Lake Como Road with an Adventure Motorcycle

[sfreytag]

Dirt bike - Absolutely go for it. If I ever go back, I'm riding the KLX300 and leaving the Jeep home.
Adventure bike - Probably doable but will not be fun

I don't know anything about your bike but generally speaking adventure bikes don't have low enough gearing to do trails this technical. I supposed you could always swap sprockets to better gearing but you still have all the extra weight which would be miserable (you will have a foot or two down most of the trail). Maybe you are a fantastic rider and can make it up. Just know you will be clutching and feathering off the clutch basically the whole way up. Your clutch will hate you.

[mtree]

I don't know how tricked out your bike is, but yes, I've seen "dirt bikes" at Lake Como. I even saw rock crawler Jeeps as high as Blue Lakes. (When I came down at 7pm they left 100 yards of leaking oil on the road along with one Jeep waiting for assistance with a blown radiator or sumpin.)

Reaching the lake depends on your skill level. A friend of mine took his up there years ago. He is so skilled he came back down to say "hi" to his buddies who were hiking the road and went back up again to wait! Interesting note. He didn't necessarily have to navigate over the Jaws obstacles. He was able to bypass to the sides. Again, he's pretty skilled.

So its definitely doable!

[Wentzl]

The video posted in the first reply seems like the best answer to OP.

I am curious about the person who watched that and thought, "man that looks like fun"!

Wildschut, if you are still there, what were your thoughts seeing the ride?

I especially like the narrative about 4 minutes in where they are looking at a Blazer that lost his brakes and the driver bailed out of the vehicle to watch it roll and flip over on the road! Amazing things turned out so well for him.

[wildschut]

Thank you all very much. This is super helpful…

[wildschut]

I've never been on Lake Como Road, but after driving a 2wd truck for years I'm also in the habit of watching videos of rough roads to see if they were worth attempting. I found this video from 9 years ago, with an insightful comment from the uploader 3 months ago:

Rode it twice now up to the waterfall. It's funny, the obstacles that are hard for four-wheel drives are easy on the bike, but the things that are easy in the four-wheel drive are hard when Riding a bike. It's just so rough and long, without letting up, no matter what kind of vehicle you use it literally beats the life out of you. I remember getting to the bottom and thinking why in the world did I ever do that LOL... But that's what makes great memories right?

I've also never climbed Ellingwood but I have hiked the approach for the North Ridge route from Zapata Falls (for nearby 13ers Twin Peaks). That trailhead is paved 2wd and the hike and basin are very pretty. You could always try your luck with Como and if it doesn't work out, head to Zapata Falls instead. And if summiting from that route is too much, Twin Peaks are also a great backup option with an incredible view of the Blanca group.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH

[wildschut]

This is super helpful. Thank you very much...

[wildschut]

The video posted in the first reply seems like the best answer to OP.

I am curious about the person who watched that and thought, "man that looks like fun"!

Wildschut, if you are still there, what were your thoughts seeing the ride?

I especially like the narrative about 4 minutes in where they are looking at a Blazer that lost his brakes and the driver bailed out of the vehicle to watch it roll and flip over on the road! Amazing things turned out so well for him.

Yeah- I have a KTM 390 that weighs 340 LBS. So after watching that and reading the consensus from the posts are that it would be possible, but it would be so miserable that I would probably regret it. I am pretty good on motorcycles, but it looks like it would just be miserable. I am thinking about coming up the back side after all of these great posts.