Moab Rally May, 29 - June 1, 2008

Don't mind the banner (borrowed without permission). Fred Hink, proprietor of Arrowhead Motorsports and perennial host of this small but dedicated gathering of mostly Kawasaki KLR650 riders, has a sense of humor. Some, perhaps me included, call it a rally but it's really just a more or less informal gathering of hard core KLR enthusiasts, some of whom actually ride these budget adventure touring motorcycles to distant places and foreign countries. I've been to other rallies. I've long thought this one unique because of the disproportionate number of interesting, intelligent people among the rather small number of attendees. Someone said there were about 30 riders at the Friday evening cookout. Someone also said that was about the same number as last year. Many of them are the same people every year. A surprising number ride from distant states. There is usually someone from states on both coasts and one gentleman, even older than me, rides his KLR from the Gulf Coast of Texas every year, visiting interesting spots along the way.

This gathering is not exclusively for KLR riders although it started in the late '90's as such. It grew quickly and was redefined as an open rally. After a few 100+ degree events, the crowd dropped off to the present hard-core enthusiasts, mostly KLR650 riders. The weather was beautiful this year: cool mornings, blue skies, lower eighties in the afternoon, no wind and pleasant evenings. Domestic obligations limit my visits to only one night but I'm always glad I went. Early arrivals on Thursday helped Fred with shopping, errands and tasks around the shop.

I rode over on a Friday, stopping for coffee and a visit with Mike Colby — who was out for an early canyon ride on his FJR1300 — at the Outpost in Gateway. Back on the road, I met a DR650 and two KLR650s a couple miles up John Brown Canyon. Later, I mentioned this to Fred and he said it was rally-regulars Zack from Oregon, Don from Texas and Sid from Kansas, riders I had met and liked at previous rallies. After lunch I decided, with Fred's encouragement, to ride up the Shafer Trail and back down Pucker Pass for old times sake. I did, riding out past Potash to the Shafer Trail. The road from the Potash tailing ponds and the Shafer Trail itself was rougher than I've seen it since the late '60's when the Shafer Trail was not in Canyonlands National Park and was marked by the BLM as a 4WD road. The steep narrows at the top of Pucker pass, a section that can vary from passenger-car-suitable to impassable, storm to storm, season to season, was also very rough with much of the sand they haul in washed or worn away from the boulders it was intended to cover. Nevertheless, the bad spots were of short duration and I made good time and was glad I went. Back at Fred's, Zack, Don and Sid arrived. After talking to Fred who told them I had seen them in John Brown Canyon but didn't know who they were, Zack came out proclaiming, "We identified you before you knew who we were." They had met Mike at Gateway Canyons Outpost. Surprising how many people cross paths there.

Friday evening, in front of Arrowhead Motorsports, Fred hosted a hamburger cookout with Rick Lawrence flipping tasty burgers while his wife Chris and a couple other women set up the serving and condiments table. (Rick and Chris, described in last year's rally report, are actual adventure tourists who have ridden their matching KLRs to Alaska and Central America and are tentatively planning another 6 month adventure in Central America with targets being Panama and Costa Rica.) It was a fun evening. Conversation was lively, interesting and sometimes educational.

Saturday is usually tech day, mostly dedicated to upgrading balancer chain adjustment levers and springs. The past couple years, these duties were presided over by Fred and Mike Cowlishaw of Eagle Mfg. & Engineering, San Diego, CA. Mike makes the replacement parts and has generously donated his time in the past but didn't make it this year. Stepping up in Mikes place was Todd from Happy Trails in Boise, Idaho and a guy from Denver I didn't meet and know only as Sgt. Marty. I was there long enough to witness inspection of the balancer chain adjustment lever on a 2008 KLR with only 1000 miles on it. The spring was found to be incapable of supporting any adjustment at all -- an often described problem I've now seen for myself. Something to think about.

I had intended to leave for home by 10:00 A.M., retracing my path up Sand Flats Road, around the north end of the La Sal Mountains and back to Gateway via John Brown Canyon. I didn't get away until more like 11:00 A.M. and once rolling decided to go south on US191 to La Sal Jct., east through Paradox Valley to Naturita, then try an unpaved road known as the Nucla to Delta road over the Uncompahgre Plateau although there was some reason to believe the road on top the Uncompaghre might still be snowed in. Not so. The road was dry as a bone all the way and, other than small patches of snow under shadier trees in the heavy forest on top, the snow was all gone. Even the barriers on Divide Road were open so presumably that road is open too. The road was in excellent condition and appeared to have been open for some time. I had almost no traffic from US191 in Utah to near Delta in Colorado and, riding at a brisk but not outrageous pace, made it home without stopping in barely over 2 1/2 hours, thus matching my average time going the "fast" route all on pavement.

The riders above are pictured here because they were the ones I visited with most. I also declined to ask people to reposition themselves and motorcycles for appropriate lighting.

A performance problem: At the rally, I heard of a KLR rider complaining of poor performance on mountain passes enroute to the rally. I talked to a KLR owner who said his bike -- late model, purchased used fully equipped with aftermarket items and popular modifications -- performed poorly at high altitudes. He had tried numerous cures including a return to stock jetting, stock muffler, etc. Nothing helped. These two complaints, perhaps coming from the same person, have caused me to recall a similar story. A person buys a used, late-model KLR. It seems to run fine, especially to anyone not familiar with KLR650 performance. On the way home, the new owner finds the performance suspiciously poor on a mountain pass. Later, back at the shop, a short ride by service people, who only occasionally ride a KLR and perhaps never far from the shop, seems to indicate the bike runs fine. It's not unusual in such circumstances to suspect the owner's inexperience with this type bike has resulted in unrealistic expectations. This owner apparently was directed to my web site. He asked for an opinion. Like everyone else, I probably first suspected the owner's expectations were too high but I did suggest a direct comparison with the new KLR I had at the time. We met for breakfast near the mountain pass where the poor performance first became obvious. He rode my KLR, I rode his and we headed up the pass. From the moment I started off, I knew his bike was a slug. On the pass, I was probably 15-20 MPH slower on his bike than he was on mine. There was something wrong but I didn't know what. He took it back to the shop and they spent some time looking for a problem but the bike seemed to run fine. The shop personnel, although knowledgeable and qualified, had little riding experience on what in their minds was a poor performing motorcycle anyway. They found nothing wrong and, as I recall, decided bad fuel had caused the problem. About this time I happened by and someone suggested I ride it again to evaluate performance. I said, "Fine, if you ride along on my KLR." That's what we did and the difference in performance was just as striking as it had been on the mountain pass. We swapped bikes so there would be no doubt. Once armed with irrefutable evidence that the KLR was sick, the shop approached diagnosis with a new resolve to dismantle until they found the problem. It was soon discovered that the cam timing was off -- I don't remember exactly how much, maybe a couple degrees on each cam. That was the problem and the owner soon went home quite happy with the performance. So what caused the cam timing to be off? The most likely cause would be the first owner attempting to do a valve clearance adjustment without sufficient skill or knowledge. When lifting the cams to replace shims, it's very easy to cause the the cam chain to jump a tooth or two on the sprockets. I've done it myself but I knew I did it and I corrected the problem. It's entirely possible for an inexperienced owner to cause this to happen and never know it. It's my understanding the previous owner of the bike above denied ever touching the top end. The official word was, "It must have come from the factory that way." I'll never believe that it came from the factory with the cam timing off but the point of this story is that a new owner with no prior KLR experience may have a difficult time convincing a shop that a KLR is sick when it seems to run okay and especially if the shop people are not particularly enthusiastic about KLRs. The point is, few people are likely to suspect the cam timing of being off. In bench-talk diagnosis of the above problem, cam timing was even suggested as a possible cause of such performance but it was only mentioned in passing. No one said, "Ah-ha! That might be it." No one really thought the cam timing would be off. But if I was having similar problems on a previously-owned KLR, I would now certainly check the cam timing. The factory service manual or a Clymer manual makes it an easy job. NOTE: Kawasaki claims to have changed the cam timing on the 2008 KLR and my experience suggests it is noticeably different and may account for what I perceive to be a greater willingness to pull from low RPM. I would not assume the old cam timing instructions apply to the 2008 model although they might.

—Verle Nelson, Cedaredge, Colorado