Tail bag for the WR250R

Not having a tail bag has been a pain in the rear (so to speak) on numerous occasions. Various bag options I've checked out online all seemed to be lacking something, were out of stock, or cost too much. It then occurred to me that bicycle tail bags might be a good alternative. Indeed they are--and they're much cheaper! MEC and Bushtukah in Ottawa have some good options at about half or a third the price of comparable bags aimed at motorcyclists. However, being designed for a bicycle, they tend to be narrower than motorbike tail bags. I figured this was a reasonable tradeoff for the lower price and lighter weight. Besides, the rear subframe on the WR can't exactly handle a lot of weight anyway, and a narrower bag is less likely to snag on underbrush or tear off if (when) I hit the rhubarb.

So I picked up a Vaude Silkroad (large) from Bushtukah for $60. There were insulated lunch-style bags for $30 but I preferred the features of the Vaude: rain cover, side pockets that didn't fold down below the rack (they'd get in the way on a motorbike), internal zippered pockets, and simple Velcro strap attachment. Not sure about the water bottle holder. I'll try it out but may end up cutting it off if it proves to be more of a nuisance. The stitching will be easy to remove with a seam ripper, without affecting the integrity of the rest of the bag.


The challenge was how to mount this bag to my homemade rack. Unfortunately, the slots I'd originally cut in the rack didn't align with the strap attachments points on this narrow bag, so I needed to devise a new attachment method. I considered sewing new straps, but this was more work than I wanted to undertake and besides, I wanted to work with metal!

Some leftover stainless steel sheet from the face of our old dishwasher (I knew this would come in handy one day!) provided the basis for some simple clips that I bolted to new holes drilled in the rack. The sheet was just thin enough that I could shear it by hand, but sturdy enough that it is unlikely to snap. The slots were cut by first drilling a hole, then filing it long with a rattail file. This only took a few minutes for each clip and gave a pretty straight and smooth slot. A quick cleanup with files and emery cloth removed all burrs.

Then I bent up the end of each clip to make it easier to pass the strap through. A single 5mm bolt with Nyloc nut holds each clip in place. The bolts are located outboard for two reasons: first, it's easier to reach the hardware without removing the rack; second, so any vibration of the bag will tend to pull on the clip and reduce the risk of metal fatigue. The strap itself is more likely to wear through long before the clips break. I may slide a small length of split tubing over the friction point of each clip under the strap, to reduce wear.

One problem with my approach will be how to mount the bag on top of a RotoPax fuel cell that I'm planning to add. The clips are fairly flush to the rack (although the bolt heads stick up a bit), so I can probably leave them in place under the cell. However, I'll need to come up with another way to attach the rack on top. I have a few ideas for that. I may also sew some additional Velcro onto the bag sides to hold the flapping end of the straps. As it is, there's about 1.5" of Velcro sticking at each location. That's plenty strong against shearing forces.

Lots of room inside for a full-size SLR camera, 1.5L bottle, and other items.

The rain cover is nice and bright. It's big enough that it encloses the rack itself, and is therefore much more secure than if it went over only the bag.

Santa Cruz Tallboy Carbon: Mind = blown

Today I got to ride the best bike I've ever ridden: Santa Cruz Tallboy 2 Carbon. Amazingly, it's mine. Just picked it up from the awesome and patient guys at Rebec & Kroes this afternoon, and after a few minor adjustments, went for a ride on the Almonte Riverside Trail.

Not surprisingly, there are many glowing reviews of this bike: it's one helluva dialed machine. So I'm not going to repeat all that. This is just my initial impression.

First, I hadn't even tried this bike when I plopped down the deposit. Yes, I made a large purchase purely on the reputation of the goods and a hunch. Last fall I tried a friend's Specialized Epic 29er for about 3 minutes. That was an epiphany for me (like the fatbike) and I just knew that my next bike would be a 29er. But which one? The Spec was indeed nice, and it was on my shortlist of three. All the reviews were glowing. I also considered a new Giant Trance. However, it was time to try something just a little more out there, and Santa Cruz had the goods for me. In particular, I like the rugged simplicity of the bearing pivot design. Grease nipples! Yes! But aluminum or carbon? What finally sold me was the video comparison of the aluminum vs. carbon frame being destructively tested at the factory. Until I saw that I though carbon was a dumb idea for a trail bike. I was wrong. Yes, it's slick marketing (I know all about that), but it worked. This is one solid carbon frame. If there's one fly in the ointment though, one of the guys at the shop said to watch for cable rub on the frame in muddy conditions - it can sand through the carbon surprisingly fast. Gotta stay on top of those anti-rub pads.

Sticker shock is unavoidable with any Santa Cruz. Rebec and Kroes thought they could save me a few bucks by getting  a clearout Tallboy 2013 frame. Unfortunately, those were no longer available--so I ended up with a 2014 (which is the "Tallboy 2") for the same price. Strictly speaking, I should be all geeky and remember the design refinements of the 2014 vs. the 2013, but who really cares? It's all about the ride. Nevertheless, I had to sell my time trial bike, Zipp race wheels, CompuTrainer, and Trance--and still throw in some cash!--to come up with enough scratch to fund the Tallboy. No regrets whatsover. (Most guys my age have relegated themselves to watching golf on TV, or polishing their Buick for fun. Aw yeah.)

And what a ride. If you've never tried a 29er, you owe it to yourself to do so. The first sensation is you notice wheels in your peripheral vision and it looks like you're going slow. But your actual speed is FASTER because of how easily you roll over the trail. All those little stutter bumps, sticks, grass clumps, etc. that would normally slow you down just sweep under your wheel. You speed through lines like you're in some kind of Zen state--it just rolls.

A common fear of 29ers is that they are less manoverable. Not so with the Tallboy. It's just different. I found it to be almost as quick to turn as my Trance, and way quicker than a friend's Specialized Enduro 26 which I rode on the same trail last night. (To be fair, the Enduro is more of an all-mountain, DH-oriented ride with slack geometry and a beefy build.) The Tallboy geometry is perfect for my kind of fast XC riding with the occasional technical bits. I'd say the feel is more attributable to the whole system, and not just an artifact of the 29" hoops alone.

The travel is also perfect. The stiffness of the carbon combined with the Fox suspension adds up to one buttery ride, with the 29" wheels feeling like they add another 20-40mm of travel to the suspension. Hardly any chain noise at all, even hammering on rocky descents and rock gardens at speed. That's pretty amazing.

The real test will come in August, when I hit Kingdom Trails in Vermont. I'll report back after that.

Bike spec

• Tallboy 2 Carbon, regular travel (the LT was felt to be unnecessary by the guys at Rebec & Kroes) - basically as shown in the pic (and in white--looks awesome!)
• Full XT build, 2x10 with Thomson seat post and a few other goodies.
• UST tubeless hoops. Stock tires were bogus; recommendation is to stick with proper UST-designated rubber because it seats better on the rims. Have to say, the ride feel is amazing and the lost weight from no tubes makes the wheels feel almost the same as 26ers.
• All else stock as indicated on the Santa Cruz build package. 

Wilbur Mine update

I've been asked to give a presentation on my Wilbur mine research at the Almonte Lecture Series in early 2014. Nothing like a deadline to motivate work!

I'm actually really excited about this, because I've started back on my research and have reconnected with the families who own the property on which the mine sites are located. In an incredible set of coincidences, I rode out on the Canada Day long weekend to see who would be there, and met two people I know in Ottawa--a client of mine, and someone I've worked with online on advising a friend's business venture. I had no idea that either person was connected to the mine site! this is fantastic news because it means much easier access to information, the site, and artifacts to assist with my research.

Also, I've just learned through a friend that a professor of archeology he knows has offered to help me map the site.

On a related note, I've shared some of my material with Sali Tagliamonte, the U of T professor who's researching dialects of Lanark County. Her work is fascinating and you can hear an interview with her on CBC radio if you search their archives.

So lots of work yet to do, but important work because it will consolidate various bits and pieces of our local history for everyone to learn from and enjoy.

WR250R - Custom rear rack

The lack of a rear rack on my WR has proven to be an annoying limitation on longer rides and when running errands. Bungie-cording a 5L gas can to the fender section is not only inconvenient, it's unergonomic and has scratched the hell out of the plastic. (Yeah, wah-wah -- I know!)

So I played around with several iterations of a paper template drawn in Illustrator until I had something reasonably close to what I thought would work: a smallish rack to fit a RotoPax 1 Gal tank, although a lightly larger RotoPax should fit as well with some minor overhang. The design incorporates slots on the perimeter to facilitate attaching bungie cords or straps securely.

Finding the correct location for the mounting bolts was a bit of a challenge. Most designs I saw online used four bolts in a rectangular pattern. These are the obvious (and easiest) mounting points given the subframe design, but I didn't like how close together this put the bolts. I figured it would allow the rack to deflect more than desirable given the subframe is already pretty wiggly. So I opted to mount the bolts on the seat side closer to the sides of the subframe where it would improve stiffness. Unfortunately, the the cross bar in this location isn't flat, which means the bottoms of the mounting standoffs I'd have to make would need to be curved to match the crossbar profile.

Edit (Mar 21, 2017): As I discovered later, the fender itself has the location of four holes used for most aftermarket racks moulded into the plastic on the underside. I used the two locations at the rear, but for the front two I opted to drill a wider stance for the bolts to get more lateral stability. Happy to say that after 5 years of use, this rack has held up extremely well. Plans incorporating a minor mod to widen the side slots are posted in a link in the comments.

A local fabrication shop was able to waterjet cut my Illustrator file for the rack into 6mm T6061 aluminum plate without problem. The resulting part had lots of sharp edges and jaggies to clean up, but I'm not too concerned with appearance at this stage and will likely bead-blast and spray paint the assembly anyway.

Making the standoffs on my lathe was pretty easy. I had some 1" aluminum rod lying around, so I just cleaned it up, bored a centre hole about 8mm dia, and parted them to length. I wasn't sure how high each standoff needed to be. 35mm for the rear and 25mm for the front seemed about right, but this required slightly longer M6 bolts than I could obtain easily and I ended up trimming off about 5mm from the 35mm standoffs. This produced a thick aluminum washer which I ended up using on the front standoffs to obtain a little more clearance. Next time I take the rack apart, I'll measure the final dimensions. It was hard to judge correct spacing with the subframe getting in the way.

Locating the holes in the fender so the standoffs could pass through was straightforward. With the fender mounted, I drilled a small hole from below through one of the forward mounting holes in the subframe. Then I aligned the rack on this point and used its mounting holes to locate drill points on the fender.  As long as things were close, I could fine-tune where I needed to centre the standoffs on the fender and trace the larger hole that needed to be cut.

Cutting the fenders with a Dremel zip saw worked well, although you have to be careful the bit doesn't bite in and make a ridiculous gouge where you don't want it. Some fiddling with a half-round file and a knife gave me an almost perfect fit for the four standoffs.

The rear wiring harness interferes with the standoffs and has to be moved. It's pretty tight, so next time I'd probably use 1/2" aluminum rod to give more space for the wiring and to eliminate some of the extra filing I needed to do to each standoff to ensure they sat flat at each mounting point. However, the fender holes are drill now so I'm not going to change this version.

After a few tweaks it all assembled pretty easily with stainless M6 hardware. No drilling into the bike was required, other than through the fender. Not sure how much a new fender costs, but it's worth it to have a rack that seems pretty sturdy.

Edit (Mar 21, 2017): I got this powder coated with a hard black polyester that has proven highly durable through 5 years of abuse and with a RotoPax fuel can mounted on top.

WR250R - First impressions

It's about time that I commented on how this new toy is working out for me now that I have about 800km of mixed riding on it. Should be more, but hey--between work and uncooperative weather over the past few months, I've barely had enough free time to figure out if the insulated liner should be in my jacket or not on any given day.

Coming off my 2000 KLR, the WR is a big change in some ways yet surprisingly not a change in others. The much lower weight is the first obvious difference. This is a bike that you can not only stand up easily if you tip it over, you can actually lift it off the ground.  In fact, getting it home from the dealer was just a matter of removing the mirrors and three of us lying it on its side in the back of our Toyota van. (In case you're wondering, I would've ridden it home but it needed some fit adjustments to make that safe.) Not only does it lose 72 lbs over the KLR (370 vs. 298 lbs), it loses them in the right place: up high.

All that weight loss leads to the second big difference: a little 250 is surprisingly good at getting you up to speed. Sure, it's not quite as fast as the KLR and the lack of low-end grunt means you need to rev higher and Texas two-step the gears to get going, but overall I don't feel that I'm really missing out on a lot of go. Not enough to justify an extra 400cc, anyway.

Third: It's surprisingly comfortable at 120 km/hr. The engine is smooth, the wind is on my chest rather than buffeting my helmet, and wind noise is somewhat reduced over the KLR. In fact, I've found the bike to be more stable when passing semis coming in the opposite lane of 2-lane highways. Maybe it's because there's so much less bike in the wind yet just enough stabilizing mass that it strikes some magic stability compromise. This was totally unexpected.

On the road it's a delightful toy to fling around corners and traffic. In my limited off-roading so far, it's proven to be remarkably capable through the ruts and puddles. Even a few laps in a sandy motocross pit was a blast. Basically, it's like my mountain bike with an engine. Such fun.


Mods
To really test the bike's capabilities, I need to upgrade the stock Deathwing tires to something more credibly dualsport-like. The D606 seems pretty popular on the rear and I'm also looking into a DOT-rated trials tire combo which will likely require a sprocket change. Reports on this strategy have been positive across a wide range of riding conditions. The bonus is that the less aggressive trials tread pattern has minimal impact on the trail without sacrificing performance. I just need to find a Canadian supplier of these tires.

Two immediate mods were the addition of a Flatland Racing skid plate and rad protector. For some reason the bike was missing the OE skid plate. No matter; it's pretty much junk anyway and doesn't protect the lower sides of the engine. Installing the Flatland was fairly straightforward once I figured out  exactly where to stick the weatherstripping between the parts that contact the frame, to reduce noise. Made a big difference. The rad guard is also highly recommended given the fragility (although not as bad as on the KLR) of the existing plastic. Both can be ordered from the helpful staff at MX1 in Vancouver. Next up will be proper bark busters.

Lack of carrying space is a minor issue, especially since the smaller tank only gives me about a 200 km range. This is still pretty impressive fuel economy out of a 7.2 L tank. One option is to go with a larger IMS tank. That's a lot of dough, so for now I've bungied a 5L fuel can on the back fender when needed. However, I recently drew up plans for a 9.5" x 13.25" aluminum rack which a local shop will water jet cut for me. It'll mount with four bolts into the subframe and be drilled to accept a RotoPax mount. Coincidentally, the RotoPax 1gal can is exactly the right size! I just have to make a few tweaks to my drawing and then I'll send the file to be cut from 6mm 6061 aluminum. Nothing fancy...once I see how it works, I'll probably tweak the design and extend it to allow for side racks bolted to the pillion foot peg mounts. Then I can mount soft bags.

So overall I'm very impressed with the WR and can't wait to try some longer rides on my upcoming vacation. If I was to ask for any improvements, it would be for a slightly larger stock tank and maybe another 100 cc of engine. Someone needs to offer a 300-400cc dualsport that can handle baggage no problem, and the WR would be the perfect platform for it.

Here's another ride review which agrees well with my experience.  

And if you're Jonesing for a real mountain adventure, check out this video of Black Bear Pass in Colorado, near where I was mountain biking with a buddy several years ago. This is epic riding country--motorized or not--and well worth a trip if you're looking for an interesting and accessible destination in North America.

New ride!

Last week I sold my KLR, and as luck would have it, the perfect bike came up for sale at a great price. Behold my new WR250R (not exactly as shown--mine's a 2009 and I never looked so stylish). This will be a wonderful wee beast for exploring the more technical trails out in Lanark County.

Initial ride impressions at the dealer were "wow". It's a major change from the fix-it-with-a-rock-and-screwdriver, tank-like feel of the KLR. EFI, about 60 bs lighter, supple suspension, and a much tighter cockpit make the bike feel more like a mountain bike with engine. I'm going to have to learn to ride all over again.

Lots of plans for this bike. First will be a larger tank to enable the typical back-country trek distances around here. I will fabricate a skid plate and some other doodads as well. ADVRider has an epic thread on mods to the bike, so no shortage of ideas. I'm also keen to try adapting some LED headlights to provide more flood. The lights I use for night riding on my mtn bike make it almost as good as riding in daytime.

Insurance proved a lot cheaper too. It comes in around $500 for all-in, which is about half the price of the KLR for comparable coverage.

My bro and I pick up the bike on Wednesday--can't wait to really ride it!

"The Build"

http://vimeo.com/61220773

Fantastic short film about guys committed to building bikes. Watch it. Maybe I'll keep my KLR after all!