offroad weekend in the Taiwan mountains

[plasmatron]

Embarked on the first proper offroad trip on my new 1200GS this weekend... the location was the mountains in the area surrounding SunMoon Lake in central Taiwan... A 2 day trip up and down some pretty hairy river beds, sand, rocks and mud as far as the eye can see and river crossings every 20 min...

our "basecamp" was an aboriginal "village" hence the dodgy BBQ mountain rat!... quite tricky terrain for my first outing offroad... deep water, deep mud, soft sand, rocky embankments and slippery descents... about 80% of our group had low speed drops... the worst casualty was a 12GS that got dumped at a fair speed into the muddy river, launching the rider and getting water in the air intake, somehow through the filter and into the oil... the oil window going whitish grey and a red engine managment light in about 15 mins!... as it was my first outing I was paying careful attention to keeping my shiny new bike upright which I just barely managed to do, but it sure as hell didn't stay shiny for long...

the location

breakfast!!??

going up

coming down

sand

mud

rocks

water

the posse

oops...

me and my GS half underwater!


After this trip I realise that handle bar risers are a necessity if you're over 6' tall... a rough intoduction to joys of offroading for me and my 1600km on the clock GS, but a hell of a lot of fun though...

plasmatron

 

[~Stef~]

Looks amazing terrain to ride through. Me jealouse not at all

 

[Rich]

That makes me want to go back to Thailand or anywhere similarly exotic with nice roads, but not on a GS. My CRM was enough of a handful.
New GS...Brave man. Great pics! Nice rat, btw.

 

[rom]

so i am curious to know how durable is it after the slow speed drops. I see that the terrain is very challenging full of slippery rocks on top of the muddy river crossings. A 400 enduro would be more fun I would think as the damage from the fall could be much cheaper.

Also just curious, can u claim insurance if you fall on an offroad trail in Taiwan. How about in England? Where I am in Thailand, insurance for the 12 GS is about 370 Euros only!!! and the bike is fully insured.

 

[Gecko]

Very nice indeed .....do you marinate the rat before cooking or is it straight onto the BBQ with your roadkill

 

[TheJoker]

Nice pics....!!! Scenery is nothing like in the office...

Wish I were there....

 

[plasmatron]

thanks for the kind words!... i thought my pictures were crap... oh and we politely declined the rat breakfast, slightly dissapointing our hosts ( i swear they only do it to get a laugh at the foreigners turning green)

so i am curious to know how durable is it after the slow speed drops. I see that the terrain is very challenging full of slippery rocks on top of the muddy river crossings.

the 1200's coped very well with low speed drops... even dumped onto rocks and shale at about 20km/h, the worst casualties had lightly scratched panniers, hand protectors and crash bars and there was one bike that broke the hand protector bracket... 90% if the 1200's had the BMW crash bars fitted and they more than held their own... all in all more damage done to pride than to bikes... damaged pride hurts more, but it's cheaper to fix ....

Also just curious, can u claim insurance if you fall on an offroad trail in Taiwan. How about in England? Where I am in Thailand, insurance for the 12 GS is about 370 Euros only!!! and the bike is fully insured.

cannot get anything but 3rd party insurance for love nor money here... the large capacity bike market has only been open for a little over 2 years... the general public and insurance companies ignorance and prejudice against "big bikes" added to the fact that "big bikes" are hot theft targets, means they are not insurable.... then again the majority of riders here are guys who've spent their lives on 90cc scooters and then go out and buy a new R1 or something, not such a good insurance risk really...

plasmatron

 

[clerici]

you see! the red ones are best as they don't fall over on river crossings!