Off road
 

HERE WE GO ..................... WHAT DO YOU CALL OFF ROAD ?
Is it going along a forest track
is it doing some very hard green lanes
or is exploring somewhere you havnt done ?

So many people talk about taking there BIG trail bikes " off road ". but there not
made for that ............. you try to change direction on a muddy track on a gs 1200 !!
If you want to ride off road you need a 250:scooter::scooter::scooter:

A lot of local roads, for example in the United States or Morocco, or even Spain, are unsurfaced, so I normally talk first of all about OFF-TARMAC roads. There's a reason for that. My previous travel insurance company was OK covering me for accidents on pistes/tracks as long as they were considered local roads. The fact they were unsurfaced was immaterial.

The definition of piste for biking is the same as skiing, and is a 'groomed track'. In the case of Morocco the groomed tracks are maintained by the local—and are thus by my definition, local roads). These pistes run over whatever is on the ground locally they might be sand, earth, grit, stones, rocks, or whatever and combinations thereof.

A metalled piste, or macadam piste, uses crushed and graded rocks brought in from elsewhere normally by the local government. Some of these macadam pistes are then given a thin layer of asphalt and are then tarmacadam (or tarmac).

Hi tim
 

Hi Tim,
hows it going ?
met you a few years ago in Azro,
Carnt get enough of Morocco 47 times now !
but been back backpacking a lot .
but back in april , hope most of snow has gone !

badou ( tamtatuoch )

It's difficult to get Morocco out of your system. Going again in a few days.

Big bikes can go offroad
 

Last year in Thailand I has the pleasure and honour to watch and follow the guys and ladies racing on the BMW GS trophy race in Thailand.
I was on my Honda CRF250l and with a lot of knowledge of the tracks, we were riding on.
During ALL of the stages, i was finding very difficult to keep up with the BMW even on a CRF250?

Big Bike in THE RIGHT HANDS can ride offroad but to be fair these people competing in the GS Trophy was the best of the best from all over the world.


http://i1360.photobucket.com/albums/...pssoogrd0k.jpg



http://i1360.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6ylnskuq.jpg


http://i1360.photobucket.com/albums/...pskur7yxyt.jpg


http://i1360.photobucket.com/albums/...ps33b1neqi.jpg


http://i1360.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8w7xivnw.jpg

morocco
 

Yes, its a great place, but as you know, you need to go a few times to get into the maroc way of life !
Love ... casa + sidi ifini:Beach:

for me off-road is lack of any on horizon :)

http://www.bikershome.net/home/images/Tours1.jpg

also, I think for real off-road 250cc is too weak. I would rather take 450cc.

I think it's fair to say "off road" does describe a variety of surfaces. Though for long distance travellers who probably won't be riding a stripped-back lightweight enduro bike without luggage it's more likely to mean "not on sealed tarmac". The bigger bikes have limited off road capability but are more suited to gravel tracks than deep snotty swamps or soft sand*.


*Disclaimer: I know people can and do ride big bikes in these conditions, that still doesn't mean they're suited to them!

Off road
 

Off-TARMAC is a good description, and I'm pretty sure it is what most people are referring to when the thinking of buying Aventure/Touring bikes.
For me, where I now live in Palawan, Philippines, there is only 1 main concrete road running North-South almost the full length of the long thin province....
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...4db6eb02f5.jpg
Even some of this is still compacted gravel....
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...444e8202ec.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...a5d61ff1e4.jpg
To get across the island east-west you travel on gravel or dirt roads....
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...1dcce3c6e5.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...d87758bf5b.jpg
...with the occasional river crossing.....
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...23b2a18df6.jpg
However, during the rainy season these can get a little 'interesting'.......
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...2950ecc6fd.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...9d34a02ac4.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...2e5aeb9261.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...6342fce8df.jpg

Hence my needs for an Adventure/Touring bike. V-Storm, Africa Twin, KTM 1050: something like this.
Not true 'off-road' as the purists may debate, but still enough to qualify as 'adventure'.
And the reward at the end of the road is finding this......
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...245a10a5c8.jpg
Happy times!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hi LoLo
That what I call dirt roads?
Great stuff but I think a Honda CRF is more suitable for the condition in some of the pictures.

Lolo, on this muddy parts of your pictures heavy adventure bike can be a challenge, doable though :) Get at least something with good ground clearance like Africa Twin, KTM 1090 adventure R. V-strom not so much.

Pics not showing up ... I heard photo bucket has gone belly up? :innocent:
You may want to change Photo hosting site. I use SmugMug. Never fails. :D:D:D

True, an expert rider can push a big bike to crazy places. I've done it in the past but no longer consider it much fun ... also beats the shit out of a very expensive motorcycle. I've seen NEW, $25K motorcycles reduced to trash in 3 or 4 days of "Adventure" riding. :rofl:

Question of right tool for the job. Does anyone think if Ewan & Charlie knowing what they know now, would take R1150GS's across Mongolia again ? ... or would they go on a small, lighter weight bike? I think the later is pretty certain.
(especially when you've got a full crew carrying all your crap! :Beach: )

So, photobucket has kicked the bucket - or it has as far as "3rd party hosting" is concerned. That means no more putting a picture there and linking to it here or anywhere else - unless you're happy to send them somewhere around $400.

I hope it doesn't mean I can't access the library of images I have up there, many of which I have no idea where the originals are. At the moment I can't tell whether there's an issue or whether it's just as glacially slow as normal.

It would have been nice to have got a bit of warning and let me consider my options but that does seem to be the American way; one minute everything's fine, the next you're on your a*se on the sidewalk.

If they've shot themselves in the foot who else should I be looking at? SmugMug? Any others?

The ProCycle guy (Jeff) over on the DRriders forum was able to pull all his photos off Photo Bucket (no idea how). He has now set up his own domain (whatever the **** that is?)

I also have a Picasa account (Google product). It was fine up to about a year or two ago when they got "smart" and re-designed the whole thing :eek3: ... thus making it nearly impossible for me to use! Nice! Thanks Google! It's all robots so you can't get help.

SmugMug has actual people who are ALWAYS there to help. The owner of ADV Rider site is Baldy, also owner of SMUGMUG.

His kids run SmugMug and I've dealt with both Son and Daughter over the years. Brilliant kids. For $30 a year ... to me it's a NO BRAINER. (I have zero brains for computers ... and could care less)

The greater issue here that no one seems to be talking about concerns the serious damage Photo Bucket's demise does to existing forums. I believe any photo posted there from PB ... will no longer appear. This means millions of pics on hundreds of forums will lose photo content ... BIG TIME ... thus ruining threads and devaluing the whole site.

I have no idea how Grant and Susan can deal with this. Seems unfair. It's unlikely members here or elsewhere will go back to every thread they have pic in and REPOST them using another host. But the problem is 1000 times worse to Site owners.

No way can they fill those photo gaps. Oh Well! Would be better if when a pic is posted, the site captures and stores it ... and essentially OWNS it ... so as long as site is up ... your pics are up. But that's a nerd problem, let them waste their life figuring this crap out.

Good luck!

For the off-road purist I can understand the Honda CRF, but I've got to pick something that will tour 2-up with luggage while crossing the 2000m mountains.
Any small lightweight true off-road bike ain't gonna make the grade, and as I can only afford 1, I need to compromise toward an off-TARMAC adventure/tourer.
I'm leaning towards the DCT Africa twin now. Honda bullet-proof reliable and DCT ease of use (60% of all New AT sales are now DCT - that's how good it is!)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Off-road is all in the mind. Not sure it can be classified by conventional means. Few examples:

• Oodnadatta track is a friggin highway - 15m wide, hard unsealed and perfectly safe for 2WD cars with caravans.
• Parmango road is 4x4 only and not suitable for caravans (according to the Shire), rocky when dry with bull-dust holes and gets so slippery when wet, you can't stand up on it (literally)
• Lots of beaches are gazetted roads and can be traversed legally as roads.
• Gun-barrel highway is a convoluted series of corrugates and sandy patches which not suited for anything without decent ground clearance and where you average speed in a 4x4 would be around 30km/h

There are many more examples of official roads that are/will be too hard-core for some people on a big dualie (not to mention with a pillion and luggage) where most people will only feel comfortable on a small trail-bike.

One person's off-road is another person's highway. For me, off-road is unsealed road/track leaning towards no track, single-line track or single car-width.

That will be the case with me? it's called "shit happens"
Unless I spend weeks and weeks going back to many forums I have posted 3rd part links, then I am sorry all my pictures are now gone.
sorry lads.

Not always.
Weather. If wet the track becomes impassable. And the council closes it to prevent damage .. usually some $1,000 per axle if caught.
Traffic. If lots of road trains use it then it can become cut up.

Skill. One of those Honda 4WDs (CR-V) used the Oodnadatta track - damaged the diff at William Creek - new diff on warranty. Hit a rock at speed. Salesman said it would be fine for the Oodnadatta track when purchased. Damaged diff again at Oodnadatta, another rock ... warranty refused.

Like all these things a lot depends on the driver. Britz hire 4WD came back from attempting the simpson - could not make it. I'm certain a good driver could take the same vehicle over the simpson. So I would never advise an unknown someone to attempt a unsealed road unless I knew the present state of the road and the skill level of the driver. Putting a blanket statement like the above - "2WD with caravan on the Oodnadatta" is asking for trouble.

Closing of roads and them becoming impassable in the wet is pretty much true of almost all unsealed roads in Australia (as well as the fines). I was just trying to illustrate a point, not convince people to drive outside their skill levels. Point taken.

Yep, your pics will be gone, shame. But the real damage is to the Site ... as missing pics leaves big gaps in continuity of the thread, ruining it to some extent to future readers.
Cut enough pieces off the threads on a site and folks stop going there as none of the threads make any sense. Pics tie stories together, make it real. No idea what could be done to resolve this. :oops2:

Wet muddy roads will continue to be a major source of frustration for "OFF ROAD" motorcyclist. So many dirt roads are totally doable in the dry, even on a BIG GS or maybe even a Gold Wing. :thumbup1:

Add water and everything changes. I even struggled in the mud in Asia on a 125cc Honda. On a bigger bike, would have been stuck for a while!

The locals are remarkably good at navigating through mud, even two up on a 100cc step through ... with flip flops!

Tourists may not have these "mud skills" so can get trapped. I ended up pushing my 125cc two stroke Honda a little ways to get beyond the bogs.
Then spent half hour washing the bike off before giving it back to rental place.

bier