The most obvious adaptation is increased red blood cell production resulting in a higher Hemoglobin, so, there is a higher oxygen carrying capacity per unit of blood volume.

 

Looks like you have some good spots planned!

Rampart Range will be a good warm up, lots of flowy and bermed out trails. Once you are in Crested Butte, hope you like rocks! That area is so epic though, a week isn't enough. I miss living there and having hundreds of trails within 5 minutes of my door. Haven't ridden around Telluride, but that should be awesome too.

 

Eric, you are going to have a blast. I'm jealous. I have done part of the Alpine Loop from Ouray (what a cool town) to Lake City a couple times in my truck, but that area would be a blast on a bike. I hope you post up a bunch of pics when you get back.

Blackheart ,, I'm glad I got out of bed today, I learned something new (again).

Dan

 

There will be a huge ride report.... im gonna take tons of pics.....

I have another question for the guys who have ridden up there, do you reccomment a gearing bump, im running the 13-45... the one guy was saying i should go up 3 in the rear or so, to make up for the loss in power? Do you guys think its necessary?

 

EMS, my KLX300S did great with 14/47 gearing and your 13/45 is probably a hair lower, so you should be fine. I even did some serious singletrack sections and my gearing did just fine. Unless your jetting is way off now, I think you may be surprised that it won't be as horrible as you might think. I can't recall what mods you have, but if you at least have a pipe, opened airbox, and good jetting, you shouldn't have a problem. I had ridden my KLR600/650's up there for many years, and it was an absolute luxury to have a lighter ride like the KLX.

 

Thanks for the info.... I have full exhaust, opened airbox...ill just take some jets with me, i might jump down to the 125 main, not sure yet. Everyone im going with just keeps making me worry about the 30% loss of power...

 

I know there have been some spirited discussions about CV vs. cable-pull slide carbs and altitude, but I swear to you that I always noticed a very different performance level with my CV carbed KLRs/KLX over my XR's with more conventional carbs at altitude. And everyone I rode with who had cable-pull slide carbs would lose more power than my CV carbed bikes. The vacuum slide does something at altitude, and I'm not going to get into a pissin' match over it about how or why it runs noticeably cleaner. It just runs cleaner. All my XR's would start chuffing a little black smoke and run rougher as I approached 10,000'...and all my bikes were jetted spot-on at my home elevation of about 1700'.

I won't argue with your friends who are stating that 30% power loss. I have no way of qualifying how much power is lost, but some is lost. I just still contend that the CV carbed bikes will fare better at altitude with all other normal factors of operation being somewhat equal. I think the main thing is that once the cable-pull slide carbed bikes start chuffing rich smoke, they really have a noticeable loss in power. If you have clean jetting at home, you'll probably do just fine.

 

So your bike is jetted for 1700 feet and you didnt have any issue leaving it the way it was up to 10,000-13,000? I just dont really know what to do...

 

Please, please do not take this as condescending. It sounds like this is your first trip to this high an elevation??? I was the same way on my first trip. I mean your imagination and things other people say almost have you thinking that you're going to need a Mt. Everest style oxygen supply just to get over those big passes. You can envision everyone in your group having a dead bike at elevation, and then y'all have to start eating each other like the Donner party just to survive...LOL! Now I'm obviously just kidding with some outlandish exaggeration, but being prepared was important to me, and it sounds like you feel the same. It's understandable.

I can say without doubt that the many years of trips to the high mountains of CO have all been done on bikes jetted optimally for my home area of 1700'. The first time I went on an XR250R, I brought jets, Everest level cold weather clothing, and a bunch of other stuff. The high altitude richness I spoke of still wasn't enough to inspire me to change the jetting while I was there. I had 2 other trips on XR's with the same results...but I did leave the extra jets and Everest clothing at home...LOL! The XR's got even more "boggy rich" between 12,000-13,000 feet, but I just kept the revs up. You're not really at that elevation for very long...usually just minutes. The first year I went on an '85 KLR600, I was amazed at how well that bike did at elevation. The locals I was riding with told me it was because of the CV carb. They were on XR's of all sizes, but they were actual off road models with plates. The bigger bikes could pull me up until about 10,000', but then my KLR would actually pull all of them as we continued up. It was an eye opener for me. I've noticed this on many other trips over the years.

Last year at Moab a local riding buddy with a DR350 with a Mikuni cable-pull slide pumper carb went with me. We got to a little over 10,000' in the LaSal mountains, and his bike really began to chug badly up there. It was jetted pretty clean for our local 1700'. My KLX300 never even showed any signs of power loss at 10,000'. There has to be some, but the bike ran so cleanly it wasn't noticeable.

I've seen and experienced it for years. For whatever physics, engineering, or black magic reason it is, a CV carb seems to perform noticeably better than a cable-pull slide carb at high altitude. So yes, I'm suggesting that unless you live at sea level, just insure you have optimum jetting at a reasonable altitude, and you'll do just fine at Imogene Pass and the other "biggies" in the area you're riding. I saw one story on ADV and over on Two-Wheeled Texans where a young man with a bone stock KLX250 had quite a bit of trouble on Imogene Pass as his bike just seemed to run out of power. He had a vid cam on his helmet, and it appeared to me that a combination of an anemically stock bike, poor line choice, and maybe a lack of experience all combined to give him trouble. If your KLX has had the common mods to give it that "snap" that the sickly, totally stock bike lacks, I think you'll have no issue in Colorado.

 

That is tons of great info... thank you. Guess ill just leave her alone... i think ill remove the airbox lid though, i have the snorkel removed, but ill take it off to get more air in... Thanks alot that helps. Less work i have to do. Some other things i need to buy still though.