An AWESOME day!!!

[Moparman1539]

Today was the best day i have every had. I FINALLY left the house to go riding somewhere public. And i chose the slippery rock dunes. The trials were awesome, tight, sandy, and hills, with the occasional straight away to get speed, mud and some SERIOUS hill climbs.

Did the hill climb 3 times. First i took the middle trail, and made it up my first time. My heart was pounding at the top because they were STEEP. Second time i took the left trail, hit a rut went sideways and I went down. I rolled back down the hill, but the bike stayed so i had to go retrieve it which was difficult, the hill was hard to walk up. So i sat at the bottom and waited for a sec. Then some guy took off on a quad and went up the on i just wrecked on, made it half way and then started to tumble back to the bottom. Luckley he was ok. And somehow the quad was to. so in about 5 min i tried The third time on the very right , i made it all the way to the top, and almost on the flat the bike took off and shot into the air. Back tire was higher than the front and i was still hold on to the handlebars. It was fun, thought it was gonna land on me though.... the bike made it to the top.... but i didn't.

Then i tried a motocross track for the first time. It was AWESOME! First lap i took it kind of slow just to check it out. (nobody else was on the track) Second lap i started to jump and take the berms with some speed. In 20min i was able to clear the step down, and all the table tops, but didn't even a temp the triple. I need to practice my cornering, but i was keeping up with other people when they came back on..

Today was awesome! I really want to go again soon. But i really broke my KX250 when i was on the track. 2 motor mounts broke, the swing arm bolt broke and was half way out. And the rear shock bold was half way out. and the inside of the muffler broke.....(good thing i stopped when i did) And the swing arm bolt is $40... so i may not ride for awhile.


All in all today was AWESOME!!! I will want go more often because that was too much fun. I loved the sport before but now i am an extreme addict. I need a new bike. My 1983 Kx250 isn't holding up to my brutality.

I wanted to share my awesome day! I really want to ride on the motocross track more often, and get out more. i don't expect everyone to read this, but i was very excited, and needed to share my first experience.

If you made it this far Thanks for reading!!! :cool: :)

(V)oparman

 

[stumanarama]

Sounds like fun, thats what dirtbikin is all about, safe and sane(sometimes)fun. :cool:

 

[_JOE_]

Cool! Where did you go?

 

[kschilk]

I'd just heard of that place recently, kinda' hopin' to get there one of these days....soon.

 

[Moparman1539]

I went to The Slippery Rock Dunes, I Butler PA.

It was well worth the $15 to get in. But it didn't have as many trails as i though, but what they had was great. Mainly second gear trails, and up in 4th on some spots. The MX track seemed small compared to the track across the street from where i live. (Switchback MX) although i never been there. But the track was perfect for my first time, and i did have a lot of fun.

Although all the kids around my age there seemed..... stuck up for lack of a better term. They never tried to talk. Never smiled, and acted like complete hard asses. (doing burnouts and wheelies) So i rode by myself and had fun. I only talked to 2 people the guy on the quad that rolled down the hill, and someone else when my bike broke... I hope next time its a more friendly environment.

It was fun.

 

[mmz77]

You should try and hit Mines and Meadows out in PA. I am pretty sure your not too far away, it is awesome and here is their website. www.minesandmeadows.com :cool:

 

[_JOE_]

Sorry, I missed that in the orginal post. I think they tried putting on a KTM demo there a while back, maybe last summer? It's a few minutes further than where we usually go. I like to keep the driving to under an hour.

Where are you from kschilk?

 

[kschilk]

Sorry, I missed that in the orginal post. I think they tried putting on a KTM demo there a while back, maybe last summer? It's a few minutes further than where we usually go. I like to keep the driving to under an hour.

Where are you from kschilk?

I'm in Oil City. You're more than welcome to come up to our practice track, it's probably less than an hour away from you. The jumps may not be quite as big as the ones at Switchback but they're decent...a few small doubles, a decent tabletop, whoops and several small jumps. It's 8/10ths of a mile long and pretty fast. I originally designed it mostly for Open bikes but we've added some whoops and small jumps, to slow it down for the quads and smaller bores.

Looks like I may be hittin' "the Dunes", this Thursday...my son and son-in-law want to go and since I'll be on vacation.... :yeehaw: . I've never been there before, I just happened to see their advertisement at Skydive PA, in Grove City. I checked out the pics on their site and it all looks pretty cool but I'm afraid it might be a little tight, for an Open Class 2-stroke. On the upside....it looks pretty open so I oughta' have lotsa' runout room, if I blow through the turns or overshoot the jumps.

 

[kschilk]

Sounds like fun, thats what dirtbikin is all about, safe and sane(sometimes)fun. :cool:

:whoa: Sane?! Isn't that, like......in Michigan or somethin'?

 

[_JOE_]

I'm in Oil City. You're more than welcome to come up to our practice track, it's probably less than an hour away from you. The jumps may not be quite as big as the ones at Switchback but they're decent...a few small doubles, a decent tabletop, whoops and several small jumps. It's 8/10ths of a mile long and pretty fast. I originally designed it mostly for Open bikes but we've added some whoops and small jumps, to slow it down for the quads and smaller bores.

Looks like I may be hittin' "the Dunes", this Thursday...my son and son-in-law want to go and since I'll be on vacation.... :yeehaw: . I've never been there before, I just happened to see their advertisement at Skydive PA, in Grove City. I checked out the pics on their site and it all looks pretty cool but I'm afraid it might be a little tight, for an Open Class 2-stroke. On the upside....it looks pretty open so I oughta' have lotsa' runout room, if I blow through the turns or overshoot the jumps.

Cool. My parents lived in Oil City for a while before I was born. A place called Mystic Park I believe. Like a cottage community on the river or something.

What's "Switchback"?

 

[Moparman1539]

You should try and hit Mines and Meadows out in PA. I am pretty sure your not too far away, it is awesome and here is their website. www.minesandmeadows.com :cool:

That place looks awesome! its about a half hour away (thats what map quest says)


And _JOE_ Switchback is a MX track here in butler. I can see it from my house =P (thought about asking to get in free for putting up with the noise ALL the time.. but never did, though it would be rude to ask) here is the website http://www.switchbackmx.com/ . They are rebuilding their track rite now. They have been going at it for a couple days now.

kschilk, It would be awesome to meet a fellow drn member, but i broke my bike pretty good... So it will be awhile till i ride again. :( But on the bright side i start at burger king next Monday! so ill get some money to fix it. Can't wait to ride again. And the trails are pretty tight. About as wide as a quad, But i kept my 1983 Kx250 in 2nd gear most of the time, and some spots up to 4th. And there is sand, and mud. And the track is about 10' wide. Good luck, and have fun! I know i did. (if you take a camera take a picture of the hill climbs, and try one, it was CRAZY, i made it up twice)

Here is the link to Switchback: http://www.switchbackmx.com/
Here is the link to the "dunes": http://slipperyrockdunes.com/

 

[kschilk]

kschilk, It would be awesome to meet a fellow drn member, but i broke my bike pretty good... So it will be awhile till i ride again.

Well, it's an open invitation...and that goes for everyone on here. It's a family thing, right down to the grandkids so there's about every class represented, even quads. Usually, the "big kids" go out and tear it up for awhile and then we take a break, while the little ones go....usually an all-day thing.

 

[kschilk]

Well, I made it to Slippery Rock Dunes today. Despite a few intermittent but long-winded thunder and hailstorms, we managed to get in some decent time on the MX track. It was a good time, especially for my son on his Yamaha 450 and my son-in-law, on his 660 Raptor. For me and "Hondzilla" (CR480), it was big eyes & brown shorts a whole buncha' times but still, it was a blast! The track is fast but still relatively tight, thank God for the huge wall-like berms! :whoa:

For the amount of rain we got, the track dried out really quick! It was so slick immediately after the rains, that it was basically unrideable but in about an hour, the traction was incredible! As it dried, some of the traction went away...especially in some of the turns but it was still fast. Being a Thursday, we pretty much had the track all to ourselves, for most of the day. It was well worth the 1 hour ride and negligible $15 fee. We'll all be goin' back soon! For anyone that might be interested, I posted the pics on my Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/sosnovy in the Slippery Rock Dunes photo album.

 

[Moparman1539]

Sound like fun. Did you stay on the track the whole time? Or did you try the trails. Yes the berms were huge, and i almost went over the top of the berms a couple times (due to my lack of skill on a track[first time]) But i could do every jump except for the 3 big bums in the back corner which i was guessing was a triple which i didn't even attempt..

Good pictures to. I should have taken a camera but i didn't think about it. Some of the rain was wicked, we got pounded while we were working outside.

And if your big into just track riding, Switchback just redid their Motocross track. It looks killer. When i get better i want to go over there.

 

[kschilk]

Most of the time, we were on the MX track but yeah, I had my wife with me so I had to putt-putt around the trail with her. The trails were ok but not the hot deal for my bike...not the way I had to ride 'em. I'd planned to do a hot solo lap around 'em but we lost so much time from the storms, I never got back to it. I played on the sand flat-track, for a while....that was a total blast, relivin' my ol' flat-track days! I never got to the hillclimbs, either...we were just havin' too much fun on the track and time was limited.

Don't feel bad....I ate it pretty bad, when my rear tire slid on top of the berm, in the turn after the step-down. :| I never even had a chance to get my foot off the peg and wound up pinned under the bike....that was the pits. I liked the jumps, most of 'em anyway....except for down in the bottom, the little tabletop(?) and those little triples. They just kinda' got annoying, after awhile. The li'l tabletop was eroded to the point that you couldn't really get much air and if I did the triple or even a double/single, I'd land in or past the turn. That turn stayed pretty slick all day so most everyone was singling them, they really oughta' move 'em back a bit. All in all though, it was a cool track.

We went to the National Forest ATV/Bike trails today...the Marienville Pig's Ear loop. I'd intended to do it on Thursday but "the kids" wanted to do SRD...they didn't think the trails would be as fast, fun or exciting. :laugh: This loop is around 14 miles long, has lotsa' small jumps, a few bigger ones, plenty of hills and in several spots....you can be flyin' through the trees and hittin' the jumps at 70+ mph. :yeehaw: Yeah...today, "the kids" learned what BTTW and WFO really mean. I warned 'em...age and treachery can beat youth & skill, any day! :laugh:

 

[_JOE_]

That place is cool! Have you guys ever been to Majestic in Bradford? Thats some sweet fast paced trail riding. You should come to Mapleshade next weekend, we're goin for practice on sunday. There's a couple straights you could stretch the 480's legs out on.

 

[kschilk]

Nah, I checked out the site but haven't made it there yet. I'd heard mixed reviews about it but nothing first-hand, 'til now. I gotta' try to get up there on my dual-sport and check it out.

I've got my 480 geared for supercross and I realized real quick, I need to add some teeth for Pig's Ear. Thing is, I wanna' hit the Bike Trail before I gear it up...might do that, next weekend. I've done it twice, on my 650 but I need to run it on the 480 for time, at least once. They say it takes 2 to 4 hours and I did it in about 1 hour, 50 mins. on the 650. That was my first time there and I wasn't real used to the bike yet so I think I can do much better, on the CR. I'm gonna be sweatin' that 10 mile boulder section, though. :( It took me about 45 minutes just to get through that part, the first time. :|

 

[_JOE_]

Let me know if make plans to go again. Marienville's a bit of a trip for us, but we may be able to make it.

 

[kschilk]

I'm figurin' on hittin' it at least one day, every weekend 'til they close....weather permitting (maybe even if it doesn't). I got annual passes for both bikes and it's only about an hour's drive for me so I'm ready, whenever it works for you. Let's do it!

 

[_JOE_]

Cool. I'll see what the schedule looks like. I only have a few buddies who like to ride trails so hopefully I can get someone to ride down with me.

 

[kschilk]

Yeah, I can relate....I've been there about 6 times this year and yesterday, was the first time I didn't have to go alone. People hear the word "trails" and get the wrong impression. Pig's Ear is like a fast CC course...alot like the MX tracks were, back in the Ironman days...kinda' rough, kinda' long and really fast. If they don't like trails, they'll probably love this loop. The actual Bike Trail is pretty technical, not something I'd recommend for the timid or inexperienced but if you're up for it, we can probably knock that off too.

 

[_JOE_]

Lol. The one guy I usually ride with and I love to ride technical stuff. We've got mostly tight woods trails up here. There's a place behind the KTM dealer that's pretty gnarly. We're looking at doin a Harescramble near Andover OH in a few weeks. You get into any of that?

 

[kschilk]

I used to be. Alot of guys have been buggin' me about racing again, mostly Vintage MX but a few have tried to convince me to do Andover. I keep sayin' no but with me, ya' just never know.

 

[_JOE_]

I've never raced, so if we do it will be my first.

 

[kschilk]

Racing's like sex....the first time, is the most exciting. :)