Kenny Carlile

I went to Bend this last weekend to ride East Fort Rock with my dad. We've ridden there a lot over the past 12 years, but we always seemed to ride a lot of the same trails. This time, we found some new trails in some areas we hadn't ridden before. We rode 2 loops, one to the North and one to the South, 36 and 35 miles respectively. You can download the map above to see where we rode.

It had rained a few days before, so it wasn't as dusty as it could have been, but you can see from the pictures that there was still plenty of dust. You can probably guess who rode lead and who followed by looking at the pictures of my face and my dad's face.

Before we even started the bikes, I turned all of my suspension adjusters up 2 clicks, or half a turn, which seemed to help my suspension woes. I still think I'm going to replaces my springs, front and rear, this winter, or maybe just have it all sent off to Factory Connection for work.

The first loop, to the North, had some really beautiful scenery. It opened up and was flatter than the second half of the ride. We saw lots of cows and a few deer, which you can barely make out in some of the pictures. We ran into (not literally) a couple of quads on the trails, which were the only people we met on the trails all day. We were both shocked how empty East Fort Rock was for such a nice day after it had rained.

Whenever I ride with my dad, I'm reminded of how experience MORE than makes up for youth and a better bike. My bike is far more aggressive and race ready than his DR-Z400S, which is street legal and geared way too high for trails. However, I still have a hard time keeping up with him when he really wants to get on it. He's just so smooth, picks the perfect lines, and carries a lot more speed through the corners.

We swapped bikes a few times to try each others' ride. His DR-Z was way too soft for me and his handlebars were too low, but I've come to expect that from his bikes. The low-end power was really nice, but it flattened out on top, but that's okay because you can chug it in the bottom for hours. The gearing was so tall that I could pretty much stay in second gear the whole time.

After my dad rode my bike, he complained about the mid-range bog. We tried turning my fuel screw out from 2.5 to 3 turns. The bike really woke up after that. Later, I made one more quarter turn and the bike really seemed to come to life! The power was there, the thump and purr was there, and it felt and sounded like a whole new bike. He also pointed out that my brake pedal was really high. I knew it was, but his was crazy low. He had a good point though about it causing fatigue, so I'm going to try to lower it a bit.

We hit one section that was "Most Difficult", although it really should have been called "sandy whoops with some rocks and one REALLY gnarly downhill (or uphill, if you are coming the other way) section". After that, we headed back to the truck for lunch.

After some delicious sandwiches, we hit the trails again, this time heading out to the South around one of the buttes. For the first 40 minutes, we were riding as fast and as hard as we could without committing any Flying-W's. We both felt it, although my dad felt it more in his legs and I felt it more in my arms, which would become evident with a couple slow corner, front-end wash-outs later in the day. It felt great to be going fast and riding smart. I'm out of shape and out of practice, but I feel like I've got my riding brain back. I know what I should be doing, for the most part, even if my body doesn't comply sometimes.

We checked out the campsite that COMAC donated $10,000 to for improvements and ran into some people that were trying to find the Groundhog play area, which we helped direct them to. By the time our ride crossed the play area, they were there kicking up gravel. About 5 miles out of camp, I think we were both starting to get tired, so we slowed our pace a bit and had a nice ride back to camp.

It was a great day with a lot of fun trails. I love riding Central Oregon and I love riding with my dad because of how much I learn from him. I'd be a happy man to ever be as good a rider as he is, although I'm happy to compensate with expensive, fancy gear.