A few Treffen pics and a couple vids - Benzworld.org

Brent · 10-17-2003, 08:43 AM

I put a few pictures up from the Treffen and a few from my extended trip back to the San Juans. I took a couple short videos of the G climbing some obstacles too. Nothing that beats Q's vid of Erwin though, post that one!http://homepage.mac.com/brentholm/PhotoAlbum21.html

GwagenLover · 10-17-2003, 09:18 AM

Brent,
Looking at the pics, I was curious about the tread on the tires of those G's that took the trip. How well would the standard road pattern treads have faired in the Treffen?
How long were you off road?
Where did the group bunk in the night time?
Roughly how many miles did you go off road?
What was the worst problem you had on the trip?

Brent · 10-17-2003, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Brent,
Looking at the pics, I was curious about the tread on the tires of those G's that took the trip. How well would the standard road pattern treads have faired in the Treffen?
How long were you off road?
Where did the group bunk in the night time?
Roughly how many miles did you go off road?
What was the worst problem you had on the trip?

The two trails we did for the "official" Treffen would have been easily done on the G's 18" street wheels and tires. We did run a tougher trail before the Treffen that would require an all-terrain tire, preferably on a 16" wheel. Once you get into the tougher trails I think the convex style of the 18" wheels are subject to damage. My flat 16's have some pretty good scrathes in them[B)]. I think that the Treffen planned for next year in Moab Utah will offer two trail groups, the "no damage" group and the "lets see what they can do" group.

The trails took about 4-6 hrs depending. I have been out from sun-up to sun-down in the past though. Trail maps generally give you a good idea of how long it will take. My six year old twins went everyday and loved it. Daves 3yr old and infant came along one day and did very well. It was fun to have the kids along.

Erwin stayed in a Hotel in CB, I drove our motorhome out to the forest service campground and Dave and Q stayed in a rented pop-up camper. Tenting would have been COLD unless you were well prepared. Moab has a bunch of Hotel options as well as campgrounds and wilderness camping. We just met up each morning, it worked out well.

Trails are about 10-20 miles plus travel by roads to and from.

My biggest problem was trying to keep the batteries on the motorhome charged, no truck problems. Q had a couple minor things but his truck is FAR from stock and he is still working out some bugs. I've never had a major problem on trail with a G in five years of running.

Hipine · 10-17-2003, 10:11 AM

Quote:

I was curious about the tread on the tires of those G's that took the trip. How well would the standard road pattern treads have faired in the Treffen?
How long were you off road?
Where did the group bunk in the night time?
Roughly how many miles did you go off road?
What was the worst problem you had on the trip?

Tires:
Q= BFG Krawler
Brent= BFG MT or GYW MTR (can't remember)
Erwin= Mich. XPC, I think
Dave= Dunlop Radila Rover R/T
Any decent street or AT tire would have done fine on the stuff we did for the Treffen. Trails were dry, rocks were not too sharp, no big mud, etc. Looks like Brent encountered some snow in the SJs, but again, it looks like nothing a decent AT wouldn't handle, but I wasn't there on that part of his trip

Off road:
Each trail ride was about 5 hours, taking our time with lots of stops for pix and fun along the way. Of the 5 hours of each trip, I'd only categorize about 2 hours of that as being on a "trail". It's hard to distinguish in CO. Everything from smooth dirt roads to that rock pile going up flag mtn are just categorized as "forest roads". Each ride was about a 40 mile round trip by my odometer, again, maybe only 10-ish miles of each was on "trails". The rest were more like dirt roads, and some pavement on the way back from Marble after the Schofield Pass run.

Bunks:
Q stayed with my family in a rented pop-up camper and Brent and his family stayed in his motorhome. We both parked at the Cement Creek campground SE of Crested Butte. The campground was closed down for the season, meaning we had to cart in our own water, but also meaning we didn't have to pay for the sites. That campground, as with most of the NFS cmpgrounds around there, had pit toilets that were open for use, but no other amenities this time of year. In the summer there's a couple centralized water spigots, but no site-specific hook-ups. Erwin stayed in a hotel in town, about a 15 minute drive from our camps.

Trouble:
Nobody had any real trouble at all on any of the trails. Q had lost some oil "getting vertical" on Chinaman's the day before so I gave him a couple quarts. Brent also took a quart of oil. At the old mine shaft we worked a bit to tighten up Q-s radiator support, but that was more my fault, being hyper-paranoid about mission critical items like that. We noticed it while checking the oil, and decided the day was so nice we might as well relax a bit and fiddle with it to know for sure it wouldn't get any worse. Brent and Erwin both took identical stripes on their left rear wheel rim in "the squeeze" on Chinaman's the day before, and Erwin had an exhaust rattle after the cross over pipe had settled a bit during his Chinaman's run. That one was just a little annoying noise and nothing a bit of wire couldn't fix just to keep it from chattering all the way back to TX.

You should have come out!

-Dave G.

Gollygwagen · 10-17-2003, 10:52 AM

Heck, this could be a ride at Disneyland! I was going to try and put together a trip report, but I've been busy and the video can't wait. Here's Erwin's full throttle assult on the ledge.
www.clubgwagen.com/extreme/temp/erwin.mpg

In his defense, he tried it easy and slow several time with rock stacking but in the end decided he was realdy to be at the top.
[:p]

I had a few little failures on the trail, but if you change everything on a rig you have to expect a few things to crop up! Next year it will be perfect... honest!

DUTCH · 10-17-2003, 11:14 AM

That's Erwin. Balls of case hardened steel and a great guy!

GwagenLover · 10-17-2003, 11:21 AM

I love it! Erwin made a decision to put the G on that rock and nothing was going to stand in his way.
[:D]I watched it at least 10 times.
Colorado is a good distance form NC, but I am going to have to think about making the trip next year.

Gollygwagen · 10-17-2003, 03:54 PM

Watching it again it's funny how no one seemd that surprised by the assent. I kept recording even after the action (a little too long) and you get the idea of MY take on that run! Woo hoo!!