. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh yeah, make sure. You have a bad history with that. What a POV shot. Normally, for politeness sake, you wait for everybody to get their food before you start eating. It's melting. It's melting. It's not going to happen today. I was just drinking myself too. I am totally going to eat that right in front of all these hungry people. Good, go for it. We had a delicious late lunch and amazing milkshake here at Fields Station. And now we're gearing up to head back. We're just going to take the highway around the other side of the Steens because we want to get back to camp before the free beer starts to flow. So we're going to roll out. Two hours later. So we're here with Austin, Seat Concepts. And you guys know Seat Concepts covers my ass quite literally. On all my bikes right now, I have Seat Concepts seats and they're awesome. So Austin, tell us about how you guys are showing off here and what you guys have going on. Yeah, I know we just got all of our different seat technologies on display. We are in charge of watching after people's backsides. And so I want to show them all the different options we have to cover their backsides. So yeah, we're just out here hanging out. We do some riding and enjoying some great weather, some great people, drinking some brews and just chilling. Out here, everything is like at minimum 90 miles away. So you need a good seat on your dual sport. That's one of the reasons I brought the Tenere on this trip, for real, is because I already had the Seat Concepts and I don't have one on the Norton yet. But I will when I get home. Thanks to Austin. Grab yourself a beverage and head on over here for our mandatory riders meeting at 6 and dinner. Any riders from Washington state happen to be missing their license plate. Held on with a pronghorn strap. Some of your fellow riders found it on the trail for you. It's right here. For starters, I just wanted to say a huge welcome. Thank you, everybody, for showing up, making the drive out here. I know for some of you it was a massive haul. We started this thing, I guess, 11 years ago or something like that. And, you know, it started out with just a group of 40 of us. And it was kind of just a customer appreciation ride. And, you know, and it's kind of taken on this life of its own. It's evolved into something new and different. And it's just super exciting and fun. This is our opportunity to set aside all the other stuff we have going on in our lives. All the things that, like, might be different about ourselves. And we just get to go out here, enjoy, explore, and connect with the joy of two wheels. And exploring this wonderful, you know, remote little corner of the world that we have. This is what Giant Loop is all about. This is what we wanted to accomplish when we started as a company. And it's so awesome to just see this many people who are just enjoying and sharing that experience with us. It's dinnertime, so the line is starting. These are the most popular guys in the whole place. That's our Veterans Black Party beer garden fellas. And look, you don't have to tell me the website address this time because it's right here. But great organization doing great work. Go support them. And they support me by putting beers in my hand. Ooh, I want this one, I think. Yeah, okay, I'll see you in five minutes. Oh my gosh, Slow Eddie. It's Slow Eddie. What the hell? I saw you ride by, I was like, I know that 300L. Yeah, we're the Presidents of Greatness. I know! You guys follow Slow Eddie on YouTube, right? If you don't, you're done. I will link his channel. Do it now! This guy right here is Nasser Al-Atiyah. If you've never heard of him, look him up. He's a Red Bull. He's basically the fastest guy in the world in a car. That's a Toyota Hilux truck. And he's bearing down on me really fast. Those that pay money for experiences, in my view, fill a philosophy, are happier than those who just acquire assets. I'm the Routes Manager for Backcountry Discovery Routes. What that means is that I'm responsible for providing route updates for our existing 11 routes that we have available. And I provide updates to folks and answer questions on anything from what tires to run, to what is this particular section like, to, you know, there's a bridge washed out and posted that. Well, it's about 11.45, so good. Another festive evening. Seems to be my trademark. Hanging out with good people, a good conversation, but it's time to go to sleep, so get in bed, try to get some sleep, and I'll catch up with you in the morning. Good night. Official day one of Giant Loop Ride is in the books. Good night. It is day two of the Giant Loop Ride, Saturday. And as you can see, we woke up to some interesting weather. It's been raining for probably about, I don't know, since about midnight. Like, it started right after I went to bed. And it's a little drizzle right now, but there was some decent rainfall last night. But it's supposed to do this until almost noon, so people are making do, but going to make the riding a little different today than it was yesterday. I'm going to get some coffee going and figure out what the game plan is. I'm thinking I may hang out near camp today just to get to talk to some of the people and maybe do a demo ride or two if the weather cooperates. So, very different. This is Oregon for you. It's very diverse, you know. Sunny desert one day, and now we're in a flood plain the next day. No, it's a jet boil. It's just the job I can't get it out. Even after the ten minute call. I'm going up there. I need to set an alarm for like 1030, so I know to stop drinking. Well, the rain is dying down, so let's walk around and see what's going on here on Saturday. Lots of people taking off to go ride. As you can see, this is pretty constant sight. Well, let's check out what's going on around camp. Camp? Who says that? Royal Enfield's here doing demo rides. Check out this lineup. This is Grace. You need to meet Grace. She's about to take off on one hell of a motorcycle journey, and you guys need to follow and support her. So, why don't you tell us what you're doing and where they can find you. Hi, everybody. My name's Grace. You can follow me at The Graceful Renegade. My platform's going to be launching on July 1st. To be honest with you, I'm planning on spending the next two to five years living off my motorcycle and just kind of going where the wind takes me and, you know, just telling stories from the road and sharing my experience with everyone. So, please follow me. Come on this journey with me. We're going to start in the U.S. and then hopefully do some international trips as time goes on. Yeah, and she's super cool. She's been, like, drinking with us the whole time. I do love bourbon. Yeah, she brought four roses. She knows what's up. Yeah, four roses is my jam. I just got back from test riding the Himalayan. Extended, off-road, on-road. I was pretty happy with that bike. So, full video coming out soon. I'll link it for you if and when it's out. But it's lunchtime, and our friend, Motocamp Nerd, sent me some of these dehydrated meals that he sells. And I haven't needed one this whole time because they've been feeding us, but they don't feed us lunch. So, I'm actually going to try this. This is a Pad Thai. It's a good-to-go Pad Thai. It's pescatarian, gluten-free, so it's got shrimp, but no meat. And we're going to cook this up. It has to sit for 15 minutes, though. This is my favorite, the directions. Add a little more than one cup of water. Stir and reseal. Hang out for 15 minutes. Think about how big the universe is. That's going to take me 15 minutes, so thanks for the advice. And then I'll eat it. That's how it's done. There you go. This is on Motocamp Nerd's site, like I said. Don't forget you can save 10% on my promo code. I'll get back to you when I open this, see how good it is. Honestly, this is really not bad. Let me show you. It's pretty good. And this has got shrimp, so there's a little bit of meat. And there's a spice meter on the back. It's in the lowest thing. So, it's not not spicy, but it's not like, ah, spicy. It's pretty good. So, I'll link those for you. This is the Pad Thai. I've also got the spaghetti. I'll try it at some point. Thanks, Motocamp Nerd, for sending me that. It's a good, easy lunch. There he is. There's the critter. How was the riding today, fellas? Uh, snotty. Like octopus snot. That slippery. You have a lot of experience with cephalopod mucus. I do. I use it for beep. Oh, okay. Well, that's going to get caught now. I'll just blank out the last word. I use it for beep. So, did you find any lookouts today? Nope. Didn't make it that far. Too much sloppy crap out there? Did you guys crash? I did not. Almost. I almost went off the road. Yeah? We'll try harder next time. I will. Says the guy that sat here all day. And did his job. You guys are following these two, right? Critter Moto. Sport Adventure Moto. They're the Moto Brothers. You don't do this. What decade do you think this is? Vote! Vote! Kids don't even know why we do this for a phone. They do this like this for them. Hey, look. It's Beards, Bikes, and Drinking. Ryan is the master of Moto Games. Come on over and get signed up and registered to participate to win some fabulous prizes. Also, Austin from Seat Concepts is going to be setting up the Fancy Pants Bike Show over here. Ryan is setting up for the two-up slow race throwing contest. A devious maze of his own invention. We've got to slalom and there's going to be horseshoe toss and you've got to throw a football into a trash can. Your passenger has to do all this. You just have to ride. It's going to be fun. We're about to start the slow race competition. As you can see, the Adventure Medics are right by the course because we're probably going to need them. We've got two things going on at once right now. We've got the Fancy Pants Bike Show and the challenge course about to start. Let's look at some bikes. I feel like a literal Dakar bike is a little bit like cheating but what the hell do I know? The competition has begun. Oh, so close. Oh, so close. Don't fall in the trash can. You got it. Oh, look at psych-ups. Oh, you're wasting beer. That is distracting. Hey! The finish line is at the beer tent. They went the wrong way. That's a lot of walking. I'm not going to do that again. Off to a solid start. Let's go, infield boys! Come on, let's go! Laughter Cross number three is in the ring I believe. Oh, he put a foot down! No way! I mean, that motorcycle does weigh 1100 pounds. Team Giant Loop. Here comes the winners. In the golf cart. Oh, oh, eight arms. Oh! Oh, the cones will be thrown. Laughter Whistle Oh, the top fall. You missed one. Where's he going? Oh, that was really close. They're just trying to get to the beer tent. Laughter Are you glad? Are you furiously tabulating the results of the competition? Yes, sir. Very cool. Well, thanks for putting this on. That's very cool. Somebody's got to have panty pants on. I know, I'm not wearing mine because I didn't want to embarrass everyone else. That'd be bad. The next award is for the lightweight class which is the smaller CC bike. So if you're out here ripping around, there's definitely some big transfer sections. So my hat's off to you. So Critter Moto. I did the calculations. It's actually 3,500 miles I did to get here on the CRF250L. Two and a half days, 24 hours, just over 24 hours seat time. I guess I just want to say sorry for winning, eh? Is that the first time anyone's called you a lightweight in a while? Pretty much, yeah. I haven't been a lightweight since grade school. We're hanging out with the Veterans Back 40 guys. They're awesome. Great organization. What a great night. Hanging out with friends. Hung out with the Veterans Back 40 guys for a long time. Great organization. Check them out if you haven't. Their website is vb40adv.org and they take active duty and veterans out on motorcycling adventures, camping adventures, cool stuff. It's a great charity and really worth supporting. And they're a bunch of awesome dudes, obviously, because I just hung out with them a bunch. Then we hang out with Ryan and Crystal. What a great event. What a great chance to hang out with a bunch of cool people that we like. I can't believe this is only my second event this season when I'm halfway done. I'm going to go to the Summer Opener. We're going to go to the Touratech Rally. It's all going to be awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys. Some of you there. Otherwise, I'll see you in the videos. Tonight, I'm going to sleep as late as crap. I appreciate you watching. If you enjoy these videos, you want to see more, or you just want to support the channel, consider hitting that like button or even using some of those affiliate links. I super appreciate those of you who hit those links. I'm going to go to bed. I'll catch up with you in the morning. This is it for Giant Loop Ride Day 2 and Day 3 of this particular trip. Tomorrow, we're going to say goodbye, pack up, come home. I think we're going to take our time. We're going to spend a little time here tomorrow. Good night, everyone. See you in the morning. Good morning. It is the last day. Day 3 of the Giant Loop Ride. Day 4 of my trip. Do not let the scene behind me fool you. It has been raining all night. It is going to start again anytime. People are rapidly packing up their stuff. They're going to roll out of here. I'm not in a huge hurry. Thankfully, with the trailer, the only thing that's super wet is the top of the pop-up. I can just leave it out and hang it up when I get home. Great event despite the rain. I hung out with a bunch of really cool people. Got to go on a fun ride or two. I would encourage you to think about coming next year if you haven't ever been. This is one of the more economical options of some of the rallies I've been on. This one includes food and beer. It's pretty good. And camping. Give it a consider. How was your event, man? This is my second year. This is one of those events that if I have the ability, I will never miss it. It's just one of those events. Good people. Good group of people. Everybody's in good spirits. Very well run. Smooth, I think. At times, you almost feel catered to a little bit. You're literally being catered to. You're catering it. Yeah, exactly. You can cut that out. Good weekend. Fun. Overall fun. Always good camping and riding with you. There's a lot more of that to come. Catch you on the next one. Ryan, Grace, great hanging out with you guys here at this year's event. What did you think? Did you have a good time? Had a great time. It was a little rough with the rain. Tracks were a little bit muddier than I think we expected them to be. But overall, kick-ass time. Found some good places to go explore. And everyone was just here to hang out and build community. So it was really great. Four days in. I feel great. Tired. I'm caffeinated. I've had good food. I think the weather was the best overall. Besides the rain, it was just not too hot, not too cold. Not much dust. Everyone was really, really nice. I'm tired. But I feel great. Thanks guys. We'll see you next year. See you next year. You can see everybody rolling out behind me. Things are wrapping up here at the 2022 Giant Loop Ride. The 11th annual. It's been a great weekend. I just want to thank Harold and the whole Giant Loop crew for putting it on and for letting me come out. Had a great time hanging out, filming, meeting cool people, enjoying free beer, good food. I hung out with a ton of awesome people. And I'll link the channels to the people that are in the video for you. I'm going to get on the road here in a minute, I think. So I also want to say thank you to all my patrons and channel members who make trips like this possible. Channel members and patrons get early access to videos, merchandise discounts. They get exclusive access to the live party after streams and other great perks. You can support the channel for $1 a month or $2 a month at minimum. And there's a join button below the video or a link to Patreon in the description. Also want to say thank you to those of you who have been using and continue to use my affiliate links to Rocky Mountain ATV, Amazon Motocamp Nerd, and RevZilla. You click those links, it costs you no extra. I get a little bit of a commission and you help support the channel at no cost to you. You're getting the gear you're already getting. I get to keep doing this thing that I love and literally living my dream. And it's because of you guys supporting me on Patreon and clicking those affiliate links that I'm able to do that. So thank you for all your support. I really, really appreciate it. Sincerely from the bottom of my heart, this is one year anniversary of the beginning of this process. One full year of doing this thing full time. And I honestly, there's no way I could have done it without you guys. So I just appreciate you. I appreciated meeting so many of you and getting the opportunity to thank you for your support in person. And I look forward to meeting many more of you at the Summer Opener, at the Touratech Rally, you know, and all the other adventures including that Colorado BDR adventure that you guys can come on with us. There's a link to that in the description as well. Anyway, that's enough commercials. I had a great time. Always looking forward to Giant Loop Ride and I can't wait to come back next year when it's going to be even bigger and better. 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. Excellent! There it is. That's a wrap. Giant Loop 2022 It's been a hell of a trip.