Mechanical Issue #3
I waited too long for Eric to come up the trail, and I had a feeling something was wrong. I took off my helmet in hopes of hearing him coming...but I heard nothing but normal forest sounds.
I backtracked down the trail, enjoying the giant embedded granite boulders covered with sand. I came upon Eric not too far from the creek crossing at the bottom and he was already getting ready to take the tank off. I pulled up and asked if he needed a jump. He said "No, I need a tow."
Crap.
There was a lot of this going on...
Eric pretty quickly found the source of his trouble...
This had happened before, but that time the broken piece found its way into the tailpipe without causing any damage. This time it got ingested and the motor was none too happy about it. We buttoned it back up and coasted back down to the creek. We tried to get it to start with my tiny set of jumper cables but it was a no-go...
{...sigh...}
We got out the rope.
It was hot.
The trail was steep.
The trail was loose.
Traction was hard to come by.
No, make that impossible to come by.
Ok, so I've done a lot of towing in my day and I'm fairly good at it, but the mighty 610 could not get enough traction to pull the behemoth KTM up the hill. I'm not sure I could have gotten enough traction even if I'd been sporting full-on knobbies (I've got 2 brand-new sets of them in my basement, BTW
) The surface was all loose and slidey and it was hard just to stand on our own 2 feet, much less find enough purchase to heave the hulking dead mass up the hill. But what choice did we have? We pushed. We pulled. We swore. We gasped and panted in the high-elevation atmosphere til our lungs felt like they were on fire. We made progress...progress that was measured in mere inches instead of miles, but progress nonetheless.
This went on non-stop for about 2 hours.
We finally got to a not-so-steep spot were I could get going so we hopped back on and I towed it up to within inches of where the trail leveled out. Seriously...inches! We stopped when I lost all forward momentum and started sliding and spinning the wheel. We parked the bikes and just stood in the trail looking at each other...and then Eric's bike fell over...and then my bike fell over...
At this point all I could do was laugh...and grab my camera...
We didn't even pick them up right away. We dragged the KTM up onto the flat-ish spot and then picked up both bikes and continued on. About 30 feet past this spot it just turned into a gradual slope the rest of the way and I was able to tow him out without anymore drama. I had to stop a few times (quite unwillingly, I might add...) to let my motor cool down as it was getting mighty hot but that was the only thing that was going to get me to cease all forward motion at this point. I just wanted to be done with it.
It took us 3 long, sweaty hours to get back up to the road...
We'd seen a campsite down the road earlier in the morning and we knew it was mostly downhill so away we went. We also knew we'd be able to get the van in there for retrieval since it was closer to a paved section and the road wasn't too bad. I gathered firewood while waiting with the dead carcass while Eric went back on the 610 to pack up our campsite. We'd be spending the night here instead...
Hey, look! My sidestand is still working
What a long day.
The next day was even longer.
I waited too long for Eric to come up the trail, and I had a feeling something was wrong. I took off my helmet in hopes of hearing him coming...but I heard nothing but normal forest sounds.
I backtracked down the trail, enjoying the giant embedded granite boulders covered with sand. I came upon Eric not too far from the creek crossing at the bottom and he was already getting ready to take the tank off. I pulled up and asked if he needed a jump. He said "No, I need a tow."
Crap.
There was a lot of this going on...
Eric pretty quickly found the source of his trouble...
This had happened before, but that time the broken piece found its way into the tailpipe without causing any damage. This time it got ingested and the motor was none too happy about it. We buttoned it back up and coasted back down to the creek. We tried to get it to start with my tiny set of jumper cables but it was a no-go...
{...sigh...}
We got out the rope.
It was hot.
The trail was steep.
The trail was loose.
Traction was hard to come by.
No, make that impossible to come by.
Ok, so I've done a lot of towing in my day and I'm fairly good at it, but the mighty 610 could not get enough traction to pull the behemoth KTM up the hill. I'm not sure I could have gotten enough traction even if I'd been sporting full-on knobbies (I've got 2 brand-new sets of them in my basement, BTW
) The surface was all loose and slidey and it was hard just to stand on our own 2 feet, much less find enough purchase to heave the hulking dead mass up the hill. But what choice did we have? We pushed. We pulled. We swore. We gasped and panted in the high-elevation atmosphere til our lungs felt like they were on fire. We made progress...progress that was measured in mere inches instead of miles, but progress nonetheless.This went on non-stop for about 2 hours.
We finally got to a not-so-steep spot were I could get going so we hopped back on and I towed it up to within inches of where the trail leveled out. Seriously...inches! We stopped when I lost all forward momentum and started sliding and spinning the wheel. We parked the bikes and just stood in the trail looking at each other...and then Eric's bike fell over...and then my bike fell over...
At this point all I could do was laugh...and grab my camera...
We didn't even pick them up right away. We dragged the KTM up onto the flat-ish spot and then picked up both bikes and continued on. About 30 feet past this spot it just turned into a gradual slope the rest of the way and I was able to tow him out without anymore drama. I had to stop a few times (quite unwillingly, I might add...) to let my motor cool down as it was getting mighty hot but that was the only thing that was going to get me to cease all forward motion at this point. I just wanted to be done with it.
It took us 3 long, sweaty hours to get back up to the road...
We'd seen a campsite down the road earlier in the morning and we knew it was mostly downhill so away we went. We also knew we'd be able to get the van in there for retrieval since it was closer to a paved section and the road wasn't too bad. I gathered firewood while waiting with the dead carcass while Eric went back on the 610 to pack up our campsite. We'd be spending the night here instead...
Hey, look! My sidestand is still working
What a long day.
The next day was even longer.
The rest of the ride looks great so far.
)
I say if they didn't know the whereabouts of their camera for a whole month then they didn't deserve to have it, dang it 
I gotta say, though, it wasn't really a KTM issue, it was a Keihin issue...same carb as on my 610. The KTM vibrates a lot more, though, and that plate rattles around a lot more as the inside of the carb is worn. It's got 20,000 miles on it and the motor has been really reliable.
