I thought the ride was a blast. My cousin and some friends rode right into town from our camp 10 miles away on back rodes. We picked trail B and I have to say it was a hell of a ride. I did ok with my 400ex. Just put it in first and went full throttle through all the trouble spots. I did see some sport bikes stuck, but I also saw some 4x4's buried also. High rpm's were needed to get through a lot of tough areas. We stopped at about 5 miles before the end of trail B and bought some "toothpicks", finished the trail, and drove our quads to a cool bar called Ward's. We walked right in completely covered in mud and had a few drinks and then rode back to camp. We will be there every year.

 

You have to understand what Cochranton is and then you can have fun. If you look back on that weekend and think about all the crazy things you saw it will make you laugh. Did you see the thousand or so trucks, campers, etc stuck in a foot of mud? Did you see thousands of Atv's in a field getting ready to ride? Did you hear Atv's getting chased by police up and down the streets of Cochranton at 2am in the morning? Did you see a trail where Atv's disappeared into the distance? Did you camp out where every person you talked to just wanted to talk ATV's? Did you ride your ATV through town like you were in a car? Did you see some crazy looking ATV's? Think about what you saw, smelled and experienced. Sure Cochranton could make some changes but as I sit at my job on Monday I would rather be waiting in line watching some fool try to climb a hill and covered in mud.

 

Cochranton. That is all I can say. It was unreal. I have never seen anything like it, and I never will again. I have never seen as much mud in a field or on the trails. Unreal. I have never had a better ride in my life. I was in the 4th wave on trail B, but somehow got onto trail A. Poor marking. I only waited for a total of 2 minutes. (Dang racers). But it was hell on my wheeliers. We popped a bead of an Foreman 400, lost the brakes on a TRX300FW, and the bearings in the hubs went on a Recon. But what do you expect when we beat the heck out of them for 7000 miles?

They did a great job running the poker run, as always. If I had more thumbs, I would put them up too. Truley the best ride of my life.

 

Fappleman for President!....that was well said. People either complain and never return or they stand in total awe and never miss another. Understanding Cochranton is the whole key....the Worlds Largest Poker Run!

 

We rode Trail A also . The line at the begining was total BS. The people doing the actual "crowd control" took down the tape and let people get in line in front of people who had been there 2 hours already. The first half of the ride was lots of roads which is not a poker run in my opinion. A lot of people were very upset before they even saw a trail. My quad was run into numerous times and suffered about $400 in damage from others who do not know how to control themselves or their quads. I will admit the second half was much better since many people got so frustrated they went back to camp as soon as they found a road to take them there. That allowed us to have enough room to ride without stopping every 100 feet for some idiot who was determined that he could make it up a hill on his 400EX with holeshots, or Tecate 3 with wooly boogers, etc. if he tried 5 or 6 more times. The other riders and the camping was neat and fun, but we left with a bad taste in our mouths when the Tractor that had to pull us out of the pasture (his girlfriend was riding on the fender of it with him, Blue Ford) asked us for Alcohol (obviously not a fee imposed by the event organizers )and when we told them we had none said it would cost 10 bucks. We had no choice so we agreed and after he pulled us about 200 feet, breaking both taillight lenses and nearly letting the whole truck and trailer slide into a ravine, he said it would be 20 bucks! We refused and gave him the 10 we originally were conned into, but we felt robbed and if that is the best the organizers can do we will choose another location to road trip to next year. The event had a lot of potential, but it was a free for all as far as the volunteers and the "held at ransom" towing workers.

 

We started on trail c at 9am and were finished at 1pm. There were some bottle necks but we went around all those guys sitting there drinking beer in the middle of the trail. I can't believe that many people did no go throught the whole thing.

mike 01 raptor