Adventure Riders Visit Dual Sport Warehouse

The summer of 2011 was busy for us at Dual Sport Warehouse getting our new online store built, sorted and working properly and then adding products that dual sport and adventure riders want and need to support their motorcycle riding adventures.  We had the privilege of working with some local riders to support their summer trips and some world travelers stopped by on their way through our area to check us out and get products or service. 

The first group we worked with was “our own” group of three, Craig Johnson from Wisconsin, Matthew Ferhmann from Ohio and Ardie Bode from Australia.  They did a pretty epic trip from Wisconsin west across the northern plains through western Canada to Alaska and the Arctic Circle.  That was halfway!  Then they headed down the continental divide all the way to Mexico and then back to Wisconsin for a total of over 16,000 miles!  Dual Sport Warehouse helped supply much of the gear for the trip, sent emergency parts to various “pit stops” along the way and welcomed the guys back home at the end of July after 2 months on the bikes.

Craig, Matthew and Ardie after 16,000 miles of adventure riding in 60 days!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three 2006 KTM 950 Adventures loaded with all their gear - a lot of it came from Dual Sport Warehouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So if you think that sounds like a pretty impressive trip our next visitor will blow your socks off!  Sherri Jo Wilkens is a very adventurous young lady from Australia (originally from Indiana, USA) that is travelling around the world on her KTM 690 Enduro, solo!  Her route as posted on her website (http://sherrijowilkins.com/) is: The route: Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia, Equador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, back to Australia!I have no idea how many miles she will put on by the end of her trip but I do know it was a pleasure to meet and talk with her on her way through Wisconsin in late July.  We got an email from Sherri when she was in Indiana and she was in need of some new tires for the 690 Enduro and she was looking for the Heidenau K60′s that we stock here at Dual Sport Warehouse.  We had the size she needed and my partner Craig was able to help Sherri by installing the tires and sorting out a few other items on her bike that needed attention. 

 

We also got a new pair of Alpinestars Scout boots for Sherri and then sent her back out on her adventure around the world.  From Wisconsin she headed to Alaska and as of October 14th she is in Northern California.  It was a real pleasure to meet Sherri and help support her a little bit on her journey.  Please visit her web page and blog at the link above for all the details on her trip.

 

Sherri Jo Wilkens and her KTM 690 Enduro, Around the World she goes!

 

 

 

 

  

Loaded and ready to ride

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Headed back out to conquer the World with a fresh set of tires

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another local rider, Bo Marciniw, travelled to Nova Scotia this summer on his 2008 KTM 990 Adventure and stayed with a friend there for a few days and got to know the area a bit.  Bo did a solo ride from Wisconsin to Nova Scotia and back and was out enjoying the North-East USA and Canada for a couple of weeks. 

Dual Sport Warehouse helped Bo set up his bike with a CJ Designs rear luggage rack, Roto Pax 1 gallon auxillary fuel pack, Kriega R30 backpack and a CJ Designs “super shaft” water pump kit install before leaving on his trip.  Bo also has added several other accessories from from Dual Sport Warehouse over the last couple years like L.E.D. lighting, CJD foot peg extensions, Zumo GPS/Mount and a Euro headlight assembly.  We are always glad to see our customers on their bikes living out their dreams!

A stop along the way. Check out the rear view mirror - not sure if that was planned but it's kind of cool how that is framed!

Bo stopped in on his way back from Nova Scotia to say Hi!

If you’re out travelling the world stop in and see us at Dual Sport Warehouse.  We’d love to meet you and help facilitate your adventure in any way we can.

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Remus Revolution Titanium Silencer w/ 2 into 1 CJDesigns Adapter

Photography and Words by:  Matthew Fehrmann,

http://www.cjdesignsllc.com

http://www.mdfeditions.com

http://www.dualsportwarehouse.com

After nearly 18,000 miles running the Remus Revolution Ti Silencer with CJDesigns 2 into 1 adapter I can safely say this is an extremely worth while upgrade.  The silencer design and construction is nothing short of the highest quality in fit and finish.

Not only is this silencer a work of art but it’s light, try 4 pounds a side lighter if you run the twin set up and even lighter if you are running the 2 into 1 adapter like I am.

One of the most noticeable differences as soon as you take your first ride is the sound, it’s very pleasing for those of us who love motor sounds with a deeper than stock growl that means business.  I did not want an overly loud system and where the sound has more punch and a different lower note than stock I still feel it’s quiet enough for the neighborhood and the trails.  If you really enjoy the open motor sound, want to compete with the Harley guys in the neighborhood, or run a few track days pull that insert and unleash the fierce sound of the LC8.  While loud with the insert out the lower note is still pleasing, sounds aggressive, and with a few revs to the limiter your neighbors will wonder what plane is taking off from their driveway.

After some time on the tight trails or stuck in some city commuter traffic you will notice and greatly appreciate the heat reduction.  These pipes run much cooler than stock and you and/or your passenger will greatly appreciate this as the ambient temperature starts sky rocketing in the summer time.

After some fairly major abuse the finish still shines and cleans up very well.  The photograph above is of the famous mud and sodium chloride slurry  from the “haul” road after returning from Dead Horse, AK

Warranty on the Remus Revolution Titanium Silencers is a Lifetime Warranty, yep you heard me right, LIFETIME! That includes running a single silencer with a 2 into 1 adapter, yep you heard me right again.  They have certainly built these to last and with a warranty like that why would you question which exhaust to buy.

Pictured above is the cjdesigns 2 into 1 adapter and this is also a nice piece of kit.  Utilizing the stock exhaust midpipe it’s carefully cut and then expertly tig welded into the 2 to 1 adapter.  This make room for an auxiliary fuel tank or a tool tube on the other side.  We have been testing a new tool tube for the last 17,000 and it has preformed very well, a few minor tweaks and there will be a small production run of these in the next few months (fingers crossed).  Since we are running the Safari tanks holding 12.5 gallons of fuel the tool tube was the right choice for us, the nicest thing about having the extra storage is you can carry front and rear tubes, front sprocket, rear brake pads, tire irons, stock tool kit, small spares, and more all on the bike all the time not just when you are packed for a big trip.  The other added benefit is you do not have to unpack anything to get to any of your tools, as you know standing on the side of the road in the rain digging in your side cases looking for some small part you packed 2 months ago can be a frustrating task.  This leaves the under seat storage available for tools not needed as often, I keep spare plugs, small air compressor, winch extension leads with the remote, and jumper cables there.

Prototype tool tube in action, have everything on the bike wether you are fully loaded or just out for the day trail riding, no extra baggage needed.

Alright enough writing time to go ride.

Matthew Fehrmann

Remus Exhaust available at DualSportWarehouse.com

WI-AK-NM-WI Epic Journey

On the trail as the journey winds down

The three adventurers, Craig, Matthew and Ardie, are on the last leg of their journey that has taken them from WI, across the northern U.S., through Canada – BC, Yukon and into Alaska.  Once in Alaska they spent a week on Kodiak Island, then went to Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay, then cut east back into Yukon and the Nortwest Territories.  Once they headed back south the goal was to ride all the way down the continental divide, off-road as much as possible,  from Canada to Mexico and that took them back down through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and finally New Mexico until they hit the Mexico border.

Currently they are on the final leg headed back to the Mid-West and their final destination, Wisconsin.  Click HERE to see their last few days of progress.  We are expecting them back on Wednesday, July 20 and they are planning on attending “Bike Night” at Quaker Steak & Lube in new Berlin off of I-43 with their bikes fresh off the road/trail.  Plan on stopping by to check out the bikes and gear that they used for 2 months of long distance traveling and camping through a wide variety of weather and terrain.

Surviving everything from rain, snow and cold to days over 100+ degrees requires good planning, good gear and bikes that will get you through all types of terrain.  This is your chance to see the bikes fully equipped and hear the story first hand of how everything worked.  There will be gear reviews and stories from the trail posted on the CJ Designs blog as well as here.

Craig is home once he hits Wisconsin but Matthew lives in Ohio so he will have a ride to get back home and Ardie is from Australia and will still have some traveling to do to get back to his home base.  Ardie has literally been around the world this last few months.  Here’s to wishing them a safe final leg and hope you all can come to welcome them home on Wednesday night.

Heidenau K60 Scout Tires – A Review On A Big Bike

Posted in Alaska Trip 2011, Product Updates on June 28, 2011 by mdfehrmann

Review and photographs by: Matthew Fehrmann, for www.cjdesignsllc.com and www.dualsportwarehouse.com

Let me start this review off with how impressed we are with the general performance of the Heidenau K60 Scout tire. What I hope to do is provide a good review including a collection of photos to share as they wore through our trip.  Another important point I will attempt to make is the mix of conditions we put them through, the weight of our bikes, and the milage they carried us down the road.  These are great tires and I will spoon on another set in the very near future.

The bikes we are riding are all 2006 KTM 950 Adventures.

Some of the specs to consider about our bikes, they are fully loaded for camping on the 2+ months and 20,000 miles we are spending on the road, we all have upgraded fuel tanks holding around 12 gallons each, and the riders weights range from 135lbs to 275lbs without gear. The rear Heidenau 150/80-18 is mounted on the stock adventure rim which is 4.25in wide, The front is 90/90-21 mounted on a 1.6in wide dirt bike rim either a DID Dirtstar Strong or Excel A60.  Regardless of terrain we ran these at street air pressures, remember we need a compromise on milage and performance after all we are largely self funded in our testing, so the rear we ran at 36psi and the front at 34psi.

Some samples of the brand new Heidenau K60 Scouts mounted up and ready to roll.

After burning up some pavement to put some milage under our belt we found the tires holding up great, they roll smooth on the road, hold corners very well, and are predictable on the pavement regardless of speed or lean angle.  There is plenty of side lug to start dragging hard parts on even the tallest of bikes so if you are into those sorts of things these tires will not disappoint.

We are about 2500 miles in for these photos and are almost at the ware bar in the center of the tire.  once reaching this bar the added surface area should provide us an even longer life and that is exactly what we found as we continued to rack up the miles.

We ran this set to 7162 miles before pulling them off and if we did not already have a tire drop in Fairbanks, AK we could have easily ran these another 1000-2000 miles as long as the roads or trails were not too muddy or sloppy.  We took them through a huge selection of terrain including but not limited to, highway, back roads, river rocks, hard pack dirt, gravel, and mud on the Haul Road to Deadhorse, in fact we chose to run these all the way to Deadhorse and back after stashing our dirt set since they were still performing so well.  The high mileage and traction was outstanding and for a 50 / 50 tire this is the set to run in my opinion.

The tires the day we pulled them off after 7162 miles.

Ardie’s Set (275lbs rider)

Craig’s Set (190lbs rider)

Matthew’s Set (135lbs rider)

Some notes about the front tire and it’s design, we did start to see some cupping near the end of our time running it but it wore like iron and stuck to the pavement and hard pack without much issue.  This is a hard tire to run in the mud and the slippery ruts but once you figure out that you will end up in the low part of the rut it becomes a predictable and truly ridable tire through all but the deepest of mud and slop.  For our use this tire ran the miles as intended on a dual sport ride, and the total milage shocked us on fully loaded bikes.  The Front K60 Scout we would classify as a 50% on road 50% off road tire through it’s entire serviceable life.

The rear K60 Scout hooked up on almost everything we could throw at it and is a better tire off road than the stock tire with no compromises on the street.  I’m totally sold on running this tire through almost anything dual sport rides could bring you and we all agree the rear tire is a good 65% off road 35% on road tire until about 4000 miles then it’s a 50% / 50% tire through the end.

Would we buy this set again for a trip like this? Yes no hesitation.

Milwaukee to Fairbanks in 7162 miles.

Buy them at Dual Sport Warehouse.

Go North, Young Man!

Matthew, Katie, Craig & Ardie somewhere around Kodiak, Alaska

A quick update for those of you following the Three Muskateers on their Alaska, and other parts, adventure.  They made it from Wisconsin to Alaska in 9 days, approximately 5,000 miles to Anchorage.  They met Craig’s wife, Katie, in Anchorage and then headed out to Kodiak Island for about a week and then back to Anchorage to regroup for a day and then traveled up to Fairbanks. 

Katie flew out of Fairbanks, her two weeks already over.  I’m sure it seemed like not nearly enough time for her.  But she is safely back in Wisconsin and I need to contact her and round up some parts that Craig has stashed around the house.   With everyone out travelling my parts supply is dwindling!

After sending Katie off, Craig, Ardie and Matthew headed north for Prudhoe Bay and I just got his last “spot” from his satellite tracker and they have reached one of the northern-most points is the United States.  Click here to see their location.  The tracker shows their last 5 or 6 days of locations so you can see where they’ve been and how they got there. 

From here I believe they have to head back to Fairbanks (that’s the only road) and then over to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories and then start heading south along the Continental Divide all the way to Mexico!  The fun is just getting started.   

Kodiak Island "rain forest". Looks more like a scene from "Swamp Thing".

Gravel roads, mountains, water - Beautiful Alaska

Follow the Leader…to Alaska

For anyone wanting to follow the progress of our group of guys headed for Alaska, you can track them with CJ’s spot device and see where they’ve been and their current location.  Just click here for todays “spot” or you can stay up to date by clicking on the spot icon in the top left corner of CJ Designs website.

The latest transformation of Craig's bike as he prepared for the Alaska trip

 

Craig has been hard at work prior to this trip on some new CJ Designs products that are getting tested out on the trip and should be available later this year.  Things like fuel tanks, tool boxes, panier boxes and skid plates are prototyped and being torture tested on this trip in preparation for sale on Dual Sport Warehouse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ardie, Craig & Matthew ready to hit the road

 

You can follow the story with pictures on the CJ Designs Blog.  They are logging a new post each day with a few pictures and dialog of where they rode that day. 

Alaska Adventure Trip

Three of our riding buddies are franticly prepping their bikes, gear and bodies for a 2 month adventure to Alaska with a return trip down the Continental Divide all the way to the border with Mexico and then back to Wisconsin.  Departure date is May 18, 2011 for Craig, Matthew and Ardie and they have a lot of work to finish before that time. 

Craig, from CJ Designs and my partner in www.DualSportWarehouse.com, is the mastermind behind the trip and has been planning this for about a year.  Craig is riding his 2006 KTM 950 Adventure with the CJ Designs/Christini AWD conversion done on it.  Matthew, from www.matthewfehrmann.com/ photography, is from Ohio and has signed on with Craig for this trip and is the official “team photographer” and will be in charge of pictures, video and riding the wheels off his 2006 KTM 950 Adventure.  The third member of the team is Ardie who is from Australia and he’s flying in 3 days ahead of the trip and finishing the final prep on the bike Craig is setting up for him (also a 2006 KTM 950 Adventure). 

Ardie’s bike as of a week before departure!

Ardie was somewhat of a last minute addition to the team and he needed a bike to ride, since shipping one from Australia was crazy expensive, so Craig agreed to build up a bike for him.  The issue is that Ardie is 6′ 8″ or so and makes these big 950 Adventures look like little toys.  So everything needs to be “super-sized”.  Heavy duty, tall suspension, Rox bar risers, CJD foot peg extensions, Hammerhead +20 mm shifter, etc, etc. 

 

Craig also had to go through his own bike and double check everything before this major trip.  They are expecting to put on about 20,000 miles in 2 months so they need everything inspected and in good condition before departure.  Craig has nearly 80,000 miles on his ’06 Adventure so by the time he gets back to Wisconsin he should be breaking the 100,000 mile mark!

 

Craig, Matthew and Ardie will be posting regular updates to the CJ Designs blog and you can follow their progress there.  They will be testing lots of the products that we sell at Dual Sport Warehouse and reporting on how the products work in the real world under extreme conditions.  They will go into much more detail on this but some of the “sponsors/product providers” are Remus Exhaust, Klim Enduro, Wolfman Luggage, Giant Loop Moto Luggage, Rekluse Auto Clutch, Rox Bar Risers, Heidenau tires, CJ Designs and several others.  If you’re considering any of these products you should get some good feedback on their function and performance during this trip. 

KTM Dual Sport Riders Find Some Single Track

In a couple of the previous posts I talked about our week in West Virginia, riding the Hatfield-McCoy trails.  One of the cool things about the West Virginia trails is that there’s a lot of variety to choose from so you can pick some easier two track (atv trails) or go to the opposite extreme and ride some pretty intense single track.  Our group was made up of a group of guys that would mostly describe themselves as dual sport or adventure riders, covering a lot of ground either on or off road and on bigger bikes like the KTM 950 Adventure or 690 Enduro.   Our last two days we decided to test just what we could get through on the big bikes.

Some rocky ridges to test our skills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The view back on the ridge. Craig watches the next "victim" to give it a try!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the muddy atv trails provided plenty of challenge just trying to climb some of the slick hills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We found the limits of what a 2wd 950 Adventure would climb up. Time to use that little Warn winch on the back

Craig’s 2wd KTM 950 Adventure was able to climb up some pretty surprising stuff and Craig manhandled it through lots of tight and treacherous trails but when we got to this climb we figured it would be a good time to try out the Warn winch and see how that worked.

Dennis handled the winch cable. This was a pretty steep climb, the camera makes it look less dramatic. The pipe is natural gas pipeline that runs along a lot of these trails

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Successfully winched the bike up, re-mounted the winch on the CJ Designs rear rack and on we go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the first turn onto the trails Craig managed to find a mud hole that even a 2wd bike couldn't drive out of!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some beautiful overlooks. Dan snaps picture of me snapping picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Craig found a tricky little section and tries to stay out from under his 550 lb. bike. Dennis helps spot him

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wayne on the KTM 560 descends one of the rocky hills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If there's a hill to be climbed Dennis was always willing to give it a shot. His KTM 250 XCW worked well

Dennis was always up for a hill climb challenge and he was pretty successful at it.  He came in handy for some of the rest of us that struggled on some of the climbs either helping us push up the hills or riding our bikes up a couple of times.  We all got our work-outs this week helping each other push, pull and drag bikes up some of the hill climbs!  It was a job but we all had smiles on our faces when we made it to the top.

Dan climbing up the single track on the borrowed Yamaha TTR 230 (the clutch fried on his KTM 690) Dan had a blast on the little Yamaha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill, our host and trail guide, on his 450 Husaberg shows us the way down one of his "goat trails"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When riding single track you're going to hit obstacles. Just jump your bike over that tree!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dennis diving down a tricky steep section that caught a couple of us out

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you think it'll fit? He made it down but ripped off his left foot peg doing it!

This was one of the hardest sections right at the end of our last day on the trails.  A steep, narrow down hill that had this rock wall on the right side and a boulder that stuck out right at handle bar height.  It pretty much forced you off the track and it pushed Craig off line a little and he hit a rock with his left foot peg and broke it off!

I came next and really messed it up and tumbled off the left side.  My bike flipped over and I managed to grab tree on the way down so I didn’t get hurt, but it could have been bad.  My left radiator was ripped off and I thought it was going to be a real mess but it had just popped out of the rubber bushings that hold it and wasn’t even bent.  Pull out the tool kit, make a few trail-side repairs and we were good to go…maybe.  When I started the bike it spit a big glug of oil out the breather and after checking my oil level I found that it was low from dumping it over and loosing it out the breather.

Since Craig was missing a foot peg and I was low on oil we decided to call it a day and head back for home.  It had been a great week of riding and we all made it through fairly unscathed and we had a blast.  Good time to stop before we couldn’t say that anymore.

Craig, Bill, Dennis and Wayne enjoying the view from the "playground"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the local cuisine a the Matewan Depot Restaurant - what more can you say?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The view of our rig through the flood wall door

Wisconsin Boys Hit The Rock House Trails

Fellow Wisconsinites on the Hatfield-McCoy trails.

So we traveled the 12 hours from Wisconsin to West Virginia and our first day on the trail we ran into some other riders from Kenosha, WI, less than 30 minutes from us back home!  They were staying at the Blue Goose as well and were leaving the day after we arrived.  Kind of crazy we have to travel half way across the country to meet fellow Wisconsin riders.

I didn’t get their names but they were zipping down one of the harder descents and enjoying their last day on the trails.  Most of our group was on bigger dual sport/adventure bikes and not quite so brave to risk that drop-off  so we turned back around and took an easier route.  No need to be heroes our first day out on the bikes in months.

Dropping down the big hill. It never looks as hard in the pictures!

One of the really cool things about the Buffalo Mountain trails (one of the six trail systems that make up the Hatfield-McCoy trails) is that there is a pretty wide variety of trails and difficulty so you can always find something to fit your skill level.  Even some of the “easier” trails can throw a challenge or two your way when you hit some of the rocky climbs especially if it happens to be raining and making things a little slick.

Remus silencers on our 950 Adventures with 2-into-1 conversions

Craig and Matthew both were riding KTM 950 Adventures and this trip was a shake-down run in prep of their Alaska trip this summer.  They both are running the CJ Designs 2-into-1 exhaust with Remus silencers.  This setup saves about 15 lbs. and frees up space on the left side for other storage needs.  Remus is one of the few pipes that will stand up to the added flow going from two to one and is also a spark arrested silencer so you don’t have to worry about starting any unwanted fires!  This is a proven setup that works well on these bikes and Dual Sport Warehouse recommends Remus silencers when making this conversion.

We managed to get them nice and muddy – these are dual sport bikes!

Riding the rail bed to the Rock House trails

One of the unique things about riding in this area is that once you buy the $50 trail pass (good for a year) it’s pretty much anything goes.  You can ride dirt bikes or atv’s w/o plates, lights or any road gear on the roads, into town and just about anywhere you want to go.  We road down the rail bed for about 15 miles to get to the Rock House trails and you are literally riding less that a foot or so from the trains and you can see if you can out pace the train for a while!  Don’t mess up or you’ll pay dearly.

Crossing the river by the train tracks

There’s lots of rivers and creek crossings in this area.  It seems like the water running out of the hills is everywhere.  This one was one of the few that was clear water.  Most were muddy from all the rain run-off water washing the mud out of the mountains.

Matthew found the limits of what a stock 950 Adventure could do in the mud

Although this picture doesn’t look like a very steep climb it was worse than it looks and Matthew couldn’t get enough traction on the big 950 to continue this climb.  It got steeper and rockier the farther you went and his tires were so full of mud that he was just spinning.  Even with two guys pushing it was going nowhere.  Craig was able to get through with the two wheel drive 950 Adventure but without the extra wheel pulling Matthew had to turn around and take a different route home.  Craig went with him so that he wasn’t riding alone.

That left Dennis, Dan and myself to explore the rest of the Rock House trails.

A wet riding day on some tricky trails

With Dennis in the lead we rode all day in the rain, up and down lots of slippery, rocky hills with a nice layer of slick mud so you really had to pay attention or you’d end up on your head.  We didn’t stop much, just kept a nice quick pace and covered a lot of ground that day.   Not very many pictures though because of the limited stops.

We had started kind of late in the day so we were approaching darkness by the time we got off the trails and back to the road to take us home.  The temperature was dropping pretty fast, it was raining and we had about 30 road miles to get back to the Blue Goose.  By the time we got back we were very happy to crawl off our muddy bikes and jump into a hot shower and clean up for another great meal put on by Bill and Theresa.

My KTM 560 with a Giant Loop Mojavi bag & Leo Vince X3 pipe

For this trip I had equipped my bike with a Giant Loop Mojavi bag that is the perfect size for day trips from a base camp.  Just enough room to carry a couple water bottles, tool pack, tubes, tire irons and a few snacks… everything you need for a day ride.

I have been running the Leo Vince X3 silencer on my bike for about 9 mons now and it has performed well.  Quiet enough to keep everybody happy but it still has a good sound, it has a built in spark arrestor and the power is more than enough.  It’s stainless steel construction so it’s very durable and I have to say it’s been a great addition to the bike.  Leo Vince has models that will fit most current dirt bikes.  Email us at info@dualsportwarehouse for pricing and applications.

West Virginia Ride & The Blue Goose Inn

At the "Top-Of-The-World", West Virginia

Our Dual Sport Warehouse group just returned from a week of riding in  Matewan, West Virginia where we stayed at the Blue Goose Inn (www.bluegooseinnwv.com) with our hosts Bill and Theresa. 

Matthew on his 950 Adventure checking out some crazy machine. We never did find out what it is?

Matewan is well known for a couple of historic events, the Hatfield-McCoy fued in the 1880′s and the “Matewan Massacre” when miner unions and mine company detectives clashed in 1920.  Today Matewan is much more peaceful and the area is full of trail systems for atv’s and motorcycles.  The “Hatfield-McCoy Trail System” encompasses several counties and six different trail systems of  all types of terrain and difficulty and is known as “trail heaven” by the people familiar with it. 

We spent the majority of our time on the Buffalo Mountain trail system right outside Matewan and one day at Rock House that is just down the road a bit.  Our group was made up of  primarily dual sport riders on bigger bikes.  We had two KTM 950 Adventures, a 690 Enduro, a 560 Enduro and a 250 XCW so we wanted to test the bikes on the ATV trails the first couple of days and then move up to some tough single track for the last few days. 

Bill from the Blue Goose Inn was from the Chicago area and moved to Matewan about 5 years ago to take advantage of the trail riding in the area and he has been working very hard to develop some great single track trails for the dirt bikes.  And as a result the Buffalo Mountain trail system is shaping up to be a single track riders dream come true. 

A wet day on the Rock House Trails

Matewan and the Hatfield-McCoy trail system are smack-dab in the heart of coal mining country and also natural gas fields, so many of the trails are a result of coal mine roads or natural gas pipelines.  Many of the trails have pipe running alongside the trail to get the natural gas out of the mountains.  You’re constantly reminded of the great natural resources in the Matewan area because there is a steady stream of coal trains running by day and night bearing ton after ton of coal headed to variaous destinations around the country. 

Stay tuned for future posts with much more trail info, products used and pictures of the amazing riding in West Virginia.