Moab dualsport trip 4/5-11/2015

Carolyn and I stayed there on the way to California last fall. I spent the night in one of the tepee's. Woke up in the middle of the night with one of their cats sleeping with me in my sleeping bag. Very remote, they have solar cells and a battery bank for electricity.

Been watching this thread only for the sake of dreaming.... the dates just don't work out with my schedule.

Like RG I have stayed at the slickrock campground before. Have tent camped there and RV camped there so I cant speak of the cabins but they looked pretty good from the outside. We have also stayed at the Kokopelli lodge before. Its right off the main street in Moab so it may be full. We had a great cabin there that accommodated 3 guys that had a full kitchen and a hot tub. As far as cost it was pretty reasonable a couple of years ago. It may be worth a look.

http://kokopellilodge.com/

Cheers...Jeff

medicjeff said:

Been watching this thread only for the sake of dreaming.... the dates just don't work out with my schedule.

Like RG I have stayed at the slickrock campground before. Have tent camped there and RV camped there so I cant speak of the cabins but they looked pretty good from the outside. We have also stayed at the Kokopelli lodge before. Its right off the main street in Moab so it may be full. We had a great cabin there that accommodated 3 guys that had a full kitchen and a hot tub. As far as cost it was pretty reasonable a couple of years ago. It may be worth a look.

http://kokopellilodge.com/

Cheers...Jeff

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Thanks Jeff. Looks like Paco scored a cabin for us at slickrock, so hopefully Scott and his gang find a place too.

BTW, anyone has any recommendations as far as what tires to run? I'm thinking of going tubliss (even though I never had a problem with HD tubes and slime in the past, actually the only time someone in my group had a flat he was running tubliss.. ). should I stay with my AC-10's or go with the MT21 Trials tires? I don't think will do too much slick rock riding, but more of the desert roads like white rim, chicken point etc.

the other thinking I thinking of is jetting. looks like Moab is closer to Cloudcroft as far as height. any recommendations?

Mati, I called two Honda dealers in towns higher than 4,500 ft and their service departments told me that stock jetting should work fine at this altitude and higher, but once we get to 8,000 ft or 9,000 ft we need to rejet. The don't re-jet their bikes from the factory for their altitude. Utah is at 4,000 ft, and surrounding areas can go as high as 8,000 max. I am sure that fine tuning of jetting can give us better performance, but for just a few days in Utah stock jetting should work fine. I'd be interested in other opinions.

matikrimerman said:

the other thinking I thinking of is jetting. looks like Moab is closer to Cloudcroft as far as height. any recommendations?

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Not me this time (kinda obvious without all the falling over) but some pretty good road work around Moab. Enjoy!

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzRgb2yKsLc"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzRgb2yKsLc[/ame]

Yep, RideFreak can ride and edit videos, no doubt. one of my favorites youtubers

matikrimerman said:

BTW, anyone has any recommendations as far as what tires to run? I'm thinking of going tubliss (even though I never had a problem with HD tubes and slime in the past, actually the only time someone in my group had a flat he was running tubliss.. ). should I stay with my AC-10's or go with the MT21 Trials tires? I don't think will do too much slick rock riding, but more of the desert roads like white rim, chicken point etc.

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IMO, I'd Stick w/ what you know. Tubliss carries its own set of problems.
Ditto w/ tires. Stick w/ what you know. IF you've never ridden on a trials tire before, Moab's not the place to try one out.

Thanks Dao. I decided to give the tublisses a try but i intended on trying them out in red river before we leave to moab. I'm curious though to hear what you think moab is not the place to try them out so I know what to look out for

On our Moab trip, I used tubliss in conjunction w/ an MT43. 1st day out in Moab, we did a 1/2 day trial run. Nothing hard, just a nice ride through some trails to prove out our bikes. 2-3 hrs in, my MT tire somehow caught the side of a sharp edge rock, and sliced a 1" gash clear through the tire's side wall. A plug wasn't going to seal that wide of a cut, especially with it being on the sidewall, so in went a h/d tube, out went the tubliss, and we rode back to the motel, w/ my tubliss strapped to the back of my camelback. So, with that, I think a tire with a stiffer, thicker, less flexy side wall is better suited for exploring Moab.

As for the tubliss...biggest problem for me was trying to get a perfect seal. It's a hit or miss. I put tubliss in 3 of my dirt bikes, 6 wheels. Only 1 wheel held air. The rest leaked air out, some within 2-3 days, others within 4-5 hrs. I always use tubliss w/ new tires, not used ones where the bead's mangled up from tire irons. And silicon sprayed everything in sight. But air would still leak out.

The one wheel that didn't leak any air is/was a brand new wheel, never had a tire mounted on it prior to installing the tubliss. So I think the condition of the rim plays a HUGE role in obtaining a perfect seal.

Thanks for the info Dao. I did decided not to go we the trial tires, but to put a new ac10 in the rear and a scorpion pro in the front, so hopefully they'll hold better then trials tires. The point about the tubliss makes a lot of sense. Since im not very experienced with tire and tube changing, ill have sms racing do the job, and make sure to keep an eye out for leaks. Thanks again!

Moab area doesn't chew up tires nearly as quick as say, Cloudcroft. The green trails are dry dirt and small angular rocks with occasional exposed rock. Red trails are a lot of bare rock and topography. The bare rock is like coarse sand paper. There might be a bad tire for out there but I don't know what it would be. Everything sticks. There's plenty of pointy stuff to poke holes - desert you know. Tire-wise...just think Big Bend with really cool scenery.

Here's another Moab video. Poison Spider trail. This feller does a great job with editing videos. If you haven't ridden out there, the rock ledges and jump-ups look ominous. But, the traction is just crazy. You can climb stuff easily. The deep sand... well, it's still deep sand.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOExcO4qY5o&list=UU6fss8fQ-uFIAdCSj2HQrqA"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOExcO4qY5o&list=UU6fss8fQ-uFIAdCSj2HQrqA[/ame]

Rsquared, Desmo and myself are heading up later. We will be leaving here April 17 and returning the 26th. We may be staying in Monticello rather than Moab, but will still be riding much of the same stuff.

In looking at the park websites, I found out that you have to get special "use permits" to ride many of the roads. You can't just show up and start riding. There are a limited number of permits and they recommend getting them as early as you can. I don't know if the permits are only good for a particular road or for all roads in the parks.

3 Step is a great place to stay in the vicinity!

http://3stephideaway.com/

Tourmeister said:

Rsquared, Desmo and myself are heading up later. We will be leaving here April 17 and returning the 26th. We may be staying in Monticello rather than Moab, but will still be riding much of the same stuff.

In looking at the park websites, I found out that you have to get special "use permits" to ride many of the roads. You can't just show up and start riding. There are a limited number of permits and they recommend getting them as early as you can. I don't know if the permits are only good for a particular road or for all roads in the parks.

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We will be riding moab april 23-26. 4 of us from Texas and 4 from Colorado. Maybe we will see you guys up there.

Dao said: As for the tubliss...biggest problem for me was trying to get a perfect seal. It's a hit or miss.

The one wheel that didn't leak any air is/was a brand new wheel, never had a tire mounted on it prior to installing the tubliss. So I think the condition of the rim plays a HUGE role in obtaining a perfect seal.

--

A clean, undamaged rim helps when installing the Tubliss system, but don't use too much soapy water during the installation otherwise it impedes the sealing process. Once the Tubliss is sealed properly, I inject the tire sealant Ride On inside the tire maintain pressure in case of a thorn puncture.

RB

You guys should be rolling right through my town. If you get into any trouble up here in the panhandle and need an assist my cell is 469-247-5845.

Thanks maverick, that's very nice of you.
RB , thanks for the advice

Sooo... I never saw any kind of report from this event? Who went, where, how was it, etc,...?

Tourmeister said:

Sooo... I never saw any kind of report from this event? Who went, where, how was it, etc,...?

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Hey Scott!

Mati and I went on on this trip and we had a fantastic time. We don't have a RR report, but I will post a few comments, pics and videos over the next few days, and I am sure Mati will contribute - as he is a better travel photojournalist than I will ever be!

We left on April 4th after loading the two bikes on the truck, and headed towards Moab, UT, a pretty long drive for sure! We stop to spend the night and got there on Sunday April 5th. Based on recommendations from fellow riders we stayed in a cabin at the Slickrock Campground in Moab. It was simple but it worked well. Here are some pictures of our first day:

We were finally packed and ready to go on our adventure!



After many miles of boring West Texas, we started to enjoy the ruggedness of New Mexico:



After spending Saturday night at a motel somewhere, on Sunday afternoon we arrived in Moab and unloaded... our cabin was small but adequate. We had a picnic table in front of it so that was a plus!





Even though we got to Moab in the late afternoon, we wanted to ride, so we headed out to Sands Flats road. We got to enjoy the sunset over the Castle Valley from the Porcupine Rim campground overlook.... Beautiful place. The only issue was that we had to ride back to town in the dark and cold. But it was worth it!

The La Sal mountain range in the background here:



And Mati against the gorgeous sunset over Castle Valley:



This overlook is really fantastic!



Many thanks to Mati for editing this video of our first ride:

The next day, Monday, we decide to start easy and ride to the Canyonlands overlooks shown here on this map below, from Mati. We took the bikes on the trick to WindWhistle campground, to save us from riding the plated street bikes on pavement.



We started with Anticline overlook, which has amazing views of the Colorado river and Canyonlands national park. Riding to the overlook was very easy and the views breathtaking. Here below is a panoramic looking northwest from Anticline overlook, Below us is Hurrah Pass road and in the distance Canyonlands N.P







From Anticline we continued on to Canyonlands overlook and another, unnamed overlook on the east side of the same ridge. That road was much rougher but was well worth the effort.







See if you can find me on this photo... I am tiny!



Riding back south we passed by Rockland Ranch, which is a very special community, where they build their houses inside Hatch rock.







Last stop was at Looking Glass Rock.

Great pix! Thanks for posting up. This is some view (yeah, even with Matti in there).

We rode Lockhart Basin down below those overlooks and through Hurrah Pass. It was awesome. I am working on my pics and will eventually get started on a report.