Exploring New Forest Territory: A Suzuki DRZ400S Dual Sport Adventure

Oh yeah, I'm already regretting it. How about this? Here's the pit. New territory. I've never been over here before. Good dirty fun. It's all this unexplored goodness. Is that like a grave right there? I said the tracks were fresh. It appears I was correct. Cool. Hello everyone and welcome back to the dork side. I am the dork in the woods and today we're just out exploring the forest on my DRZ400. That's right everyone. I am the dork in the road and I want to be your internet riding buddy and I'm better than your regular riding buddies because I'm available whenever you want and I come with the mute button. So please consider subscribing and don't forget to turn on those notifications so that you know when I post awesome new dual sport and adventure motorcycles. I'm back once again to the area near Shotgun Creek OHV in Marcola, Oregon. I just can't stop riding this thing. So it's Saturday. It's going to rain later. I've got my waterproof gear on but I just want to come out, putt around, try to get the break in miles on this bike finished so I can do that first oil change and really start riding it. So I can't think of a better way to do it than riding out to a riding area, riding around and riding home. So we're still exploring this new closer to home territory, still finding new things. So no real agenda today, just cruising, exploring, seeing what we can see. I think I'm going to take that one side road off to the left that I took in the Africa Twin video. There's a really cool view out there I know and I want to see where the main road goes. So let's just putt around and see that. Hope you've been enjoying all the content. School year has ended for me so I have a little bit more time. I do still work in the summer but we're going to try to do three videos a week for the foreseeable future and probably Monday, Wednesday, Saturday so we don't conflict with the live stream on Friday nights. Please feel free to come join us. I'd love to have you at the live stream Friday nights, 7pm PST right here on the channel. If you want to interact with me and the awesome people in the Dork on the Road community, think about joining the Discord. There's a link below. You don't have to be a super savvy tech genius, you just have to know how to type words into a phone or a computer and read words that other people type. I'm sure you can do that. This one I've always wondered where it goes so I'm just going to check it out even though I'm sure it goes nowhere because we're not even into the area yet. Oh yeah, I'm already regretting it because stock tires. Yeah, just right down here, this is it. Or is it turning? Nope. Oh. Yep. Interesting. Okay, well it's a dumping shooting area like everything else out here. Chipmunk! Right there, you see him? Hey Chipmunk! Next to the gas tank. Lots of targets up there. Is there a decent backstop? Uh, yeah it looks like it. It actually looks like it's kind of a cool little cave back there. Huh. Interesting. Alright, well I've never been down here. Now I know. I'm trying to eliminate these side roads. Basically everything on this end because we're not even into the BLM land yet. We're still on the private forest. It's going to be not open. It's going to be short little ups and outs like this. But hey, we've eliminated another possibility. That's good. You know me and side roads so. I saw this one. I've always wanted to check it. Now I've done it. Mystery solved. It sucks. I'm not surprised. So I'm curious your opinion because today I elected to just get on the bike and go and just start filming when I got up here. So I often do like a montage either of loading up or in the last video just riding out. And I rode out today but I decided, you know, I'm just going to focus on the ride a little bit more. So this gets you into the riding faster in the video. So what do you guys think? Is it better to do maybe shorter, tighter, more focused videos or to leave in that kind of color stuff? The extra sort of around the edges riding, loading up or traveling videos to get a sense of the whole adventure. Let me know what you think. I may experiment with both and just see how they do. Really it's about cutting unnecessary bloat and just and honestly if I wasn't editing montages of travel and loading up all the time I could get out a lot more videos. It's also fun so I don't know. Tell me what you think. There's the mud pit again. Whoa, it's all over the road right here. People have been going in and out. That is crazy dude. Can't believe people drive through this. Swampy, soupy, nasty. Look how much is up on the road. People coming out of there. Alright, this is where we're headed. Right down here. That's the road we usually take. This is where we're exploring today. Alright, so we've been on this road a ways before but have not followed it to it's conclusion. And I'm pretty sure it actually loops back around. That's from a cursory glance at a map so I don't know for sure but it may loop back around to the other road. I think I've seen where it comes back in. See now friends. Blackberry Briar. Nailed it. Which is actually a bad thing in this instance. Okay back end, stepping out on me. Side knobs on these tires are basically non-existent. Alright, here's the junction. Last time I went up, there is a decent view up there. But I don't actually know where any of these go. That one I'm sure just goes right there. I mean if I'm sure, then I should go look. Because I can. Okay, we're just going to poke down this one because it can't go very far. It's on the edge. But there's a decent view up here which you should go check out. But I think this is the main right here. So that's the one we'll probably follow on. We're just trying to see where things go and how everything connects out here. Okay, well there's a little campsite. Looks like this just loops around. As I suspected. Big piles of garbage so thanks for that. Douchebags. Little hill climb. Figured out what's down there, huh? I'm going to go up to that little view and then turn around and maybe we'll take this road farther. Because I just like the look of it, I think. You can always come back to this one. People shoot up here too. But there's a pretty cool view. Check it. Not terrible, huh? Best part is I've got cell phone service up here. How about this? How about that? I'll show you the gravel pit. Here's the pit. So clearly a party spot, shooting spot. My guess is that fills up with water from time to time. There it is. There's the forest. There's the DRZ. There's my face. I don't know what the hell is even over there. I'm excited to explore all this, though. New territory for me. Close to home, it's nice. Real quick, let me show you the setup. Giant Loop Diablo Pro tank bag. Mojave saddlebags with the Giant Loop mounts. I don't know how well you can see that, but mounted to the passenger foot peg on this side. This is the Possibles pouch, attached with pronghorn straps to the tail rack, which you saw me install in the install video. And then on this side, I've attached the Giant Loop mount, that's the stainless steel piece here, to the exhaust mount. As far as bag setup, we're set. This is survival gear and tools, tire changing kit, camera gear is in that bag. Big shout out to Giant Loop for helping hook that up, make it happen. You can see the view from up top. I mean, we're here. It won't hurt, right? Easier to see on the way back down. This was closed last time I was up here. I don't know. No campfires. Anyway, this is what I wanted you to see. Pretty, right? So that is the gravel pit we were just in. It's beautiful, too. This weather, I love this weather. As long as it doesn't start dumping rain on me, fingers crossed. Temperature's perfect. I like that it's not super sunny. I think it looks beautiful, the clouds. What do you think? Tell me in the comments. Super sunny day or overcast and mild? Which would you rather ride? New territory. I've never been over here before. Always new exploring. I mean, interesting looking side road. Almost always wins out in my book. When something's just going to a landing and not a road that continues on. But, here you go. Landing number one. What, how many landings is this today? Four or five? Lots of shooting going on up here. There are shotgun shells basically everywhere. Fun little mud pit. Look at the edge of it right here. Cool. This is all new. Should we see where this goes? I mean, yeah. We should. Looks like it goes down below where I just was up on that ridge. Oh, there's a rabbit. You probably didn't see him. Oh, there's a rabbit. Saw a hare. We have lots of wildlife up here. It's interesting. Okay. He was not excited to the possibility of meeting up with me. Hauled ass into the bushes. Okay. This is fun. This is beautiful. Oh, yeah. Wow, cool. Picturesque, you might even say. Sorry, I'm just trying to look. It's pretty. That tree is cool. So, I was just up there. This isn't terrible. Looks like it winds down into the woods too. Alright, fun. Good, clean, fun. A little bit dirty, actually. As you can see. Good, dirty, fun. The more overgrown in the middle, the more I like it. I already got us enough footage for a decent little video, so that's good. Sometimes I wonder. I worry it's just going to be boring as ---- the whole time, but good scenery anyway. Oh, man. Lots of blackberries. Yeah, I got some good growth here. I like the abandoned nature. Gotta go side to side. It's very overgrown. No one's been up here in a little while. Hmm. I think it looks like these two go to the same spot, but... No, I don't have to give that a look. No, looks like it just goes up on there. That's not another road. It just goes up on that little hill. This is a completely different side than the last adventure up here. It's a pretty different area because we took that first side road. So, we're not even close to where we were before. And there's all this unexplored goodness. Lots of road. This is longer than I was expecting. It often is. I'm amazed at the lack of downed trees up here. It must get cleared and traveled more frequently than the other spots I ride deeper in the woods. Well, I keep expecting it to end, and it does not. So, we press on. I always want to find the coolest camping spot at the end of one of these because the chances of anyone coming out and bothering you through all of that are pretty low. I'm not sure I would even have driven a truck through there unless I had to. That's why Duelsport is the ultimate vehicle because it can go anywhere legally. Roads or no roads. As long as you slap an OHV permit on it, you can do anything. Forest roads, trails, dunes, the highway. Whatever you want. Truly versatile machine. More road here than I was expecting, and this is just one fork. I'm going to go back and hit that other one. Decent little view ahead of us. The rain's really supposed to pick up at noon. It's 1137. Okay, this may be the end of the line. Yeah, it is. I mean, this. Camped here, no one's going to happen across you. That's for sure. I'd like a little more tree cover personally, but not bad, huh? The rain is definitely coming down a little better. Let's go back up through all of this dense foliage and explore that other side road. All right. Up and out. Pretty amazing to me. The throttle on the DRZ is a lot less choppy in first gear than it is on the CRF. The CRF throttle is super choppy. Is that the fuel injection just kicking on and off? You've got to use a lot more clutch in first to smooth it out. I don't really need to use it at all on this one. At least so far. So fun, though. This super overgrown dink. No, nobody's been down here in a long time. It's cool. It's like exploring Endor PNW for days. It's dank. It's dark. It's foliage. It's underbrush. See if we can make this corner. We can go up on that little up we didn't explore on the way up, but I don't think it goes anywhere. I did not need to put my feet down. As I suspected, that is not a road. Okay, turning around. And back down. Beautiful. Just remarkable. This is the whole point of riding out here. It's just finding stuff like this, so I've got to stop again. It's the same view I know, but damn, dude. Not terrible. Okay, so we're almost back to that last junction, and we'll just go down the other side. We're still off on the side road. I don't even think I'm on that main or the one I wanted to see where it loops back around, so here's where I saw that rabbit. He doesn't seem to be back. Okay. There's some rock formations aided by humans. Let's see where this goes. Another dank, dark side road. Well, damn, son. I know they all just go to landings, but I want to see where these main roads go, I think, and then we can come back and explore the sides later. We'll get stuck going down these side roads all day, and we'll explore about three miles of actual road, which is fine, but I want to know what else is up here. That's a landing. Let's just go look at it. If you have a permit, you can come cut firewood off of them. Yep. Mediocre camp spot. Big pile of firewood just left to rot. Okay. Good to know. Turning left. More vista. Not bad. Ooh, opening up a little. This is a neat little valley. Oh, yeah. You can see the whole valley over there, too. Okay. Winding down through. Huh. Gotta wonder where this stuff goes. I mean, I know I could look it up on a map, but that's not as fun as just following it and seeing. Maps are cheap. It's not as fun. Yeah, so that other side road couldn't have gone far because this loops around, so... Well, this is getting a little less maintained. Ah, some of it's been cleared. And a landing. Damn. Okay. Well, I guess we can go back up and hit up that side road some, huh? There's a shoe. Does anyone need a shoe? I got you covered. Send me a... Leave me a comment and I'll send you the address or the coordinates for this. Some of the least amount of garbage I've seen. Back out. Cool rock face with red moss growing on it. That's fun. Oh, it sure looks like there's a good view right here of the valley. I don't see any way to get back. No. I mean, you can kind of see it through the trees, but that's just the farmland and everything of the valley, Brownsville area. Pressing on. We can't hit up that little side road, though. As I know, we can't go very far. There's gonna be a landing, too. Oh, there's a... Take this left. Huh. Just a little spot. Beautiful view. This is not a bad place to camp. At least you've got a view. There's no cover. But if you're just throwing up a tent and it wasn't too hot, it wouldn't be terrible. Oh, there's a chainsaw on a... Is that like a grave right there? Okay, that I have to investigate. What is that? It has a chainsaw bar and a pan. Beautiful field. These boots are decent enough for hiking. Oh, good shot of the dirt, though. This is a reasonably steep hillside. Huh. This trail goes off around over there. That other road has got to be right down there. This is a curious find. This is not a bad view. Let me show it to you. Kind of pretty, right? Curious. So this is interesting. It's a bar off a chainsaw. Obviously, they've been using it as a target. And a pan. But it kind of looks like... From a distance, it looks like a grave or like a memorial out here in this field. This little tiny hillside meadow. Kind of cool, huh? Interesting spot. Worth a ride down the side road anyway. Alright, fun little break. Catch my breath. Just soak in the nature a little bit. But there's more riding to be done. The rain's definitely starting to make itself known a little more. So let's just hope it's light showers all day. That's totally fine. I got waterproof liners in my Scorpion gear. So I'm golden. This was fun coming down the side road. Never underestimate a side road. You never know what you're going to find. Alright, back up. Go back to that other junction and take that one main looking road. See where it goes. We've been down there. We know where that one goes. We know where this one goes. Been down there. I haven't looked up this one though. So it wouldn't hurt to give it a look. There's not a gate right there. Nope. Hopefully I haven't seen any gates on this side. Which is interesting to me. We're mostly in BLM land, I think. Huh. Yeah, it's splitting again. That looks like a campsite. Let's go look at it. A little bit of mud getting down there. But we should be okay. Someone's driven down here recently in a truck. This is reasonably fresh tracks. Just making sure they're not still here. Oh, they are. Okay, well. Let's turn around then. Yeah, they're still down there. See, so. We're going to turn around. Don't want to bother people. They're camping. I don't like being bothered when I'm camping. I said the tracks were fresh. It appears I was correct. So there are other folks up here. Let's see what's over here. It is the weekend, so people may be camping. The weather's not ideal, but it's definitely campable. I mean, in Oregon, if you don't camp in the rain. You go camping a lot less. Or if you're not prepared. I've been dumped on in August. Camping before. Just last year, in fact. Another landing. Yep. Okay, well. Another side road down. Gravel road on this ride, I can tell. But good, because I know this doesn't go through. We've eliminated every possibility down there. And that's nice. Because now when we take this other road. We know if something goes through, it's the only one. That could go through. And if not, then nothing goes through. I like to know where things go. Here's that last major junction we were at. We went down that landing. This is the way we came in. So, I don't know where this goes. But it looks a lot more main road-y, right? So, something's going to go through. This will be the one. See how many side roads we get distracted by. Here's a side road with a sign. Usually means someone's camping up there. I wonder how old the sign is. Brother G. Huh. Well. That sign does not look new. I don't want to come across someone camping up here if I can avoid it. Let's go look. The chances of that being for right now are pretty slim. It definitely looked muddier from the bottom, but... This isn't a great spot. No. I mean, it's adequate. Somebody tried to drive up this hill, so that's fun. How do they not flip over when they do that? That's always what's interested me. How do you not end up flipping all the way over? Good to know. But it doesn't look like Brother G. is still here, so that's good. Let's take it easy on the slippery stuff. Tires, man. They make a difference. I'll tell you that. Especially with tires like this, you have no side hill traction at all on slippery stuff. And so, if there's a rut, you just slide down into it. I discovered that the hard way trying to ride trails on my 250L with the stock tires back in the day. Is that you basically have to just commit to the lowest point. Because you will slide into it anyway. You might as well do it on purpose. Lots of options up here for a quick... ...overnighter. Motocamp, for sure. Looks like a big junction up here. Yeah. It's a five-way. These are probably all awesome camping spots. But I'm a little bit curious now to see where this loops back around to. So, let's take the main for a while and see where it goes. Just keep in mind that these are all here. We're opening up a little over here. At least up above. Okay. I'm going to take this side road because I bet you get a real good view up in this clear cut. Oh. Well, maybe not. Because that is a massive trench. That sucks balls. And it's about six feet deep it looks like. Damn it. I would really like to ride up there and see this view. You see that? They're not screwing around with these. Sometimes they're only like a foot or two and you can get over them on a motorcycle. But that is crazy. It's a truck swallower on the back side. Alright. We'll ride around and see what it looks like. Damn. That's too bad. There's a person. Who knew? Nice spot for a walk. Oh. That's beautiful. Wow. We must be close to something if people are walking up here. There's a view or two. Looks like I can get up on that hill over there. Oh. This isn't terrible. Wow. Okay. I'm glad I came down the main. Damn. Look. It's the whole valley. Cool. Wow. Neat. Yeah. Cool. Okay. What else you got? We're headed down through there. Well, now I'm really interested where this road goes. Alright. Private land. So, no need to go down there. Smells skunk for sure. Beautiful. You can see for days. I have no... That's a gate. Chipmunk and a gate. Yeah. We must be... This is just the access road. But, I mean, clear-cutting is a clue that this is all warehouser land. So, we're out of the BLM side. Definitely descending. Descending quite a bit. Out of the mountains. Yeah. This is a sign that says entering private land is my guess. Oh. Closed to all unauthorized vehicles. Interesting that I was able to get in then from an area where it is not. This is like a road. Seriously. Where are we? That lady must have hiked in. I have no idea where I am. Alright. I'm going to the map. I am near Crawfordsville. If I took it, I'd end up in Crawfordsville that way? Ah. That is an interesting loop that we took. Because we were in Brownsville. So, the most direct way home is just to get on this road. Nah. I'm going to go back up and over. It's going to be a boring retread for you. But, it'll be a lot more fun of a ride for me. So, I think we are going to head out. But, let's head back the way we came. It's good to know this is here. Technically, I'll be going past that no trespassing sign. But, since I got in from the other side, I don't know. I can't get too pissed off about it, right? But, let's go back the way we came. But, this is Brush Creek Road. So, it's cool to see how this all connects. So, it's not Warehouser Land. It's Cascade Timber Land. So, I don't normally go past those signs in general. But, because this is accessible from the other side, I don't think they can really close it off. They'd just rather you weren't up here. I'm going to get back to the BLM land and off of their land as quickly as possible. Get you some more views on the way out. But, that's the advantage of a dual sport. I always say, one of the big ones is, if I had been stuck down there and had to take that road to get out, I totally can. Legally. No problems. Because, you can go anywhere you want on a dual sport. Very few places aren't open to you. To some degree, they know people will be up here. Nice lady. They're going to walk in the woods. Beautiful, peaceful, quiet walk in the woods. Interrupted by some dickhead on a DRZ with a loud exhaust. You know how it is. Don't you hate that? Okay, y'all. I don't plan on doing any more side road exploring. I am just going to take the road I came in to get back out. I'll take note of any side roads we haven't yet explored. But, there's only a couple. They may lead to more stuff up here that we didn't hit up on this trip. So, I'm going to end the video here. Because, we've done all of our exploring. You're not going to see anything I haven't already seen. Thank you very much for coming along. I appreciate your support. If you enjoyed the video for even one second, man, I would super appreciate it if you would hit the like button. It really helps make videos more visible. It tells YouTube that my content is worth watching. And then they show it to other people. Thank you for your help with that. If you want to go real crazy with your support, ultimate Pat Level Up support, consider becoming a patron. Excellent! I just spotted an interesting object at a roadside campsite. And, if it is what I think it is, there's some crazy ass parties going on up here. Yeah, it has hands. That is a blow up doll. That is horrifying. Um, and also pinto beans. But, a blow up doll. And, I happen to know that McLovin Moto came up here on a ride not that long ago and found a dildo on the side of the road. So, what the hell kind of parties are going on up here? I'm a little terrified to be up here by myself right now. I've never actually seen a blow up doll in real life. Seriously. 100% true. You don't have to believe me. But, I haven't. What's going on up here? Marcola people. I don't want to know what kind of parties you're having. That involve blow up dolls. But, that is the weirdest after credit scene ever.