Dual Sport

September 14, 2020September 18, 2020

400 SM rebuild (Ryan’s old bike).

I picked up a pair of DRZs at the start of June. Ryan’s black SM and a blue S (Shane’s). I thought I’d use this (long) post to cover the story of the SM rebuild.

I’d heard about the bike at least a year earlier from Karl. “DRZ SM with a knock”. Ryan and I had exchanged messages, but I figured I’d likely need to replace the crankshaft at least some of the bearings, rings, and get a valve job done. The numbers didn’t look great. A year later, mention of the bike came up, and the price had dropped.

September 11, 2020September 11, 2020

2020/09/10 – been quiet !?

Yes/no. I’m still working on the August 13th to 24th trip write up.

As is sort of normal, I took a bit of time off of moto-stuff after that… a good 10 days or so … which did include “wrenching on the TrailBlazer” (transfer case motor was shot, which I figured out after pulling the whole case).

I’ve been face down in the 400SM since, my bike needs attention, but the SM bottom end was sitting on the table, and a more logical starting point.

My bike had some issues that reflect that while I’ve been wrenching lots, it was not on my bike. (By that token, the 400S is basically done and sold. The SM bottom end is done, new jug and piston are in … just wondering what I’m doing for valves and a head … which is a story in itself … I ordered new intake valves … not sure what I got.)

Anyhow, my bike is basically down (starter barely works and runs rough in 3rd).

I only JUST got to washing the dirt from 10 days riding off of it … but there’s enough stuff strewn across the carport that I’m not sure I want to start tearing another bike apart… and given that I seem to have a bottom end problem (3rd gear specific), it isn’t going to be a simple fix. I could swap head/piston jug to my spare bottom end as a quick fix (losing my ACT gears), and I’ll probably do that … but it’s still not a quick fix.

August 23, 2020September 25, 2020

2020/08/23 Sunday – Day 2 (last day) in Invermere

The second day of riding in Invermere. We did collect and return a WANDR score sheet, but we did not find any waypoints. Instead we followed Trent’s instructions for collecting lots of great pictures.

August 22, 2020September 24, 2020

2020/08/22 Saturday – Day 1 of WANDR 2020

Day 1 of WANDR was both interesting and underwhelming.

August 21, 2020September 24, 2020

2020/08/21 Friday – Fort Steele to Invermere

A late start, and early rendezvous made this a fairly short day. The late start was due to changing tires, and the first adventure was figuring out what to do with the old ones….

August 20, 2020September 23, 2020

2020/08/20 Thursday – Sandon to Fort Steele

Thursday morning didn’t go quite as planned. 10 AM coffee came too late and we literally missed Sandon.

We were packed by shortly after 9, and I was curious to see “where the road went”. Well the abandoned “town” of Cody is just up the way, along with the remenants of an ore processing plant. And above that was this cool track up the “hill”.

August 19, 2020September 23, 2020

2020/08/19 Wednesday – Rossland to Sandon

This was a pretty short day, we were slow getting out of Rossland. Mike had directed us to to the Railway trail along Lower Arrow Lake as having multiple tunnels and trestles, but we joined onto it too close to Castlegar to see most of it. But what we did see was in good shape (smooth unlike the “whoops’d out” KVR).

August 18, 2020September 28, 2020

2020/08/18 Tuesday – Aberdeen Lake to Rossland

Lots of pix for this day. We started at Aberdeen Lake.

August 17, 2020September 28, 2020

2020/08/17 Monday – Link lake, Vernon, to Aberdeen Lake

The planned route for this day went out the window as soon as I remembered I wanted to do some health checks on the bike. As happened last year (with a different wheel), one of my front wheel bearings was shot.

August 16, 2020September 25, 2020

2018/08/16 (Sunday) Merritt to Link Lake via Whipsaw and Princeton

Sunday got off to a reasonably slow start. The rest of the crew was heading back to Victoria, which would be a reasonably short day. Despite that, I think they left before James and I did… likely related to my doing more “bush maintenance”. As I recall, it was hot (and I was still grumpy) when we had returned the evening before, and the river (and cider) had been calling more loudly than the little voice telling me I needed to pull the (spare) front tube out of the rear tire and put in the new one James had gotten me.