The plan was to ride a lot of gravel roads in the UP based on ride reports from a few ADV rider inmates. The past days and weeks it was raining a lot in the area and when I did a detour on my way to the grocery shop I got to realize that the roads might be far too wet and soft for the heavy loaded Suzi.
The following days brought a few more thunderstorms and I became more suspicious about the conditions of the gravel roads. Besides that, up to now I did not had a proper possibility to test the sidecar in serious gravel roads with only light weight load. This was my moment and what could be better then to visit a few water falls after heavy rain :)
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SilberWolf on gravel roads. |
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Cute little butterfly gave me some company. |
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The roads had a very soft surface. |
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It got more and more wet ... |
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Then came this...
and action!
I was totally wet after those puddles and it was fun!
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Wagner Falls. |
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Interesting history - great to have such an info stand. |
With me having fun by crossing those puddles I noted at the first break that the sidecar was slightly wet from the inside. A closer look and I saw that water was everywhere :-o
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Waterproof bag - no water came out! |
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Waterproof side car! Water level about 3cm above floor level. |
No point in fixing this now... More gravel roads were coming later on this ride.
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Photo shoot at Lake Superior. |
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This indicated what the view was supposed to be. |
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This was the real view of that day (No need to linger here and I even left the engine running during the time I took this picture) |
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Munising Falls. |
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Dog unfriendly set-up! What a non-sense. |
It was a bit of a hike from the parking lot to the falls, "no" mosquitoes during the hike and a beautiful forest so I took a few pictures.
And here is the fun video:
Click
here if you have trouble to watch the video.
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My track (200km, total time 5 hours) |
I considered this a fully successful ride:
- I had great fun
- Now I know, no gravel roads for us after weeks of heavy rain in that area
- The sidecar can collect a lot of splashing water when crossing puddles, fords, causeways
- I need to get a hole in the bottom of the side for quick and easy relief of the water?
- All important or sensitive stuff must be packed watertight or put somewhere else (actually this theory requires more testing!!! to see whether the dog ramp is watertight)
~ Wolfi
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