After our awesome Swinging Bridges ride back in July, we decided we needed to get out again. Where too? South to Arkansas, Freddy and Morgan were ready to ride the Boston Mountains area again, and for some of us it would be our first.  After a conference call with all the participants, we decided I’d reach out to my fellow ADV buddy “DRZCharlie” for a recommended route, after all it was his backyard!  So that’s what I did.. I talked to Charlie and described what we were looking for and the amount of time we’d have to ride… he sure did come through on this one!

Let’s see.. there ended up being nine of us on the trip… Freddy, Morgan, Travis, Paxton, Yousef, Ken, Jonathan, Russ, and myself. What a great group of guys to ride with, we had all different kinda bikes and riding experience, but we all shared the same love for adventure. That always makes for a fabulous trip. I know each one of these guys would give me the shirt off their back if I needed it.. and that’s the kinda buddies I want to spend time with.

The Trip Begins

We would all meet up at Kimberling City Inn in Kimberling City, MO on Thursday night. Some trailered down and a few rode down from Columbia, Springfield and I think Travis even rode from West Plains… I would load up the Tacoma and drive down listening to the World Series on the radio.

The guys landed a condo so we all got to find out who snored and who didn’t. I ended up sharing a quite small pull-out bed with Freddy, luckily only once did I find my hand where it shouldn’t have been.. haha! The next morning we headed to the restaurant for some breakfast.. boy this took a lot longer than we wanted, then we’d head to Blue Eye.. right.. wrong! The first bike repair occurred before we could leave the parking lot.. ha!

This first video shows our meetup, repair work, flat tire and oh..yeah!!.. the beginning of some good riding!

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Riding with a large group takes a little time to fore everyone to sync up and get into that smooth groove. After a few miles our group started to gel… especially when we came to these next roads in the following video. Man it was a good riding, very fun and even the guys on the big bikes were smiling from ear to ear! The only one complaining was Freddy’s KLR.. seems the fan fuse blew out which isn’t the best when you are riding slow technical stuff..

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Camping @ Sam’s Throne

It’s been a great day of riding and beginning to get late in the day. We didn’t get as far along on the route as we had hoped but that’s ok, we’re just along for the ride.  We reached Mt. Judea for gas and supplies when Ken had mentioned a beautiful primitive camping spot out on Sam’s Throne. So we headed towards it and a beauty of a ride it was. I did a little research on Sam’s Throne and found it to be quite interesting. It’s most popular these days among rock climbers but here’s where it got its name:

Sometime in the 1820′s buffalo hunter Sam Davis, in search of his sister who he claimed had been kidnapped by Indians, climbed on top on a sandstone outcrop and preached fiery sermons to the hardscrabble settlers who lived below. Besides spewing damnation, Davis claimed to have a hoard of gold stashed on the summit of his rock, and built a log blockade across the formation’s walk up to keep out would-be thieves. He also said he’d live for 1,000 years. His rock pulpit became known as Sam’s Throne. It is also said that he used a cane to ambulate and that the cane was hollow and filled with gold dust. Before Sam died, he allegedly climbed up to the Throne and buried the cane, where its treasure resides to this day.

The peak in this photo below is what’s named Sam’s Throne, this rock sits right in the middle of this beautiful valley…

This video you’ll get to see some of the fun switchbacks we rode heading to camp, then this amazing view along with our awesome campsite. I slept so good, you could hear the wind russel the tree tops as it moved from one side to the other.. so peaceful lying in a tent listening to it move.

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Glorious Day Two

As we descended from Sam’s Throne, we all noticed the temperature was dropping.. I didn’t think it would have been warmer up there but it sure was!  Once again before we got too far, we had to stop in Jasper at the Junction Stop to fix that DRZ again and flat number two for the trip!! Pax & Ken seem to always jump in to help out so they are our designated pit crew…the first flat on Pax’s 950SE was repaired and ready to go in under 20 mins, it was amazing!

Back on the route, today would be the best day of riding, as our journey took us towards Oark, which means we would ride some of the TransAm Trail. After a brief chat with DRZCharlie the night before, he mentioned that a few roads near White Mountain had been closed and stay away because they were keeping a close eye out for intruders. No worries for us.. there’s good riding all over the place down here.

As we neared the road closures, we continued around Turner’s Bend.. and came across several Harleys on the side of the road. A lady was waving her arms, there had to be trouble around the corner and sure enough there was. Seems one of the big Harley bikes was run off the road by a white Jeep, the rider had to put it in the ditch. His face hit the top of the windshield and put a gnarly long welt on his face. He only had one of those little skull cap helmets, so no face protection and boy did he need it! He was up walking around and said he was alright.. but he sure didn’t look alright!

Ok.. back to our adventure.. man the weather was fabulous and the riding even better.. see for yourself!!

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We had a blast running those roads, me and Freddy let Morgan lead out on the last section.. it was fun chasing him down.. I was holding back the WR so I didn’t make them feel so slow on their big bikes .. haha! She eats up the rough stuff, even that rock Freddy kicked up right in front of me at 9:40 on the video! They do out run me on the slab.. but hey.. I’m definitely OK with that.  No.. honestly, I was amazed at how fast Morgan can ride that GS.. he’s got it all tricked out, YZ front-end and he kept saying how great it handles with the Wolfman bags instead of his hard cases. They are both very good riders, and man I’m still smiling when I think of us tearing down that road.. as you saw at the end of the previous video.. everyone was giggling like a bunch of girls!!

Morgan on his GS

We stopped for a little break after running down that beautiful road and by this time we were getting hungry! If you don’t know yet, the place to eat down in this area is the Oark Cafe.. World famous burgers and pie… or maybe its just the best thing around after a long hard day of riding… I want to think its world famous! Don’t forget to write your name in the little book down there.. a lot of ADV’rs in that book.

But.. before we get to eat.. its another great road.. one of the favorites of the whole trip for sure!

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Now .. its time to enjoy a great meal at Oark Cafe before we ride the great Warloop Rd…

Enjoy the atmosphere of Oark Cafe.. it’s a hoot! Then journey down Warloop road, a different kinda hoot.. haha!

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After Warloop we headed down to Mountainburg for gas and camp supplies. Our plan was to camp up at Devil’s Den.. well, its an adventure right!? When we got to Devil’s Den the campground was 100% FULL!  We even asked locals for a remote campsite and couldn’t find anything. By this time it was pitch dark, which enabled us to see coming from the west a nice size storm.. the lightning reminded me of 4th of July.  Travis pulled up the radar on his phone and sure enough a large storm was heading our way. The camping there at Devil’s Den can be a bit muddy, I know I didn’t want to pack up in that muck. So we headed north and ended up in Fayetteville at hotel for the night.  We ordered some pizza, watched Albert Puljos knock 3 homeruns out of the park and shared a lot of stories.. it was a great day!

The next morning, Sunday, we needed to head out. A few guys had a looong ride back home and others needed to get back to the trucks in Kimberling City. We stopped for breakfast before we’d say our good-byes..

A last group photo before we would all head for the hills… thanks Travis for taking the photo.. ha!

I think I can speak for everyone here, we had a great time… we thoroughly enjoyed hanging out, camping and riding during this trip. So……. where we going next boys?!

The Route

Our trip took place Oct. 21-23, 2011. Just look at these elevation changes…

Download GPX file

ADVrider Ride Report

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Scott was also kind enough to post photos of his setup right here.

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Last Monday I had the chance to get out on the trail… my WR250R has a brand new pair of shoes too!  I just had to put on the trusty Dunlop D606s front and back. My last set gave me over 5,000 miles so they were worth every penny.

Since I only had a few hours to ride, I decided to head down one of the great creek roads close to my house.. Charrette Creek Road.  Yea.. I’ve put up a video from this road before, which you can watch here.  But this time I took a new trail that led me to a beautiful little swimming hole. I got off the bike and did some filming with my Canon Vixia HF100. This camera continues to amaze me with its HD quality..I think it’s the perfect video camera to bring along to capture off-bike action. Helmet cam footage is from my GoPro Hero HD mounted on the center of my visor. I wanted to see if I like this angle better than the side chin mounted angle.

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A great piece about a mechanic with great passion for motorcycles.

After riding this course and seeing visible signs of the police bikes scraping the pavement, I gained an even higher respect for their training & ability to ride such big bikes. Now, if it’d stop raining, I’d like to go practice on this course again.

Here’s a few videos of the police motorcycle training I’m referring to.. Yeah.. looks easy but believe me, it’s not!

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Items List

1 – Yamaha WR250R w/ ProMoto Billet rear rack
1 – Pelican iM2100 Storm case
1 – 1/4″x12″ rod from your local hardware store
1- Ratchet strap
1 – Cabinet Drawer Rubber pad (optional)

Case Mounted

The goal was to mount my Pelican case without drilling holes in the case. Here you can see what the final install looks like.

Installation

I strategically drilled the holes in the back of the Pelican case.  The way I did it was I drilled three holes, two straight through the right side of the case, then only one on the left side. The left hole I drilled about 1/8″ lower than the right so it would put tension on the rod and help keep it in place. I’m going to see how this holds up, if I need to I can always drill the other side and slide the rod completely thru the left.

One thing to consider when selecting a ratchet strap, make sure its not too long or else the rounded bottom of the ratchet will hit your bike’s rack or seat. The one I used is about 3.5″ long. Of course this will all depend on your rear rack setup and the case you are using. Using a dremel I ground off the pin holding the short strap and hook off the ratchet. Slide the rod through the two holes on right side of the case, then thru the ratchet and now thru the left side.

Next I looped the strap thru the handle of the case and weaved it thru my rear rack and then back into the ratchet on the other side.

For my rear rack it worked best to have the ratchet at the front, the bottom of the ratchet did not hit the rack this way.

Now ratchet that thing down snug, I was surprised how well it strapped down.  Here’s a video showing the finished product.

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Dismounting the Case

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As BigDog commented below, I did take his advice and add a small piece of cabinet drawer rubber padding underneath the case. It worked very well and it helps keep the case from moving or scuffing the rear rack.

Here’s a little video I worked on to learn more about slow motion with the my cameras. What better to do on a blizzard day than getting the gear out and do some testing! This is not meant to be a serious, emotional piece of work.. haha!

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Shot in 60fps on the T2i & GoPro HD and post edited with Final Cut Pro, Motion 3, Cinema Tools and always a little color correction. I still need to work on white balancing a bit more.

Canon T2i/550D . 50mm f1.8 . 1/1000 1280x720p 60fps
GoPro HD . 1280x720p 60fps

Music by Karen Marie Garret “Vinot and the Sea Bird”