Ian and Ashe ride up Oso Canyon

Leav­ing Ian’s we rode over San Mar­cos Pass, out Par­adise Road, then up the Oso Canyon dirt road. Sev­er­al sec­tions along the road were a big chal­lenge for me on the V‑Strom due to the steep­ness of some hills as well as sec­tions that were a mud­dy clay from the recent rain and there­fore very slip­pery. Ian gen­er­ous­ly rode my V‑Strom up my most chal­leng­ing of these slip­pery hills, spray­ing me with chunks of mud as the rear tire spun for trac­tion and off he went, kind of fun actually.

We went in five or so miles with me enjoy­ing the chal­lenge and scenery but con­cerned the entire time on the com­ing out part, i.e. going down the steep and slick mud­dy sec­tions we’d gone up. Anon, when we turned around Ian offered to ride the V‑Strom back out to the pave­ment while I rode his Suzu­ki  DR-650 sin­gle. What a gift, thank you Ian!

The dif­fer­ence between the bikes is night and day on the chal­leng­ing dirt sec­tions. On Ian’s DR you sim­ply point the bike where you’d like it to go and it does exact­ly that. The V‑Strom is much more mas­sive and just not intend­ed to be a per­former in the sit­u­a­tions we were encoun­ter­ing. In the slick/clay/muddy stuff it starts to squir­rel around and the next thing you know you’re almost side­ways. This would be a total kick IF it was as easy to pick up as a bicycle.

Today was my first day fool­ing around with my new moto/camera mount on the V‑Strom so I took scads of videos, e.g. I videoed our entire ride from my house to the San­ta Ynez Riv­er. So be fore­warned, click­ing on the above mon­tage of us could be anal­o­gous to watch­ing The Ten Com­mand­ments in 10 short snip­pets. The good news is you have com­plete con­trol, you can fast for­ward and watch just enough of us to skirt the edge of boredom.

On our way out I sug­gest­ed we cross back and forth over the riv­er a few times so I could cap­ture videos, both fol­low­ing Ian across the riv­er as well as ones where we’d start on oppo­site sides and pass each oth­er in the mid­dle. Great idea Mr. DeMille but there’s just one slight prob­lem: the cam­er­a’s 4GB mem­o­ry was com­plete­ly filled before we even start­ed all the back and forth busi­ness (hind sight observation).

To cap off our futile film­ing of our­selves, our last cross­ing entailed Ian com­ing toward me from the far side of the riv­er while I rode toward him attempt­ing to direct him with one arm while han­dling the V‑Strom with the oth­er. Alas, I some­how turned too quick­ly or spiked the throt­tle just after we passed each oth­er and I went down right in the mid­dle of the cross­ing; splash, bonk, etc., etc. Ian was quick to help me up with the V‑Strom and after a lit­tle regroup­ing we start­ed for home.

All the way home I was think­ing that the cam­era had been record­ing all our fool­ish­ness so when I arrived home and got set­tled I quick­ly down­loaded all the data from the cam­era then clicked open the last movie expect­ing the fun per­spec­tive of me pass­ing Ian then going hor­i­zon­tal. Of course the actu­al last movie was before all the criss­cross­ing of the riv­er had even commenced 🙂