ESCAPADES OF THE GCRAD1 YAMAHA TW200 PART #003

YAMAHA TW200’s TO BIG BEAR – Aug 7th, 2017

For my first dirt trip on the TW200, my buddies and I planned a little ride from Riverside, CA to Big Bear and back making use of the surface streets for the tarmac transits.

It’s roughly 22-miles from our starting point, the Pedals Bike Shop (Riverside) to the Valero Service Station at 1811 Mentone Blvd, Mentone, CA.

The odometer just before the trip, but I added 10-12-miles running back and forth to the Gustin Motorsports shop prior to the trip. I will get better about starting/stop odometer trip readings on future trips!

My buddy came and picked my bike up as I still do not have my hitch installed on my rig for towing.

I wake up extra early on Sunday morning and do my last minute prep like adding Hammer Nutrition HEED mix to water with a lot of ice for the Camelbak! I’m old and believe in proper nutrition for endurance!

Load up into the ADV80 and head to my buddies house! Sun is creeping up fast on the horizon making for an epic view of the mountains we will be running around later today!

We meet up at my buddies place, Pedals Bike Shop in Riverside. Yes, bicycles! But we like motorcycles too! And 4X4’s, bike-packing, camping and R/C toys and… and… and… hehehe

We meet up with our buddy Ricky at the Valero in Menton as we will be making our way up to Big Bear from the HWY38 side. Ricky is also our tour guide today on his dualsport’ed KX140. We are leaning on him hard to jump on the TDUB tip with us! hehehe

My TW200 is about to hit the dirt and I’m excited to say the least!

From HWY38 we hang a left at 1N12 – Warm Spring Truck Road / Thomas Hunting Ground Trail

The boys kicking up dust as they go up the Thomas Hunting Ground Trail.

The yucca bush claims its first victim! Eric gets bitten in the leg. Not to self, hard shin guards are a good thing!

The Adventure Medical .5 Kit has tweezers… but are not strong enough for the Yucca thorn! See, that first aid kit action is important when you least expect it! Open this and save for later – later!

Enter the use of stronger “tweezers!” The Leatherman has needle nose pliers!

Note to self: hard shin guards are a good thing but are not 100% coverage proof. Add better tweezers to Med Kit!

extraction is quick and too fast for the camera to capture!

Here is the culprit aka the Yucca plants pointed tip extracted from Eric’s leg. He said is as though he lost all feeling in his leg and was obviously in much pain!

He’s back on his feet and we take a moment before mounting up and heading on towards Big Bear. The conversation quickly turns to how fun the little TW200’s are! They are not the same as our big bikes, yet they are not the same as trying to ride the mini-bikes like my XR100. Most importantly, these have LICENSE PLATES!!! We proceed onto the Santa Ana River Trail and come out at the Post Office on HWY38.

We are back on dirt again after a brief touch of tarmac from the Post Office in Angelus Oaks, CA onto Mill Creek Road.

Ricky on his purpose-built dualsport KX140.

Eric feeling better but taking it easy as he has no idea what is in store for him today!

Jason of Pedals Bike Shop getting his TDUB ON!

The crew traveling down Mill Creek Road. This road is also or turns into 1N09 and splits to the left for Seven Oaks Road for vehicular traffic. The dirt road turns to tarmac briefly and we cross over the Santa Ana River bridge that has plenty of water still flowing. We hang a left at Clarks Grade Trail and head up the Western slope of Big Bear to Skyline Drive.

We stop on Skyline Drive just about Snow Summit. The weather up here was absolutely SPECTACULAR! With a little bit of cloud cover is was actually cool in the shade! The Skyline MTB & Hiking trail is located right next to the road and we notice how a lot of hikers are checking out the TW’s and asking questions. Had these been our big bikes, these people would have avoided us all together… At least we think that… But we are intrigued with how everyone wanted to talk about the TW’s!