Alley Sweeper

On Saturday, Erik and I went to the 2nd annual Sang-Froid Riding Club Alley Sweeper ride. Erik was on his Honda XR400 and I rode the lowly (but fun!) Kawasaki KLR250, which Erik also owns and I helped get running when he bought it last year.

Basically, SFRC maps out a bunch of alleys in Portland that are not, for the most part, paved. Gravel, dirt, two-track, single-track, and although these may or may not have been on the actual route, overgrown no-track. Motorized traffic is legal on all Portland alleys and there is a 15mph speed limit, which we strictly obeyed of course. This kind of stuff is great fun and I have been doing it sporadically for many years. And Erik and I have gone out a few times in search of dirt in Portland.

By the time the ride started, I heard someone say that there were 110 bikes there. But there were probably at least 20 or 30 people who had no intentions of taking there bikes on this ride. They ran out of route maps well before we arrived. I don't know how many of the 5-page maps were printed, but there seemed to be more people who didn't have maps than did. It was minor chaos as people split up into smaller and smaller groups, getting lost, meeting up with other groups who may or may not have been on route themselves, intermingling, breaking up into smaller groups again, getting lost again...over and over. There was a LOT of getting lost. It was one of the most amusing motorcycle events that I've ever been a part of. I was laughing a lot.

There were a wide assortment of bikes, most of them smaller. There were lots of scooters of different shapes and sizes, lots of 225-250cc dual sports, 2-stroke 125 and 250cc dual sports, supermotos of various makes and sizes, plenty of 400's, a few 600 or 650/660cc dual sports, bikes with street tires, lots of older and smaller enduro and street bikes. I don't recall seeing any of the bigger bikes that claim to be dual sports like the V-Strom and the BMW GS models. I think most of those guys never get off the pavement. Poseurs.

At one point, Erik and I were riding with an older guy on an older, but very clean, 225 that was closer to street than dirt and a guy on a scooter that was barely more than a bicycle with a motor (props to him for following us). None of us had a map. We just started looking for overgrown alleys and went down them. I think most of these were probably not on the route. We usually watched the old guy go down first (go old guy!) and he would slowly disappear behind the weeds. No one had driven down some of these alleys for years. This was probably the best part of the ride. Although bombing around the "hobo track" with a whole bunch of other nuts was pretty fun too.

The KLR250 is a great bike for this type of riding. The only time I felt there could have been more power available was on one of the longer stretches of pavement. It is such a lightweight and easy to ride bike. At the "hobo track" I was starting to have a lot of fun sliding the rear tire around. The only thing lacking are the brakes, but the bike is slow enough that you have to try harder to get into trouble.

Two days later and my thighs are still a little sore. And today I rode the GPz home from school in the rain. The End.