- Feb 8, 2000
- 3,136
- 0
Well TTRGuy and I finally got a chance to check out St. Joe’s State Park on Saturday. It’s not very far from us, just over an hour. We got there about 9ish and the weather was perfect. Not too cold, not too hot and not too humid! ;)
The quad to dirt bike ratio was far too high for my liking. The sandy flats are pretty fun to play around on as long as you keep your eye open for drag racing quads. I wish I could say we had an excellent day of riding but unfortunately a little black cloud seemed to be following me around all day. :( I should have had some inclination as to where the day would head when right from the get go we’re stopped at the bottom of what appeared to be two trails up hill. TTRGuy waves me on up the closer one but I want to go up the other one. It wasn’t long before I had realized this was a mistake. It wasn’t really a trail at all but a ravine that got narrower, rockier and ended up being blocked at the top by a fallen tree and boulders. I had to back my bike down all the way. :o
It had rained pretty good the day before so there were several muddy sections. Mud is definitely not an element I’m used to. One minute you’re slip sliding around with no traction the next minute the meaning of the term “hooking up” was all too clear!
I had my first pretty bad crash of the day (or ever, really) on another up hill. No mud but a small out cropping of rocks near the top and to the left side. There was a pretty good-sized rut up the middle so you had to go to the left. Well I’m not exactly sure what happened but I went too high on the side and looped out. I fell off backwards straight down for what seemed like forever then landed on my back on a slab of rock. I rolled over into a fetal position and couldn’t move for a few minutes. I thought I had maybe broken my tailbone. Eddie was at the top and had turned to see my front wheel go straight up in the air so he was on his way to me probably before I hit the ground. Once I was able to catch my breath I made my way to the top. Two skinned up elbows and bruised tookus!
After attending to my wounds we went out again. This time to make the loop around the perimeter of the park. We passed some kids on quads having a blast in a huge mud hole. We didn’t get far before we realized there seemed to be more traffic going the other way so after I managed to extract myself from the mud we decided to turn around and go the other way. Man that mud out there is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Thick, snotty, clay-like mud that can just swallow you up. I nearly pulled my foot right out of my boot a couple of times. When I wasn’t stuck in it I was slip sliding all over it. It was by far the messiest I’ve ever been on a ride. You should have seen my KTM, I wish we had the camera. Even several trips zipping up and down through the water draging my feet wouln't get the mud off.
We didn’t get very far in the other direction when on a slight incline going through the mud, my rear tire slipped out and to the left aiming me right for a tree! After smacking into the tree the bike fell under me and I fell on top of it impaling my ribs on the end of my handlebars and smashing my knee into the foot peg (I think) Ouch! Again, I hobbled over to the guardrail and just sat there shaking my head. I guess I need more practice in the mud. I hurt my right knee so I couldn’t start the bike. Eddie got it turned around and started it for me. I told him I think I better call it quits before I do anymore damage but the day wasn’t over yet. On the way back I pulled off some whacked out version of a superman seat grab! I hit a little vertical face jump too fast and shot straight up. When the front end started to dive down it was like being on a bucking bronco. My ass flew out of the seat, my feet came off the pegs and the bike continued on with forward momentum. I didn’t let go of the bars so my arms were streched out and just when I thought it was going to get away from me I came back down on the rear fender. I managed to get my feet back on the pegs and pull myself forward. I thought I was going to loose my lunch. The guy behind me must have thought I looked like some sort of Circus act. :silly: I felt like such an idiot and all I wanted to do was get back to the truck before I was struck by lightening!
The riding area has all sorts of cool little places to ‘play’ but at about 2,000 acres it’s not nearly the size of the riding areas I’m used to. There’s no map of the trail ‘system’ and the trails aren’t marked, so we had to ask where to start and how to get to the trails from the sandy flats. There are no one-way trails either so you have to be careful. A lot of it is like Offroadr said, wide, torn up ATV trails but we meandered off on some narrower less traveled trails which were pretty cool. There are plenty of places to turn off and you can’t really get lost. We’ll definitely go again and explore some more. Hopefully I’ll have better luck!
On the way back we stopped off at Surduke Offroad and I picked up a new rear fender and some cool MSR gear on their clearance rack that they had just marked down that morning. :)
The quad to dirt bike ratio was far too high for my liking. The sandy flats are pretty fun to play around on as long as you keep your eye open for drag racing quads. I wish I could say we had an excellent day of riding but unfortunately a little black cloud seemed to be following me around all day. :( I should have had some inclination as to where the day would head when right from the get go we’re stopped at the bottom of what appeared to be two trails up hill. TTRGuy waves me on up the closer one but I want to go up the other one. It wasn’t long before I had realized this was a mistake. It wasn’t really a trail at all but a ravine that got narrower, rockier and ended up being blocked at the top by a fallen tree and boulders. I had to back my bike down all the way. :o
It had rained pretty good the day before so there were several muddy sections. Mud is definitely not an element I’m used to. One minute you’re slip sliding around with no traction the next minute the meaning of the term “hooking up” was all too clear!
I had my first pretty bad crash of the day (or ever, really) on another up hill. No mud but a small out cropping of rocks near the top and to the left side. There was a pretty good-sized rut up the middle so you had to go to the left. Well I’m not exactly sure what happened but I went too high on the side and looped out. I fell off backwards straight down for what seemed like forever then landed on my back on a slab of rock. I rolled over into a fetal position and couldn’t move for a few minutes. I thought I had maybe broken my tailbone. Eddie was at the top and had turned to see my front wheel go straight up in the air so he was on his way to me probably before I hit the ground. Once I was able to catch my breath I made my way to the top. Two skinned up elbows and bruised tookus!
After attending to my wounds we went out again. This time to make the loop around the perimeter of the park. We passed some kids on quads having a blast in a huge mud hole. We didn’t get far before we realized there seemed to be more traffic going the other way so after I managed to extract myself from the mud we decided to turn around and go the other way. Man that mud out there is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Thick, snotty, clay-like mud that can just swallow you up. I nearly pulled my foot right out of my boot a couple of times. When I wasn’t stuck in it I was slip sliding all over it. It was by far the messiest I’ve ever been on a ride. You should have seen my KTM, I wish we had the camera. Even several trips zipping up and down through the water draging my feet wouln't get the mud off.
We didn’t get very far in the other direction when on a slight incline going through the mud, my rear tire slipped out and to the left aiming me right for a tree! After smacking into the tree the bike fell under me and I fell on top of it impaling my ribs on the end of my handlebars and smashing my knee into the foot peg (I think) Ouch! Again, I hobbled over to the guardrail and just sat there shaking my head. I guess I need more practice in the mud. I hurt my right knee so I couldn’t start the bike. Eddie got it turned around and started it for me. I told him I think I better call it quits before I do anymore damage but the day wasn’t over yet. On the way back I pulled off some whacked out version of a superman seat grab! I hit a little vertical face jump too fast and shot straight up. When the front end started to dive down it was like being on a bucking bronco. My ass flew out of the seat, my feet came off the pegs and the bike continued on with forward momentum. I didn’t let go of the bars so my arms were streched out and just when I thought it was going to get away from me I came back down on the rear fender. I managed to get my feet back on the pegs and pull myself forward. I thought I was going to loose my lunch. The guy behind me must have thought I looked like some sort of Circus act. :silly: I felt like such an idiot and all I wanted to do was get back to the truck before I was struck by lightening!
The riding area has all sorts of cool little places to ‘play’ but at about 2,000 acres it’s not nearly the size of the riding areas I’m used to. There’s no map of the trail ‘system’ and the trails aren’t marked, so we had to ask where to start and how to get to the trails from the sandy flats. There are no one-way trails either so you have to be careful. A lot of it is like Offroadr said, wide, torn up ATV trails but we meandered off on some narrower less traveled trails which were pretty cool. There are plenty of places to turn off and you can’t really get lost. We’ll definitely go again and explore some more. Hopefully I’ll have better luck!
On the way back we stopped off at Surduke Offroad and I picked up a new rear fender and some cool MSR gear on their clearance rack that they had just marked down that morning. :)
