So a month ago I bought a new bike. A Yamaha Super Tenere. It's a 1200cc "Adventure" bike. It gets that fun title because it's designed to go off road occasionally. It's a big bike, and it's heavy so it's not meant to do the job of a dirt bike, or even an enduro bike. It's purpose is to just be ready for anything!
I used to ride from our house in a suburb of Denver out into the mountains and the fun then came from taking the curves fairly quickly, leaning over and hanging off the bike. I still think that's fun, actually! But I've also had a fair few close calls with disaster, which dulled my taste for speed a bit. My goals for riding have changed a bit as well. I want to get a little farther out there, take some longer rides and see more country. I decided to go with a different style of bike from the "cafe racer" that I usually prefer.
I thought that I would like to be able to take some of the dirt roads that I always passed by in the mountains in the past. I also wanted to be able to ride 500 miles in a day if that's what it took to get where I wanted to go.
So, the Tenere.
So today I decided to go for a ride. Just a normal Saturday afternoon ride to someplace where I could get a cup of coffee and home again. My wife had to work so she took off on her Buell and I took off on the Tenere.
My destination was Mt. Charleston, a 7000+ foot high mountain about 45 minutes outside of Las Vegas. We had reconed this mountain with the dogs in the truck last week so I knew I could get coffee at the restaurant at the end of the road there. That's a good enough reason for a ride any day.
The road up to the mountain can be done as a loop: out highway 95 to the turn off for Mt. Charleston, around the loop and back to highway 95 a bit farther out of town. I decided to do the loop "backwards" and start at the far end and loop back around to the closer end to town.
Now I've had this bike for all of three and a half weeks. I haven't really been anywhere or done anything on it yet. I've been trying to get through the break in miles, and of course we packed up and moved from Arizona up here to Vegas during this time. And all the dirt riding I've done was about 100 meters down a gravel road. I will hit 1000 miles before I make my first payment though, and that makes me happy, lol.
This ride was just a perfect illustration of what I bought this bike for: to be a jack-of-all-trades. I hauled ass down the highway at 80 mph in relaxed comfort, I took off down a dirt road on a whim and scoped out some beautiful backcountry, and I leaned it over in some (admittedly mild) mountain curves. All on the same bike, on the same day. It just blows my mind that a single bike can be this versatile.
So I haven't ridden a dirt bike since I was 12. And I wasn't ever really good at it, even though I remember starting at about age 8. I remember crashing a lot. So I've been a little hesitant about getting out there and trying this big, heavy bike on gravel roads. I wanted to make sure I had some of the basic tools and gear. I got a tire plug kit and an electric air compressor. I wired up the bike with a fused plug for the compressor. I put a few basic tools together too.
I left my leather jacket at home and got one of those textile jackets with lots of pockets like all the good adventure riders wear. Plus jeans and cowboy boots and I'm ready! lol. My Ariat boots actually worked really well, although they lack any traction at all (or protection.) They supported my whole foot on the pegs, no flex. I bought a pair of Gaerne Pro Tech boots, but they are too big, so they stayed at home. I should get some overpants, but I probably won't. Maybe I'll throw my Afghanistan knee pads in my bag for future rides. But I had a lot of pockets!
My bike is similarly unprotected. Bone stock. At some point I will invest in a skid plate and some crash bars to protect the sides of the bike when (not if) I drop it in the gravel.
I wasn't really planning on going down the dirt road, but it seemed so perfect. The sign said there was a campground four miles that way. So I decided, why not? I figured it would be a pretty well taken care of dirt road. It pretty much was.
I learned a lot of little lessons on this ride. I stopped after about 5 minutes to let air out of my tires, take my ear plugs out and shut off the music I was listening to on my helmet speakers. Lesson one was that I couldn't hear what was going on with my bike with the music and ear plugs. I kind of felt like I was sliding once or twice, but I couldn't hear it. Same with spinning my rear tire.
I let 10 lbs of air out of each tire, so I was at 24 psi front and 28 psi rear. I really felt a difference after that. I thought about going further down but I need to research that to see how far is safe to go. These are not knobby dirt tires either. They are basically street tires with deeper grooves.
Next lesson: keep saying relax, relax, relax, relax... Over and over. I'm definitely not used to my bike bucking and jumping under me, it's going to take a while to rewire my brain to accept that these things are normal and acceptable.
So I'm relaxed and going with the flow, and then DEATH GRIP OH MY GOD, relax, relax, relax, DEATH GRIP OH SH*T, relax, relax, relax...
Pretty much like that the whole time. Also, before I turned off onto the dirt road I was getting kind of chilly and thinking about putting on my jacket liner (with even more pockets!) A few minutes on the gravel and I was sweating like a pig. Mind you, my max speed by this point was about 20 mph.
But I had a huge grin on my face the whole time.
Next lesson was pretty much the same as on the street: when in doubt - throttle up! It took me a long time to get comfortable with the idea that when you think you're going to blow a curve you lean more and give it some gas. So when I got in trouble today and I thought I was going to lose control in the gravel, I just gave it some gas and straightened myself out. I didn't think about it, I just did it by force of habit. Got through three parts where I thought I was going to lose it in loose gravel.
I learned that uphill is more fun than downhill. Or at least, less scary. I really need to work on slowing down and stopping on downhills. I'd prefer not to stop at all going downhill, but there were other vehicles coming up. So I played around with my back brake only and found that lacking on steeper slopes. I've always made it a point to avoid using my front brake on dirt and gravel, but I don't see that as an option. I'm going to need some pointers on this technique from someone with more experience.
This uphill section was scarier than it looks in this picture.
You need to plan your moves carefully when you are thinking of stopping. At first it didn't occur to me that the ground is uneven when you are off the pavement. I stopped once where the ground was lower where my feet were than where both my tires were, lol. And then I put myself in a position where I had to try to go backwards uphill. Not cool.
I think the most important lesson I learned today was the value of balance. As long as I felt balanced I never felt out of control or in over my head. I kept slow and steady and crept through most of the road cautiously. I'm sure I would drive a more experienced rider crazy going so slow, lol. But I don't care. The single best biker saying IMO is: "Ride your own ride."
Finally, I made it.
After I rode back out I stopped to air my tires back up with my handy air compressor. Then I rode up and got my coffee. It was horrible. And awesome of course, like all coffee in the middle of the ride.
I can tell this is going to be a lot of fun.
I used to ride from our house in a suburb of Denver out into the mountains and the fun then came from taking the curves fairly quickly, leaning over and hanging off the bike. I still think that's fun, actually! But I've also had a fair few close calls with disaster, which dulled my taste for speed a bit. My goals for riding have changed a bit as well. I want to get a little farther out there, take some longer rides and see more country. I decided to go with a different style of bike from the "cafe racer" that I usually prefer.
I thought that I would like to be able to take some of the dirt roads that I always passed by in the mountains in the past. I also wanted to be able to ride 500 miles in a day if that's what it took to get where I wanted to go.
So, the Tenere.
So today I decided to go for a ride. Just a normal Saturday afternoon ride to someplace where I could get a cup of coffee and home again. My wife had to work so she took off on her Buell and I took off on the Tenere.
My destination was Mt. Charleston, a 7000+ foot high mountain about 45 minutes outside of Las Vegas. We had reconed this mountain with the dogs in the truck last week so I knew I could get coffee at the restaurant at the end of the road there. That's a good enough reason for a ride any day.
The road up to the mountain can be done as a loop: out highway 95 to the turn off for Mt. Charleston, around the loop and back to highway 95 a bit farther out of town. I decided to do the loop "backwards" and start at the far end and loop back around to the closer end to town.
Now I've had this bike for all of three and a half weeks. I haven't really been anywhere or done anything on it yet. I've been trying to get through the break in miles, and of course we packed up and moved from Arizona up here to Vegas during this time. And all the dirt riding I've done was about 100 meters down a gravel road. I will hit 1000 miles before I make my first payment though, and that makes me happy, lol.
This ride was just a perfect illustration of what I bought this bike for: to be a jack-of-all-trades. I hauled ass down the highway at 80 mph in relaxed comfort, I took off down a dirt road on a whim and scoped out some beautiful backcountry, and I leaned it over in some (admittedly mild) mountain curves. All on the same bike, on the same day. It just blows my mind that a single bike can be this versatile.
So I haven't ridden a dirt bike since I was 12. And I wasn't ever really good at it, even though I remember starting at about age 8. I remember crashing a lot. So I've been a little hesitant about getting out there and trying this big, heavy bike on gravel roads. I wanted to make sure I had some of the basic tools and gear. I got a tire plug kit and an electric air compressor. I wired up the bike with a fused plug for the compressor. I put a few basic tools together too.
I left my leather jacket at home and got one of those textile jackets with lots of pockets like all the good adventure riders wear. Plus jeans and cowboy boots and I'm ready! lol. My Ariat boots actually worked really well, although they lack any traction at all (or protection.) They supported my whole foot on the pegs, no flex. I bought a pair of Gaerne Pro Tech boots, but they are too big, so they stayed at home. I should get some overpants, but I probably won't. Maybe I'll throw my Afghanistan knee pads in my bag for future rides. But I had a lot of pockets!
My bike is similarly unprotected. Bone stock. At some point I will invest in a skid plate and some crash bars to protect the sides of the bike when (not if) I drop it in the gravel.
I wasn't really planning on going down the dirt road, but it seemed so perfect. The sign said there was a campground four miles that way. So I decided, why not? I figured it would be a pretty well taken care of dirt road. It pretty much was.
I learned a lot of little lessons on this ride. I stopped after about 5 minutes to let air out of my tires, take my ear plugs out and shut off the music I was listening to on my helmet speakers. Lesson one was that I couldn't hear what was going on with my bike with the music and ear plugs. I kind of felt like I was sliding once or twice, but I couldn't hear it. Same with spinning my rear tire.
I let 10 lbs of air out of each tire, so I was at 24 psi front and 28 psi rear. I really felt a difference after that. I thought about going further down but I need to research that to see how far is safe to go. These are not knobby dirt tires either. They are basically street tires with deeper grooves.
Next lesson: keep saying relax, relax, relax, relax... Over and over. I'm definitely not used to my bike bucking and jumping under me, it's going to take a while to rewire my brain to accept that these things are normal and acceptable.
So I'm relaxed and going with the flow, and then DEATH GRIP OH MY GOD, relax, relax, relax, DEATH GRIP OH SH*T, relax, relax, relax...
Pretty much like that the whole time. Also, before I turned off onto the dirt road I was getting kind of chilly and thinking about putting on my jacket liner (with even more pockets!) A few minutes on the gravel and I was sweating like a pig. Mind you, my max speed by this point was about 20 mph.
But I had a huge grin on my face the whole time.
Next lesson was pretty much the same as on the street: when in doubt - throttle up! It took me a long time to get comfortable with the idea that when you think you're going to blow a curve you lean more and give it some gas. So when I got in trouble today and I thought I was going to lose control in the gravel, I just gave it some gas and straightened myself out. I didn't think about it, I just did it by force of habit. Got through three parts where I thought I was going to lose it in loose gravel.
I learned that uphill is more fun than downhill. Or at least, less scary. I really need to work on slowing down and stopping on downhills. I'd prefer not to stop at all going downhill, but there were other vehicles coming up. So I played around with my back brake only and found that lacking on steeper slopes. I've always made it a point to avoid using my front brake on dirt and gravel, but I don't see that as an option. I'm going to need some pointers on this technique from someone with more experience.
This uphill section was scarier than it looks in this picture.
You need to plan your moves carefully when you are thinking of stopping. At first it didn't occur to me that the ground is uneven when you are off the pavement. I stopped once where the ground was lower where my feet were than where both my tires were, lol. And then I put myself in a position where I had to try to go backwards uphill. Not cool.
I think the most important lesson I learned today was the value of balance. As long as I felt balanced I never felt out of control or in over my head. I kept slow and steady and crept through most of the road cautiously. I'm sure I would drive a more experienced rider crazy going so slow, lol. But I don't care. The single best biker saying IMO is: "Ride your own ride."
Finally, I made it.
After I rode back out I stopped to air my tires back up with my handy air compressor. Then I rode up and got my coffee. It was horrible. And awesome of course, like all coffee in the middle of the ride.
I can tell this is going to be a lot of fun.
