So I'm looking at traveling the trail from Colorado to the west coast. I've never ridden any adventure rides...but have some knowledge and experience in camping, off-road riding, motocross and traveling across the country. So I'm asking advise or tips from any of you all that participate in adventure rides. The trip is tentatively scheduled for July 2017 and planning approx. 14 days. A few other friends that ride off-road are also planning to go. We have details of the trip from another friend that has ridden the trail. I have a good deal on a 2014 KTM 690 enduro r. I plan to put additional fuel tanks on it and bags of course. I have a decent two man tent...not alpine rated, but a good quality. Anyway, if anyone could offer advise. Any and all will be appreciated. Thanks
I assume you have been over to the advrider site. They will have tons of information about this. That group seems to frown upon asking questions that have already been asked so I would use the forum search. This year I did my first dual sport adventure ride in Costa Rica. It was a blast and I loved every minute of it.
ditto on reading up on ADVRider. there's a ton of info there, from route selection (if you want to vary a bit from the "official" TAT), gear selection, bike selection, etc. I've got quite a few friends that have ridden most or sections of it. IMHO you are hitting the good stuff, from NC to CO is a lot of flat stuff and the challenging/fun stuff begins around CO. Friends have taken everything from DRZ400/KTM690 to GS/ADV size bikes. I think the 690 is a good option given where you are starting. I rode around CO with some friends last summer and the 690 was a good choice. Fuel injection is a must IMHO because of the varied elevation. good gear is essential, both riding gear, and camping gear. go as light and durable as you can afford. and remember it's supposed to be fun.
agree with all of the above really. wealth of information at ADVrider. I'm setting up an XR650L with the TAT in mind. That being said, the 690 will be a great bike for it as well. Beef up your fuel storage to be able to do 200+ miles per fill up. As mentioned there are some route options out west that you should weigh in your planning. Have fun!
We did Clayton NM to Port Orford OR (2700 miles) following Sam's routes over 9 days in July 2011. Big bikes (2 x KTM 990's; 1 x KTM 950SE; 1 x KTM 950). Ex-Baja & Dakar racers. It was intense, thrilling, exhausting, challenging, extraordinary . . . . I don't recommend that pace for anyone who wants to enjoy it. Your 14 days, even if you start in Trinidad, CO, will be good; 17 will be better, given that I assume you're planning on camping. The 690 will be a great bike. Plan your gas stops. Carry spares. Expect the unexpected. Slow down and enjoy the scenery - it is awesome and there is a lot of it. Be prepared for Black Dragon Canyon (just west of Green River, Utah) and a few other "challenging" sections. Be prepared to re-route due to weather, logging, mining or other local "attractions." Spend a lot of time on the bike preparing for the ride - you can train in a gym all you like, but there is no substitute for seat time. Ditto the advrider.com advice above. There are soooo many TAT ride reports, your head will be swimming from trying to sort through the BS. There are some posers, some who say they did the TAT, but when you peel back the BS, they did mostly roads and avoided the challenging stuff. That is where the fun is offroad - you won't find it following pavement routes. When you're on the gas on a 500 lb bike up a nasty rocky climb in the middle of nowhere and the bike is dancing underneath you, or you're hooking along at a good clip on a KTM990 and suddenly you're airborne . . . . you know you're livin'. I'm happy to discuss whatever aspect you'd like. I've done the CO sections multiple times; Utah & Nevada and California/Oregon only the one time. But, I'd go back in a heartbeat. Cheers, Dave
I did my first ADV type ride this year with two other guys who were pretty novice at offroad. The biggest takeaway I got from the trip as far as prep goes, is to keep it as light as possible. One guy really wanted to take some extra luggage, "just in case" he needed the room, and it ended up being a hindrance. Other notes: - We carried spare tubes but they took up alot of space. I mounted my tires myself using spoons at home before the trip, and learned what it was like to have to patch tubes after a pinch. Honestly, I might cut down spare tubes to like one for the whole group, and just plan on patching if i ran into issues. - Using a one gallon ziploc bag for each day's clothes was really helpful in many ways. Each day I would take out the new clothes and put the dirty clothes back into the same bag. This kept the bag cleaner/less smelly, and made searching through it easier. It also made packing simpler as you could easily compress the air out of the clothes. - If using soft luggage, figure out how to cinch it down and keep the weight distributed before the trip. We spent too much time a couple days waiting for someone to redistribute their load. You have to consider how much the vibration of riding on rough terrain will move your pack. - Keep tools in two locations. 1) super accessible for common jobs, and 2) packed away for less common. It sucks having to unpack all your gear to adjust your chain real quick, or tighten up a screw/nut. - They make tire spoon combination levers that remove your rear axle nut and is really light. - Someone on advrider makes a simple straight bar looking stand to hold your bike up for tire changes. I didn’t get to buy it, as he was out of stock when I tried to order just before the trip. It seemed like a good idea though, as it didn’t take up much room. I know some guys just lay their bikes on their sides to change tires, but I’m not a big fan of that. - Plan out how many miles you can get on a set of tires. We were only doing a short trip, but I was shocked at how quickly we wore down our tires, even with 30/40/30 riding on dirt/gravel/street. I had TKC80’s on 17” wheels on my KTM, and my buddy had Kenda 760’s on an XT250. Both tires seems to lose ~30% of their tread in the first day which was only around 160 miles. We probably did another 500 miles on that trip and only wore down another 10-20% though. It was like the first third of the tire was super soft and had no life. - Find a balance of what your group’s abilities are and weigh them against your planned route. I kept trying to take us through some more difficult terrain, just to see how hard the “hard” sections were, and it came back to bite me later. We lost so much time due to crashes, and the subsequent required rest needed to keep going and the time required to fix broken bikes/luggage, that we ended up having to skip some sections of the route we had planned. All in all I had a blast on the trip though. We had to cross creeks/small rivers, climb obstacles, race each other up/down gravel mountain roads, and really just push each other to keep going as we all got more and more beat up. I can’t wait to do it again.
Motion Pro. Get two - one in a 12/13 mm and the other for the rear axle nut (27 mm or whatever the 690 uses). You'll never be more than 1/2 day from some type of civilization, so don't take the Cuisinart. Tubes: I carry a front (21"), and a rear (18") and a tube patch kit. I carry a hand bicycle pump because (1) it is light and packs well, and (2) unlike CO2 or electric pumps, it always works. yes, it takes time and effort. But, if you're stuck in the middle of Nevada without CO2 or an electric pump that works, you'll have plenty of time, and the effort will be of little consequence. If you opt for a single tube, go with a 21" - you can use it in the back if necessary. I don't recommend the Tubliss system for a variety of reasons (plenty of experience relayed on advrider.com about that), or tire balls or mousse's for a TAT ride. Those may or may not be suitable for racing, but your TAT ride is different. Use heavy duty tubes (not ultra heavy, unless you are really experienced in changing tubes) and practice, practice, practice in the woods BEFORE you get out into the great beyond. Tires: There are as many options and combinations as there are people who have ridden. A tire thread is like an oil thread, . . . on, and on, and on, . . . . If you start in CO, and go to the Pacific, you should be OK on a single set of decent DOT knobbies (Dunlop 606's, Pirelli MT21's, TKC80's, etc). Durability is about the same - naturally, big block, aggressive knobbies wear faster than less aggressive. It is more about "feel" and preference. Oh, and you'll find out real quickly when practicing tube changes how stiff your tire sidewall is. Dunlop 908's and Heidenau's are stiff as Hell. Great for avoiding pinch flats, but nearly impossible to spoon on and off in the woods. Finally, know your fellow riders and their abilities and temperments. As BJ noted, you can waste a lot of time and effort and turn a great trip into an awful one by forcing folks over their abilities, or having a high maintenance person along. It ain't for everyone, and once the bloom is off the rose, it can turn sour pretty quickly and stay that way. Not optimal for 14+ days in the Great Beyond. Cheers, Dave
606 rears are stiff as hell, too. Literally and actually painful to change by hand, but the fronts are fine. Pirelli typically have softer sidewalls, but then you are looking at durability issues. But the 606 rear tire is the suck for changing by hand.
You're gonna love that 690 out there... Dad just got a Husky 701 enduro and the thing is absolutely wicked!!
