Last week the Honda CRF250L and the KEM Enduro 690 embarked on an epic quest to make it the top of little white. This has been tried numerous times before and eded up in dead ends deactivated trails, and sketchy goat trails that could only be done by foot. Today was the day that we were going to make it to the top.  We spent a good hours scouring google earth trying to find any possible point that may connect with the old trail.  I plugged in my Garmin GPSmap 62s, plotted some potential points in base camp and loaded up the hit list of potential routs.   our ride started off fairly peacefully and we made our way up to the snowmobile cabin to begin exploring out new areas.

There first look at the decommissioned little white trail was a little discouraging as the excessive windfall made the trail impossible to ride. I checked the GPS and saw a point that looked to be on the other side of this madness and rode on to find it… this trail was still over grown but rideable (good thing we brought a saw!). After about 20 minutes of bushwhacking we ended up at another fallen tree ridden dead end.

The ned trail led up to one of the neighbouring mountings, the ride was a little rough with a few falls but had a very cool view, (and ironically showed exactly where we came from and where the blocked trail would have connected! I good perspective as we push forward to the next marker on the hitlist.

The next part of the route took us to on elf those fields below,  the treed in section in the on the edge of our clearcut is  our bushwacking trail ended due to to many fallen trees. We rode back down to the next clearcut where our trail would have came out and pushed forward through mud pits and old trail until we found the victorious trail head.. free of fallen trees!

As we rode the excitement grew as the infamous cliff face of little white started to appear in the horizon.  we pulled over to snap another shot of our future conquest

The last leg of the trail was very nasty and full of big holders and loose rocks… riding them for any period of time is very tiring. by the time we got to the first peak we were done for.. A little break was in order to regain some energy and ride the list little bit to complete the victory! If you haven’t already be sure to check out he video above and enjoy the photos!

Last week I meet up with John,  a fellow CRF250 owner. John and made plans to go for a ride around chute lake and find a little lake.  We ended up doing a few little hill climbs and some rocky technical climbs. Lately i have felt a little more adventurous and have a think for taking photos of the bike in funky spots.. it can be a little interesting to get out of them.. but it makes for a good shot! We stumbled across some down hill mountain bike trails.. i was tempted to ride the bike down them but I wasn’t to sure if it would handle the extra 320lbs of weight of the CRF250L!  .. maybe one day!  Enjoy the clips from my ride with BlastFromTheSaddle.

After slacking on riding the past two weeks I finally got out for a ride with Corey. We only had a few hours of light left and wanted to get in a new adventure… so i decided to take him to the hunting cabin i found a while back. Craig was after a little mud.. which was abundant and the rocky bit of the trail was actually a creak the last time i rode to the cabin..however it been a very hot summer lately and the stream has dried up, even the mini pond by the cabin had almost dried up. Regardless the CRF250L had the go pro running and was off to explore. We found a few little technical spots which was a nice warm up for yesterdays ride to little white (post to come!).

A little snack beak at the top

The best outhouse view in the okanagan

A beautiful sunset with the CRF250

Perfect view to finish off the ride!

Last week the CRF250 and the boys went on a day trip to myra-bellview in kelowna. The day started out fairly tame until we started venturing into some not so friendly ‘roads’. As perusal the little CRF had a few wipe outs (if you don’t wipe out.. you are not pushing yourself!).  The poor bike ended up doing a wheelie, sinking into mud and a few good wipe outs and finding giant canyons and tears in the earths  (read more below).. the only downfall of the was a split in my lower radiator hose.. The reservoir was still full but the system would no longer be pressureized. was a slow ride home with pulling over about 8 times to let the engine cool…sadly a week later its still on back order.. CRF Down! – at least it gives me time to edit videos.   With two GOPRO’s rolling and hours of video to edit i decided i would split it up into a few videos as attention spans seem to be short these days.

Tracks from the ride

My CRF250L wheelie and its aftermath… The poor license plate got wrapped around the light for the second time now.

The Myra-Belbiew Bolder-fields
We discovered a hidden Gem of the okanagan.. The Bolderfields.  These amazing fields are what is left of a collapsed giant cavern that was once filled with water way back when kelowna would have been submerged.. once the water line decided the rock cavern couldn’t take the weight and it collapsed to make this amazing field of giant holders.  This would be an excellent place to hike, explore or even rock climb!

Google earth view of the bolder-fields

After about a month of owning my brand new pristine 2014 Honda CRF250L I decided it was time to give it a true offload test and truly get it dirty!  Up until now most of my riding has been on the pavement or some nice dirr logging roads.  today’s “Get Dirty” event took the 250l through everything from creeks, rocky terrain, mud pits and ice.  To start off i have already given the bike a few mods to increase its off road capability.  My first mode was bark buster hand guards (after breaking multiple clutch leavers on my previous bike) followed by a rear rack, emperor skid plate and rad guard. So far my only real performance mod would be lowering the gearing by changing out the sprockets.
As of this post my current mod list:
- 13T front sprocket / 42T Rear sprocket
- Zeta Bark buster hand guards
- Emperor racing skid plate / rad guard
- Emperor racing rear rack
- Tusk 30mm Handle bar risers
- Full preload adjustment
-CRF150R Folding shifter

The stock tires are excellent on the pavement and pretty decent “for stock” off road. They do tend to clump up in mud fairly easy but over all they will get the job done. With the lower gearing the bike is very capable in steep/technical terrain. I had no problem climbing steep hills, rocky ledges or fallen trees. My previous bike was a Yamaha Trailway-  TW200 (aka the T-Dub) which was super low geared go anywhere kind of thumper.. so far i feel like the CRF250L is a worthy upgrade (that can handle highway speeds!) .. It does make me laugh that i find my self doing mods to make it a little more TW like.. aka lowering the gearing and wanting wider tires. Having more ground clearance is very nice, how ever it comes at a cost of being a little tipy in the technical terrain (with out our feet to save you).. I suspect this will be less of an issue once i get used to the bike and increase my skill. The poor CRF250L got laid down 3 times in the video.. and sadly one of the falls (i suspect the one at the end in the water on the log) is the one that cracked my muffler fairing cover.. gotta break her in eventually.  On the plus side i tacked one onto a parts order and it was only $28.. future replacement if it happens again! Overall i’m very happy with the bike and can’t wait for the next adventure.

The video below is of a ride on some trails by Postill lake in Kelowna BC.  Given that the snow is still present at higher elevations the run off has made the trails very wet and muddy.. but that’s half the fun and made for my first real bike mud bogging.. wow can that be a work out.. who needs the gym when you have a mud pit! It was surprisingly hard to cut down 4 hours of footage into a short video.. after many revisions and cuts i got it down to under 8 minutes.. so sit back crack open a refreshing beverage and enjoy some clips from our ride.

As the riding season quickly approaches i figured i would start things off with some pics from my last few rides last fall on the TW200.  The T-Dub is one of those little bikes you very quickly grow to love. ITs small, nimble, and seems to make it anywhere… I often refer to it as a little mountain goat. Now sit back and enjoy a bit of a mash-up of some of my old ride posts.

Today’s adventure started off like any other random day on the bike, I was up driving up runoffs aka rivers, through extremely rough technical terrain, giant puddles, snow and just about everything you could throw at her…

The first pic is actually a snowmobile cabin from last weeks ride but its a cool pic to start off the thread 



Inside of the snowmobile cabin.



This cabin is an amazing little rest stop and is complete with a pick nick table on the desk, solar powered stereo and a bbq! perfect spot for lunch.

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Today was more of a wild life trek, within the first hour i had seen a wild turkey, peacock, a bear and 2 pissed of badgers (they must have not liked getting their picture taken because they had a very mean hiss!) For the record.. they also have very long mean looking claws.









I heard rumors of another cabin way up top of one of the mountains.. I was determined to find it.

riding up streams, and through snow (it was way up!)





And finally made it (after driving through bolder filled streams)



They even have a couch!







I put on many miles today and should have taken more pics, but a few of the highlights to get things rolling 
And to finish off the day, one of the best washroom views i have ever seen!