Cliff edges and more towing pratice with Justin & Johnny

KTMphil

Senior member
Joined
Jan 11, 2011
Location
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Bikes
2007 KTM 990 Adventure Suzuki DRZ 400
Cliff edges and more towing practice with Justin & Johnny

Riders:

Justin - KTM 525 exc

Johnny - Yamaha WR 450

Phil - Suzuki DRZ 400

Justin had got his front Nuetch Tubeliss innertube system to stay inflated (fitting-the-nuetech-tubeliss-tire-system-first-time-t454.html), so we decided to go give it a quick test.

" just a couple of hours of easy gravel trails to test it" said Justin. Sounded like a fun afternoon, as usual it went pear shaped.

We went over to the Hang Dong area again, as the terrain is quite stony and sandy, if it rained the trails would still be ride-able as the rain would soak through.

This is the route we took. You can see we took a couple of new trails that had not yet been mapped.

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All fresh arriving at the trails, looking forward to an easy afternoons trail riding
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Couple of quick trails and Johnny brought out his wet towels which had been frozen over night and then kept in a cool bag, very refreshing in the hot sun.

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Justin very appreciative
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...more to come

Johnny led us onto a new trail that hadn't been mapped, we looked at where the next mapped trail was and it looked like we could join the two up (there was a reason it wasn't mapped). this is near the start of the unmapped area, as you can see no trails and trees everywhere.
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As we got deeper and deeper into the unmapped area, we got to the top of a big hill/ small mountain, then the only way was down and it was steep, with no real trails.

We sent Justin off first as scout, if there was no way through, then maybe all 3 of us could help him back up.

This was the top of the mountain, as you can see there was no trail - we'll give it to Auke to add to his GPS map
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View from the above GPS position - no trails.
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Our scout goes off in search of a way out
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Too steep to ride --better to walk it down with the clutch
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It never shows up steep in the photo
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Justin disappears off below
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Johnny next, who has a rekluse clutch, so little engine braking, he managed skillfully to walk the bike down with the front brake
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Just before here on the way down I dropped the bike which ended up upside down
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Quick water brake on the way down the unmapped cliff
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Above the bike's mirrors is where we exited the mountain, I thew mine off the last ledge down, i think Johnny has a video of it.
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We take a quick rest and chuckle about what we've just done and then it starts to piss down
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Probably a good time to get out of here, getting swampy, but Justin's KTM won't start
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Johnny now an expert tower, was towing justin in no time
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We find a chicken farm along the trail and see if we can get justin's KTM in their pick up, only the lady his home and she says she can't drive.
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Chicken farm to the right, tow rope on johnny's substantial rack
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Ended up towing Justin back to Johnny's house in hang Dong and then Justin jumped on the back of the DRZ back to Chiang Mai.

Justin's KTM would fire, but had lots of blue smoke, as its just been rebuilt it will be interesting to see what the issue is.
 
Yes, another ride full of drama, fantastic fun though. Weird how the photos and video don't do the steepness of the hill justice.
I just love how Phil gets his bike down at the bottom of the hill.
At-least we had plenty of water (rain) and chickens to survive on if need be.

The video isn't the most entertaining, but here it is anyway...


 
Very funny seeing you guys on my way back from work today. Thanks for telling the story. Tomorrow I'll be in the same area with mastamax if anyone wants to join give me a call.
 
OK, here is the elevation profile of your trip and it was indeed a bit steep - about 90 meter down in elevation over a distance of about 250 meter.
Elevation Profile.JPG
 
Auke- Thanks for the elevation profile, the photo's don't do the cliff edge justice, I can see what we had to deal with now!
 
The above elevation profile looks mental because the scale is huge.
Here's a zoomed in version from Basecamp. Works out a steepness ratio of 2.4:1

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You could've gone back a little and turned off to avoid the hill. But then..

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That looks so much fun, we don't have a lot of hills like that in Perth.
 

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