Ulfthednar

"but wait, theres more" . . Added rails on the racks and the back is largely basic gear, a bucket, tie downs, extraction gear. a long hatchet and a machete are strapped on there too somewhere.

My Harley doesn't do so good in the woods . . . I mean it does, just not so good.

Ehh, getting my 73 RC out of a creek bottom I had no intention to go into was a pretty good feat. In a number of ways the mindset up here is similar to the Deep South. We just do what we do and getting stuck is part of it, like driving in snow in the winter time and such. We dont have gators and wild hogs, we have bear, moose and mountain lions. A couple guys I work with were stalked over the weekend by a pair of mountain lions (visual sightings) and they were less than three miles (as the crow flies) from my literal backyard. Most guys and lots of the women have similar stories and drunk tales and listening to their stories about how they got out or got unstuck? You file that information away for future "what if" scenarios. Listening is always a functional asset of developing wisdom.

well . . . there were no trees large enough . . . out screwing around in a clear cut. Been poking around my scrap pile looking for material to make an ATV sized pul-pal though. extra long ground spike though. Theres usually a lot of "duff" or built up detritus from needle and leaf shed. Its basically fluffy compost like stuff that can be pretty deep and not really stable. I do have more bow shackles/ and a 100 ft "oops I screwed up rope" on the way. Reminds me of a time I got sideways on a snot slick downhill with my 73 dodge. Wed rode out to retrieve my buddys stuck 1/2 2wheel chev up in the swan range in Montana We got to this nasty looking spot and my buddy said "yeah, go around this tree and youll be . . well . . maybe not fine . but stuck, yeah. two trucks stuck and no way I wanted to hear the ribbing on top of it. I did not have a winch. But I had a 30 foot skidder cable and and some binders. I ran the cable around a tree, secured it to my rear bumper (massive piece of design work) and to the frame horns in front and watched my buddy trip as I drove down hill . . which sucked my as* end right up to the tree. Then I bound the back end around the tree with a chain so I had a pivot point, reset the skidder cable and did it again, this time steering uphill, which . . using the tree as a pinion, sucked my front end up onto solid ground. We had just tossed all the gear back in the truck when the second rescue truck came up around the mountain. we got some sideways glances and questioned about being stuck to which I replied "I didnt see a thing, and I aint telling" . . We all laughed, got my buddies truck back on the road, threw down beer and got em all home with another good laugh and story to tell. Im tickled well . . not pink . . to have something with a winch on it. Ive gotten a 2wd 1-1/2 ton van off the frame and off a sandbar with a shovel and cut brush. used farm jacks and stamped bumper jacks (pre hi lift) to lift vehicles and shove them over or build up rocks and logs under the wheels and crab walked up icy hills with bald tires. We got a 69 ford fairlane stuck one time crossing a creek bed one time. Bumper to bumper and the wheels on both ends just barely touching dirt. Cut logs and rounds for levers to lever the thing up high enough to get a bumper jack on it, then the bumper jack up enough to get a trolley jack under the spring perch so we could raise the car enough to get the wheels out of the hole . . each corner we had to do that one. I kinda like this winch thing . . makes it a lot less hassle. but one of these days Im going to do the flip flop winch just so I KNOW how to use it . . My dad taught me to think that way . . and its come in damned handy a lot of times.

My beach borders the sky and has way fewer sheeople. well . . I damn near ended up on the bottom last week . . but the thing pulls hard and stable in reverse. steep hill with a pretty harsh drop right before a kelly hump. I was standing almost vertical on the front fenders going down. Got to this spot and said . . "nope" nope . . not without backup on that one. Backed right on out of it too.

adding the lower rail on the back was a definite positive . . its worked out really well. Most of it is fairly "quick change" and IM working on a few more add ons to make the racks even more versatile.

yeah. I found the tools for them too. the patches I havent quite pinned down yet. I get a good bit of snow and ice here. never found anything more reliable than chains for real traction security. Ice is Ice is Ice is Ice. I don't care how big and bad your turbo diesel rocket truck thinks it is, Ive seen more of them wrecked on the passes than anything else except semis that thought they knew how to drive winter roads. (it can get pretty bad here, there must have been 30 bad wrecks and Dozens of stuck semis one year - all causing even more chain reaction wrecks). The big heavy turbo dino powerguzzlers usually do a barrel roll down the divider and look like a pop can met a nuclear bomb. Sometimes when you pass the wreck the blood is still wet. The AWD cars usually do all right if they have good snow tires on em, but . . not always. I first started looking for chains I was seeing prices in excess of $300 for chains for tires of similar size as my sonoma and my stratus. Same material, same pattern, same or similar weight . . I actually tried a set of ladder chains to see if they fit right across the tire carcass and yes they will, but the ones I have are well . . . I might be able to cut them down to fit the sonoma and use the extra cross bars to make a tighter pattern. A ladder chain isnt going to sit right on an ATV tire, but the diamond style supports itself On the lugs. I tried my damaged les schwab ones (dont buy the les schwab ones for anything but short drive emergencies - they suck) that I wasted money for (theyre incredibly light and maybe good for getting off of the road to a motel or a very short drive) settled correctly on the tire to. So a person could cut down quality diamond chains from a pickup truck and fit them to their ATV. Mind this set of les schwab ones I bought because Id worn out my old ones. It was a bad day on the pass (three hours for a 1/2 drive, lots of wrecks and people stuck all over) and my idiot self had forgotten to throw my chains in the truck. I broke one les schwab chain and wasted the other in a few miles. theyre made out of super light chain and just are not worth the money I spent. I ended up finding a decent set of ladder chains for my sonoma for $60 bucks at checker a week later. My Dodge Ramcharger I expect to pay a good chunk for chains for it. I found chains (two link type) for about $200 for 34 inch Interco swampers. I didnt have enough good chain laying around to build a pair though . . and I briefly thought about breaking down a set of skidder chains (it could work) but if youve ever seen skidder chains? They start at about 90lbs for smaller ones. they drag you to the skidder and allow you to arm wrestle them on. If weather is really bad in my little truck I'll chain the rear and put z-cables on front. going forward doesnt mean much if you can't steer . . . Ive gotten my little pick up trucks through all sorts of stuff set up like that. the 20-30 minutes spent throwing them on pays for itself every time I pass everyone else thats stranded. Chains for the ATV are well . . keeps me on the road and riding more . . I kinda like hiking in the woods in winter.

Kept looking for chains at honest prices instead of gougy prices. Found em . . and right about the price I figured they should be from a a tire chain supplier. Diamond studded chains sized for ATVs. $340 out the door, shipped for TWO pairs (for front and rear) of chains instead of one pair. Unless your dealing with Skidder Chains or heavy equipment chains or something chains are chains. No good Damned reason to be paying twice as much for stupid 3 letter prefix for greed. heres the link. Tire Chains Online

well, you know if they tilt the camera to make it look harsher . .

well, we live in a world where chomos pose as security and grope granny for her scissors now and people take it laying down. Folks used to be a lot more upright and less dependent. LMAO . . . even the articles I am turning up the terminology is turned on it's head over the things. My dad taught me how to use an actual vulcanizing patch when I started riding bicycles. I tore down and rebuilt my first bike when I was seven. I always carried a patch kit somewhere on me as I would range pretty far from home and thirty miles away on a single speed BMX was pretty usual. As long as I was home by dinner or had found a phone and called in. Before I got my license a 100 mile round trip was no big deal. "Goatheads" . . . the bane of tires and bare feet. those things could take out a heavy wall tube (once they came out with them) and standard tubes didn't stand a chance. A bicycle tube without eight or ten patches on it (my dad was pretty annoyed when I came home with seven or eight holes one time - thats when he found the heavy wall tubes). but thats the same dad I remember showing me all sorts of tricks out in the woods on getting vehicles out of mudholes because winches were not an every day thing back then on family vacations either. The early airless tires for bicycles sucked. I barely missed flying off a cliff in a hairpin turn down hilling as a teen riding on those things. Took the airless tires off and threw them away after that. Turnbull Canyon road. Probably all built in down there now. Hell of stiff ride up but sixty and seventy mph downhilling was a blast. That was before mountain bikes. We had Single speeds, BMX, ten speeds and beach cruisers. there were a few twelve speed road bikes out I probably would have died long boarding . . except they didn't have longboards yet either. No cell phones either. So kids had time markers and strict warnings about being home by dinner time and all sorts of things a few years later were considered abuse rather than lessons in personal responsibility. Yet most kids knew basic manners and if something was serious we could usually find a house and ask politely to borrow a phone to call our parents. We carried pocket knives, heat set patches and a tire pump (the new clip on ones were just coming out and were beyond most kids allowances) bungeed on somewhere. They didn't have the nice little tire spoon sets back then either, so you learned to strip and mount a bicycle tire barehanded Of course we had pooka shells and girl friends panties on our rear view mirrors back then. now they have car jewelry and face masks and reeking paper board trees on the mirror Our trophies were bloody knees and not overgrown thumb muscles. Now folks go out and buy all this ready built gadgetry and pre packaged meals and self inflators and think theyre savvy. Salvation is a cell phone away.

Wouldnt be surprised. sheesshh. Used to buy em as a kid. "might' have tried them on a few little green army men . . . but no one can prove a thing!

heh . . Well, here . . ATV are street legal. So I vary my tire pressure. Also . . Some access points it take less time to reach them at legal speeds than it does to load up the trailer and atv. Where I spent 40 or 50 miles this weekend took less time to get to than it would have to load my atv on the trailer then drive out there and unload it. But going by tire specific PSI specs and behavior on pavement . . I run within specs but on the distance on pavement I am going to get where I want to be? I add some air. its easier on the tires and drive train. Also a lot less shimmy in the front end. and better stability on the pavement getting where I want to go . . all without stepping outside the SPECS printed on the side of the tire. Actually, staying well within those specs. The tire pressure that works great on pavement (well below max specs) however, does not fare quite so well on the loose shale that I was climbing once I got off pavement. The pressure that works great on loose shale with these tires is about 5 psi lighter. right around 5 to 7 psi. But when your scooting down pavement to get to your trailer and you hear that howling outta your tires and rear end because of the added resistance on your drivetrain . . and something finally goes "pop". . I hear people doing it all the time . . grinding down the road whipping around pavement corners and you can hear their difs binding up on those soft cushy low pressure tires. A mile or two at low speeds and low pressure shouldn't hurt much . . but again . . ATVs arent just a weekend thing around here (thats not just me) we ride them all over the place, except the freeway. Because here, we can go from point a to point b to get to "Point C" where we want to ride, without hooking up the trailer, throwing out ramps, loading the atv, folding ramps strapping the atv, driving to "point c" and reversing the process and then doing it all over on the way home. I mean if I gotta take a picture of the tire specs I will . . . and nope, no signs of odd or uneven wear, either.

"over kill" . . not having overkill is why I want overkill. Ive had a few very long walks in my day. I have a C02 kit, but primarily want something to air up and down with. Kinda been hoping Full size 4x4 tech might have downsized a bit. I've got a "cheap junk" portable compressor. $25 one I bought years. It's too big and clunky but it's saved my butt roadside or jobsite way more than I spent on it. Got a $20 solar trickle charger that has prevented way more problems than I can guess at (it will fit on the atv) My typical camping trips and such are 20 miles past the last campsite people use, sometimes more. I usually don't see people when I go camping. Which is why I want to have a few certain areas covered. And yeah, the incendiary patches, they are still using them in other countries I know that. And in heavy equipment. But . . "911" ya know. have to take all that kind of stuff out of the hands of normal people. Thats why we can't find them, because this bull garbage run amok waste of a government we've allowed to grow out of control thought some sand potato might buy a bunch of the little trays and scrape out the ingredients and build a bomb that way. Sad

roll it over by hand?

Heh. reminds me of something. Now, I am "NEW" to atvs and particularly the CVT tranny and belt systems. (intriguing and ingenious, actually). I am not really new to Belt drive primaries on hold harleys. "way back in the day" I had this FAF 73 Shovelhead (it would eat most crotch rockets) but I kept ripping apart primary belts. Flash forward a few decades and running a belt drive on my not so fast 80 Shovelhead. Similar issues, critical alignments and so forth. This time though, I studied up on how belts act and while doing so, figured out why I couldn't keep a belt on my 73 Shovel (covered) but my 80 I have ABUSED to death. (Picture an open belt, drag piped 80/80 Shovelhead flat tracking gravel roads at 40 to 60 mph). That belt has chewed rocks, sand, gravel, salt, small mammals and a boot lace once or twice the pulley are beat and pitted and it's probably time to get a whole new set up. the belt is actually the same company (different name though) as my first belt drive. My discovery? Drive belts don't do well with heat. My 73, thinking I knew what I was doing, I'd tension that sucker like a v type fan belt . . My 80? I set that sucker so I can twist it almost over (with straight alignment, which is IMPORTANT for tracking on pulleys with no sides flanges) and that belt has held up through way more than I put the first one through. Drive belts CONTRACT when they get hot . . they don't expand like most objects. the material in them contracts and tightens up on the pulleys when they get hot. The don't loosen up and stretch. When my 80/80 gets nice and warm, my belt is snug, with a little flex to it, cold, I can roll it 90 degrees. But it never gets hot. The belt on my CVT while different in shape, sure looks, smells and feels like the same or similar compound as my BDL drive belts (formerly Primo/Rivera) . . Might be the issue there . . their belt was a hair too short for your machine, causing it to over heat . . . Just a thought.

Almost the only one out there too.

Went for a ride today. Didn't feel like trailering it so just headed across the highway and out the front yard.

points and condensors weren't an annual thing until they started getting outsourced to shoddy manufacturers . . Used to take me about an hour to do a full spectrum tune up on a V8 And reliable enough I reverted two of my older vehicles to points and condensors. Ive had the same points and condensors in those two vehicles since . . 2014 YEAH it took me a few condensors to find one that were not absolute junk to begin with. That is due entirely to outsourcing from established quality parts manufacturers Of course car batteries used to last a decade or more too, until they started getting outsourced. (something that is no longer made here at all) But forcibly cancelling things that work to force people to buy the new stuff (its called forced obsolescence) then creating an entire marketing spectrum to convince people . . Saying much more than that gets into politics and social programming narratives.

the issue is not in having the stuff . . it is that way too many people can not function without it.

Right? People have become so convinced that tech makes things better it's kinda surreal.

Any wheel/tire can be a pain without the right tools. and unless your in a larger rig . . yeah . . bead breakers don't fit on a quad well. LMAO . . I was hand mounting a set of Swampers on 16 inch rims one time . . the tire shops in the area refused to touch them. I slipped and lost my position and got flipped right over the tire . . and Ive had split rims blow a tube out from under me too . . I got lucky and just got the wits scared out of me. Here the biggest worry is going to be jagged rock or the possible spur on a log. plug kit, CO2 kit and a hand pump at the moment. looking around for a solid but compact compressor. With a strap cinched around the tired and a quick inflate device one can reset a bead, but you might have to pee on the tire for lube. One can improvise a jack out of a lot of things here, I carry a folding saw and sometimes a battery powered sawzall with pruning blades. Ive taken 18 inch logs apart with it clearing access around my property and fairly quickly too. surprisingly the "kit" that came with my machine is compact, but covers a lot of bases.

yup . . those were the first things I added to the bike. Ive had enough flats in the woods on full sized rigs to know better on that one . . . got pretty good at busting tires down by hand and creative ways to set the beads. I wish I could find the old hot patches. they came on a metal pan you clamped on the tire and lit the pan and it seared the patch on. Not sure how many people remember those things. They wouldd be suitable for sidewall gashes sounds like some people might lose their bikes though . . . never mind loosing themselves too . .

yeah, really makes one wonder how badly weve de-evolved when a hundred years ago most kids could find their way around . . barely been more than that and people found their way be dead reckoning. Seems the more technology people rely on, the less capable they become without it. never mind people walking across continents or tossing wooden ships in the ocean with nothing more than a magnetized needle.

even from home, I can see three cell towers . . I USED to have awesome signal . . . all I had to do was get up even forty miles back in. Now . . nope. Not just my carrier either. The Big Box phone carrier victims have trouble with their phone services as well. GPS . . I don't really need. LOST is when you don't know where you are or how you got there. besides, if you can't call for help your not giving coordinates to anyone any way. People don't apparently practice orientation skills and no one knows how to triangulate off a CB radio anymore either . . . Here we have pretty well mapped roads and access points for OHV trails. So self reliance gear is critical.