70 Mile ATV Ride

[Mac66]

I did a 70 mile ATV ride yesterday (Sat 8/21) in the county where my new house is. It was a community organized ORV Fun Fest. Kind of set up like a scavenger hunt where there are stops along the way, you have to complete a task and get your scorecard punched.

I had originally intended to ride my off road mini bike on this thing but decided that would be too long a ride. The MB isn't very comfortable for long rides. And it was the first major ride on my rebuilt Polaris. My wife was supposed to go (I have a 2 up machine) but had to take care of her mother.

So the deal was to show up at the county fairgrounds from 8-10 for registration ( I pre registered online). Kickoff was 10. Now, it's been 10-12 years since I went on a group ride. In that time the dynamics have changed. Back in the day, it was mostly ATVs with maybe a couple of side by sides aka UTVs in the mix. Today, there were maybe a dozen ATVS and about 200 SXSs. Some of these things cost $30K+. I did meet lots of nice people and hooked up with a local guy and his wife on a 2 up ATV who has a farm about 5 miles from the new house. We rode together all day. We exchanged info to hook up in the future. He isn't familiar with the trails near my house so I thought I would take him out and show him around.

Anyway, in that county you can ride ORVs (off road vehicles) on any street or road other than state highways. They got special permission to ride on the state highway that runs through town. Then it was all dirt/gravel roads out in the country. Of the 70 miles about 60 miles was on road, 10 miles off road. I'm kind of glad I didn't take the mini bike. Those side by sides were going 60 mph on the back roads. My ATV does about 55. My mini bike does about 30. And the off road portions was pretty deep sand, easy for an ATV/UTV no so much on a motorcycle/mini bike.

Got back to the fair grounds around 4pm, treated to a pulled pork dinner, prize drawing etc. Overall it was pretty fun but grueling day. I might be getting to old to be doing this stuff on an ATV. I can see my people are riding UTVs. I was by far the oldest guy on an ATV. The guy/wife I met was at least 10 years younger. My back, legs and hands were cramping up pretty bad near the end. Riding the back dirt/gravel roads behind bunches of others meant eating dust all day. Fortunately I had goggles and my covid mask to cover my face.

And my rebuilt ATV held up fine. It's 16 years old but I didn't have any problems with it. Hopefully my wife (and my ATV) will be able to do it with me next year.

[tom mac]

sounds like fun

[Mac66]

I would have taken more pics but my new cell phone was acting up. Apparently I don't know how to use the camera on it.

[David]

That would be a lot of fun! Never did anything like that except in a Jeep I use to have nearly 30 years ago.

[Mac66]

Well now I know I could bug out on my ATV. I used about half a tank of gas and I think I actually went about 74 miles. Not sure how accurate the gas gauge is. I had taken 2.5 extra gallons since I had no idea how far I could get on a tank but I didn't need them. The ATV has a 4.25 gallon tank so if I actually used a half a tank that would have been 2.125 gallons or about 37 miles to the gallon. So if that's true I should get around 144 out of tank of gas. Of course that depends on what the load is and how hard/fast I ride. Like I said, we did about 60 miles on back roads which I would guess we averaged 35 mph. Sometimes less, sometime more. Max speed on my 500 is about 60. Those big balloon tires really wobble at high speeds so it pretty scary and dangerous to go that fast.

I had also packed a cooler with frozen water bottles which I left sitting on the counter at home. I had one water bottle with me but went through it pretty quick. It was 88 degrees and we were eating dust the whole day. Fortunately there was water at a couple stops. It wasn't enough but I survived.

My house is in the NW corner of the county so I wasn't very familiar with the eastern part of the county where we were riding. Got a chance to see a lot of this very rural part. I also learned that I could ride into town, to a number of lakes and a bunch of other places. Apparently all the roads except for 3 state highways are open to ORV riding. So what I learned is that I can use my ATV on the back roads to go exploring through out the county. My niece and her husband have a house on a lake about 10 miles away and my sister has a house in the same community. Riding over there would be like riding a motorcycle only more stable on the gravel roads.

[tom mac]

Used to race dirt bikes in my younger days....
still nothing like a good fire road on a YZ490 !

( if your old enough , you remember when the factories had their own colors... yellow, red, green )

[Mac66]

dang, double post, sorry

[Mac66]

Did I mention doing the mud pit? They had this set up at the end of the ride at the fairgrounds. Got bonus points for going through it. This is me which they posted on their facebook page.



A word about the helmet and goggles. I was using a vintage open face helmet instead of my motocross helmet that day because I thought it would be cooler in the heat. It wasn't. The MC helmet has a long brim which would have helped to shade my eyes from the sun. I also dug out two sets of old goggles that morning only to learn that the foam around the edges had disintegrated. Fortunately there was a vendor selling googles which I bought. Unfortunately the googles weren't tinted. My eyes are still recovering from the dust and bright sunshine. Fortunately I have/had another pair of old but new/unused goggles in the basement that I can wear to keep the dust out of my eyes in the future.

[Mac66]

Here's a couple more they posted of me.





That thing in the background is some sort of Russian all terrain vehicle. It's wheels are 5' high. I didn't see if it made a run or not.

[Gnepig]

Oh how cool! Wish someone would throw something like that around here... Cool ride. Did they even take that Sherp off the trailer, those things are supposed to be able go anywhere. Bummer is they cost about a quarter million dollars.

Tom Mac that YZ490 is sexy, mine was a 1980 YZ 125= I loved that bike/rode it every night after work and all weekend long (well, til I got a girlfriend).