Most inappropriate dual sport bike

[HawkGTRider]

Like many of us with a sense of adventure, but perhaps lacking a fully formed dosage of good common sense, I find myself riding places at times on a bike that may not fit the conditions. But I'll bet it's happened to others as well.

Over this past weekend, I found myself riding in the Catoosa Wildlife Management area in Morgan County in East Tennessee. The conditions were rather soggy with intermittent rains almost all day. I was riding an '88 Honda Hawk GT on the way back home to Knoxville from an overnight visit to the Crossville, TN area, and I'd already reached my quota for interstate travel (somewhere between zero and non-existent). Leaving the interstate I headed up a pleasant little road that changed from paved two lanes to paved one lane to gravel. Still heading in the desired general direction I wanted to go, I decided to keep going. However, reaching an area where some construction work was being done, the road changed from relatively hard-packed gravel to inches deep muck. It might have been ok had it been dry, but with the rains, it was nothing short of goo. I'd have dismounted and tried to walk a bit to see how far the construction went, but it was so slimey, I don't think I could have stood up. With the pure street tires on the GT, traction was about as non-existent as you can imagine. I finally got the bike turned around, not easy in the muck, and headed back the way I'd come.

Once I got back to the undisturbed portion of the road, I was finally able to start making some headway towards home. I paused to take a couple of photos with my phone (I hadn't planned on any noteworthy experiences). You'll see a good bit of muck built up on the back half of the bike. While you can't tell much from the photo, imagine rivulets of water running down the tire tracks of the road, somewhat foggy conditions (I was up high enough to be in a cloud), and on a rather steep downhill slope.

So...what was the most inappropriate bike for the conditions in which you've found yourself?

[Downs]

FJR1300 going to the By Way Boogie in 2010



After riding down various dirt roads this one being about 6 miles long and according to my map went all the way though to the paved road I needed to be on, as I went further down the trees and bushes had grown towards the road so far it was barely large enough to fit a car or small truck and was rutted and potholed to no end. You can see the road just above the bike beyond the trees. So close yet so far. I had no idea of the creek conditions didn't know how deep it was or if it had a rocky bottom or silt. Decided since I was on my own and dropped or stuck bike would be the possible end of my day I decided to headback and find the pavement and head around.

Lesson learned here. In that part of the state if it is a local county road or random guy's name on the road sign it's probably not paved and rougher than it looks and possibly ends in a creek or stream.

Not long after getting off that road my Radar Detector's aux. output shorted out and my GPS went on the fritz to be useless on the rest of the trip.

[RIDEMYST]

Ask anyone who has ever ridden with me!
I have used my ST1300 for years as a dual sport only because I don't have the good sense to turn around.
I know there are a few here that will vouch for this statement. -JEP-


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[NormKern]

In June, 1970, rode a 750 Guzzi Ambassador two-up with camping gear over Guanella pass (continental divide) in Colorado on a jeep road. Came out near Fairplay, CO.

Later on the same trip rode the Boulder-Escalante-Panguich highway in Utah, parts of which were a jeep road at the time.

"No day is complete without a little dual-sporting."

Norm Kern

[BlueRidgeKat]

Ask anyone who has ever ridden with me!
I have used my ST1300 for years as a dual sport only because I don't have the good sense to turn around.

Same here, the Tiger 1050 is 99.999% street bike even though a few want to put it in an adventure category.

This past spring I did the adventure route that was used a few years ago when STAR was in Asheville NC which included the Cataloochee Valley, Max Patch, etc...... Those wet SLICK wooden bridges where alot of fun!

Continental now has 17inch TKC's so maybe it can be made a off road bike after all.
http://www.cycleworld.com/2012/06/28...product-ideas/

When I had the big 600lb+ ZZR1200 a number of years ago it seemed to enjoy plowing through gravel roads in SW VA.

[stevegrab]

Geoffrey,

I sure hope you cleaned up that beautiful bike when you got home. No reason to torture that nice Honda that way. Its not a BMW you know

I've had a few off road excursions, some on my own in early days riding on ymy 97 Bandit 600. I usually turned arond ASAP not wanting to get stuck or worse.

We did have an interesting local ride one time, following the Old Port Washington Road (I think that's is name, the first designated highway in Ohio). It followed some nice old roads, mostly paved but others that were hard pack dirt. (And some recent rain kept the dust down.) I was on my VFR, another rider on his Virago 1100. The rider leader/organizer showed up on his dual sport, and I gave him some grief about that. (The ride was announced to include some unpaved roads, and a paved option was provided. But he knew the rest of us were not going to be on dirt bikes, so he should have had to ride a street bike too )

[BlueRidgeGal]

Now Geoffrey, you passed the "Stayin' Safe" adventure training last fall with flying colors...no wonder the Honda took to the adventure route like a duck to water.

[HawkGTRider]

Geoffrey,

I sure hope you cleaned up that beautiful bike when you got home. No reason to torture that nice Honda that way. Its not a BMW you know

I've had a few off road excursions, some on my own in early days riding on ymy 97 Bandit 600. I usually turned arond ASAP not wanting to get stuck or worse.

I hosed it off as soon as I got home. There's still a light dusting of dirt on my driveway. I push my bikes into the garage backwards (easier to get them out) and almost dropped a bike a day or two later when my foot slipped on some of the dust.

[HawkGTRider]

Now Geoffrey, you passed the "Stayin' Safe" adventure training last fall with flying colors...no wonder the Honda took to the adventure route like a duck to water.

If you'd seen the muck that I got into, you'd know why I turned around. The front wheel sunk a couple of inches into the goo and it was darn near impossible to keep the bike going in the direction I wanted. With the minimal sipes found on a typical front tire, the front was just plowing through the mud mostly sliding in whatever direction gave the least resistance.

My general policy is that if a bike won't do what I want it to do, I don't want it. I've had my '85 Goldwing, '86 VFR700, '93 R1100RS (not having a GS at that time, the RS found itself on gravel a LOT), and the '88 Hawk GT each on dirt roads. However, this muddy road was pretty much impassable. I suspect I'd have struggled even with a light weight dual sport with aggressive knobbies. It might have been a real challenge even with a 4-wheel drive vehicle.

[ejfudd]

I put a 98 Honda Superhawk into a mowed down cornfield once. Neither the bike or I had that planned, but got in and out upright. No ditches or trees, so all went well. Mud everywhere.