This is Tanner. He recently got a hold of a 2000 Honda XR650L. We thought it would be a good idea to head out to Trabuco Canyon for the morning and collect mileage on some mixed terrain. The Trabuco area has some wide graded loose gravel, rutted and rocky fire road type trails, large boulder river rock and a few spots with hard packed dirt elevations. Overall a convenient spot for low-level technical practice. Plus there's no sand, so that's a bonus.
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Tanner unaware of the forthcoming doom
Tanner returning from scouting the trail in the background
The day started out easy enough with a quick jaunt on the freeway to the rendezvous on Jamboree and Chapman. From there up Santiago Canyon to Trabuco Creek Road, ending at Holy Jim Trail. The road up to the Holy Jim trail head was mostly low tech with a few jumps, rocks and slides. I got the GS off the ground a couple of times and wheelied through a few ruts. A good exercise but mostly uneventful.
On the return however, that's when things went a little pear shaped. In the process of scouting a hill-climb and filming, Tanner went off to the river rock basin. I found him a bit later standing next to his XR which was practically belly up in a ditch. Turns out the front wheel caught some uneven boulders and pitched him off to the left into a shallow ravine. Busted mirror, turn signal and clutch lever.
Video still- Busted clutch lever which was mended first with electrical tape, then with duct tape for the journey home
Its never a good time when you smash up your ride, especially when you break the clutch lever. Although it was a good exercise righting an almost upside down bike, and figuring out how to rig the clutch lever enough to get us out of there and back on the road. Which Tanner initially taped up with some electrical tape he peeled off of the turn signal housings, and then later on with duct tape purchased from the country bumpkin liquor store back in town.
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