The Good, the bad and the Ugly!
 

Well, took my first long trail ride today. Meet up with a couple of locals, good guys! Fast! One races Hare Scramble, he is scary fast!

Bike ran good, I need a bigger bike or I need to lose some weight! I felt like I was ringing it's neck, but it did fine till I broke it!

I'm new, so I am learning that speed is your friend at times. Laid the bike down three times over 15 miles of riding, not to bad for first dirt bike and first time riding since 1996! Either way, First lay down was from front brake use and sliding out on me in a turn (should of just leaned more and rode the wave). Second was from the same thing, just in rocks, in a turn and rocks.....Need to get better at that!

The third lay down and this is the crappy part! Climbing a root and rocky section I hit a rut and was following the guys in front of me.....No good, I didn't have enough speed, down I went on the left side. Handle bars missed the rock ledge and the clutch lever found it.......:eek: "Hey, why is there oil here now"......Oh, the Clutch M?C snapped where the lever bolts to it.....and the plunger comes out and oil comes a flowing.

Now what? I have no clutch and I'm 12 miles into the woods, no roads or fire trails close and some nasty hills to push the bike up.....

I find a little down hill and jam start the bike......Now it is do or die..... No clutch, must hit every line, every speed right and every corner right.

Well, I made it to the other side of the mountain that is a total of 15 miles or so......Park the bike and wait for the guys I was riding with to bring a truck around the mountain and take me back to my truck.

To top it off, I had two tires given to me and paid $20 for a new front tire. Starcross tires at that, the same I am running now. They are not dry rotten, so it's a step up....
All and all, good day, expensive but good day.

Full hand guards may have saved your clutch, that is if your not running any now. Ive never broke a lever since I started running them years ago.

I have a set, but couldn't get the controls in a comfortable place with them on. With them installed the controls were at a level position, was really uncomfortable and riding with one or two fingers on the controls was impossible.

I'm going to make an adapter so I can put them back on after I figure out what kind of Clutch M/C to get.

Wrap your bars in electrical tape where the controls clamp to the bars. This way the controls will rotate on the bars in the case of a hard hit


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Or you can just torque them down up to the point where you can't move them with bare hands but they will move if you hit them. I do that too, with the controls and the hand guards as well. No issues so far, if i fall down then all i have to do is hit them back into position.

The way that my bike hit the rock ledge I don't think anything would of saved it. The clutch was loose enough for me to twist by hand. If I had guards on, it would of saved it, but then my controls would of been to high. So I need new guards or have to make an adapter to get the guards attachment moved so the clutch hose fits.

Most people cut their levers shorter so they will fit inside the bark busters and some just buy shorter levers.

My '01 XC200 had shortened levers when I got and they fit inside the bark busters. I installed new Moose levers (just because they were cheap on ebay) and they fit inside the bb'ers fine.

RB

Now that sounds like a proper first ride in the woods, sans broken clutch master :(

Good on you for powering through the problem and making it to the other side :cool:

Any pics or video from the adventure? Sounds like you're riding in a cool area :D

And yeah...barkbusters...never leave home without 'em...like my fingers too much...LOL.

Hoping Santa will bring me a GoPro this year, then plenty of videos will follow for you all to laugh at the shanigans that happens while I learn....:D