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Dragoo Adventure Rider Training (D.A.R.T.) class Feb 18, 2019 - Sterling Ranch Motorcycle & ATV Park, Willis, Tx.

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brg said:
I'm unable to view your photo on my phone, but it was this one:

View attachment 228170


I didn't have the spoke problem. I think it was maybe "Joe"...but not sure. @Jarrett, do you recall his name?
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This is Joe. It was me with the spoke issues, and the broken windshield, and the broken control assembly, and the small light broken off. Of course everything but the spokes was my fault. Trailered the bike home and she is safely in the shop. Spent a lot of the two days on my rear. Would do it all over again. So much fun!
 
Howdy Joe! Welcome to the site! :wave:

Breaking parts on the bike is just part of the game... If you ride them in the dirt, they are going to get dinged, scraped, etc,... The key is that you did not get hurt! The bike will get fixed. Taking a good class like this greatly increases your chances of avoiding issues later that might hurt the bike AND you!
 
Jarrett said:
I had a TKC80 on the front and Mitas E07+ Dakar on the back.

The back end slipped around on me a few times, but only in places where everyone else's bike was too like wet mud and loose sand.

I do wonder how different it would have been with a TKC80 on the back.
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I've seen on AdvRider that others have this front/rear tire setup, but I've never read or heard about the rationale for it. I'm guessing that the TKC80 front gives good bite and traction in the sloppy stuff and the E07 rear provides decent traction and long rear tire longevity. What's your reasoning?

I've been researching 50/50 tires for a while and it's clear everybody has an opinion and often opposing opinions on the same tire. Bill Dragoo recommended the Shinkos which, by the way, seems to be accepted as the "best value" tire by many. Rawhyde recommends Mitas, although they buy in bulk and I suspect, receive discounts. Scouts, Wilds, Trekriders all have their fans. I've been a fan of Metzler street tires and was thinking of trying their Saharas.

Thankfully I don't need to rush, and I'll continue my search for the Holy Grail of best performing on-pavement and off-pavement tire. :headbang:
 
Off topic but anyone have any idea why photos quit showing on my Mac? The videos are still there, but no still shots.
 
They sent out an email with pics from the class this morning.

I wasn't in the right place at the right time too frequently and only ended up in a handful of them. There are some really good ones of other folks though. 228174228175228176228177
 
toolfooldan said:
I've seen on AdvRider that others have this front/rear tire setup, but I've never read or heard about the rationale for it. I'm guessing that the TKC80 front gives good bite and traction in the sloppy stuff and the E07 rear provides decent traction and long rear tire longevity. What's your reasoning?

I've been researching 50/50 tires for a while and it's clear everybody has an opinion and often opposing opinions on the same tire. Bill Dragoo recommended the Shinkos which, by the way, seems to be accepted as the "best value" tire by many. Rawhyde recommends Mitas, although they buy in bulk and I suspect, receive discounts. Scouts, Wilds, Trekriders all have their fans. I've been a fan of Metzler street tires and was thinking of trying their Saharas.

Thankfully I don't need to rush, and I'll continue my search for the Holy Grail of best performing on-pavement and off-pavement tire. :headbang:
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Yes, I only put a Mitas on the back because I wanted more life out of the rear tire. I was trying to match it where the front and rear wear down about the same rate.

If my goal was max traction, I would have put another TKC80 or Shinko 805 on the rear. Probably the TKC80.

I started with a TKC80 on the rear and it was great, but wore down fast. Then Shinko 805 on rear, it was good, but wore even faster. Also flatted on me.

Bill Dragoo said Shinko's are his goto, but he expects to get 1500-4500 max out of a rear. I swapped mine at under 3000 miles.

Personally, I haven't noticed a huge difference between the Shinko 804 and TKC80 on the front tire either. The TKC80 may be a little softer feeling.

Here is a thread where I learned a bunch about the different tires last year:

www.twtex.com

ADV Gravel Riders - What Tires?

After doing a fair amount of gravel and dirt riding in the last week or so, I'm starting to wonder if I should get some new tires for the bike. It came stock with these: As far as I know, they seem fine on the street. I've had them up to 115 mph and all good. But when I go off pavement...
www.twtex.com www.twtex.com
 
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I like this pic of Gerhard and Adrian teaming up :)

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Im not too sure of y'alls condition of no pics but I know when there is lots of photo content in a thread , it takes a moment for the pics to populate and it will be delayed even further if you keep scrolling around. Not sure of your issue but just wanted to say. Non apple user.
 
I'm sure that is part of it, but doesn't seem to want to load at all. But I'm on less than perfect setup for internet. But was working pretty good first time.
 
Moto Joe said:
This is Joe. It was me with the spoke issues, and the broken windshield, and the broken control assembly, and the small light broken off. Of course everything but the spokes was my fault. Trailered the bike home and she is safely in the shop. Spent a lot of the two days on my rear. Would do it all over again. So much fun!
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Hi Joe! Glad to see you on TWT.
 
Moto Joe said:
This is Joe. It was me with the spoke issues, and the broken windshield, and the broken control assembly, and the small light broken off. Of course everything but the spokes was my fault. Trailered the bike home and she is safely in the shop. Spent a lot of the two days on my rear. Would do it all over again. So much fun!
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Welcome to the site!
 
Looking back over the pic comments.
Tourmeister said:
All those guys wussed out and went the easy way back to the main area
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I had no idea that people skipped the single track. I thought we all went through it.
Tourmeister said:
Jarrett did the single track and got up this pretty steep hill climb great!
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All thanks to the DCT :)
Tourmeister said:
A Wee Strom 650 towing a mighty KTM!
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I think that's Gerhard's 1000.
Tourmeister said:
I totally forgot her name :doh: She is from Norman, Ok. and her boyfriend works at the BMW place in the Woodlands (He's also from Norman).
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If I remember correctly, her name is Ariel and she is Jake Dragoo's girlfriend. Jake being Bill's son. And I believe Jake is the new sales manager at the recently restructured Woodlands Premium Motorcycles dealership. Between the dealership, local BMW club and training facility, they really put together a cool event. They had a cool meet and greet Saturday night at the dealership before the class started where they fed us, gave a presentation and played a movie about riding the BDR. Seemed like a first class operation. Made me want to be a customer of that dealership. But I'm already a customer of enough of them :rofl:
Tourmeister said:
Cory?
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I think it was Cody. I really dug his BMW 650 bike.
Tourmeister said:
I think it was 38 riders and 6 instructors.
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I think it started with 30+ riders and 4-8 or so dropped out the after the first day.

There were many not there at the Day 2 roll call. I think 20 something made it to the end.
 
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Were there any mid sized bikes, (klr, xr, drl, etc...) other than the young lady or was this geared towards liter bikes?
 
I didn't take class but was there. Some had gone home but. saw one 650 BMW and at least 2 800GS.
 
Regarding images loading, I had recently installed an add-on that is supposed to prevent loading ALL images in a thread at once and only load the ones you are trying to currently view. It doesn't work for all browsers. It would appear that it is causing problems with being able to view the images at all, so I have disabled it.
 
South Tex said:
Were there any mid sized bikes, (klr, xr, drl, etc...) other than the young lady or was this geared towards liter bikes?
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Given that the BMW dealership was sponsoring the event, I saw what I expected, lots of the big GSs, a few of the smaller 800/650 GSs, a smattering of KTMs, and only a few small bikes. The Sherpa was the smallest for sure. There weren't really any KLR, DR, etc,... type bikes. Had this not been sponsored by the BMW dealership, that would likely have been different.
 
Hey, guys. Thanks for all the kudos. We do our best to provide a great value for your time and money. Both are precious to us and the fact you chose DART for your training this time means a ton. As you all witnessed, the team is amazing. I could not be more proud of them and I could not do this at this level without them. But most importantly, you were all patient as we acclimatized to a new venue, one which we had only seen a small part of beforehand. Brad has a super place and he is a gracious host. Fewer folks are allowing us to enjoy their land these days...so many suffer from suits when someone gets hurt and some patrons leave trash, tear up forbidden areas and such. You were all amazing ambassadors for our sport. Well done.
Some of you mentioned numbers. We actually went in with 30 registrants on the roster. Two were sick the first day and one had a work issue that prevented his attendance. We will work with him on another class. He won't lose his tuition, even though it's an out of state venue because we still had a large class. One more dropped off after Day1 because of soreness and one cracked a master cylinder during a low speed fall. We offered them both opportunities to make up the missed days. With six instructors and two scouts, our student/instructor ratio was still quite good, but we normally try to keep overall class size smaller. We'll continue to work on that as best we can. Even though feedback suggests you all had good access to instruction, I prefer to have more time with each of you. Again, thanks to all of you for joining us. I hope we will see you again soon.
 
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