Dual Sport Motorcycle Exploring: Logging Roads and Forest Scenery On Honda CRF250L + Dirt Bike Fail

Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Dorkside, it is I, your friendly neighborhood Dork in the Woods, and with me, as always, the Garth to my Wayne, the Robin to my Batman, the Cookies to my Cream, the one and only Duxfan, say hi Duxfan. Hello. He's not enthusiastic about being Robin, I think. So we're out today, oh ----, hold on, I'm going to edit that out, we're out today exploring in the woods, and what we're looking for is potential dispersed camping sites to come to later in the year, or in the coming weeks, depending on how we feel, and maybe we might even hit some snow today, I don't know, because there's definitely still some up here. So we are exploring on our dual sport motorcycles up in the woods today. Pretty exciting. Same spot we usually go, up Canyon Creek, but we made it our mission to hit side roads today rather than just riding super far up the main road. Upshifting is not what I wanted there, but it is what I did. So weather forecast today, mid 40s, and potentially, oh there's a campus fire right there, some rain showers later in the afternoon, so we're in waterproof gear, oh no it's just assholes dumping garbage, awesome, but hoping that we don't need it. And we just had a few weeks of super heavy rainfall up to and including historic flood levels in the valley, so everything's going to be a little wet. Yeah, I'm actually a little surprised how dry this is so far. Yeah. Wow, there's a hell of a lot more up here than I thought there would be already. I really thought that road, this is the very first road, it's right by the highway almost, and I didn't think there'd be that much up here, but. Somebody's been up here in a truck. Yeah, it looks like it. Ouch. Zap me. Head down. Oop, oop, that's not the road. There we go. Did they get through that on their truck? Alright, well, that's the end of this one, so, oh look, an asshole's dumped garbage up here. That looks like a washing machine that they then tore into pieces. Huh. Well, um, yeah, and it looks like the road is washed out right there anyway, so even if we could get over this log, which we could, there's nowhere to go, so. Right. Alright, exploration one, complete. I'm calling that relatively successful. Yeah, right? So, should we try one of these offshoot roads? Here. Go back through Duckman's favorite tree. Yeah, truck guy. Did he get up this one? And, uh, one of the other, one other thing we're doing today is testing my clutch, because we had an incident the last time we went trail riding, and my clutch decided it was just going to stop having friction, and, no, we can't get up there. Well, we could, but I don't want to go up there that bad, and I couldn't get up some of the hills, but we were riding a lot of really, really steep hills, and I was, I was, uh, feathering it a ton, so basically riding up very steep hills with a heavy person on an overpowered, underpowered motorcycle, uh, with the clutch halfway in for long periods of time, and so I didn't know if I had destroyed the clutch or if it had just come out of adjustment or whatever, but subsequent lots of testing and adjustments, I think it's okay, but we wanted to get out and try it to know for sure before we go do anything super heinous, so this kind of road exploring is less, uh, ----, I don't know if, we're not going to be able to get, no, there's two more trees up there, so we could get around this one and maybe that one, but there's a bigger one up, unless you want to start lifting bikes or sawing through, uh, six-inch logs with our silky saws, I don't think we're going to get down there at this point. There's a pile of ---- again, thanks, assholes. Hey, if you do this, uh, kiss my ass, because this is how we get these places closed. That's Duck Fam. Thank you. We need to see him so you can verify that he's actually here. There he is, that's him. How's his right side look? No? Is that even a road? Uh, not really, unless blackberry briars are a road. All right, back to the main road. Okay, so what are we looking for in this first camping site? What's ideal? Uh, room to turn a truck around, it would be nice to be able to get the truck up there if we wanted to bring the fam, um, spot for a fire pit, some relatively flat area, it'd be nice if it wasn't the road, you know, like it was off to the side, we're asking a lot here, but you get four or five of those things, and you may be doing okay. Also bringing in my new Oakley goggles I got for Christmas from my wife today, so I've got my visor up, and I gotta tell you, my cheeks are a little chilly right now. Although it's probably worse for you, Duck Fam, because you don't have a big bushy beard on your chin. Waterfall, I bet that one waterfall is roaring right now, we should stop at it. Definitely. There's a cliff off to the side, you don't want to go that way. Zero, Dan, do not recommend. So, uh, Duck Fam, I was telling all of our loyal viewers how much better we've gotten in trail riding compared to the videos that are up. Do you care to elaborate on that at all? Just confirm it. Well, I'm trying to think of how, like, specifically we've gotten better. We're definitely carrying a lot more speed. We're much faster and smoother. Yeah, it's less jerky, awkward. I don't fall down as much. I'm gonna go up to the top of this view. That waterfall up there looks like it's pretty kick-ass. I just caught a glimpse of it. Oh my god, yeah. Gotta get a picture of that. This is a real test of this clutch. I think, uh, one piece of evidence, we're riding mostly in second gear instead of first gear. Yeah, it's made a huge difference. That's gonna be, I want to do what five things I wish I'd known before I started dual-sporting video, and that's gonna be, like, the most important one, because it's made the biggest difference. Another one will be, stand up, you lazy ----. Look at that waterfall. So this is, I've been up here a bunch of times in videos. This isn't a bad spot if it wasn't so exposed for camping. The camera's always dead every time we come up here, because it's always at the end of the day, so I wanted to hit it up at the beginning this time, so y'all could see it. Can you see that waterfall on the camera? I really hope it shows up, because that is gorgeous over there. Amazing. You could ride up that and down this side. It wouldn't be nearly as fun as it looks. A turkey vulture? Yeah. They're so majestic. Soaring out there. Ah, that waterfall's cool. Well, the clutch didn't slip on the way up this, so it's very steep. I hope I realize it doesn't show up on the camera, but it's super steep. Could we go up this road right in front of us before we go up that one over there? Maybe. I don't know how far it goes. I mean, what the hell. There used to be a mound here, preventing people from entering. Ugh, I should have taken the tires down. So anyway, we're eager for you guys to see footage of us riding trails the way we do now. All right, well, that was a bust. I'm gonna get really good at turning around today. I thought you were getting really good at turning around today. Well, that's embarrassing. So here's what I've learned. Don't talk ---- about how good you are at not falling down. I still suck at falling down, guys. Apparently. This isn't even a hard turnaround. I just slowed down too much. So that's stupid. You know what? Some people would edit that ---- out. Me? Nah. I might put a fun sound effect in. It might be the highlight of the entire video. You're probably not wrong. See? This is why you need a camera. That's true. That was much more entertaining from my perspective. You're averaging one crash per 2.7 miles. 2.1 miles. I'm getting warm. Well, deadlifting your bike will do that. I guess so, yeah. Good point. To caveat my talk of us being much better. And we are much better. But it's also been a few months since I've been on the bike in tight spaces. So clearly my confidence is lower. Because I would have taken that turn much faster three months ago. And that would have been enough. It's so funny how much confidence. It's a huge factor in how well you can ride off-road. Because you've just got to push through things that are uncomfortable. Absolutely. Keep it smooth, you know. But it doesn't feel right in the moment. You've just got to get used to it. Thank you for the blinker. Yeah, you're welcome. I wanted you to know. Dude, it's gone. Somebody cleaned it up. No way. We were up here last time. And there was no ----. Legitimately a full RV. Like a camp trailer. A big one. Like a 23, 25 footer. Up here. Just destroyed. Like shredded. But somebody cleaned it up. That's crazy. Yeah, that's great. I mean, we wanted you to see it. But I'm really glad it's not here. Because there's some remnant. Good job. Good on you, whoever did that. Where's the spot? Because we took my 4Runner up here. We did. And we stopped. I have a feeling when I look at it, I'm going to... Oh, it was right here. Yeah, what I don't want to do is drop into that and have my front bumper bash into the ground. Or my rear bumper drag. Right. Wow, it's not as... We didn't even get out, though. This is not as low as we thought it was. Yeah, could have made it. These tires are so much better than the old ones. Oh, yeah. The street tires or those IRCs would not... I would have just spun out and fallen over. I've got lots of video of that happening. I'm going to go on the side with the bows. It's probably softer. Oh, yeah. We're going to get turned around here. Damn. Too many trees up here. I'd go over this. But look, there's just a whole mess of tangle up there that we're not going to get through without significant effort. And I'd rather ride than log today. It's going to be... I have a feeling it's going to be a lot of these short side trips today, just because of the time of year. If we come back in the summer, some of this stuff might be cleared. But if it's cleared, it means there's people coming up here, and maybe that's not what we want. That's true. This sucks right here. Yeah, I know. I get better footage than me going through it was before. Two sets. Double up. Probably small, practical wheelie, all this stuff. Yeah, totally. That'd be totally practical at this point. All right, down one side, up the other. That's how it's done. Oh, it's deeper than it looks. Oh, yeah, it is. There's that waterfall again. You probably can't see it on the camera. It's right over there. All right. Onward and upward, I guess. Hey, this guy's doing tricks. Yep. Nailed it. A little creek, a little stream, a little babbling brook. Is it left? Should we check that one out? Yeah, take it. Let's take it. Cutting boundary. Hmm. Oh, if it loops up to the top of this, there might be a good view up there. It's Sunday, by the way, so we're not going to run into any loggers. I'm way more concerned about log trucks than trees being fallen on my head. Yeah, they go real fast. Oh, there's a cool spot. A little cave for you. A little bear cave action. Oh, we got ourselves a little fork. I'm inclined to go to the top of this hill and see what it looks like. Oh, yeah. Getting a view up here. Hell of a view over there. I don't know if it gets any better at the top. I don't know. We'll find out. Wow, this is loose as hell. Oh, my goodness. Holy crap, dude. That's a great spot for a picture. I don't think we're going to hit snow. Look up there. Yeah, there was snow way lower than the last time we were here. All right, well, we're going to stop for a little snack. Excellent!