Where'd everyone ride this weekend?

[MWEISSEN]

The roads heading south are starting to thin out as everyone gets back from a great weekend north. Some of you are catching up on DRN, so it's time for ride reports! Here's the spot:

I spent all weekend working around the house for next weekend's Open House for Ben's High School graduation (yes, you're invited, 6-10pm Sunday but you have to find my house).

I did get out on my Adventure this morning. I had wanted to take off yesterday morning to Baldwin with it, but no go. So today, I just started heading north through Ottawa, Muskegon and Newaygo counties. I went north, cut west, then picked up dirt roads in the middle of farming country. I had to be close to Woody's place as well. It was a good alternative to hitting trail. The 950 takes whatever you give it, dirt or pavement. I will say I haven't tried it in sand though, I'm sure that would be challenging.

I had a hornet fly into my helmet and walk right in front of my face on my visor. Not once, but twice!! That got me sweating more than I already was. With the first one, I slowed down, going too fast on a dirt road, before I reached up to flip up the visor. Just as I went to flip it up, the bugger crawled down into the chin guard of the helmet, and I heard him buzzing around. Geez!!! I stopped, whipped off the helmet fast, and he flew off. The second one came right out with a flip of the visor.

It's amazing the stuff you can see in the back roads. Great looking farms, streams that look good enough to probably hold some trout. I saw partridge along the road in some spots.

I also found the coolest wooden bridge up by Newaygo. It's a one-lane wooden bridge. Each side of the bridge goes up at like a 20-30 degree angle for 10-15 feet or so, then flat on top. You CANNOT see if there's another vehicle coming from the other direction. I had no problem going over it of course, but it would be murder on someone's Corvette, or a low-riding RV!

I stopped in Newaygo for lunch, then headed back. I really hit the bike going home, and let's just say I got home very quickly. One can get really illegal on this bike, and even at that point I usually realized I was in fifth and had one more gear left. This bike would benefit from a gear-down and still have plenty of juice on top. In fact, it may be faster geared down so it would pull sixth easier. No need to worry abou that though.

Another nice thing about the 950, or a road bike for that matter. It can be a pretty spontaneous ride, no packing of gear and bikes and trailering for at least a couple of hours to get to decent trail.

As nice as it is, it still doesn't match the thrill of a great trail ride!

 

[OVER 50]

Over 50

Sounds like you had a great ride Mark,done the same thing last year with my XR.AND I did wind up at Woodsy's place! I always have to check out those DEAD END roads that are not always the end of the line. This was one of those weekends where we had three great days for a holiday.

 

[MXGirl230]

Great write up Mark, sounds like fun!
Unfortunately for us...our roof was in desparate need of resealing (older mobile home). So since it was like 100 it was the perfect day to lay down the new stuff. We get up there and it's cracked WAY worse than we thought. So that required lots, and lots, and lots of scraping of the old stuff. So it took some time before we could even lay down the new stuff. It's still not done. We aren't allowed to "work" on anything on our homes in the neighborhood on Sundays....so yeah that screwed us for that. We thought about doing it, just to annoy the one neighbor...:laugh:
Soo yeah no riding for us :( would have been great though.

Oh and the weekend ended today by selling my '01 CR125...kinda sad...I have had that bike for 5yrs...it was a sweet bike. I hope the kid takes care of it as well as I did.

 

[Fred T]

Friday
Nathan, Erin and I did trail maint on the north section of the Higgins loop.
Saturday
We 3 went with Mike, John S and Tommy Dunn and arrowed the Kasky Kids run for June 10th.
Sunday
We had a nice trail ride from the clubgrounds with Marsh, P North, Denny, DW , Maurer and me.


Each day included a few cold beers after the ride and food cooked over an open fire.

It was a good weekend. Will be arrowing more of the kids run next weekend and then racing the weekend after that, Busy, busy, busy!

 

[Wolverine423]

I had a great work out with Cody on Friday at the carryville loop! Most excellent for whoop training! Jumped on the Harley Saturday and headed to the lake shore. Sunday I had a excellent trail ride with FastFreddy & Co. And today I went for a MTB ride and then washed everything.

DW

 

[bigpower]

The gang and I did almost all the Kalkaska yesterday. The morning storms made it just perfect for the rest of the day. Started out a bit sloppy, but the dust was at a minimum til later that afternoon. Started with 9 riders, but a couple guys had to cut out a bit early, so we finished with 7. We got in about 65-70 miles.

WHAT A LUXURY!!!!!!! :)

 

[KTM Mike]

Mark - that 950 is sounding like one great bike for you!

We ended up doing a "local" Holiday get away...Thursday night we hauled the motorhome, bikes (both pedal and motorized), canoe and Jeep out to Tomohawk lake north of Atlanta, just off the Northwest corner of the Atlanta A loop. Had a blast, and did not have to pump hundreds of dollars into the tank of the motorhome!

Early Friday AM, Sheila and I did some canoeing, then later that morning the boys and I rode the MCCT a few miles from the campground to the A loop, rode the A loop. (total of about 30 miles or so). Super conditions! Recent rain meant no dust! Two nasty old mud holes were a bit of a challenge, but we got through them OK. We could really tell how the ROS tore things up though. Sections that last fall had virtually NO whoops, were totally whooped out. Did not care for that! That afternoon got out for some wheelin in the Jeep, (boy we almost did a Woodsy and got lost!) then did some bicycle riding with Mitch.

Saturday morning we again rode to the A loop via MCCT, the south on the west side of A, to the B Loop, and rode the B loop. A bit more dusty, but still lots of fun. Of course, had to chase a bunch of idiots off that hill side near County Road 624. Logged about 40 miles. That evening, more canoeing and bicycle riding.

Mitch was doing outstanding on the MXC to. Nothing seemed to phase him. He is going to make the switch from quads quite quickly I think! (actually, I think he has already!)

Rain, heat, humidity Sunday forced us home on Sunday. Lazed around a bit the remainder of the day, took in a movie in Gaylord that night. Then this morning, I got up and pounded out 20 miles on my woods loop and grass track. Spent the rest of the day wrenching on a 76 Suzuki GT380, then took Sheila out for a sunset canoe paddle around Lake 15, and a small distance up stream on the Thunder Bay River (coming back was MUCH easier!).

Really a nice weekend. No hard core serious "out with the guys" riding, but some super time with my boys and wife!

 

[2TrakR]

Camped @ Geels all weekend. Several club members there to help with trail maintenance and Dual Sport routes. Tons of in-laws camping there too (8 rigs). Needed an event permit if we all took off riding ;-)
Did 50 miles on the quad Saturday, doing brushing/related.
Sunday proofed the Geels B DS Loop and then did some scouting for 140 miles on the KTM. Have a real cool cutoff on the B Loop that will be perfect for DS noobs - no sand on the 40 mile short option but plenty of awesome 2 Track/scenic stuff. That course winds around the Mason Tract north of Roscommon; looked like everyone was out canoeing on the AuSable judging by the people/traffic on the river.
Monday proofed the Geels A DS Loop for another 140 miles. That runs over to Leota and back, up and over Houghton Lake. Leota was 1/2 packed on Monday, but surprisingly the ORV Route between Denton and St Helen was empty, did not see one soul on it for the 5 miles our course uses. That was Monday afternoon, though, so not that surprising.

 

[YZMAN400]

Drummond Island baby!!!

This year was my annual kill the new guy on Drummond Island ride. We had a few newbies to the rock this year so of course the game is to try and run them into the ground. And as usual the Rock won.

Friday night we went on a little dual sport ride to see where a few roads went. WE encountered walls of bugs in the roads. I almost could of used tears off to get rid of all the insect carcases on my goggles. The worst part is when they get inside my helmet and try to clumb into me ear at 50mpg...arrghhhh.....We came across a friendly older lady walking down the road with her grandkids. She waved at us as we road by. 100ft down the road I realized why that wave looked so strange. She was trying to get our attention. There was a golf cart high sided on a rock in the ditch. How whe got that cart in the ditch on a dead flat wide dirt road is beyond me. But she was more than happy to have us heave it out of the ditch for her.

Sat was the start of the real torture. And as usual the Rock delivered. Rocks, Mudd, and tree crossings aplenty. I had a blast out there. Temps were maybe low 70's with a nice breeze. About 1/2 way around I was mercifull and gave them an out to camp and seveal took me up on it. The rest of us dove into some really nasty stuff. After that we hit camp for food. I managed to talk one fella into going back out with me to explore some more trail with me for a late afternoon ride. That was fun.

Sun woke up to rain and cool temps. I was grinning from ear to ear. Only thing better than ridding Drummond island is ridding the Rock in the rain! Unfortunately it stopped raining before we could get out on the trail. But it was still plenty slimy for the 1st hour of so.

All told we hit about 95 miles of trail. Great weekend.

We ran into 2 Conservation officers on Quads out there. Very nice fellas. We shot the **** with them for a while giving them some grief about how the heck did they get such a gravy job like ridding quads on Drummond all day. They just laughed. Then did think that we were insane for riding bikes out there. Sounded like they havent seem too many bikes out there. Just lots of quads.

Then yesterday on the way home I stopped at our Cabin in Branch to meet the fam and spend the day/night there. Just got home a little bit ago. Still have lots of unpacking to do.

All in all a great weekend.

Mark I didn't know you had a 950. I need to throw a leg over that sucker. I have been eyeballing them lattely. I need a new/used street bike. No street iron has been catching my eye lattely but that adventure sure makes me drool.

 

[YZMAN400]

Here are a few more pictures

Ist one is of Bob the swamp thing. He misjudges a mud hold and paid the price.

2nd one I call quadtards....I think the name says it all.

3rd one is of Sndmn2 showing us how its done on his DRZ.

 

[YZMAN400]

Woodsy you would of been proud of me. On Sundays ride within the 1st mile of trail....

I had bikes overheating.

Had riders lost....Lost on trail that didn't even have any alternate turns. They just plain lost the trail in the woods ( The trail is that vague in spots )

Had riders threatening to give up and head back to camp.

I knew I was on the right track at that point.

 

[Wolf Child]

Hey Don.... where the heck are all my pics.

 

[jackdrinker]

This past weekend was my first trip on dirt since 2004... On a new bike also... I traded my girlfriends brother my RM250 for his 02 WR250f.. Man this is the bike I should have gotten years ago..
We rode the Meadows and I remember ow much I love those trails, tight and such a variety of soils..
It was Cori's first time in the woods ever and she did GREAT on the KX100 although there is a thumper in her future..
My whole week was wonderful..
I had 4 companies call for interviews and I ordered an FMF pipe from Dennis Kirk outlet and they had it here on Saturday and the better model at no charge.. So I bought an FMF Powercore IV-2 S/A for $60 shipped, brand new...
Next week I have to drive to Battle Creek then to South Bend then to Rockford Illinois, come home and fly to Marquette..
Gonna be busy...

 

[YZMAN400]

Hey Don.... where the heck are all my pics.

Like I am going to send them to you on dialup. I just got home. Ill send them from work tomorrow. :cool:

 

[Orange Rider]

i went with my dad and brothers to the AZ strip for a family reunion and herded cows.
for how dang boring that sounds it was actually quite interesting.

 

[WildBill]

I'll apologize in advance for the length and pics. I don't post often and this is my first time posting pics. I hope they work.

Well, I finally made it up to ride after missing ROS (Again!). We headed up to our usual riding area, a buddy’s cabin just west of the Pink Store between Rose City & Mio off of M-33. Did some cabin maintenance and planned a late afternoon ride for Saturday. From the cabin, we jumped on to the Rose City loop and headed towards Ambrose Lake. We made it about 15 miles, a few road crossings past the steep hillclimb where we stopped for a break. That’s where we ran into a couple of guys based at the Ogemaw riding area and BS’d with them a bit. They were on their way back and we worried about having enough gas to make it, so they took off. This is where our buddy Frank informs us that with everything he did to get his bike running after it’s two year, outdoor layoff, he forgot to gas up. So we turned around and headed for the cabin. Luckily, he hit reserve a few miles from the cabin.

Sunday, we waited out the rain repairing a power steering line on Frank’s jeep. Amazingly, the auto parts store in Mio was able to repair the line on the spot. I doubt that you could get that kind of service down state! By the time we had the jeep repaired it was time to ride. We headed out the same way as Saturday, but headed for Luzerne for a late lunch. It was a nice trail ride, no dust and very little traffic. We were making good time until our tail man decided to change course. Just before the Luzerne parking lot he decided to jump off the snowmobile trail and pick up the trail that heads west of Luzerne and then loops back towards the Meadows CG. This would have been fine, but he failed to inform the rest of us and he was heading away from Luzerne! After regrouping at a road crossing and waiting a while, we backtracked assuming he was having trouble. When we got to the spot where we had last regrouped he was no where to be found. Fortunately, we had a pair of two ways and he was carrying one of them. We radioed and he was okay and on his way towards Deeters to meet us. So we turned and hightailed it to meet him. He finally arrived 30 minutes after we do and he ended up coming in on M-72 and not the trail! For a guy who owns the cabin, supposedly knows the trails like the back of his hand and also shared in our loss of a good friend in a dirtbiking accident, he did something very stupid. I wanted to kill him! As payback, I railed us back to the cabin stopping only to regroup. As soon as he pulled up as the fourth and last man, I let ‘er rip again. We certainly made good time! All in all, we probably came close to 80 or 90 miles over the two days.

On Monday, we parked the bikes and took the jeep out for some wheeling at a sand pit north west of the cabin. We had lunch and were headed home by 2. As much as I dread travel on the holiday weekends, this one wasn’t too bad. Here’s a couple of pic’s the wife took.

There's even room for us

I have at least one fan...

Frank and I

Chris, Our friend and host

A motley crew for sure!

 

[Nestrick]

Hey Mark et al

Been off driving a truck for the past year or so and have not been able to keep up with all you guys and your wild riding adventures ... didn't even know you purchased an adventure bike ... sounds like it really fits your style ... I am envious of your ability to just ride whenever and wherever the spirit so guides. I haven't had much time to go back through the past postings but I do hope you have some pictures of the machine and some of your opinions concerning its function and road finesse. I am interested in such a beast as well.

As I mentioned, I haven't done any riding since June of last year so when I got home for the holiday I was more than anxious to spend some time in the saddle. My wife and son were good enough to take my CRF-450 over to my local mechanic and he put some time in on it changing the oil in the forks, repressurizing the shock, greasing all the bearings and linkage, installing a new counter sprocket, fitting a new clutch cable and bleeding the rear brake. I changed the oil, loaded up the bike and headed for the UP to ride with Dan Djokovic and David Moeller who are a couple of Thumper Talk guys I met a few years back while riding in the UP.

Got up there on Thursday and we rode Silver Creek in the afternoon. Temperatures in the mid 60s, sunny, a slight breeze, with a moist trail that offered perfect traction and no dust. As usual though, we were the only riders on the entire trail ... what a shame to waste such trails. Sorry I didn't have a camera along to take any pictures. Got some good news and some bad news concerning Silver Creek. The bad news is that the entire trail is now ATV accessible with a definite double track visible throughout. Last year only half of the trail was ATVable. The good news is that they have groomed out almost all of the terrible whoops that used to proliferate in the middle of the loop which certainly makes the ride more enjoyable for us of lesser skills. Despite the fact that this trail is no longer mostly single track, I still enjoyed the ride immensely ... it is about the perfect combination of open but twisty trail suitable for both dirt bikes and ATVs. Did encounter a couple of nasty, but negotiable, mud holes to make the ride more interesting. I know I haven't ridden in almost a year, but this trail seems considerably longer than the CCC trail book indicates.

Friday we headed over to the Pine Ridge/Two Hearted system for a 50+ mile blast on the ATV trails consisting of the eastern loop of the Two Hearted system and the northern loop of Pine Ridge with a return to the parking area via the central connector trail. This trail never seems to change much ... for most of you it would probably seem rather boring as it is basically a high speed run on what is mostly a wide open trail. I enjoy it because there is never anyone out there, even I can ride at a brisk pace so keeping the fast guys in the same county as myself is not a problem and the weather was absolutely perfect for the second day straight. Temperatures in the low 70s, slight breeze, sunny with just enough rain overnight to wet any sand areas and keep the dust down to an absolute minimum. Since there were only three of us on this entire system the whole day, dust wouldn't have been much of an issue anyway!

Saturday we drove south off M-28 by the Newberry Best Western (which incidentally had only two cars in the parking lot for the Holiday weekend) to the ORV trailhead in the middle of the Brevort to Sandtown connector. We headed west on the connector toward Sandtown ... this area deserves your attention if you get up there soon before the vines close it over for the summer. Tight, twisty, hilly, single track that goes about 12 miles over to Sandtown. The only nasty part is about a mile of sandy road that you must ride through ... and I mean sandy ... it was soft, dry, beach sand that was more than 8 inches deep in places with plenty of turns and hills to keep you on the pegs most of time with the throttle pegged to keep the front end floating. This connector is of the same quality, if not better, than most of the Sandtown trail. You arrive at McAlpine Pond on the Sandtown loop where we then rode most of the loop only excluding the boring section through the pines and the section through the clear cut region where it is nearly impossible to see the trail anyway. As usual, Sandtown remains one of the overall best single track trails in the Newberry area, if not in the state ... after 5 years of riding now, even I am beginning to appreciate the quality of this trail which tests your skills but remains a pleasure to ride. We ended the day by reversing our direction over the connector trail back to the Newberry Trailhead.

Over the three days I got to ride more than 120 miles of near perfect trails, never got passed by anyone nor saw any riders other than my trail mates for the weekend. I was tired and sore but very pleased that I had not forgotten my riding skills after nearly a year off.

I look forward to much more riding this summer and much less driving ... hope to see some of you on the trail!

terry nestrick :cool:

 

[YZMAN400]

Terry where ya been buddy. I was just reading some old posts of yours and wondering if you had fallen off the riding world. Good to see you are still out there mixing it up.

So you were who Dan ditched me to go riding with huh :think: He said he was riding with some guys that were less than thrilled at the thought of riding the Rock :whoa: I told Dan to tell his friends that they were a bunch of skirts! :nener: Have I known it was you that I told him to give some grief to I would of told him to......... :)

Just yankin your chain. Hope you get to spend some more time on that bike this summer. Would be a shame to miss out on all this great trail we have. But when work calls......

:ride:

 

[2TrakR]

Good to hear from you Terry!!
Did you notice any problems (excluding that mudhole) on the Silver Creek system? GLDS does the maintenance on it now, heading back up next month to hit it again.

 

[3KDXXR2]

Glad to hear from you again Terry, I always enjoy your Ride reports.
Curtis

 

[Nestrick]

Good to hear from all of you guys!

Jeremy, regarding Silver Creek trail maintenance ... first rate! The trail was in near perfect riding condition. All deadfall trees had been carefully trimmed and moved from the path and the smaller stuff was left in many places to add texture to the riding surface. Although clearly being maintained to ATV width, the trail remains twisty enough to keep the dirt biker interested while also being sufficiently narrow in many places to make it significantly challenging for the ATV crowd. In fact, I suspect that the bigger ATVs cannot negotiate several portions of the this trail in its current design. We did see some ATVers but they were running up and down the fire roads and were not actually on the official trail.

Based upon discussions with the folks running the Super 8 Motel and a couple of the eating establishments in Newberry, this Memorial Day weekend was essentially a "total bust" from a business standpoint. Guess >3 buck a gallon gas put a real crimp in the budgets of many folks who might otherwise have come up for the Holiday? Certainly saw many more folks last year over the Holiday weekend than this year anyway. Didn't encounter any lines at the bridge coming or going!

Hey Don, Dan did mention he might being going over to the Rock one day ... but then his weekend got cut short by a day due to a problem with a leaking counter sprocket seal which cost him a day's wait for parts before he could leave Indy. I had no idea he was intending to ride with you ... in fact, I told him I would not be going over there based upon descriptions that you have previously posted about the place. Small world huh?

terry nestrick :cool:

 

[2TrakR]

regarding Silver Creek trail maintenance ...Although clearly being maintained to ATV width

Yeah, they had a prison crew doing the brushing last year. They were a bit over-zealous on their brushing..

 

[katoom125]

Jeremy, regarding Silver Creek trail maintenance ... first rate! The trail was in near perfect riding condition.

terry nestrick :cool:

Hi Terry, now I know who you are on DRN too. Sorry we didn't get to ride with you, david and dan this weekend. 2 of our guys had to be home fairly early so couldn't wait for the rain to leave Sand Town - we packed up the very wet tents and headed back downstate.

It would be nice if you could join us on one of our regular weekend 'day' runs - we ride every weekend someplace. send me your e-mail address if you are interested.
Randy