I spent some years living in AZ and NM. Im retired and prospecting was my hobby. My home was a pickup camper on the back of my pickup and behind that I pulled a trailer with a Yamaha Kodiak ATV and a Yamaha TW200 dual sport motorcycle. That TW 200 was a hell of a good desert machine with its slightly oversized tires. Lots of open lands in those western states and I really enjoyed putt putting into the back country on the TW. It redlined at 55mph on the highway which was good enough to get on down to another dirt road. I put 9000 miles on a TW before ruining the engine riding it up over Emory pass (8000 ft alt) so I bought another one and started scrubbing the paint of off of it.
Now, in my olden years (72), I decided to play it safe and bought a Burgman 400. Love this machine. Almost stomped the floorboards off trying to clutch and brake it but managed to adapt to everything being on the handlebars. This is one fun machine for the Texas hill country where I live, beautiful roads to ride. Not much traffic and when traffic is not pushing me from behind, I just putt putt along enjoying the scenery. And just to get the adrenaline pumping, there are always those nice twisty loops and long swooping curves to take a little more speed.
But I have a problem. Finally I'm getting to it. As I am swooshing along on my nice little road machine, I keep looking at the bare ground between the road and the fences. I keep thinking, Boy if I had a dirt bike, there is some whoopies I could ride!! It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Soooooooo...........Im thinking of adding a little dual sport to the stable. Then I can swoop these roads with the burgie and spot some of the better road ditches I can ride on the dual sport. Everything here in Texas is private land, no BLM or National Forrest Land like in the western states. Everywhere I look is fences with signs like "Trespassers will be persecuted" but by golly, there is some nice looking road ditches still open. Im thinking of a Yamaha XT225. It should get me quite a ways away from home on the pavement.......with an occassional whoopie do thru the road ditch. I can see it now....if they find me splattered out in some ditch and start checking my tire tracks, they will say, "Look at that, this old coot left the road way back up yonder and never stopped untill he hit these whoopy do's". :lol: Wish me luck!
Now, in my olden years (72), I decided to play it safe and bought a Burgman 400. Love this machine. Almost stomped the floorboards off trying to clutch and brake it but managed to adapt to everything being on the handlebars. This is one fun machine for the Texas hill country where I live, beautiful roads to ride. Not much traffic and when traffic is not pushing me from behind, I just putt putt along enjoying the scenery. And just to get the adrenaline pumping, there are always those nice twisty loops and long swooping curves to take a little more speed.
But I have a problem. Finally I'm getting to it. As I am swooshing along on my nice little road machine, I keep looking at the bare ground between the road and the fences. I keep thinking, Boy if I had a dirt bike, there is some whoopies I could ride!! It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Soooooooo...........Im thinking of adding a little dual sport to the stable. Then I can swoop these roads with the burgie and spot some of the better road ditches I can ride on the dual sport. Everything here in Texas is private land, no BLM or National Forrest Land like in the western states. Everywhere I look is fences with signs like "Trespassers will be persecuted" but by golly, there is some nice looking road ditches still open. Im thinking of a Yamaha XT225. It should get me quite a ways away from home on the pavement.......with an occassional whoopie do thru the road ditch. I can see it now....if they find me splattered out in some ditch and start checking my tire tracks, they will say, "Look at that, this old coot left the road way back up yonder and never stopped untill he hit these whoopy do's". :lol: Wish me luck!