klr on tow hitch ramp

[John Biccum]

My long-anticipated Blue Ridge trip was off to inauspicious start. After leaving Durham, NC mid-afternoon on my son's '07 KLR, I stopped just 60 miles down the road in Greensboro, NC at SRS Motorsports, the local Kawasaki dealer. SRS had confirmed in advance that they had the clutch lever I needed and pledged to have it ready on the counter for me. I hopped off the KLR and went inside and, just as promised, I could see the lever on the counter. But *something* was not right.the entire showroom was spinning before my eyes and I realized that I was staggering like a skid row drunk. I felt fine during the quick freeway jaunt into the dealer, felt fine when I got off the bike, felt fine walking into the showroom, but all of a sudden I felt anything but fine. One of the employees, a gentle giant, took me by the shoulders and carefully, tenderly, guided me to a chair. The owner was summoned and he anxiously asked me if he should call the paramedics. I pondered his question with all my might. *should* he call the paramedics? In my state his question seemed as unfathomable as if he had asked me to explain the meaning of life. The owner pulled some cash out of his pocket and sent an employee sprinting to the mini-mart next door for a pint bottle of Gatorade. I tossed that bottle back in seconds, and the owner motioned wordlessly for a second bottle to be fetched. I felt for an instant like a blackjack player, but rather than *my* hand calling for another card it was the owner's hand calling on my behalf. Hit him again. The mini-mart sold another pint bottle of Gatorade and I downed it nearly as fast. I drank another two Gatorade pint bottles worth of water and by then I felt I had rejoined the human race. The good folks at SRS had just treated me for dehydration and heatstroke. After an hour just to be sure, I was on my way after individually thanking each person that assisted me and making the owner whole for the money for the Gatorade. Good folks there at SRS, they deserve your business. I wished I had the luggage space to buy more than a clutch lever. I decided that I would partially close down the vents on the Darien, thereby creating a micro-climate close to my body that slowed evaporation. I stopped for a leisurely and very late lunch and belatedly realized that I had not eaten anything all day, no doubt contributing to my earlier distress. I used the long lunch to re-plot my route. I wanted to gain some elevation quickly to escape the heat and humidity. The fastest route to gain some elevation seemed to be west out of Greensboro on I-40, picking up US-421 in Winston-Salem. I-40 was much like the slab anywhere, but US-421 turned out to be a decent road, mostly divided four lane, with occasional cross-traffic. At Wilkesboro I headed north-northwest on NC-18. 18 initially looked like a rather typical farm-to-market road, winding past churches and cemeteries but as I started to gain a bit of elevation the road began to look a bit more interesting, gently curving through rolling hills. As I approached the Blue Ridge Parkway- the BRP as it is known to the locals- the road became downright interesting until I chased down a kid-stuffed minivan laboring under the combination of the grade and the passenger load. I intersected the BRP about 30 miles south of the VA-NC border and turned south. The pint-sized pack in the minivan had their noses pressed to the window glass as I rode by, and most of them returned my wave. The BRP runs along the spine of the Appalachian Mountains, with elevations in the 2500 to 5000 range. The speed limit for most of the route in just 45 mph but that seemed reasonable due to the short sightlines. I found little reason to exceed the speed limit. Traffic was light; I seldom was within sight of another vehicle. Surprisingly motorcycles made up nearly half of the sparse traffic. I rode through intermittent light rain, something I had abundant practice doing as a year-around motorcycle commuter in Seattle. Twenty five miles north of Ashville, NC I chased down a large pick up camper carried by a four door diesel pickup. I was surprised that the truck-camper was traveling less than 20 mph since the grade was insignificant and the sight lines had opened up. The truck-camper abruptly veered off at an overlook I was surprised to see that he had been tailgating two metric cruiser motorcycles. As it developed I had plenty of opportunity to carefully examine the two nearly-matching his-n-hers baggers since for the next hour I crept behind them at a jogger's pace. The two riders never exceeded ten degrees of lean, braked through every foot of every curve and for some inexplicable reason remained close enough to each other for the riders to have been able to have held each other's hands. The entire three bike parade left the BRP as we entered Ashville, NC. The BRP is not a route to take when you are trying to keep a schedule. There are almost no passing zones and all it would take to bring it to a standstill would be a single breakdown or accident. Or for that matter two metric cruiser riders terrified by an intermittent drizzle of rain. Thankfully I was not trying to keep a schedule. Rather, I was determined to avoid any semblance of planning, scheduling, calendaring or anything else that reminded me of work! I burned some hotel loyalty club points for a night at the newly opened Hotel Indigo and was given a spectacular top floor corner room with a 180 degree view. Over the evening that view alternated between a picture-postcard view of the City of Ashville out spread below and a close-up view of a cloud bank. I had every intention of walking into the entertainment district for dinner but after finishing a pint of an excellent local porter at the hotel lounge I decided that my late, late lunch in Greensboro was in fact an early dinner and I nodded off after catching up with my far-flung family via email. After a quickly prepared, artfully presented and reasonably priced breakfast at the Indigo in the morning I continued south on the BRP. The place names in this part of the country have an honest connection to the land and hearken to an earlier and wilder time in our national history: Elk Pasture Gap, Bear Trail Gap and Wagon Road Gap. Place names in my corner of suburbia seem to be named after the features bulldozed into oblivion by the developer during the construction of the development: Beaver Dam, Spruce Meadows and Whispering Brook. But I suppose that the developers might have difficulty moving units with honest names like Asphalt Flat, Freeway Interchange View or Pig Farm Overlook. Rolling south from Ashville the BPR was intersected by a seemingly endless number of small and beguiling roads that wound their way down into the valleys below. Most of these roads posed compelling detours, but if I rode every one that looked interesting I'd never return to the work a day world.a tempting thought! As I was riding through an area called Beech Gap I found myself contemplating one particularly curvy and attractive road I realized that I was at 225 miles on the tank. I assumed that the stock engine on my son's KLR was returning better gas mileage than my 685 with the big valves and I assumed that putting along at 45 mph on the BRP was likely to result in excellent fuel economy. But then there were those 5K RPM charges up the hills.in the end NC-215 proved just too pretty to pass. If I needed to justify the stop as a fuel stop so be it. 215 dove south southeast switching back rapidly as it descended into the scenic valley below. As I pulled into the Pisgah Valley Market for gas there were three older folks chatting in the parking lot. After filling the bike, checking tire inflation, cleaning my face shield, cleaning my sunglasses and calculating the gas mileage (58.97 mpg!) the same three folks were still chatting. Time moves slower in these parts. I saw several "campgrounds" filled with larger 5th-wheels and more than a few large motor coaches. None of these looked like they had moved in the last decade; many featured wooden porches and carport-like coverings that suggested these units were being used as summer homes, weekend retreats or even retirement homes. I charged back up NC-215 to the BRP and had so much fun that I had to turn around and ride it again. Schedules are for workers and the work week. The BRP intersected US-441 just north of Cherokee, NC and I turned north on 441, entering Smokey Mountain National Park. I was surprised that there was no entrance portal to the park, no Park Ranger collecting entrance fees. At the visitor center a pleasant and outgoing Park Ranger explained that this park could not collect entrance fees since the land was donated to the Park Service under the condition that entrance would remain free for all in perpetuity. I stayed on US-441 northbound to Little River Road and turned west on the road which closely followed - wait for it- the Little River. For perhaps the hundredth time I regretted not talking my son up on his offer of the loan of his fly rod and gear. I left the park at the north entrance and went into Townsend, TN for a late, late lunch. Catfish was the specialty and it came with the guest's choice of two side dished. I deferred to the waitress' recommendation for the sides and ended up staring at a giant platter of fried catfish, with a soup bowl full of fried okra and dinner plate full of pan-fried cornbread. Begging the indulgence of my cardiologist, I dug in and made a decent dent into each of the three dishes. The portions were sufficient to feed the front line of an average football team so I left much more than I ate. Next door to the restaurant was a dual sport bike rental outfit with a fleet that consisted mostly of pre-2008 KLRs with a couple of DR650s for variety. I stopped in hoping for a recommendation on some local dual sport routes but the husband of the husband-wife team was out leading a ride. The wife seemed much more interested in seeing me going on my way than she was in providing ride suggestions, a pity for I suspect that the TN woods held some interesting dual sport riding. I ended up reentering the park, backtracking until I reached the one-way Cade's Cove Road. In my part of the country a cove is a small inlet off of a larger body of water. But in this land-locked country a "cove" referred to what I would call a grove, or perhaps a meadow. Cade's Cove Road passed a half-dozen rough-hewn churches, nearly all were in need of some restoration. At one church I ran into a Park employee, a maintenance person who recommended that I take Parson's Branch Road out of the park. Parson Branch Road followed and occasionally forded a branch of a creek called-unsurprisingly-Parson's Branch Creek. The only thing wrong with this road is that it was too much too short and was one-way so I couldn't retrace my route and ride it again. It meandered through an old hardwood forest, always within earshot of the creek. The fords over the creek were concrete but the balance of the road was just native hard packed rocky dirt. I suspect that it might be a minor challenge in early spring but in autumn it was an easy ride on a stock KLR even with street-biased tires. I rated the road a "No-Yes" on my Wife's Camry Scale. The initial "No" indicates that I wouldn't attempt the route in my wife's Camry with her hyperventilating in the passenger seat next to me. The later "Yes" indicates that I would feel confident driving the road in her Camry without her present. All good things must come to an end and Parson's Brach Road ended abruptly at a stretch of US-129 known as The Tail of the Dragon. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Shane]

http://www.discountramps.com/ultimate-mx-hauler.htm This is by far the best rig I have seen. I first saw it in Peru where it was home brew, loading a KTM. The scary part of it is in that the bike will be wider than the Jeep by a bit, you would have to keep that in mind! Very easy to use, and very secure once set in. I have a home brew version for my Scorpa. My version is simply a plate as the Scorpa is very light.

--- In DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com, "achesley43@..." wrote: > > > I've been having a rear rack set up for my truck and KLR for about 8 years now. Plus hauling a DRZ and DR650 on it. You really need some help back there to handle the weight. Even with a near empty gas tank, the front of my truck is very light and twitchy. I did have air shocks which brought the rear back to about an inch from normal height. Now I have air bags which do a much better job that the shocks did. When get ready to unload, you can let some air out and it lowers everything about 4 or so inches on my truck. Makes it mo betta to load and unload the KLR. > The weight of the bike is actually about 18" behind the bumper. I also run a tie strap from the handle bars to the rear bumper to help stopping the bike from rocking back and forth. I also added a rear tie down bar to help with the swaying also. But love the set up for certain trips where I'm gonna base on one place or gonna sleep in my truck at night and ride the bike all around in the day. > > Andy in Jennings. > --- In DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com, "sourdoughmedic" wrote: > > > > Good Day to all and GO LIONS! > > > > Does anyone have any experience loading a KLR onto a 2" receiver hitch bike ramp? I've seen some cons about tie down points but I'm looking for anything you may have to add. I'm only going to be on the highways and i'm trying not to buy a trailer, oh yeah it will be loaded on a jeep. > > > > Standing by, thanks. > > > > Larry > > >