If you look carefully at the upper third of this picture, just to the left of the green bush, you can see what a BMW 1200 GS Adventure looks like after a rider tries to get this motorcycle airborne. This happened on a sandy stretch of the Santa Clara Truck Trail during the VCARS Exploring the Angeles dual-sport ride.
Blake, the pilot of this pig, was hot-dogging a berm when his front wheel hit a rock. With the bike going squirrelly Blake hit the throttle and righted the bike, only to find himself heading straight for the edge of the road. Faced with a nasty high-side get-off over a very steep cliff, Blake decided the better course would be to commit Steve McQueen-style and put some wings on this pig. A tough call but probably the right one, seeing that both the bike and Blake had a soft landing in a patch of thick manzanita.
With a dozen burly riders and a tow-strap from a friendly Jeep driver we were able to wrestle the 500 lb. dual-sport bike up the cliff without much trouble. A seemingly impossible task on the face of it.
The only damage, aside from Blake’s pride, was a turn signal indicator, hand protector and headlight. Maybe about $600 bucks in BMW dollars. Blake himself was a little sore, but otherwise unfazed.Â
Aside from experiments in aviation this ride was a great course in Adventure Riding 101. Rough pavement, tight twisties with surprises around every corner (you should have seen the look on those mountain biker’s faces), dirt, mud, sand, a few small hillclimbs, lightning, rain, wet asphalt, freeway riding in a downpour with a sudden stop and a multi-lane accident. Pretty much everything you might encounter on an adventure ride packed into 9 hours with a bunch of other riders onhand for support.
It doesn’t get much better than this.
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