Off-Roading Dreaming

My son, Max, got handy with dirt bikes at SMART Adventures last week and now I'm dreaming of some options that would let us explore trails together on two wheels.  If I had half a million dollars sitting around we could get ourselves into a winterized house/cottage on Lake Benoir on the south edge of Algonquin Park.  The only reason I'm even thinking about that is because of COVID.  In any other situation I'd rather travel than own more property but well over a year into this pandemic it doesn't look like travel as normal will return any time soon.  That'd be a couple of acres in the woods in a small, simple house (electricity but mainly heated by wood burning stove) that comes with a good sized workshop.  They have some nice resorts on the lake so this isn't as rough of some of Northern Ontario and it's right in the heart of the Canadian Shield.  Off-road trails abound in the area as well as some of the best riding roads in Ontario.  We'd immediately get ourselves Ontario Federation of Trail Rider memberships and then get into the woods!

Back in the real world where half a million bucks and doubling down on real estate isn't in the cards, getting off-road could happen in a number of different ways.  Here's the most to least expensive in order:

NEW STATE OF THE ART OFF ROAD KIT

Jeep Gladiator Overland:  $65,000

A capable off-roader that can get us to the trail head while carrying the bikes.  It'd make a great base from which to ride from and then would be able to get us out of the bush at the end of a long day of riding.  There are a lot of camping options that let you leverage the vehicle to make camping a bit less mucky including truck bed mounted tent systems and proper bedding.

2021 CRF250F:  $5649 x2

I took one of these out for the day at SMART Adventures and really got along with it.  I'd buy an Ontario used dirt bike but the prices are absurd.  Broken 20 year old bikes are asking ridiculous money!  New dirt bikes aren't madly expensive and this one, being a Honda, would last as long as I'd ever need it to.  I'd get two of the same thing to make maintenance more straightforward and then my son and I could ride together.

Total (the camping gear is another grand):  $77k

LIGHTLY USED OFF-ROAD KIT

2015 Used Jeep Wrangler:  $36,000

It's got 90k on it, a 5 speed stick and a V6.  It looks in good shape and comes with the towing cubbins I'd need to tow bikes to where we could use them.  The Wrangler has a pile of camping related gear for it that isn't crazy expensive.  The tent off the back is three hundred bucks and the rear air mattress less than a hundred.  The whole shebang would come in under $37,000 and would be good to go pretty much anywhere while still doing Jeepy things like taking roofs and doors off.

Used Dirt Bike:  ridiculous prices

Here's a random selection of used dirt bikes online in Ontario in 2021.  People are asking nearly four grand for sticker festooned, brutalized and rebuilt bikes covered in replacement cheap plastics because the OEM ones were smashed off.  Four grand for these POSes!  I don't know that there is a cost effective alternative to dirt biking, at least in price crazy Ontario.

Here's another example of the insanity complete with questionable literacy skills:  1998 ktm exc 250 2 stroke, Needs a crank seal, witch (sic) I have. ( don’t half to split the case) it’s a 40 min Job if that, it does run but I wouldn’t without doing that seal first as it pulls tranny oil in other than that it needs the front breaks bled and a few small things like bolts for a couple plastics and such, I have the ownership, full gasket kit for the motor, all the paper work on the bike. $2,500OBO  That'd be a sticker festooned, broken and abused 23 year old (!!!) KTM for two and a half grand!  I just can't make sense of Ontario's used dirt bike market.  By the time you've sorted one of these wrecks out you'd have dropped over five grand on it anyway, which would get you a new bike.

But then there are some Chinese manufacturer option:

SSR SR300S dirt bike:  $5000 x 2

Here's a 31 horsepower, 300cc, 286lb well specified off-roader that undercuts the Japanese equivalents by almost a grand.  Of course, the 'Japanese' bikes aren't made in Japan either so everyone is spending a lot extra on brand and dealership accessibility.  I'd have headaches finding parts for beaten up old Japanese brands anyway, so worries about parts don't really matter.  For a couple of grand less than two new Hondas we could still have new bikes, just without the branding.

Here's another:

Vipermax 250cc Apollo:  $2899 x 2

Based on Honda tech, these 250cc bikes have disc brakes and other modern tech and weigh in under 300lbs as well.  They're not quite as big and powerful as the SSR above but they're capable, new and feature a lot of recently updated tech.  The two of them together would cost almost what one CRF250F ($5800 for two vs $5650 for one CRF250F).  They're probably built in the same factory.  Isn't globalism fun?

If I could find a couple of used but serviceable 250cc trail bikes for a couple of grand each I'd happily take that on as a winter project, but they simply don't exist in Ontario and with the Chinese options, why buy terrible, expensive and used?

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A Jeep would open up camping and off-roading options beyond what the bikes could do and it's something I'd like to get into in any case.  There are dirt bike hitch trailers for the Wrangler and it could tow a trailer too.

There are a lot of ways to get off-road and out into the wilderness, I just have to figure out the one that works for us.

Motorcycle Pick Up on a Budget

I've been calling around trying to find a rental van to arrange a pick up of a Kawasaki Concours C14 in Toronto.  Every rental place in my county tells me they have no vans because they are being rented out by delivery companies during the pandemic.

Last week I took my wife down for a doctor visit and noticed a number of vans at the big U-Haul centre on Speedvale in Guelph.  Using U-Haul's online booking system, I was able to reserve a van for last week and arrange the pickup.

The Speedvale U-Haul centre is a full service depot with many vehicles on site as well as storage.  The staff was spectacularly helpful in making sure I had the right vehicle (the website said I'd be getting a Ford Transit van but they GMCs on site so the guy at the counter went out and measured the openings to make sure it would still fit the bike.  They were also excellent with mask, social distancing and ensuring we had a cleaned and ready to use rental during COVID.

If you default mileage on an 'in-town' van rental the extra mileage'll get you in the end, but if you pre-state your mileage they give you a discount.  All in at the end of the day including insurance and mileage, the bill came out to $138CAD, which is impressive.  I had to put $30 in gas back into it, so the rental piece ended up being just under $170 all in.  Check out was quick and efficient with minimal contact and the return was completely contact free and effortless.

I've been thinking about getting the gear to do pickups myself, but the initial cost is heavy and then the operating costs (poor mileage, heavy vehicle, etc) pile on the costs even more.  If I purchased a tow-capable vehicle and a trailer I'm looking at $40-50k - that would be over 200 bike pickups in the rental van.  I seem to find I need a bike pickup every 1-2 years at the moment.  If I keep doing that until I'm 80 years old, I'll ring up a rental van bill of about $3800, so the I-gotta-get-a-bike-tow-ready-vehicle thing isn't really on my radar any more after this positive U-Haul experience.

I do need a couple of things for next time though.  If you want a U-Haul with the built in ramp you're looking at doubling rental costs and you don't need that space or the headache of navigating traffic with a much bigger vehicle (the van was very easy to thread through Toronto traffic).  I brought the two plastic car ramps I had along with some wood planks to load the bike, but that's not ideal as the van's deck height is pretty up there.  So, here's the list of things-to-get so that a rental van does the trick without any headaches:

Parts For Making Rental Van Motorcycle Moves Easier:

A pair of fold-up ramps would make loading the bike much easier.  These fold up and would hang on the wall in the garage, not taking up any valuable space and are capable of holding even a big bike like the Concours without any issues.

I got lucky this time as the guy I purchased the Concours off had a ramp that did the trick, but next time I'll have my own ready to go.

Cost:  $140

Ratchet Tie Downs:  I tied down the Concours once we got it into the van with nylon rope but there are relatively inexpensive options that would make the tie-down process both more secure and less time consuming.  The Connie was rock solid the way we tied it down (there are ground hoops and wood bolted to the side of the van that you can tie off too, and didn't move a muscle in transport, but for relatively little outlay I could have a set of ratcheting tie-down straps that are both more secure and very easy to set up and break down.

The web of rope got cut when we got home (and we used the bike lift to get the bike out), but with ramps and ratcheting tie-downs the transport would be been a lot easier and secure.

Cost:  $29

A mobile wheel chock: This is a bit of a luxury. The bike stand in the garage has a home-made wooden one but it's heavy and awkward. A lightweight, ride in wheel chock would make tying the bike down secure and easy, and it's easy to transport.

With this one you ride into the chock and it see-saws into position, holding the bike steady while you tie it down.

Cost:  $70

For about $250 I can get the bits and pieces that would make a bike pickup in a rental van a quick, easy and secure process.  This was a good beta-test and I now know what I need to make the next one even smoother.

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In the meantime, I'm once again a Kawasaki owner, pushing my Team-Green ownership count even higher:

Kawasakis Owned:  4 (Ninja 650, KLX250, Concours ZG1000, Concours14)

Yamahas Owned:  2 (PW80 mini-bike, Eleven Mid-Night Special)

Hondas Owned:  1 (CBR-900RR Fireblade)

Triumphs Owned: 1 (Triumph Tiger 955i)

I've been a fan of Suzuki for years yet never seem to find one that suits what I'm looking for.  Kawasakis always seem to pop out just when I need one that meets my needs, and I enjoy their engineering and working on them.  Their engines especially are something very special.

Jeep Motototing South

Over the winter we got whacked by a snow plough and the insurance rental ended up being a Jeep Wrangler 4 door. I worked in an automotive shop to pay for university and Jeeps usually involved bringing an umbrella with you because they leaked so much, but this 2019 model has evolved from that poorly made thing. The mileage was better than I thought it would be for a big six cylinder, but I also discovered they come with an even more efficient turbo four that manages mid-20s MPG.

While we had it I stuck it in four wheel drive and went over a mountain of snow in a parking lot that would have beached anything else - and it did it on all season tires! At another point I had to take about 1500lbs of ewaste out of the school I work at and the Jeep swallowed it all with ease and it didn't even seem to strain the suspension. On one particularly snowy night in an empty parking lot I four wheel drifted it and it felt surprisingly obliging doing something that athletic. I found the size of it also a nice surprise. I have to fold myself into the Mazda we have, but the Jeep felt like it fit.

What surprised me most about it was that it was genuinely enjoyable to drive.  Initially I found myself fighting the big wheels on the road, but once I came to trust the different driving dynamics of the thing I found it a comfortable long distance coverer.  Being up higher means I'm not getting all the slush in the face, which is nice too.  We never got to try the roof-removing modular nature of it because it was freezing, but that's another feather in its hat.  I've been four wheeling in a tiny hatchback for so long that driving just feels like tedium.  The Wrangler made driving feel like an event instead of just a necessity.

With that all swirling around in my head, I first looked up the Wrangler and found it cost sixty grand, which is ridiculous, but that turned out to be a leather clad special edition thing.  The one I'd be looking at comes in at about forty grand, about the same as our last car, and there are big discounts on them at the moment.  They've got one with all the needed options on for about $41K nearby.

Knowing how this thing handles loads, I started looking up bike hauling options with them.  MotoTote has a 600 pound trailer hitch mounted motorcycle carrier that the Jeep could easily manage for $569 (I'm assuming that's USD - so about $780CAD).  Also knowing its go anywhere cred and how big it is on the inside, I had images of my son and I taking it camping and off-roading.  A trailer with ATV and dirt bike on it would do us well.  Parking up in the wilderness and then camping out of the thing seems like a real possibility.  The Jeep's outdoor image means there is a rich aftermarket of related products, even roof mounted tents, though it doesn't need them.  The fold flat rear seats open up a massive back space that two sleeping bags could easily fit in.  A back attached tent makes a bit more sense in that case.

It's a cool thing that could make the long wished for trip south in the winter a possibility.

Bike Bag: Tesseract Dream Motorcycle Accessory

It's as crazy as it looks, and
utterly fantastic!

I'm sitting on the beach in Lajoya California as a I write this. It's a comfortable 18° Celsius and I'm missing my bike. I can always rent something down here, but the road I just did begs a bike I'm familiar with; I was watching the guys in their worn leathers and sports bikes with envy.

The road to the Palomar observatory is a knee down roller coaster that takes you five thousand feet up to one of the biggest mirrors in the world. It's a road that makes me wish my Ninja was here instead of a rental bike that doesn't feel familiar and is, quite frankly, designed for looks rather than athletics; virtually all rental choices are cruiser or retro based.

After watching Interstellar I started reading about tesseracts and multi-dimensional mechanics. The first thing I'd create with my new-found multi-dimensional engineering skills would be the Bike Bag™!  You press the zipper up against a wall and roll your bike and gear in.

The idea's been around for a while.

 Once you zip it up you can roll up the zipper and put it in your pocket.  When you get where you're going you put the zipper up on a wall again and when you unzip it there is your bike and gear ready to go.  A carry on bag and an airline ticket and I'd be ready to ride pretty much anywhere I landed.

I'd have been able to tackle the road up to the big eye in the sky with something other than cautious optimism with my preferred road weapon.