Steve Clark
2/8/2017 9:49 AM
This Monday, Don Sisting and I, along with a friend of his, will be riding at Rowher Flat. I've just installed a Rekluse clutch and am itching to try it out. We expect to be at the main staging area (the first one) about 9:30. If you want to do some riding, by all means join us! We'll be sticking to the Easier and More Difficult trail - the Most Difficult are beyond my ability. BTW, bring lunch and we'll eat on the trail somewhere.
(Sorry if you see this note twice; I think I posted it in the wrong forum the first time.)
- Steve
Steve Clark
2/15/2017 10:06 AM
The ride was great - thanks for asking! Conditions were perfect - very little loose rubble and few puddles that were easily avoided, and little dust. Don, Ricardo and I rode. After a warm up on Spring Trail and Buffer Loop, we went up Rower Trail to the the top. I was the only one who made it up without stalling, but to be fair, I was last up the hardest parts so I had the advantage of seeing how various lines worked out, and Ricardo was having a lot of trouble of his bike stalling on its own when the revs dropped. The only big ruts we saw were on the Rower Trail, about 3/4 of the way up on the back side from Bouquet Canyon.
The Rekluse clutch is great - didn't even come close to stalling anywhere and overall much smoother. I've never made it all the way up Rowher Trail without stalling at least once in the past. I think the recalibrated suspension helped a lot, too. Thanks to Jim Martens with advice there. I've gotten used to blipping the throttle after downshifting to re-engage the clutch if the engine drops to idle on the downhills. That's an interesting feeling - the clutch disengages so you start to speed up on the downhill with no engine braking, and blipping the throttle makes you slow down again! Overall we rode 44 miles, all on the dirt. Ricardo's bike wasn't street legal so we couldn't ride on Bouquet Canyon Rd to get to other areas.
We're thinking of heading out to Jawbone Canyon in a few weeks (after I get a couple of things fixed on my camper van) for a couple of days before the sand dries out.
- Steve