Oklahoma Gold Rush

There's gold in them thar hills!

Well, at least lots of red Oklahoma clay. This weekend is the highly popular Oklahoma Gold Rush motorcycle race at Hallett Raceway in Hallett, OK. Based on the old Elsinore Grand Prix events held years ago in California through the streets Lake Elsinore, and highlighted on the cult movie "On Any Sunday", the Oklahoma Gold Rush is a unique event that includes a natural motorcross course, woods riding, and 1.6 miles of asphalt road racing. Both motorcycles and ATV's compete in the two days of racing. There are team races, a night event, and the main race on Sunday.

Ride Oklahoma magazine will be there to cover the event for a future publication. This should be fun, exciting, and different. It would be a great dual sport ride to go watch. Hallett is about 70 miles from OKC and 50 miles from Tulsa. Hope to see you there!

It Takes all Kinds of Bikes

I love light weight motorcycles. They are easier to handle and much less tiring. But sometimes light weight is relative. Most people don't think of BMW motorcycles as being "light weight" but when you slap 110 horsepower on a dirt bike, it doesn't have to be all that light weight to really haul - especially in the hands of an expert rider.

I sat on one of these puppies at BMW of OKC when it first came out and thought "wow" this would be the BMW dual sport I would want. Too bad I couldn't pop the $20K for it, but in this video you can see what this bike can do in the hands of an expert rider.

Ride activities October 28-29

Even with the fall weather setting in, there are several activities going on that are of interest to dual sport riders.

First, David Fogle is planning on an adventure ride SE of OKC. This is GPS course that has been marked and posted and is mostly pavement with some odd, out-of-the-way locations.

If dirt is more your style, contact Greg and head down to Tishomingo for their Observed Trials weekend. He can hook you up with some other riders and get you on a bike so you can play around with this really cool form of dirt riding. I guarantee you that after a couple of hours in the Rock Creek Riding Area with these guys, you will be hooked!

Clayton Ride Report

Brian Hopkins has graced us with another hilarious ride report from the 5th annual OK Dual Sport Clayton Rally. He tells stories of derring do, octupuses on the trail, Honda XR's that "piddle", and other hilarious anctedotes from the weekend of fun. Be sure and take time to read his detailed story, he has put a lot of work in it to make us all laugh our butts off.

RSS to keep up with news feeds

Too many cool motorcycle web sites to track? Tired of browsing all over the Internet to get your news? How would you like just one place to go and get all the updates for all your favorite sites - especially www.okdualsport.com?

That is where RSS readers come in. What, pray tell, is RSS? It stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it is a web technology that allows you to set up one RSS reader and it will go out and get all the updates for all your RSS-enable web sites, news feeds and web forums. There are a number of good RSS readers available, and nearly all are free. Here are links to a few:

http://www.rssreader.com/ - the one I use

http://www.feedreader.com/

http://www.google.com/reader/view/ One from google

Being that OK Dual Sport is web savvy, both our front news page and the forums are RSS-enabled. Download your reader, click on the RSS icon at our site, and paste that link into your reader. Then with one click you will get the latest headline news from all your sites, and you can drill down to get more detail. Enjoy!

New BMW F650 coming to USA?

The BMW F650 motorcycle is a very popular dual sport mount. Although heavy, they are reliable and good looking. While all eyes are on the new BMW 800cc model, not much has been mentioned about the new 650 BMW's. OK Dual Sport has uncovered pictures of the latest BMW F650GS that is being unveiled for the Australian market. For more pictures, click here.

To discuss these new models, go here.

Clayton 2006 is History

Morning mist rises of Clayton Lake

By now the dust has settled, the wounds are healing, the hunters are back in the woods, and the campground is eerily quiet. The 5th annual OK Dual Sport Clayton rally is now nothing more than a memory - a memory of dust-filled riding, campfire camraderie, and tire-shredding rocks.

What a turnout this year. More than 60 people feasted on the Saturday night BBQ, quite an increase from 40 last year. Bikes of all types were in attendance, although the venerable KLR and DRZ was most prevelant.


2006 saw a large increase in female riders

This year we saw a tripling in the number of female riders - I believe we had 9 over the entire weekend. That was quite exciting and something I really hope improves. Sunday morning I lead a "women oriented" ride that was much slower paced, without the pressure to go fast and furious. The gals had time to sightsee and talk, and even started practicing wheelies so they could show off to the guys. I plan to make this an annual tradition so we can encourage more women to ride with our group.


Friday morning saw temperatures in the mid-30's, but warmed up the remainder of the weekend

Friday morning was a bit chilly, with temperatures in the mid-30's but it warmed up quickly and the rest of the weekend offered perfect weather. On Friday we had 20 riders and over 50 riders on Saturday. Next year I plan to change things around and offer "self guided" rides so that riders can break into smaller groups and use GPS coordinates to explore the area on their own. This will help cut down on the dust and reduce the problems when dealing with large groups of riders.

Unfortunately I broke my wrist in a fall Saturday morning, but since I had promised to lead a "he man" ride on Saturday afternoon, I gritted my teeth and led the way - or at least pointed them down the correct trail while I bit my lip and followed in severe pain. The challenging riding was fun, even if it brought tears to my eyes a few times!


The video/pizza/bookstore in Clayton is a great Friday night destination

The best part of our Clayton ride is always the people I get to meet, both new and old friends. We all get to bench race around the fire or at the pizza/video rental/bookstore in downtown Clayton.


Bench racing around the campfire was a favorite pastime

For more pictures of our ride, click here, and for various ride reports, click here. Hope you are able to make it in 2007!

Are we ready for some FUN!

Hope everyone is ready for some fun this week. I am working to change some tires on Sunday and then should be good to go. One of my favorite things at Clayton is setting around the campfire at night talking about how fast we all used to be. Levi the fire eating do will be joining us once again this year. Bring a lawn chair and jacket to ward of the cold.

Flat tires are an unfortunate reality when off-road riding. Be sure and bring tubes and a tire changing kit, every year we usually have 2-3 flat tires, sometimes at the same time. I guarantee all your buddies will stand around and watch you change your tire and give you advice. Be sure and bring plenty of water since we are typically out all day and it can get pretty dry.

We have a great time and meet all types of people out on the trail. Last year we ran across several local ranchers out for a hog hunt with their dogs. Be sure and slow down and be cautious and considerate when riding past their horses and these people are always friendly.

For more details on this year's ride, go to the forum.

Clayton Planning

I hope everyone has their Clayton trip all planned, vacation scheduled, bike maintenance done, and your GPS programmed. We are just a few days away to this years big fun. Hope we get rain this weekend, that would sure help settle the dust.

Kay and I were in Branson MO this past weekend and the trees there are just now starting to turn a golden yellow and deep red. I would say the trees there are 20% turned to fall colors. As we drove south into Oklahoma it was more like 10% - mainly the sumac trees were starting to turn red and a few trees were showing yellow signs. I hope we are right in the midst of fall colors this year at Clayton - how awesome would that be?

Clayton in two weeks

I am lounging at a Starbucks in Branson MO, waiting on Kay to do her shopping, wishing I had ridden my dual sport bike here, and thinking about our upcoming Clayton ride. This is my favorite riding event of the entire season. A good time to see old friends, meet new ones, and ride one of my favorite areas of the country on a dual sport bike. Southeast Oklahoma offers a wide variety of riding terrain, from rough, rock-strewn single track trails to boulder-littered water crossings, scenic jeep trails through old-growth hardwood forests, and fast dust-filled fireroads along spiny ridgetops. For the street rider there are plenty of twisty paved roads to scrub the chicken strips from your tires.

When I first started riding the Clayton area I chose my BMW F650 GS Dakar. Why? Because it was the only bike I had at the time. After a couple of years I added a Suzuki DRZ-400S as my ride of choice. This is an excellent compromise between true off-road prowess and street legal city exploring. I sure wish other manufacters would "see the light" and convert some of their off-road mounts to street legal bikes.

If you are planning to attend this year's Clayton ride, be sure and update the database on Yahoo with your information so we can get a head count for Saturday night BBQ. I look forward to seeing everyone there again this year.