anyone in the forum coming up/down this weekend? We're always looking for people to ride along with. I'll be on the trail Saturday morning. Rode the bike trail this past weekend. They cleaned it up alittle, but it's still pretty rough and muddy. Seen a guy boil over a Suzuki 250 in the one hole! Every weekend now for 2 months though i've seen the Life Star chopper at Kane hospital hauling someone out. I hope that doesn't influence any politicians on the land issues. ANyone know the status of anyone that had a bad crash at the trail? I wish them the best of luck.

 

jcv400ex,

I rode it this past weekend too. The first parts were pretty much "high speed/low drag", but it seems the rangers need to do their homework on it. There are lots of places that the trail had desolved in to nothing. Like the one mud hole about half way through the trail. I say this not because I had a problem with it (I made it)or don't like mud (I do) but I was worried about the damage around the trail on both sides of it. Still, it's nice to see them working on it at all. Most of the state trails are getting to the point that you have to crawl over them to keep yourself in one piece. What was once smooth, is now eroded into a rocky hell.

As for the people life flighted out, No one in our group even had a breakdown, much less a wreck.

I did see a couple of bikers go down though. One was a low speed crash in the mud on the afore mentioned mud hole, the second one was on the ATV trail near Pig's Ear. He was moving fast (I know I was behind him) and his rear wheel slid out. I very nearly hit him, Thank god for split brakes.

 

Mike, I rode the bike trail a couple weeks ago, and I know what you mean. The guy I was with wanted to go thru that big mud hole, but the 18 inch high rock right in the middle was totally impassable. Thus, we too wiggled thru the woods around it. No, I don't like doing that, but no way was my 2WD going thru those huge ruts and over a foot an a half high rock to boot.
I can see the purpose/challenge of certain parts of the rock areas, but other areas have eroded to where it is a contest to see which you can beat up worse, you or your quad.
We rode the first mile and a half or so, and stopped where the trail crosses 66. A guy came riding up on a Sport 400 with his wife on the back. He has a real nasty look on his face, and says to us "Have you guys ridden this trail this year?" We said no. He says " Well they have just totally ruined that part of the trail. It used to be a real challenge, climbing over logs, mud holes and so on. They may as well just make this whole place a gravel road." After giving my buddy a hard time about why he had a quad trunk on his SP500, and why didn't he just bungee cord what he needed on the racks, he roared off, doubtlessly off to complain to somebody else. Just goes to show, you can't please eveybody.
I thought the improvements to the first part made it easier, but I thought it was still interesting, and more difficult than the regular atv trail.

 

 

I'm coming up this weekend (labor day) with a club (Southern Maryland Dirt Riders) "SMDR" There should be at least 25 of us. Will be getting there friday afternoon.