HadesOmega Dirt Bike ADV 2021

[HadesOmega]

Well I didn't go on a dirt bike adventure last year because I wound up riding the Idaho and Trans America Trail on my DR650. So I started this year off with a desert dirt bike riding adventure. It's been a minute since I've ridden dirt bikes in the desert.

So here's the plan

The plan was to ride the WESTERN most section of the Mojave Road on my dirt bikes and errr my moped dual sport. I was going to ride the section that I hadn't of ridden on my DR650 when I rode it before doing the NVBDR a number of years ago. I was going to ride it in different section at a time and trailer the bike to the next section then ride it.

The next plan was to ride some dunes, Dumont Dunes is not far from Mojave just 30 miles from Baker. Spoilers this didn't happen...

Then next place to ride was Lovell Canyon. I'd ridden Lovell Canyon to Red Rock Canyon a during LAB2V 2018 and had done it on the DR650. I wanted to do it on a dirt bike this time more specifically my Sur Ron Light Bee because it would be oh so much easier. You'll also get to see me try and ride the light bee through some deep loose sand, not very impressive....

Then I wanted to ride to Colliseum mine near the Ivanapah solar plant.... spoilers that didn't happen either....

So here is my VLOG series of this HadesOmega Dirt Bike ADV 2021, desert edition!

After a long drive from San Jose to Afton Canyon I made it there a couple hours before nightfall. It actually took me two days to get to Afton Canyon. I camped near the town of Mojave off the freeway the night before. The road in to Afton Canyon Campground is about 3.5 miles of graded dirt road. Easy on an offroad vehicle crappy in my Toyota Previa with trailer. This video you'll get to see what the road in is like. This is actually the very last or very first section of the Mojave Road BTW.


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This is a bonus video of me riding across the railroad. I'm pretty sure your NOT suppose to do but I am sure some people do, plus getting run over by a train would suck, NOT RECOMMENDED. I really didn't want to do that watercrossing but you'll find out the next day that it's not really that bad the state it was in.

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[HadesOmega]

So it's Day 2 of the Mojave Road dirt bike adventure. Yesterday we rode from Afton Canyon Campground to the freeway. That was the last (or first) leg of the official Mojave Road. Easy stuff a nice graded dirt road you can easily drive a 2wd street vehicle (sorta).

So there are 2 watercrossings on the Mojave Road here. The first one is right outside Afton Canyon campground. We found out that original Mojave road is closed no because its a preservation area also. So you know Merlin he hates getting his feet wet and I would hate to drown my electric bike in the water. This is probably the LONGEST watercrossing I've ever done and I'd imagine after a rain this watercrossing is worse and impassable but we've been having a drought so it's actually not that bad and we'll see that in this video when I go test the waters! Remember if its balls deep it's too deep!


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[HadesOmega]

In this video we ride through the first 2 watercrossing in the Sur Ron Light Bee and find some epic canyon viewpoints. We also find the first slow canyon!


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[wilit]

Awesome! Love your adventure vids man!

 

[HadesOmega]

Awesome! Love your adventure vids man!

Oh yeah this one was a fun one. Especially finding out the limitations of an electric motorcycle in the desert Spoilers the electric motorcycle makes a horrible desert bike only because it doesn't have the range....

 

[HadesOmega]

We made it to the first slot canyon and on we go to explore more slot canyons along the way. These next two took quite a bit more work to ride in to and the 3rd one was like a never ending maze going so deep I need to turn my headlight on! Get your popcorn because it's enduro rockhopping time!


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[HadesOmega]

All things must come to an end and here we reach the end of the Afton Canyon. It was a great ride I highly suggest if you just want to do a short section of the Mojave Road Afton Canyon is the adventurous one. Unfortunately as I was nearly back to camp, we ran out of power...


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[wheel_muse]

Love your trip into the last slot. Your Sur Ron motor/bike was perfect for getting in the narrows. :ride

How did you charge the bike? Where did you stay? :thumbup

 

[HadesOmega]

Love your trip into the last slot. Your Sur Ron motor/bike was perfect for getting in the narrows. :ride

How did you charge the bike? Where did you stay? :thumbup

I camped at Afton Canyon campground. It's literally right on the Mojave Road sort of. $6 a night, really nice BLM campground with table, bbq grill, shade, pit toilets, and table.

I charged the bike with a 2000watt portable generator. This little guy in this picture here:

 

[HadesOmega]

Ahh the walk of shame! Merlin got a little greedy or excited riding the Light Bee in the canyon and we have run out of electrons. To get the bike back to camp and prevent me from having to walk the bike through the watercrossing I need to perform an emergency pit maneuver...


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[HadesOmega]

Here is the After Action Review VLOG for what we road on the 1st and 2nd day.


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And here is a bonus clip of my riding chasing a train with the KLX to try and charge the battery. Seems to have done the trick.


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[HadesOmega]

Here we go Day 3 of the Mojave Road adventure! Today I drove out of Afton Canyon Campground to the next exit Basin Road and drove to the staging area in Rasor OHV. From here we ride down Basin Road all the way till we hit Mojave Road which is where we rode up to yesterday in the Light Bee. Today we take out the trusty KLX170 since we are in an OHV area, we'll save the ride into the preserve for the Light Bee since it has a moped plate. In this video we find link back up to Mojave Road, we find an active mine, a Nissan Sentra, and a whole lotta sand!


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[HadesOmega]

In this video we continue on the Mojave Road in the KLX170 and it gets a whole lot sandier. The more we ride the more sand we encounter until we are practically riding through sand dunes! We find out they use these square posts and rocks for navaids on the Mojave Road. Follow the posts and your on track. Then we ride through a golden grass section and up a rocky hill and down into a sand whoop section. We make it to the other side of Rasor OHV and reach the boundary where the Rasor OHV ends and Mojave National Preserve begins and here we'll have to stop because OHVs are not allowed in the preserve.


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[HadesOmega]

So we've made it to the border of Rasor OHV and Mojave National Preserve. That was the goal for today because we can't ride dirt bikes into the preserve. Time to turn around and head back to camp. I run in to 2 Mojave Road travelers along the way and haul the mail back to the staging area so we can put the bikes back on the trailer and move on to the next staging area Rasor Road.


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[HadesOmega]

Mojave Road Day 3 After Action Review. What was the plan, what really happened, what could we have improved?


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[ThatOneGuy18]

This is awesome. Love the story!

 

[HadesOmega]

I actually went out riding before I shot the AAR video, this is a bonus riding video for that day. So what I did was drive from Basin Road to the next exit down Rasor Road. There is a gas station there and then a graded (and sandy) dirt road going into Rasor OHV. I was really worried about getting stuck in the sand and driving my trailer there let's just say I have had bad experiences getting stuck in the sand on the RWD van, it's like your dragging an anchor with you with the trailer. What I had done is drove down the road and set up camp at the Rasor OHV sign that is about 4 miles down the dirt road from the freeway. An interesting note about this place is it is BLM land you can camp anywhere from the the gas station and into the OHV area. You can tell a lot of people just camp near the gas station overnight and hit the road the next day. There is a gas station with a store in it. You can ride OHVs straight to the gas station also, so the good thing if you wanted to haul ass down to the gas station to get gas for your bike or food/supplies you can do that. There is also a cell tower right next to the gas station so phone signal is excellent all the way up to the Rasor OHV sign. Camping here was cool also, it was so quiet right now and you can watch the vehicles travel down the I-15 at night. I don't recommend tent camping in the Mojave not one bit as the winds are crazy here.

Anyway this is a video of me riding down Rasor Road to where we rode earlier, I was only like 2.5 miles from the Mojave Road and 3.5 miles from the preserve boundary. This video will give you an idea what the road was like going in from Rasor Road also. There is a lot of sand but under the sand is a dirt road so I don't think you will dig in much. If you don't have 4WD or AWD you've been warned. I did see a Honda Civic and Toyota Sienna driving down the road and several toy hauler RVs the next day so it's not that bad, but you never know. Also there is some dune riding action in the mountains also!


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[HadesOmega]

It's the 4th day riding the Mojave Trail today we start at the Rasor OHV sign on Rasor Road and we head down Rasor Road with 2 battery packs and link back up to the Mojave Road we rode yesterday and ride down to the Mojave National Preserve Boundary.


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[HadesOmega]

In this video we begin our journey into the Mojave National Preserve. First up we ride through a dune sane section. We're just swimming in sand for a little bit. Then we finally hit the Soda Dry Lake and I'm tempted to unleash the Light Bee's power. Finally we arrive at the Traveller's Monument, a very cool place where travelers past and present have left their rock.


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[HadesOmega]

Hope you enjoyed the tour of the travellers monument now we travel across the remainder of Soda Dry Lake. The terrain changes from a salt flat to mud/dirt flats then to volcanic rock section.


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