Tag: advrider

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SIDI Adventure 2 Gore-Tex

Wet feet are one of those things that can really impact your enjoyment of a ride.  In the best case scenario, you’re looking at a minor annoyance when you can dry your feet and all your gear when you get home from a day’s ride.  Yet, ADV rides are typically multiday if not multi-week outings, and when you’re shoving your feet into the same wet gear day after day it can really wear on even the hardiest of riders.  Throw in some cold temperatures, and things can quickly go from ‘adventure’ to suffer fest.  Yet, with the right boots, all of the wet in the world can’t keep you from enjoying an awesome ride.

For the last eight months I’ve been wearing Sidi’s Adventure 2 Gore-Tex boot in desert heat, on frosty fall mornings, through flood inducing summer monsoons, and on plenty of bluebird days.  I’ve worn them on dual sport rides, off road rides, adventure rides, and even spent a little bit of time on a trials bike while wearing these boots.  If this sounds like a lot, that was exactly the point – my objective was to throw as many different conditions and types of riding at these boots to see how they would hold up.

The Adventure 2 is an update of SIDI’s well-loved Adventure Gore-Tex boot, and just as you would expect, SIDI has improved on the original Adventure Gore-Tex boot for this second revision.  One of the most notable changes is that the Gore-Tex gaiter has been extended further up the boot, making it even harder for water to find it’s way to your feet.  Out in the world, that translates into riding in wet conditions without concern for getting wet feet.  You can overcook water crossings for ‘gram-worthy (that’s how the kids refer to a photo for social media) photos, ride in microbursts that turn roads into rivers and just about anything else you can think of.  About the only way you’re going to get wet in the Adventure 2 is if you have to put a foot down in knee-deep water or if your pants aren’t waterproof.

In summer heat that feels like you’re riding in a hair-dryer, the Adventure 2s are still quite comfortable.  Considering that water vapor in the microclimate inside your boot has to go through a Gore-Tex laminate and all of the other materials that make up the Adventure 2, breathability is still quite good, and I’d go as far as to say they’re more comfortable in the heat than other brand’s non-Gore-Tex moto boots I’ve worn in the past.  Make no mistake – your feet are going to be warm, but if you’re worried about feeling like you’re wearing plastic bags on your feet – you won’t get that feeling in the Adventure 2.

In the cold, the Adventure 2 does a good job of keeping your toes warm, even though the boots aren’t insulated.  Toe warmth is obviously helped by having a core body temperature that’s in the right range, and a good sock on your foot, so as long as you have these first two things in place you should be good to go for a ride in the cold with cozy feet.

Extending the Gore-Tex cuff up the boot wasn’t the only revision that Sidi made to the Adventure 2 – the ankle flex system, Achillies protector, TPU placement, and other features have all been updated for this second revision.  You’ll feel these refinements the first time you slip a pair on and notice that the boots already feel (nearly) broken-in.  About the only gripe I can find with the Adventure 2, is that it isn’t a great boot for hiking for miles in.  On several occasions, I’ve found myself going for multi-mile hikes while out riding and on a few occasions this resulted in hot spots on my feet.  But I don’t fault the Adventure 2 for that – after all they’re motorcycle boots and not hiking boots, and there is no way that two buckles and a Velcro closure can embrace your foot the way a proper lace-up boot can.  Therefore, my wishlist for Adventure 3 would be better hiking performance.

In the course of normal amounts of walking around and all day riding, I didn’t have any uncomfortable fit issues.  I could spend nearly all of my time on a long ride standing and my feet would feel great at the end of the day.   With the Adventure 2 as part of my gear system, I stopped bringing extra footwear on my rides (unless I knew I was going to be hiking) as I was quite comfortable living in these boots 24/7.

On the bike, the Adventure 2 Gore-Tex works great transmitting input from your feet to the bike, and at no point on any bike ranging from a trials bike to a big ADV bike did I feel like the boots were impacting my ability to ride.  After a few minutes of riding in these boots, and you’ll feel like you’ve been wearing them for months so there is no learning curve associated with incorporating a new piece of gear into your system.

The SIDI Adventure 2 Gore-Tex boots have been a great addition to my riding gear system.  Even when I’m using the boots for types of riding other than what they’re intended for, they’ve handled everything I’ve done with ease.  Wearing the Adventure 2’s on not-adventure rides started out as a test for the sake of this review, but quickly became a standard practice because I just enjoyed wearing these boots so much – and the whole dry feet thing is pretty nice too.  The Adventure 2 is a well-made boot that has held up great to countless miles of riding, and I only expect continued comfort and worry free performance from them.  SIDI makes some of the best boots out there, and it shows in Adventure 2 Gore-Tex.  They’ve taken the well-loved original boot and only made it better in it’s second revision to create one of the best adventure / dual-sport / keep your feet dry when you’re riding boots money can buy.

Full Disclosure: SIDI generously contributed a pair of Adventure 2 Gore-Tex boots for review at no cost to Chad de Alva or American Adventurist.
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2017 Klim Cow Tag

I never knew that motorcycle trail advocacy could be so much fun.  For me, trail advocacy has always meant being the boots on the ground and swinging a hand tool playing in the dirt to build or maintain trails.  Working dirt is good fun, but we all know that it’s more fun to ride a trail than build it.  Yet, the folks at Klim have figured out how to make riding trails something that directly benefits trail advocacy:  Enter Klim’s Cow Tag event.  Now in its third year, the Cow Tag event brings in riders from all over North America to ride in Klim’s backyard trail system, win great prizes, and most importantly to raise money that goes to trail advocacy groups like The Blue Ribbon Coalition and the Idaho Trail Machine.

THE EVENT

If you’re wondering how Klim, whose gear has awesome names like ‘Drifter’, ‘Badlands’, and ‘Oculus’, decided on ‘Cow Tag’ for an event name, let me explain.  The event works like this:  At registration, you’re given a map of the entire trail system that has the locations of a bunch of cow tags (literally the things you see fixed to a cow’s ear) sprinkled all over it.  During the event, your objective is to ride to as many tags as you can and record the number written on the back of the tag.  Each tag is worth a certain number of points, and the end of the day the number of points you collect determines how many raffle tickets you get.  You’re then free to put your raffle tickets in a drawing to win gear from a number of awesome brands who all support trail advocacy.

THE TRAILS

The Big Hole Mountain trail system is something you can’t truly appreciate until you sampled some of this world class single track in the Caribou Targhee National Forest.  Ribbons of single track are laced over this awesome country by folks who clearly see the world through a dirt biker’s pair of goggles.  Hundreds of miles of trails climb to rocky ridge lines with stunning views and then drop into winding canyons that look like they came straight out of Middle Earth.  Trails thread their way through tunnels in the forest and along the sides of mountains.  There are no fall zones and snowfields, log and creek (read: river) crossings and technical moves innumerable – in short it’s a singletrack paradise.

This trail system has something for everyone.  From fast and flowy to hard-enduro technical, your dream trail is out there.  The folks at Klim have graded all of the trails for the event from green to double black on a difficulty scale (think ski area trail ratings).  Greens are typically two-track trails that are open to ATV’s too.  Don’t let that fact discourage you – ATVs tend to carve out perfectly-bermed turns that are an absolute hoot on a dirtbike.  Blue trails range from fast and flowy to easier technical moves and some exposure thrown in for good flavor.  My riding buddies and I spent most of our time on blues, and we were blown away by just how many miles of awesome trail are in this system.  Single blacks are where things start to get fun, as these trails have mandatory technical moves, and depending on which way you’re going on a trail some rather fun ledges and other obstacles to climb.  Double blacks are where you’re going to find the exposure and technical moves that can mean bad things if you blow a line.  One of the double blacks we sampled was a goat track across a very steep slide slope, and it took everything four guys had to recover a bike that slipped off the trail.

THE BIG PICTURE

Klim’s Cow Tag event is the best trail advocacy experience I’ve had in my life – and I’m fortunate enough to live in a community where we get to build new dirtbike trails with the forest service every year.  Roughly 300 riders participated in this year’s event, and judging by the dusty, smiling faces I saw everywhere at the end of the day – I know everyone had a great time.  And, all of the riders that participated in the Cow Tag can feel good about the fact that not only did they have a great day of riding, but they’ve helped to make sure that places like the Big Hole Mountain trail system stay open to dirtbikes.

Trail advocacy is something that everyone who recreates outdoors needs to be involved in.  Whether you’re on two wheels or four, if you value the trails that you utilize, then you need to support or, better yet, get involved with an organization that’s working to ensure your access to our nation’s trails.  If we don’t get involved, we will only loose access to the trails and trail systems that we all love riding.  Klim has created something brilliant in the Cow Tag event – they made trail advocacy something that is a ton of fun to participate in.  They’ve found great companies and organizations to partner up with to help make this event possible, and it’s my sincere hope that other companies, clubs, and organizations will follow suit to host events like the Cow Tag all over the place.  The more folks that get involved in trail advocacy, the better the odds are that world-class trail systems like the Big Hole Mountain trail system will be open for years to come.  Do yourself a favor – if you can travel to one place to ride next year, go to the Cow Tag event.

Thanks to Adam, Kenny, Stephen, and Christian for letting me continually stop the ride to take photos.  Thanks to all of the awesome folks at Klim and all of the other organizations that put on an outstanding event for a great cause.