Here is the ride report that I promised and the follow up on the work I had completed by that time.
Once again, here is the bike as it was set up for the trip. I actually cheated and put the bike in the back of the truck for the trip up. We just didn't have time to go any other way besides highway and the sherpa would've taken a beating. The starting point was near Linville, NC. The trip ended up being nearly 100 miles offroad over the two days. It was great and the bike did even better than I expected.
One of our first stops at a waterfall after getting breakfast and on the road:
The small panniers are actually waterproof pistol cases that were given to me. They are small by most pannier standards but did I mention they were free? Anyway, they worked well. I just made a framework that they bolted to that tied into my existing rack system. On the top rack I kept my sleeping bag, tent, and tarp. I used a bungee net to secure it all along with some tie downs. Easy peezy. The camo bag on the seat is actually a small backpack that I wore during the ride. It is nice and low profile and I don't even know I'm wearing it half the time.
We got to ride a lot of fire roads, down towards the area of Mortimer and Edgemont. We did one particularly un-kept road (I use the term "road" lightly) that was crazy. Well, the sherpa did fine. It was a good experience for me being that I am still new to riding, and I did drop it once, but it only pushed the handguard in a little...causing the throttle to stick. It was a quick fix though and we were back on the trail. Here's a hole on the same trail. This is where the tenere took a bath. I told him it was bound to happen sooner or later.
The more impressive thing was that the tenere made it through some of the places it did. With factory tires no less. I was more than impressed....at both the prowess of the bike and the riding skill of my friend.
The weather was great and we got to see Linville Gorge (since he had not been), a lot of the trout streams in the area, etc. Overall it was a great time and a good chance for me to cut my teeth on some "loaded down" riding.
Here's our campsite:
I got to test out some new gear. I am way behind the curve when it comes to the latest minimalist backpacking lightweight doodads. But I finally got a stove and tested it. It worked as expected. No issues. My buddies Jetboil is awesome though. Very highly recommended.
Overall everything went well. With 95% of the trip being dirt/gravel roads, with another 3 being paved, and maybe 2 just straight muddy trails, the sherpa got 75mpg. With the IMS tank full I could've ridden around for a week on these roads almost. I never had any issues, the bike started fine, power was adequate (really it was ideal for what we were riding), and all of the changes I had made worked well. The windscreen was a great upgrade, the racks were worth their weight in gold, and I didn't really have anything I didn't need. I learned a lot about packing, camp setup, preparation, etc.
I will be adding a more beefy skid plate. I might change the windscreen angle (a little more vertical). The kick stand needs a little bit of an extension and a larger base pad. Handlebar and risers are in the works as we speak. I'm too tall to stand on the pegs for any length of time with the factory bar position. I'm sure I'll find some other things to tweak.
Once again sorry for the delay in getting this posted up but its been a busy few months. Feel free to ask any questions as I'm sure I've forgotten to mention something.
