Mountain Motorcycle Maintenance & Motoring Weekend

I have come to learn a family cannot have too many motorcycles.  I only have three, all Yamahas, a 2007 XT 225, a 1984 XT600 (cannot get it started) and my ride of choice a 1983 XT550 aka "The Beast".  Son Brian has a similar sized herd but, on average, are considerably younger than mine.

Regardless of age they all need some TLC now and then and our plan was Saturday maintenance and Sunday ride.  So some got new oil & filters, some just got looked over and The Beast got new clutch plates and pads.  I wore them out practicing the new technique (for me) of, at low speed, controlling the speed with the clutch rather than the throttle. We started on my bike at 9:00 pm on Saturday and by 12:30 am The Beast was ready!

About twelve or thirteen hours from the previous picture.....Here we are about half way to our goal of Monache Meadows.....Up the paved Five Mile Road to the Jackass turn-off and an old forest service road, and one single track behind me.  Son Brian and I enjoying the cool of the forest shade.

One more single track and then the famous undulating Monache jeep trail down to the Meadow.   

 In our ride we completed a circle of the entire meadow, including a stop for lunch in the middle.

 Here is me and The Beast and my neighbor, Max in the waaaaay back.....by choice I might add.

 We asked our relatively new neighbor, Max, if he wanted to join us.  He enthusiastically did.  I had no idea that he'd been riding and racing dirt for 50 plus years.  Let's just say his skill level is on another planet, compared to mine.  Later Max's wife would say she was using the SPOT tracking function and she was a little concerned, because our average speed was so slow....mmmm, couldn't figure out who the cause of that would be.

Had a great ride back, except for maybe when  a rock jumped in front of me and I again laid The Beast down, and broke the brake handle.  Fortunately, I had a spare.....this event took place not far from where I laid a bike down and broke a clutch handle on a trip a year or two ago....had a spare of that too.  I have come to the conclusion, that in mountain dirt riding one of the most important things to learn is how to safely get off a bike....this I am getting good at.

But the overall highlight for me was a big first for me...I managed to just keep going and jump/climb over a tree which was over the trail...not a large tree, maybe eight inches in diameter and a couple of inches off the ground...all my practice paid off....give it gas, pull up on handles, weight to the back. Magically the bike easily climbs over...hubba hubba

It was a great Mountain, Motorcycle, Maintenance & Motoring weekend!