- Joined
- Feb 28, 2003
- Messages
- 51,647
- Reaction score
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- Location
- Huntsville
- First Name
- Scott
- Last Name
- Friday
Howdy,
So a little background first before I get into the full blown report. A few years back (Aug 2010), I went to Colorado to do a week of riding the mountain passes around Ouray. That was back in my KLR 650 days On that trip, there were a lot of guys on orange bikes that seemed to be having more fun than me and with much less effort... Of late I had been noticing that the KLR seemed to be getting heavier and heavier... At least it seemed that way because it kept falling over so often It could also have been that the riding I was doing was getting progressively more and more technical in nature. What to do!?
The wheels of rationalizing spin and I come up with the answer! At my age, things just don't heal quite as fast as they used to. So getting hurt kind of sucks a bit more than it used to. A big heavy bike like the KLR made it far more likely that I was going to get hurt doing the kind of riding I had been doing. Getting hurt gets expensive... in fact... it could EASILY be more expensive than the cost of getting a lighter bike with more power and better suspension!! There it was, so obvious it would have bit me on the bum if it had been a snake in the toilet. I NEED a better bike so I won't get hurt and have to pay expensive doctor bills!
Proud of my stroke of genius, I ran this brilliant reasoning past Beth...
"Uh huh... whatever..."
As often happens, I feel that she under appreciates the level of my geniusness But she didn't react to negatively either
I was not the only KLR rider on that trip. It would seem I was not the only one working on rationalizing a new bike _RG_ bought himself a KTM 530 EXC. GHT bought himself a KTM 450 of some sort (street legal though). I still did not have one by the time this trip came up again in 2011. No worries though. I would not be able to make the trip anyway By now, I had almost forgotten about the whole issue... until one night...
Vaughn "Bagwell" has this habit of randomly showing up at our bike nights a few times a year. One Thursday night on a cool fall evening in November, he showed up at our local bike night. I got to chatting with him and he mentioned this buddy that was selling a 2011 KTM 450 EXC for $4000!! My immediate question was, "What's wrong with it!?" He assured me the owner was a top notch guy that takes meticulous care of his bikes and that nothing was wrong with it. Seemed to good to be true, but you never know... So I asked him to find out more and put me in touch with the guy.
On the way home I casually mentioned all this to Beth and what a smoking deal it would be if it turned out to all be true.
"Uh huh... whatever"
Well... she still hasn't said no
(In her defense, she never has and never would tell me "NO", preferring instead to to let the folly of my plans make themselves painfully obvious to me on their own )
I anxiously waited for any information from Vaughn. A day or so later I got an email. It seems he was confused. It was really a 2010 KTM 530 EXC with about 2300 miles on it and it was $5800 instead of $4000. Hmmm... That might be a problem... I got to Googling. I contacted the seller to get specifics. Apparently he has a lot of bikes, races some, wants a new bike for racing, and his wife insisted that he clear out space to make room for any new bikes. So the 530 was the one to go even though it was relatively new. He was anxious for the new bike. The Googling showed that the price was indeed a sell it now price, especially with the mods he had done!
I convinced Beth that this would be a great deal. I'd either keep the KLR since it had long since been paid for, or maybe see what I could get for it. I set up a meet time with the seller and went to check out the KTM. As a bonus, and something that really got Beth to warm up to the whole deal, the seller also had a Honda CRF-50 that was basically brand new. He bought it for his daughter and she never got into riding. So we did a deal on the KTM and the CRF. Now I could also claim the KTM was so I could start riding with the kids on trails, something I was not wanting to do with the KLR. So not only was the KTM good for my health, it was good for the family too
The deal done, I swung by a local shop to get a kid's helmet, pads, gloves, etc,... for Daniel and Sarah. They were pretty excited about getting a bike! KTM in hand finally, I obviously had to plan some kind of ride or something to get to know the bike and figure out if I needed to do any farkling. Curiously, about this same time, I got a PM from Roger "Rsquared" about an upcoming trip out to the Big Bend Ranch & State Park for the week between Christmas and New Year's. He was going, thought it would be fun, and wanted to share a ride out and back. So I ran it by Beth...
"You do realize that means you will be gone on our wedding anniversary...?"
"I'll call you, I promise!"
"Uh huh... whatever..."
With a trip set and bike in hand, I set to getting it ready for the trip. New sprockets (lower gearing), Giant Loop Mojavi bags, new tires, new headlight (stock one is a joke), oil change, bar risers, etc,... Of course all the while I was thinking about Colorado and how sweet it would be to get this bike out there on those mountain passes so I could be one of those guys looking at the dudes on the KLRs and thinking, "There but for the grace of God go I..." Well, the Big Bend trip rocked... literally, and the bike was AWESOME! Colorado was going to be even awesomer!! I had flowers sent to Beth with the help of Snoopster
The new year rolled in and out, the kids learned to ride their CRF-50, even without the training wheels. I picked up a nice Yamaha TTR50E for them so they could both ride at the same time. And somewhere about that same time the stars aligned for an unexpected trip, a week in North Carolina at the end of May I love Colorado, but for sheer riding ecstasy, the roads in North Carolina are hard to beat! Best of all, this would give me a whole week of riding to bond with the KTM and work out any last minute kinks before heading to Colorado in August. And so that trip happened, and it too was awesome!!
Once home from North Carolina, I started working on the details for the Colorado trip. Hotel reservations. Trailering buddies. Proper jetting for the KTM. Route information. Selling the KLR... I was getting pretty excited.
We were supposed to leave on a Friday. The Thursday morning before this, I was taking a shower and getting ready for work when Beth walked in to tell me that my Dad just called to let us know he was on the way to the ER because of intense pain in his side/chest... He's 73...
Dad and I work together so I had to be in the office while he was out. We cover for each other when the other goes out of town. Just the night before I think I had mentioned to Roger that I was starting to get a feeling that this trip might not happen. One of our trailering buddies, CeeBee had to make a last minute cancellation. His mother in law was just diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer and was given a few weeks to live at best. (She died within a few weeks). Now with my Dad in the ER for unknown issues... our plans were on hold until we could find out what was going on. Dad was still worried about us being able to do the trip and trying to figure out how he could get home from the hospital and be in shape to cover for me so we could leave He's nuts, but I love him.
Dad ended up having to spend five days in the hospital. I had to cancel all our reservations. We were not going to Colorado this year. I was okay with that though. So was Roger. It's a funny thing, and I am sure some of you have had a similar experience, but there are times when you know to just let things go and not worry about them. It is what it is and stressing won't do any good. My first concern was Dad and the trip was a remote runner up on my list of worries. I have also learned that sometimes what happens in the place of failed plans can work out to be better if you just relax and let it happen.
Fortunately, Dad was okay. Diverticulitis. Not life threatening and manageable through diet. Dad was home by the following Tuesday evening. Roger had taken two weeks off from work, so we still had the coming week to do a trip. CeeBee was out. So that meant just Roger and I riding in the truck... for 22 hours... straight through each way... and a whole LOT of diesel for a round trip to Ouray... to stay in an expensive hotel... We quickly decided that perhaps we might head to Cloudcroft instead. 15 hours of driving instead of 22, MUCH less diesel, and $50/night versus $140 for a hotel. We'd been to the area before and knew what to expect in terms of the riding. We also had some unfinished business with a particular trail...
Getting rooms might be tough. Labor day weekend was fast approaching. I called the hotel where we stayed before and they still had a few rooms left, so I booked two for the following week just in case we'd be able to go. Then I waited to see how Dad was doing after being home a few days. By Wednesday evening he assured me that he was feeling well enough to cover the office so I could leave town for a week. I let Roger know and we finalized our plans. I wasn't 100% on Dad, but by Thursday, I was feeling much better. I loaded up the bike Friday night and went to bed early. Roger would be here at 5:30am to load his bikes and we'd hopefully be on the road by 6:00am-ish. My normal daily roll out of bed time is 10:30am
Off to bed...
So a little background first before I get into the full blown report. A few years back (Aug 2010), I went to Colorado to do a week of riding the mountain passes around Ouray. That was back in my KLR 650 days On that trip, there were a lot of guys on orange bikes that seemed to be having more fun than me and with much less effort... Of late I had been noticing that the KLR seemed to be getting heavier and heavier... At least it seemed that way because it kept falling over so often It could also have been that the riding I was doing was getting progressively more and more technical in nature. What to do!?
The wheels of rationalizing spin and I come up with the answer! At my age, things just don't heal quite as fast as they used to. So getting hurt kind of sucks a bit more than it used to. A big heavy bike like the KLR made it far more likely that I was going to get hurt doing the kind of riding I had been doing. Getting hurt gets expensive... in fact... it could EASILY be more expensive than the cost of getting a lighter bike with more power and better suspension!! There it was, so obvious it would have bit me on the bum if it had been a snake in the toilet. I NEED a better bike so I won't get hurt and have to pay expensive doctor bills!
Proud of my stroke of genius, I ran this brilliant reasoning past Beth...
"Uh huh... whatever..."
As often happens, I feel that she under appreciates the level of my geniusness But she didn't react to negatively either
I was not the only KLR rider on that trip. It would seem I was not the only one working on rationalizing a new bike _RG_ bought himself a KTM 530 EXC. GHT bought himself a KTM 450 of some sort (street legal though). I still did not have one by the time this trip came up again in 2011. No worries though. I would not be able to make the trip anyway By now, I had almost forgotten about the whole issue... until one night...
Vaughn "Bagwell" has this habit of randomly showing up at our bike nights a few times a year. One Thursday night on a cool fall evening in November, he showed up at our local bike night. I got to chatting with him and he mentioned this buddy that was selling a 2011 KTM 450 EXC for $4000!! My immediate question was, "What's wrong with it!?" He assured me the owner was a top notch guy that takes meticulous care of his bikes and that nothing was wrong with it. Seemed to good to be true, but you never know... So I asked him to find out more and put me in touch with the guy.
On the way home I casually mentioned all this to Beth and what a smoking deal it would be if it turned out to all be true.
"Uh huh... whatever"
Well... she still hasn't said no
(In her defense, she never has and never would tell me "NO", preferring instead to to let the folly of my plans make themselves painfully obvious to me on their own )
I anxiously waited for any information from Vaughn. A day or so later I got an email. It seems he was confused. It was really a 2010 KTM 530 EXC with about 2300 miles on it and it was $5800 instead of $4000. Hmmm... That might be a problem... I got to Googling. I contacted the seller to get specifics. Apparently he has a lot of bikes, races some, wants a new bike for racing, and his wife insisted that he clear out space to make room for any new bikes. So the 530 was the one to go even though it was relatively new. He was anxious for the new bike. The Googling showed that the price was indeed a sell it now price, especially with the mods he had done!
I convinced Beth that this would be a great deal. I'd either keep the KLR since it had long since been paid for, or maybe see what I could get for it. I set up a meet time with the seller and went to check out the KTM. As a bonus, and something that really got Beth to warm up to the whole deal, the seller also had a Honda CRF-50 that was basically brand new. He bought it for his daughter and she never got into riding. So we did a deal on the KTM and the CRF. Now I could also claim the KTM was so I could start riding with the kids on trails, something I was not wanting to do with the KLR. So not only was the KTM good for my health, it was good for the family too
The deal done, I swung by a local shop to get a kid's helmet, pads, gloves, etc,... for Daniel and Sarah. They were pretty excited about getting a bike! KTM in hand finally, I obviously had to plan some kind of ride or something to get to know the bike and figure out if I needed to do any farkling. Curiously, about this same time, I got a PM from Roger "Rsquared" about an upcoming trip out to the Big Bend Ranch & State Park for the week between Christmas and New Year's. He was going, thought it would be fun, and wanted to share a ride out and back. So I ran it by Beth...
"You do realize that means you will be gone on our wedding anniversary...?"
"I'll call you, I promise!"
"Uh huh... whatever..."
With a trip set and bike in hand, I set to getting it ready for the trip. New sprockets (lower gearing), Giant Loop Mojavi bags, new tires, new headlight (stock one is a joke), oil change, bar risers, etc,... Of course all the while I was thinking about Colorado and how sweet it would be to get this bike out there on those mountain passes so I could be one of those guys looking at the dudes on the KLRs and thinking, "There but for the grace of God go I..." Well, the Big Bend trip rocked... literally, and the bike was AWESOME! Colorado was going to be even awesomer!! I had flowers sent to Beth with the help of Snoopster
The new year rolled in and out, the kids learned to ride their CRF-50, even without the training wheels. I picked up a nice Yamaha TTR50E for them so they could both ride at the same time. And somewhere about that same time the stars aligned for an unexpected trip, a week in North Carolina at the end of May I love Colorado, but for sheer riding ecstasy, the roads in North Carolina are hard to beat! Best of all, this would give me a whole week of riding to bond with the KTM and work out any last minute kinks before heading to Colorado in August. And so that trip happened, and it too was awesome!!
Once home from North Carolina, I started working on the details for the Colorado trip. Hotel reservations. Trailering buddies. Proper jetting for the KTM. Route information. Selling the KLR... I was getting pretty excited.
We were supposed to leave on a Friday. The Thursday morning before this, I was taking a shower and getting ready for work when Beth walked in to tell me that my Dad just called to let us know he was on the way to the ER because of intense pain in his side/chest... He's 73...
Dad and I work together so I had to be in the office while he was out. We cover for each other when the other goes out of town. Just the night before I think I had mentioned to Roger that I was starting to get a feeling that this trip might not happen. One of our trailering buddies, CeeBee had to make a last minute cancellation. His mother in law was just diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer and was given a few weeks to live at best. (She died within a few weeks). Now with my Dad in the ER for unknown issues... our plans were on hold until we could find out what was going on. Dad was still worried about us being able to do the trip and trying to figure out how he could get home from the hospital and be in shape to cover for me so we could leave He's nuts, but I love him.
Dad ended up having to spend five days in the hospital. I had to cancel all our reservations. We were not going to Colorado this year. I was okay with that though. So was Roger. It's a funny thing, and I am sure some of you have had a similar experience, but there are times when you know to just let things go and not worry about them. It is what it is and stressing won't do any good. My first concern was Dad and the trip was a remote runner up on my list of worries. I have also learned that sometimes what happens in the place of failed plans can work out to be better if you just relax and let it happen.
Fortunately, Dad was okay. Diverticulitis. Not life threatening and manageable through diet. Dad was home by the following Tuesday evening. Roger had taken two weeks off from work, so we still had the coming week to do a trip. CeeBee was out. So that meant just Roger and I riding in the truck... for 22 hours... straight through each way... and a whole LOT of diesel for a round trip to Ouray... to stay in an expensive hotel... We quickly decided that perhaps we might head to Cloudcroft instead. 15 hours of driving instead of 22, MUCH less diesel, and $50/night versus $140 for a hotel. We'd been to the area before and knew what to expect in terms of the riding. We also had some unfinished business with a particular trail...
Getting rooms might be tough. Labor day weekend was fast approaching. I called the hotel where we stayed before and they still had a few rooms left, so I booked two for the following week just in case we'd be able to go. Then I waited to see how Dad was doing after being home a few days. By Wednesday evening he assured me that he was feeling well enough to cover the office so I could leave town for a week. I let Roger know and we finalized our plans. I wasn't 100% on Dad, but by Thursday, I was feeling much better. I loaded up the bike Friday night and went to bed early. Roger would be here at 5:30am to load his bikes and we'd hopefully be on the road by 6:00am-ish. My normal daily roll out of bed time is 10:30am
Off to bed...
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