I finally took the Behemoth off pavement this last weekend. I did R.L Lemke's adventure bike route he put together for his Ozarks Dualsport Fall Color Tour rides he was doing based out of Clarksville, Arkansas a few years ago, I think he officially stopped doing them in 2005. I have done the ride quite a few times either on a DRZ400 or a Husqvarna TE250 and have never done the adventure route. It was basically the same route bypassing the most gnarly stuff. The Sunday loop was basically the same route down and back from Clarksville and was originally intended to be a ½ day, so I ended up just doing it onc,e starting at the southern Magazine Mountain part and heading north to do the Saturday loop so I could get it all done in one day. The infamous “2.7-mile hill” was included in the Sunday loop though I only ended up going down it instead of doing it both directions. The atv trail section that started it off is now closed, unfortunately. I did try to go up the FS94453E trail section that always ended the non-adventure FCT route before hitting pavement to head back to Clarksville at the end of the Saturday loop, but it was just too ugly to get more that a ¼ mile up it once you started hitting the deeply rutted and steep switch backs with the ST.
Here is a video of going up the hill from 2008 on the TE250 labeled “2.7 mile hill”. As usual, the wide angle helmet cam and the photo's don't really show how steep a lot of this stuff actually is. The TE250 would actually get so hot the power noticeably dropped off by the time I got to the top.
http://www.jennyandterrythompson.com/fct2008.htm
The part I did on the Tenere starts about 1:40 in. This ride only really included the south part of RL's Sunday loop, we did other stuff for the Saturday ride that year.
Here is a link to an 2007 report with some video of the north loop.
http://www.jennyandterrythompson.com/fct2007.htm
The route I did with the Tenere was about 210 miles and probably 2/3 of it off pavement with the stock Bridgestone tires. First off, It is a behemoth and certainly isn't what I call a 'real” dirtbike. After a little gravel, I aired both the front and rear down to 20 PSI which helped its feeling a lot. Fortunately is was dry and the traction from the tires wasn't bad. I have done this ride in the wet before and parts of it were hard with a full on 250 lb dirt bike with full knobbies on it. In those circumstances it would be damn near impossible with the Tenere with stock tires. Overall it did a decent job off road for gravel roads and moderate forest service roads and atv trails. It's more like the family 4x4 SUV than an off road weapon. Treat it with respect and know not what to try and ride slow and conservatively and it will get you lots of cool places. Ride it like a real dirt bike and it will put the hospital in short order. There is just too much mass to be able to control and save when you get bent out of shape with body English and foot dabs like you can when riding a real dirt bike hard. Once it gets a way from you, you just can't recover it and are just along for the ride and when it lands on you it's gong to break something.
With the mass of the bike, even something like a minor tipover in the rocks or hitting a root, stump, tree, or rock while going down the trail and getting a body part between the bike and an object has a lot more potential for injury than regular dirt bike. That said, the suspension, ABS brakes, and traction control did their jobs to help keep the beast under control and remained pretty unobtrusive. At no time did I feel the need for an ABS off switch, unlike on a BMW F650GS Dakar that I took a a trip to Labrador this past summer with. Occasionally when accelerating up hill over stutter bumps in loos gravel the traction control would kick in and just kill all the power for a second or so. Switching to TC2 mostly took care of this.
Here are some photos with the Tenere
The route
Some views and warning at the top of the 2.7 mile hill
Typical trails and scenery photo's
The end of the line on FS 4453E, again the picture doesn't do justice to how steep it is.
Here is a video of going up the hill from 2008 on the TE250 labeled “2.7 mile hill”. As usual, the wide angle helmet cam and the photo's don't really show how steep a lot of this stuff actually is. The TE250 would actually get so hot the power noticeably dropped off by the time I got to the top.
http://www.jennyandterrythompson.com/fct2008.htm
The part I did on the Tenere starts about 1:40 in. This ride only really included the south part of RL's Sunday loop, we did other stuff for the Saturday ride that year.
Here is a link to an 2007 report with some video of the north loop.
http://www.jennyandterrythompson.com/fct2007.htm
The route I did with the Tenere was about 210 miles and probably 2/3 of it off pavement with the stock Bridgestone tires. First off, It is a behemoth and certainly isn't what I call a 'real” dirtbike. After a little gravel, I aired both the front and rear down to 20 PSI which helped its feeling a lot. Fortunately is was dry and the traction from the tires wasn't bad. I have done this ride in the wet before and parts of it were hard with a full on 250 lb dirt bike with full knobbies on it. In those circumstances it would be damn near impossible with the Tenere with stock tires. Overall it did a decent job off road for gravel roads and moderate forest service roads and atv trails. It's more like the family 4x4 SUV than an off road weapon. Treat it with respect and know not what to try and ride slow and conservatively and it will get you lots of cool places. Ride it like a real dirt bike and it will put the hospital in short order. There is just too much mass to be able to control and save when you get bent out of shape with body English and foot dabs like you can when riding a real dirt bike hard. Once it gets a way from you, you just can't recover it and are just along for the ride and when it lands on you it's gong to break something.
With the mass of the bike, even something like a minor tipover in the rocks or hitting a root, stump, tree, or rock while going down the trail and getting a body part between the bike and an object has a lot more potential for injury than regular dirt bike. That said, the suspension, ABS brakes, and traction control did their jobs to help keep the beast under control and remained pretty unobtrusive. At no time did I feel the need for an ABS off switch, unlike on a BMW F650GS Dakar that I took a a trip to Labrador this past summer with. Occasionally when accelerating up hill over stutter bumps in loos gravel the traction control would kick in and just kill all the power for a second or so. Switching to TC2 mostly took care of this.
Here are some photos with the Tenere
The route
Some views and warning at the top of the 2.7 mile hill
Typical trails and scenery photo's
The end of the line on FS 4453E, again the picture doesn't do justice to how steep it is.
R
