firecracker22
Sponsoring Member
- Oct 23, 2000
- 3,213
- 0
Wow.
That's all I can say about my all-too-short weekend.
Thursday night I drove down to a campground near North Bend, OR right after work--about an 8-hour drive--to meet Drew and his friends, who had already been there for almost a week. Long, boring drive. Oh well.
We woke up to mist but warm weather, and the mist started to burn off. We went for breakfast and came back to get ready to ride, then hit some dunes right away.
Now I have ridden in dunes before; not, however, like these. Miles of soft, almost white, beautiful dunes of all shapes and sizes. I floundered a little taking off but the KTM got up on plane ok. Pretty soon we were ripping it up all over the place. I surprised myself a little bit once; even though I know you're not supposed to jump a dune without looking down over the top to see what's there, I decided to loft it a little over the edge of this one that had a nice little kicker to it. Well, from 10 ft in the air I noticed it had quite a downhill slope on the other side! I let out a whoop just so anyone who happened to see it would think it was deliberate, and coasted down the other side. I probably should have turned around and hit it again but my first jump is always the best one.
We played around the dunes for a while, then took the 3.5 mile road out to the beach. I was well acquainted with this road after the second day. It is solid whoops. Some small, some large, but never a place to slow down and sit down. The first day was great! Sandy whoops are MUCH more fun than whoops in the woods or on the MX track. I railed through there in 3rd or 4th gear. By the second day, though, my legs would start to burn SO bad that I had to slow down to a crawl to rest my legs, then get moving again. It sucks to ride that kind of stuff slow.
So anyway, my first day at the beach was pretty good. We screamed up and down the beach for a while; I hit almost 50 mph at some point. There were driftwood logs with the sand piled up on the windward side that made excellent jumps. You could ride down along the waterline, or up against the grass, or through all the debris above the high water line. So we played around through there, and then hit what might have been one of the most fun parts of the day; sandy, whooped out roads/wide trails that curved back and forth through the beach grass between the big dunes and the beach. You could just stay in 4th gear, stand up, and haul ass through there. It was great.
Second day was more of the same, though we remembered to take the camera with us. Took some dune-jumping pics, and a few down at the beach.
Overall:
-I wish I could have stayed longer
-Dunes riding is more fun than I thought
-I did fine for 2 days without a paddle tire
-Sand sucks when it gets EVERYWHERE after a crash!!!!
-8-foot tall flags make your bike look retarded but oh well, everybody else has them too
-Bikes are still faster than quads even in the dunes
-The ocean is amazingly beautiful even if it smells funny. (I have only been to the coast once before, when I was about 7)
-I can't wait to go back
Pictures coming soon!
That's all I can say about my all-too-short weekend.
Thursday night I drove down to a campground near North Bend, OR right after work--about an 8-hour drive--to meet Drew and his friends, who had already been there for almost a week. Long, boring drive. Oh well.
We woke up to mist but warm weather, and the mist started to burn off. We went for breakfast and came back to get ready to ride, then hit some dunes right away.
Now I have ridden in dunes before; not, however, like these. Miles of soft, almost white, beautiful dunes of all shapes and sizes. I floundered a little taking off but the KTM got up on plane ok. Pretty soon we were ripping it up all over the place. I surprised myself a little bit once; even though I know you're not supposed to jump a dune without looking down over the top to see what's there, I decided to loft it a little over the edge of this one that had a nice little kicker to it. Well, from 10 ft in the air I noticed it had quite a downhill slope on the other side! I let out a whoop just so anyone who happened to see it would think it was deliberate, and coasted down the other side. I probably should have turned around and hit it again but my first jump is always the best one.
We played around the dunes for a while, then took the 3.5 mile road out to the beach. I was well acquainted with this road after the second day. It is solid whoops. Some small, some large, but never a place to slow down and sit down. The first day was great! Sandy whoops are MUCH more fun than whoops in the woods or on the MX track. I railed through there in 3rd or 4th gear. By the second day, though, my legs would start to burn SO bad that I had to slow down to a crawl to rest my legs, then get moving again. It sucks to ride that kind of stuff slow.
So anyway, my first day at the beach was pretty good. We screamed up and down the beach for a while; I hit almost 50 mph at some point. There were driftwood logs with the sand piled up on the windward side that made excellent jumps. You could ride down along the waterline, or up against the grass, or through all the debris above the high water line. So we played around through there, and then hit what might have been one of the most fun parts of the day; sandy, whooped out roads/wide trails that curved back and forth through the beach grass between the big dunes and the beach. You could just stay in 4th gear, stand up, and haul ass through there. It was great.
Second day was more of the same, though we remembered to take the camera with us. Took some dune-jumping pics, and a few down at the beach.
Overall:
-I wish I could have stayed longer
-Dunes riding is more fun than I thought
-I did fine for 2 days without a paddle tire
-Sand sucks when it gets EVERYWHERE after a crash!!!!
-8-foot tall flags make your bike look retarded but oh well, everybody else has them too
-Bikes are still faster than quads even in the dunes
-The ocean is amazingly beautiful even if it smells funny. (I have only been to the coast once before, when I was about 7)
-I can't wait to go back
Pictures coming soon!
