These are riding stories about my last trip out. I'll try to change this every week! errr, Month (Year!?)
Well!! It's been quite some time since I've even thought about writing a new riding story.. and YES!! I have ridden quite a lot since last July 4th, that's probably why I haven't written a new story ;)

So, anyhow.. Since Florence I've done quite a bit of riding at Evan's Creek OHV park, where they've imposed a $3 parking fee if you park within the trailhead parking area, or you can pay an annual $25 and get a neat sticker to put on your windshield.. But, riding at Evan's only lasts for so long, because it's at the base of Mt. Rainier.. the bottom of the trail system is at approximately 4200', and goes all the way up to about 7000'.. Therefore, when the snow falls, I have to keep at the lower altitudes ;) Which brings us to Tahuya.

Tahuya is located near the town of Belfair on Hood Canal. It's basically a gigantic gravel pit within one of Washington State's DNR forest lands.. The DNR officers are always very polite, and will only cite the true boneheads... They would rather have the users of the trail system comply with the few rules they have rather than write tickets.. Because of this, Tahuya is always a busy place, rain or shine, summer or winter... In fact at times it's so busy, parking can get a bit interesting! But even when the staging areas are packed, once you get a few hundred yards away from your truck, you'll be hard pressed to run into another rider for the rest of the day! This place is HUGE!! Not a lot of hills to climb, but tons of mud, and deep water riding, without very many alternate routes around the nasty ones... So, an airbox lid is manditory, and a water resistant outerwear isn't a bad idea either... I've seen many a swamped ATV, M/C, and Jeep there ;) including my own CJ5, where I got into a puddle so deep, when I sucked water into my carb, I had to stand on my hood to keep dry!! And yes, I ride both my Warrior and my TRX250R thru these same puddles!! Just goes to show that over-engineered ATV's are built that way for a reason ;)

OK, John and I went to Tahuya on February 15th.. I had just bought my *new* (to me) '86 Honda TRX250R... So, I had to take it out and give 'er a field test ;) Geez!!! Does this thing RIP!!! It took me all of about 300' to get the feel for how it handles.. I especially like the way you can turn it at speed by using just a wee bit of body english ;) (use the force, Aerik)... But, my cockiness almost got the best of me: I saw a little bump I wanted to try and get some air off of, gassed it, pitched the rear tires a bit sideways right as I left the ground, and landed about 3 feet off the trail... I about loaded up my drawers ;) I was waiting to hit a hidden stump or other unmovable, but I lucked out and landed it and kept on going.. Needless to say I laid off the throttle a little after that...

Later that day, we came across a few extra deep puddles.. More like handlebar deep ponds actually ;) I was a little afraid to take the R thru them, but figured there was no better time to find out the limitations of my new machine.. Turns out the quad's half fish!!! Never skipped a beat.. But I do need a set of front fenders, the stock ones have been trimmed up for duning, and dont cover much of the front tires.. The mud however had no trouble covering my goggles, rain gear, and dont forget poor John, who got to close to my tires when I got hung up in the slop...

A little while later, we got to what is known as 'the Pit'.. it's about a 1 mile MX track in a pit run... We played around here for a while, then I decided I'd swap rides with John. He took off on my R, did about a half lap, came back up near me, then RIPPED back down into the pit, throwing gravel everywhere, berm shotting a high bank turn, tearing thru the whoops, and after a lap or two, pulled back up alongside me with a big-ass shit eating grin!! I think I made a believer out of him ;) Now he keeps talking about getting a 2 stroke ;) And let me tell you, his Warrior sure felt like a tank after riding that R all morning.. I hope I can still ride mine ;)

After wearing ourselves out at the pit, we decided to take a tight twisty trail around the perimeter of the DNR land, back to the staging area.. I swear the R got about 3' wider in the tight stuff.. It is about 4-5" wider than my Warrior, but I didn't get hung up anywhere, and was still able to stay a good distance out in front of John, until it got really tight, then he'd catch back up.. but as soon as it widened up a bit, he was sucking my 2 stroke smoke again *G* Towards the end of the day, as we were nearing the truck, my thumb cramped up BAD!! I'm an avid twist throttle guy, and the thumb throttle finally got the best of me.. The next day I ordered a Motion Pro twister, and a few other goodies.. *Then* the next day I brought my R into work with me and took the throttle and clutch cables off.. I slapped my cable luber on 'em and sprayed a half a can of CRC 3-36 (good stuff!!! I highly recommend it!!) thru the housings, and blew a dump truck load of mud and sand out of 'em ;) Boy, that thumb throttle sure works nice now *G* I think that's the only part of this quad that showed any signs of neglect.. Luckily none had made it into the carb, at least as far as I could tell, but I sprayed it out real good too, just in case.. Another thing I noticed about the R is the ease of maintenance.. It took me about a half an hour to get both cables off, lubed, and replaced.. When I lube my Warrior cables, Im looking at an easy 2 hours..

Anyhow.. I'm starting to babble ;) Until next year *G* this is Aerik!! and I'm signing off!!


Coming Soon: Probably nothing soon, But a trip to the dunes is planned for early June, another Dune trip for the week leading up to and thru the 4th of July, and China Hat near Bend in March!! any takers (as always) let me know!!

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