Velociraptor
08-28-2005, 08:31 PM
I headed east out of Seattle on I-90 this morning to do some random exploring. I did some paved riding around the Denny Creek/Snoqualmie pass area then headed east on 90 again an spied a sign for Stampede pass. I'd heard of it but never been there so off I went. The pass is at the top of a 3 mile gravel road but the road continues on after the pass so I ended of doing a big loop on Forest Service Roads 54 and 52. All told I did 25-30 miles of gravel/dirt roads on a nice sunny warm day in the Cascades. I also saw three deer and a couple of mice...! Some of the roads were very hard packed with a lots of loose gravel, so INTERESTING to say the least on a 500lb "dualsport". I am still running BT-020s so not tons of grip. Still I was able to easily get by any cars I caught up with. The main thing is to not get leaned over very far and not get into a turn way too hot becasue its tough to quickly slow down a big bike with slippery tires on a gravel road. The beast was moving around a lot but overall very stable. I am running stock suspension and that setup HATES stutter bumps. No real compliance. I am lucky to still have all my fillings. I'm not sure if I'll do anything about it though. Also having a GPS was a huge help because I was winding around up and down mountains and without a GPS I would have had no idea where I was. With the GPS I could see I was doing a big loop so I kept going knowing it was a loop. Otherwise at some point I would have turned back no knowing if the road I was on was going to dead end or not. But all in all it was great to be on rarely travelling roads back in the Cascades with beautiful views. That's what adventure touring is all about. But...I wonder if a Beemer would've been better???