Dune Goons

10/04/2026

10/03/2026

Turbo Raptor 700. Thoughts?

10/01/2026

Dune Goons Daily - Eight or Ten? The Paddle Debate Heading Into Glamis Season

Glamis season is right around the corner. Trailers are getting loaded, wheels are getting swapped, and paddle tires are coming down off garage walls all across the West. With that comes the oldest argument in the dunes, and we want to settle it, or at least stir it up properly.

Here is the question. Why are so many 450 riders at Glamis running an 8 paddle instead of a 10? Every big name pro we have talked to runs the 8 down there. So we did some digging into what is actually going on.

First, it helps to understand what a paddle is doing. It is not really a tire in the normal sense. It works like a shovel, sliding into the sand, scooping, and pushing off to move you forward. Every one of those paddles that hits the sand is work your engine has to do.

That is where paddle count comes in. More paddles mean more traction, but in sand, maximum traction can actually bog the machine down and make it slower. The trick is matching the tire to the power you have. Your machine should be able to spin the tire when you hit the gas, but with too little grip you just dig a hole.

Longtime duners will tell you that wheelspin is your friend, up to a point. Keeping the wheel spinning gives each paddle more chances to do its job, and fewer paddles let the engine gain a little momentum between strokes instead of hooking up constantly and bogging. One tire maker puts it simply: a lower paddle count gives the tire a moment to relax between bites, which takes load off the drivetrain.

That matters at Glamis more than most places. The dunes are tall, the sand is dry and loose, and the climbs are long. Too many paddles can bog a motor right at the top of a hill, which is the last place you want it. Glamis riders also point out that the 8 lets the bike carry a little more RPM and lets the rear end slide more, so you can steer with the throttle through the bowls instead of tractoring through them.

Then there is the wear and tear. In my own experience, the deeper Glamis sand and a 10 paddle are just plain hard on a bike. I am not the only one who thinks so. One rider on an old dune forum said his shop warned him a 10 paddle would cost him a transmission in half the time, so he switched his kid's bike back to an 8.

Now, to be fair, the 10 paddle crowd is not going quietly. One Glamis veteran argues there is no sense hauling an open class bike to the dunes just to neuter it with an 8, and says aggressive riders will probably prefer the 10. At least one tire retailer recommends the 10 paddle for larger displacement bikes and the 8 for 250s and smaller. And a common middle ground is that the 8 works best on a 450 unless the engine has been built, in which case the 10 makes sense.

There is also an interesting regional twist for our Oregon crew. Some longtime duners have noticed that riders in California and Nevada tend to run fewer paddles than riders in Oregon. Whether that comes down to the sand, the riding style, or just habit is up for debate.

So here is where we land. Deep, dry sand is why you need a paddle in the first place. But the 8 versus 10 decision comes down to how much your motor can spin, how you like the bike to feel, and how much you want to put your drivetrain through on a long week of riding. For a stock 450 at Glamis, the 8 seems to be where most of the fast guys end up.

Now we want to hear from you. Are you an 8 guy or a 10 guy? Tell us what bike you ride, what paddle you run, what brand, and where you ride it. And if you are one of the rebels running a 9, speak up. Stock motor guys running a 10, this is your chance to defend yourselves.

See you in the sand.

Sonny and the Dune Goons

09/19/2026

DUNE GOONS DAILY: Six Years Without Matt

Six years ago today, we lost our brother Matthew Schroeder.

That last year with Matt, we did everything. Camping trips, dirt bikes, side by sides, off roading our trucks until something broke, then camping some more. We shot guns, went fishing, and spent the night at each other's houses like we were little kids again. Looking back, it was one of the best years any of us ever had.

It was also the year we watched his health go downhill faster than any of us could believe. That part never gets easier to think about. But it made every trip, every ride, and every late night around the fire count for more.

One memory that sums Matt up: an ice storm, cars stuck all along the side of the road. Seven of them, total strangers. We didn't drive past. We pulled or pushed every single one of them out of there. Nobody asked us to. That's just who Matt was, and it's a big part of what Dune Goons is supposed to be about. You see someone stuck, you stop.

Every year since, the crew has met up to camp in his honor. We used to do it on this day, but we moved it to his birthday week, Labor Day week. The weather's better, and honestly, celebrating the day he was born beats marking the day he left. We just got back from this year's trip a couple weeks ago, and he was with us the whole time.

So today, do something Matt would have done. Call a buddy. Plan a ride. Help somebody who's stuck.

Rest easy, Matt. See you at camp next Labor Day. 🤙

09/18/2026

DUNE GOONS DAILY 🏜️

Update on Wi******er: Banshee Hill is still roped off and the 10:30 curfew is still in effect. No new word from the court yet, but a ruling is expected sometime this fall.

So here's the Goon plan. We're taking the high road. Literally. All the way south. 🚚💨

Glamis season kicks off in October, and the martens can have Wi******er for the winter. Enjoy the peace and quiet, little buddies. Keep the hill warm for us. 🦦

And let's be honest, Oregon: when California is the one with fewer riding restrictions, it might be time for some self-reflection. No curfew at Glamis. Ride all night if you want. 🌙

📅 Mark your calendars: The annual Dune Goons Glamis trip starts on Presidents' Day, Monday, February 15, 2027, and runs the week after. Not the holiday weekend crowds, the week AFTER. 70 degree days, night rides under the stars, and way more room to play. Anyone who wants to join us is welcome. Just bring a jacket for the night laps. 🔥

👉 Comment "GLAMIS" if you're in and we'll get you the details as the trip gets closer.

Now the real question: what's getting fixed, rebuilt or boosted before your first Glamis trip? Drop it below. 👇

******erBay

09/12/2026

DUNE GOONS DAILY
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR

Here is something nobody thought all the way through.

Before, at 11 o'clock at night, this entire group was out on the sand. Spread out. Moving. Burning fuel and tire and absolutely nothing else. Around 1am we came back in, ate something questionable, and went to bed like grown men who had used up their day.

Now we are in camp at 10:31.

Twenty grown adults. A fire. A cooler. Mechanical aptitude. Four hours of unspent energy and zero supervision. You do not need an engineering degree to see where this goes, and in fairness, nobody here has one.

Labor Day weekend somebody found an empty half gallon jug. Somebody else had aviation fuel, because of course somebody had aviation fuel. The rest of it wrote itself. Grown men who own businesses, pay mortgages and have children standing around a fire at midnight going "do another one."

And before anybody types it: the tents were a hundred feet back. We measured. That is the part that should concern you.

So to whoever is reading the filings: we were not the problem at 11pm. At 11pm we were three miles out and thoroughly occupied. You did not remove the energy from Wi******er Bay. You just relocated it to a fixed position and gave it time to plan.

Give us the sand back after dark and we will happily go back to being too tired to be creative.

United by Sand.

09/11/2026

3.28 seconds. 113 mph. 300 feet of sand.

That is the Wi******er Bay record Nate Morris put down in 2023 on his Hayabusa 1300 machine. If you saw it parked out front of our booth at UTV Takeover, now you know what it can do.

Nate is a drag racing fabricator out of Portland, and he is also the guy behind the only YFZ450R turbo kit on the market. Talent like that does not come around often, and we are proud to work with him.

******erBay

09/11/2026

⛽ DUNE GOON DAILY NEWS ⛽
Thursday, September 10, 2026

WHAT'S IN YOUR TANK, GOONS? THE AVGAS TRUTH

Fuel is all over the headlines right now. The FAA just dropped its final plan to move airplanes off leaded 100LL avgas by the end of 2030. Meanwhile E15 has been showing up at way more pumps this year thanks to EPA emergency waivers, and the House passed a bill in May to allow it year round. Translation: the two fuels we argue about most around the fire are both changing. So let's separate the campfire rumors from the facts.

THE INTERNET RUMORS

RUMOR: "Avgas fouls your plugs and cakes your valves."
TRUTH: Lead deposits are real chemistry, but they build up when an engine idles cold and putts around. A machine that gets ridden hard runs hot enough to push the lead byproducts right out the pipe. I've run 100LL in both my CRF450Rs since 2021. Five years, zero plug problems.

RUMOR: "Avgas burns hotter and will melt a piston."
TRUTH: Octane measures knock resistance, not heat. Higher octane does not make a hotter fire. Detonation is what actually kills pistons, and 100LL has about 100 octane worth of protection against it.

RUMOR: "More octane means more power."
TRUTH: Only if the engine is built or tuned to use it. On a stock machine, octane beyond what the manual calls for adds zero ponies. It just keeps you safe from knock.

RUMOR: "Avgas will wreck anything you put it in."
TRUTH: Half true, and it depends entirely on what's bolted to your exhaust. Lead permanently poisons catalytic converters and coats O2 sensors. If your machine has a cat, a steady diet of avgas slowly kills it. If it doesn't, the lead has nothing to hurt.

RUMOR: "Avgas is junk fuel with no additives."
TRUTH: It's actually one of the most tightly controlled fuels you can buy. Ethanol free, low aromatics, consistent batch to batch, and built to sit in a tank without going bad. The only true part: it doesn't have the detergent package pump gas has.

MY REAL WORLD TEST

Two CRF450Rs, a Raptor 700, and every generator I own have been on 100LL for years. No plug fouling, no O2 sensor issues on the 450s, and stuff honestly lasts longer than it did on cheap pump gas. I also ran a full pail of VP T4 race fuel through one of the 450s back to back with avgas. Felt zero difference.

THE REAL FACTS ON 100LL

• About 100 octane. Plenty for a high compression 450.
• Zero ethanol. No water absorption, no phase separation, no varnish in your carb or injectors when it sits.
• Long shelf life. Huge for machines that sit between trips.
• A bit lighter per gallon than pump gas, so a hair less energy. Some guys richen the fueling a click after switching.
• Lower v***r pressure. Cold starts can be lazy on a freezing morning. Once it's warm, no difference.
• Illegal in street vehicles. Federal law bans leaded fuel in on road motor vehicles. Keep it out of the truck.
• It's on the clock. With the FAA pushing to end leaded avgas by 2030, don't count on it being around forever.

MACHINE BY MACHINE

✅ QUADS AND DIRT BIKES WITH NO CAT: Carbed or fuel injected doesn't matter if there's no catalytic converter for the lead to poison.

✅ MX BIKES LIKE THE CRF450R: US models are closed course race bikes with no cat. They do have an O2 sensor, but ridden hard it stays hot and clean. Five years on mine and it's still happy.

✅ GENERATORS AND ANYTHING THAT SITS: This is where avgas might be the BEST choice. Old ethanol gas sitting in a carb bowl is how small engines die. Avgas fixes that exact problem.

🛑 STOCK SIDE BY SIDES WITH A CAT: Machines like the Can-Am X3 come from the factory with a catalytic converter and O2 sensor. One mixed tank won't hurt anything, but as a regular fuel it slowly kills the cat and sensor. Stick with unleaded. If your machine is cat deleted and tuned, talk to your tuner about fuel.

🛑 ANYTHING STREET LEGAL: Not happening.

Not sure what your machine has? Look at the exhaust before you pour.

THE BEST FUEL TYPES, RANKED

1. Ethanol free unleaded race fuel (VP T4, Sunoco Optima, Renegade Pro Unleaded). Safe for everything, including side by sides with a cat. Stable in storage and consistent. Only downside is the price tag.

2. Ethanol free premium pump gas (91 or 92). Best bang for the buck in any machine. Buy it fresh and burn it.

3. 100LL avgas. The champ for bikes, quads, and generators with no cat, especially anything that sits. Not for cat equipped side by sides or anything street legal.

4. E10 premium. Fine if it's fresh from a busy station and gets burned within a couple weeks. Worst choice for anything that sits.

5. E15 (sold as Unleaded 88 or UNL88). Hard no. It's not approved for motorcycles, off road vehicles, or small engines. With E15 at more stations this year, read the pump label before you fill your cans.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
• Leaded race gas (like VP MR12): made for high compression builds and aggressive tunes. On a stock machine you're paying more for nothing.
• E85: only in a machine tuned for it. Popular in big turbo side by side builds, never in a stock one.

RULE OF THUMB: Always run at least the octane your owner's manual calls for. More than that won't make a stock machine faster.

GOON BOTTOM LINE

Most of the avgas horror stories online come from people applying car rules to machines that don't have car parts. No cat and ridden hard? Avgas is great fuel. Got a cat? Stay unleaded. Got a can of E10 that's been sitting in the garage since last season? That's the real enemy.

United by Sand. 🏜️

09/09/2026

Dune Goons Daily, 9/9/26

We usually don't do the whole "buy our stuff" thing here, because nobody follows a brand to get advertised at. But this one is worth breaking the rule for.

Nate Morris just finished the YFZ450R turbo kit, and it is now live on the shop. Nate builds drag bikes out of Portland, and this is the only kit like it available to the ATV crowd. Nobody else is offering this.

Numbers: 7 pounds of boost, 75 horsepower. That is roughly double what the thing makes from the factory. Your quad goes from "fun little 450" to "please stop wheelieing at every roll-on." Your thumb will develop trust issues.

The bike in these photos is also for sale. 2026 YFZ450R SE, 11 hours on it, dyno sheet included so you don't have to take our word for anything. $21,000.

Eleven hours. Somebody bought a brand new SE, put less time on it than a work shift, and now it is turbocharged and looking for a new owner. We don't ask questions.

Kit is on dunegoonshop.com. Bike, DM us.

United by sand. Divided by traction.

09/08/2026

DUNE GOONS DAILY: THE BANSHEE HILL LINE

We got answers straight from the top today. Sat down one on one with the head of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department and asked the question every single one of you has been asking since the injunction dropped.

Here's what we learned, and it's bigger than we thought.

THE LINE NOBODY EXPLAINED TO US

The curfew everybody's been panicking about is federal. It came out of a federal court, it applies to federal land, and federal land does not start where you park.

The boundary is the bottom of Banshee Hill.

Bottom of Banshee Hill and NORTH is the Douglas County section. County ground, county patrol, county rules.

Past Banshee Hill and SOUTH, all the way to the boundary, that's federal. That's where Forest Order 06-12-04-26-09 lives. 10:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., no motorized vehicles.

One dune complex. Two landlords. Nobody put that on a sign in a way any of us could read.

WHAT THE SHERIFF ACTUALLY SAID

I asked him flat out about the curfew. He told me that since there's no curfew in the Douglas County section of the patrolled area, they aren't enforcing anything as far as a curfew goes. You're not getting a curfew ticket from a Douglas County deputy on county sand. There isn't a curfew there to write you up for.

Then I asked about the federal rangers. He said there aren't any patrolling that portion. They were out here for UTV Takeover, but they're not on the sand on a daily basis, and especially not late at night.

So now you know exactly what the enforcement picture looks like out there. Straight from the guy whose deputies are actually in it.

WHAT THAT MEANS FOR US

Night riding is not dead. It moved.

Bottom of Banshee Hill and north, you're on county ground and there is no curfew. Legal, all night, nobody's stopping you. And that's not some obscure back corner either. Douglas County Parks owns and manages every campground with sand access in Wi******er Bay plus the first sand camping section, so the county ground is the part right off camp. It's already where most of us stage.

South of that line after 10:30 is still illegal. Doesn't matter who's out there or who isn't. It's a federal court order, not a suggestion, and getting caught on the wrong side of it is a very expensive way to end a good weekend.

So the play is simple. Want to ride late? Stay north of the line. That's it. That's the whole workaround and it's completely legal.

TWO THINGS BEFORE YOU GO SEND IT

Banshee Hill itself is closed. Separate order, 06-12-04-26-10. Banshee Hill northeast of Umpqua #2 and the southwestern edge south of Umpqua #3 are both roped off. So the hill is the landmark for the boundary, not a destination. Use it to navigate, don't ride it.

And the northern dunes up by Florence and Siltcoos have had their own 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for years. That one's got nothing to do with the marten lawsuit. Different area, different rule, still a ticket.

BOTTOM LINE

The sheriffs aren't the problem. They never were. Know where the line is, stay north of it after 10:30, and you can ride until the fuel runs out.

Big thanks to the Sheriff for taking the time. Guy didn't have to sit down with some dude in a Dune Goons hat and explain jurisdictional boundaries, and he did it anyway.

United by Sand.