ride report: crown king trail
Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 9:51 am
It's been about 12 years since I last did the Crown King trail from Lake
Pleasant in the desert, up to Crown King in the pine trees. Back then we
did it on dirt bikes, and I remember it being not too bad of a ride. So
I figured I'd take the KLR up there yesterday. Keep in mind that I've
been riding both street and dirt bikes for 20+ years.
Big mistake. The trail has become A LOT worse over the years. It would
have been a tough ride on a dirt bike, let alone the KLR. There were
super steep inclines, with rock outcroppings in the trail, big rocks
everywhere, creekbed river rocks, and some nasty "rock waterfall" spots.
The first sign of trouble was when I couldn't get the bike out of a rut,
and had to walk next to it as I tried to get the back tire out of the
ditch. Not so easy when the trail is uphill, the ruts are big, and
there's rocks everywhere. This was my first time dry heaving on the
trail, there would be many more to come. From this point I could still
see the trail below where I started, and thought about turning around
and going home. I wish I had. Unfortunately I thought to myself, "how
bad can it really be". I was going to find out the hard way.
I then crashed twice. The first was on a steep incline, where there were
ridges on the sides, and it was washed out in the center. I dumped the
bike so the tires were on the ridge, and the handlebars were down in the
center rut. It took some effort, but I was able to right the bike, and
walk next to it while I powered it up past the gnarly spot. I took a 15
minute break trying not to puke.
The second was on one of the rock waterfall type things. By this time I
was so tired that I was having a hard time controlling the bike, and
just couldn't put the wheels where I wanted to. On a 40 degree incline
the front tire hit a rock outcropping and bounced up, while the rear
tire drove it into a wheelie, and dumped the bike to the right. The bike
ended up perpendicular to the trail, with the wheels uphill of the
handlebars, and a void in the rocks below it. The exact situation which
makes it physically impossible to stand it up. Being too tired to right
the bike, I had to just let it sit there for a while as I took a break.
I ended up having to use the luggage rack handle to drag the bike on
it's side until it was pointing in a direction where I could right it.
Due to the harshness of the trail, and the effort expended righting the
bike, I had to take a solid 20 minute break to recuperate while I dry
heaved from over-exertion. Luckily my crash bars and right highway peg
took most of the impact.
The last big issue was riding through a stream bed with boulders
everywhere. This was the kind of area where the front tire goes over a
rock and you case it when the front tire comes down. The aluminum
skidplate was worth it's weight in gold, as it got ground-over and
smacked into so many rocks. The constant continuous pounding of the
rocks made my arms feel like I hadn't eaten in a week. I found a nice
tree with a big flat rock, and just laid there for a while. At least now
I was far enough in elevation that the temperature was cooling off, and
there was a nice breeze. I could have easily taken a nap.
After some more river bed riding, I took one last break. I ate my last
protein bar, and finished off my second Gatorade. Fortunately the second
half of the ride wasn't bad at all. Relatively easy trail riding. No
more monster inclines or massive rocks. I bought another Gatorade at the
General Store in Crown king, and relaxed in the cool pines for about 30
minutes before taking the normal dirt road home.
I learned a few things on this ride.
1) The Dunlops are not good for serious off roading.
2) A 16t front sprocket is not good for serious off roading, I could
have used a 14t on this ride.
3) The handlebars are way to low to ride while standing up, I need
risers, and I'm only 5-10.
4) The aluminum skidplate was a must, I bashed that thing over so many
rocks I lost count.
--
Ryan
Phoenix, AZ