Little Kidney Lake; Car Wrecks and D606 Grunt...

I set out for a solo ride today deciding to explore some of the trails that we often fly past without a thought on to "better things".  It was great fun, taking a bit more time and navigating some local trails which were quite technical at times.  It took me a few minutes to get my "biking legs" back, and by the end of the trip I trusted Siouxsie despite the rain and slick muddy conditions. 

An overview of today's tiddly ride...

First I wanted to try the "Stool Loop" which sits behind a yellow "biosolids" warning gate.  It would be fun for a ride after work just to blow some steam off, particularly because there is a large gravel/sand/dirt pit in there to play on.  Great fun!

 



Then I decided to hunt for a lake that Andy has been trying to get to: Little Kidney, or, after having seen it, Atrophied Kidney!  It's really a little pond, and if it does have fish, I imagine they're quite small.  It's very snag infested.  Getting there though was great fun, and I had decided once I found it I would continue on through to the main Sundew Connector logging road and turn off to fish Kidney Lake proper...Well that was the plan!



So I turned right at T1 just after the pools that we usually take en-route to the Tank Traps.  This was a great ride!

Turning at T1 the trail is pretty easy until you get to the car wreck

God knows what it was, but it looks 60's vintage...A testament to the once large logging roads which are now quite crowded in. 

Just after the wreck the road splits.  The left side is what I call the "Gully Shoot".  Stupidly, I took the risky right route down - what I call the "Suicide Solution" with a foot of path to ride across and a dropoff on the right side -  in preference to the Gully Shoot: as I said, stupid.  I made it down, and was concentrating so hard I never noticed a little lake I was passing.  I entered a maze of tracks in a old clear-cut which is now well aldered in.  Ross Collicut has posted plenty of photos taken in this area.  They must have been taken a few years ago now, because things are very different...  I thought I was through to the main Sundew Connector and could even hear vehicles whipping by at some points.  In fact when I got to "No Way Through" I could see a truck and four quads chugging along 60m or so in front of me: I was almost opposite the Kidney Lake turnoff.  But there was "no way through".  Walking would have made it, but the dead fall and brush is vastly different from the 2005 image presented by Google Earth below...



If you go to GE, click on the picture icon.  You will see a picture of Ross Collicut's yellow dirt bike, stopped by pile of wood (Thanks Logging CO...why?).  If you branch right a short way after this, you can get to where I was stopped...That road after the logs is completely veg'd in now, and there's absolutely no way through....Not even the quads have tried....I BET they couldn't do it. I double-dog dare them to try!

 

So after being skunked on every trail that I tried in the clearcut, I decided to head back and try to find that darn Atrophied Kidney Lake.  I knew it was somewhere near when I had entered the clear cut, so I back tracked.  This time, I decided to ride up the Gully-Shoot.  A month ago I couldn't have done this.  The grade was so steep, littered with tree stumps and debris, and the mud wet and chewed by recent quad activity that I would have had to gassed it up at insane speeds and hoped...But the D606 just let Siouxsie chug up without a hitch.  Amazing - there is one curve that is so steep that I was sure the front wheel would ride up, but nope, up she leapt.  Great.  Down might be an issue, but I don't think so - the tires were really sticky.

 

 



You can see the two routes that I took through...take the one closest to the lake.  It was as I shot through the gully that I spied the lake I had missed on the way down.

 

 

It doesn't look much, as the little fisheye lens seems to flatten it out, but this was a fairly steep ascent.  Thankfully the D606 didn't so much as hiccup.

Below.  After retracing my track, just prior to the car wreck, I played on some single track mtn bike paths.  But they got quite twisty and it became obvious that I should turn back like a good little chicken...

 

 

After that, I retraced my route back out to the Doumont Main and headed towards the tank traps.  This time though, before I got to the traps, just after the river rock stream bed, I turned left and headed through what was an amazingly easy road which took me to a corner on the Sundew Main.  I'd always wondered where that went!  The map below shows - in yellow - the usual tank-trap trail. 

This picture is of part of the path through...

 Which disintegrates rapidly to this below:

But the D606 made easy pickings of this stuff... 

 Below: where you join the Sundew Connector

Below: What the entrance looks like from the Sundew connector...I've seen it many times before...but never had the curiosity to play...

DR650 Meets D606; TKC Shucked

Rrrrr - look at that!  A new chunky D606 - And after two on road/off road rides, I'm impressed!

 

A week or so ago, I put a nail through my relatively new Continental TKC80 Twinduro rear.  I then had to ride back 40km or so at 30-40kmh to get home.  I suppose I could have changed it, but that would have meant growing a rubber tree in Canada's northern temperate climate, draining the sap, vulcanizing the rubber and extruding it into an inner tube or using it to patch the old one.  Not something I wanted to do. 

 

Besides, I had concerns.  My first TKC Twinduro rear lasted from May 2011to July 2012 and did 6832km.  I replaced both front and rear at that time (even though the front hadn't worn more than 20%, it did have a deep gash in the sidewall from a pointed rock) with another set.  Disappointingly, and inexplicably, the new rear wore like butter!  In fact, it only lasted exactly 1,790 km before it looked to be as worn as the first.  It was then that got my flat.  I took it off and compared it with the first one (which I still have) and they are both worn to nearly the same extent!  I can't say my riding style changed THAT radically, and certainly I rode very little road as I had my W650 insured for the road over the summer.  I'm not sure if Continental switched compounds, but the wear characteristics are slightly different.  The newer one literally flaked, while the old one wore evenly with no grooves or flakes appearing on the blocks. 

 

I then placed both tires side by side and looked for any difference in manufacturer descriptions.  None, except for the load rating: the new one was rated to carry less load at one PSI less.  Otherwise all numbers were identical.  Both were made in Korea.  So what explains the apparent difference.  I don't know, but here are some shots:

 

Above: the recent TKC with 1720km on it - look at the scalloping in the blocks; below the original rear with nearly 7000km on it...Can you tell the difference?

Below: Side by Side.  Spot the difference...That's right - there's not much, maybe 10% less wear on the recent one; however, the first one (left and darker) lasted nearly 4 times as long as the one on the right with far more road use to boot...

 

 



Still, ever since Andy slapped a Dunlop D606 rear on his bike, I've been impressed.  The D606 is vastly better in the dirt, on gravel and in mud than the TKC.  I purchased a 130-90-17 and put it on with Andy on Saturday. 

 

What a difference a tire can make!  I can now close the throttle and the wheel doesn't hop or cause the bike to yaw disconcertingly on gravel or deeply pebbled roads when decelerating: the treads don't float, but rather grip enough to offer a firm resistance to the bike's engine brake.  For traction they are simply amazing and no longer am I spinning the rear on the dirt or when going up steep slopes: they bite, and I don't have to use wheel spin to maintain momentum up steep inclines.   On the road they feel just as sticky as the TKC's - well planted, and there is no sensation of lateral tire walking.  I haven't tried them in rain yet, (we simply haven't had any for two months) or in the deep mud.  And of course, who knows what the wear will be like, but as the W650 is off the road for the fall and winter, they will see plenty of tarmac on Siouxsie now.   Lastly, they are much more predictable and planted in corners off-road than the TKC's ever were.

I'll keep you posted on their performance over time on the big Suzuki.