location

@diffuser- the photos of the grass and the muck are taken when in Wales in England. You are 100 % correct - the muck was a combination of cowdung and other assorted farm refuse rendered slimy due to the rain. I lost momentum in the middle , reflexively put my leg down and had my riding boot filled up with the glop. The lingering smell was , well, unpleasant ...
The third photo is near a reservoir about 25 kms from Pune, This fills up in the monsoon but in the summer provides a fantastic run over the rocks .
Off road is the real game - blasting about on highways is so drab in comparison.

Actually the build quality is probably not that different (though I haven't yet seen an Impulse in person). That bike I had was built in (I think) 1974, back when the Japanese bikes were still in their infancy, so build quality was hit-or-miss. Certainly it was overbuilt for the time as far as the frame went, but the engineering was primitive as were the materials. The suspension was almost certainly little different from the street bikes of the time, unlike the long-travel suspensions available today. Admittedly, I'm remembering that bike through the eyes of a 12-year-old, who wouldn't have really known what to look for.

And yes, I was lucky. I had that bike in Western Massachusetts, where my dad had a farm up in the mountains. There was an extensive network of dirt roads and logging trails all over up there, and a huge State Forest nearby. I would gas up in the morning on a weekend, come in at lunch to refuel myself and the bike, and be gone again until dinner.

I can recall the day I took a curve too quickly, and went off the road and nearly down into a 5-meter gully with a creek at the bottom, and had to drag the bike back up some 2 meters of steep dirt hillside by myself, and the time on a hot day when the oddly-placed carburetor developed vapor lock in the middle of that state forest and I had leave the bike in the woods and walk several miles out to get back home so I could get help. The carb on that bike (it was a 2-stroke) was under the right-side engine cover, so when it started freezing, there was nothing I could do to warm it back up again. Then there was the time that long muffler, which was packed with loose steel wool for silencing, began to get clogged by the exhaust smoke, and the bike ran terribly. Also, if I had been riding a long time on a hot day, the bike would be able to exceed the capabilities of the ignition coil, and would start igniting the fuel mixture on compression alone, which meant the engine could rev way past its usual redline (about 60km/h in top gear)

Good times, good times...

Oh, and that gas tank was metal, not plastic (terrible design decision). It had rusted through along the bottom seams on both sides, and leaked like a sieve. My dad and I "patched" it with epoxy, but it never really worked all that well.

Thanks for sharing the amazing stories Mountain, I am looking forward for my own shot at doing some hard riding once I get back. Where I am currently, the highest point in the country is 144 m. And the offroad action is only for hard-tail MTBs.

Found frame pictures from parts catalog of the ZMA and CRF 230F. Frames look different. Sorry for the huge photograph.





Still awaiting engine mount pictures for the ZMA and the CRF.

If any one has friends who imported a new dirtbike recently, can you please let me know the proper clearing agent to go through? Total price would be helpful as well.

No prob. As for off-roading, Bahrain may not have much in the way of hills, but you don't need much elevation to go off-roading. There are plenty of "off-roaders" in places like Kansas, Florida, and other "flat" states in the US. Plus, Bahrain has (presumably) lots of sand dunes. Just go buy an ATV and hit the sand!

Also, for importing a bike, there's a site called "adventure wheels" here in India that sells or sold quads (ATVs) and a couple of off-road bikes. No idea whether they're still around, or where their machines come from. If they're not in business anymore, you can always get in touch with Polaris. They have a distributor in Chennai (I think), but their stuff is going to cost you. Given how dense most forests are here, and how soggy the ground can get, a quad is probably going to be a better investment (plus they're useful for doing work too).

Modern off-road bikes are getting further away from the old "trail bikes" (such as the discontinued XR series from Honda), and closer to full-on motocross race bikes. This is mainly because the majority of riding (at least in the US and probably Europe) is now done in specialized parks, rather than the kinds of woods I used to ride in. Many "public" forests and natural areas in the US are now closed to motorized vehicles. The (dwindling) exception is in some desert areas, where the racer qualities of the bikes become a benefit rather than a hindrance. ATVs on the other hand have seen an increase in popularity due to their dual nature. While "sport" atvs are just as much "park princesses" as the bikes are, the utility machines are much more versatile, since they get used as a more agile, comfortable, and flexible tractor. They can carry things, pull small farm implements, tow trailers, and still make good machines for exploration. As an example, below is the ATV I have wanted to get for a long time, though now that I'm here I'll probably never find.