Off season NC off road riding, anyone?

[bmart]

Hey all, from now until the weekend prior to my first 2023 track day I'll be riding off road in NC. We stick to service roads (will need to be registered and insured), so no gnarly single track. These rides are low key and beautiful. If anyone wants to join, just post up here. I never thought I'd like this sort of thing but it is really fun and as physical as track days.

Many are out of Morganton cruising around incredible roads. Here's a taste:

 

[MK3Brent]

Gorgeous area of NC to be riding. Maybe next year I'll get rid of some of my other motorcycles and get an adventure bike to join. Looks like a ton of fun. Stay safe out there, and invest in a GPS beacon if no one else in your crew have one. I know a lot of that area can be cell dead zones.

 

[boike333]

I’m in! And to add to Brads rides I will be down in the SC Sandhills (near CMP) as well hopefully I can get Brad with me too!
It’ll be the same type of riding and plates needed. So when it’s cold in the mountain areas it’ll be decent weather down south further. If anyone is interested in this too let me know and I’ll post some dates.

 

[bmart]

YouTube just murders the video quality, but here is one from last weekend. Come join us!

 

[Ascent]

Would love to join but won't have an off road capable bike or the time to ride until later next year (off road newbie, never ridden dirt). I was planning on going with a non street legal bike to ride the local HOV single track here, but maybe its worth going street legal to open up my options.

I did intend to stop riding public roads but wouldn't mind short distances to connect between FS rodes. Would just have to haul the bike with my truck from my house a little ways to get up there. Thinking about a Beta 390 RR-S!

How much pavement riding is usually involved out of Morganton? I have some FS routes I've looked into for the Brevard area which looked like you can get a lot of off road riding without too much pavement in between.

 

[bmart]

To say that I am inexperienced at off road riding would be a gross understatement. I also go with very experienced guys, so I'm always in the back or holding up the people in the back. I have approximately 99.99% to learn about this new sport.

I now have 11 rides under my belt, and one got cancelled while learning...this time that my buddies quad couldn't run on service roads. I also found ot that with this law, many of my dirtbike only (not dual sport) buds can't join me. I coudl join them at dirt only facilites, but that is the opposite exerience from what I want.

While a lot transfers from "normal" riding, there's so much new, and the ability to control a bike that nearly always has one or both ends sliding to some degree. I'm after some inexpensive off season fun and scenery. Many like single track, but I want none of that. Just car+ wide unpaved roads at any pace I like and stopping any time I like.

The amount of pavement depends on where you park. You can park right at the edge of it, but I like to warm up a bit, so I park ~13 miles from the start. The paved roads to the service road entrance are superb (and a mix of paved with small unpaved shortcuts), and I'd prefer to not miss them.

Our last trip found me on the side of a paved road just 7 miles in, with a broken throttle cable. We got it sorted in ~45 minutes by the side of the road...but it was better near peeps/civilization than in the middle of nowhere on gravel and wet leaves on the edge of very steep drops.

Probably worth noting that I've been joined by friends on all kinds of bikes with all kinds of tires. It can be done. One has a loaded down Royal Enfield, others have full dirt setup. We're just not going that fast. A full day is generally 45-65 miles...it is exhausting.

 

[boike333]

I’m riding SC Sandhills this Saturday if anyone is interested.

 

[The B Team]

Rough time per ride? Is this a back-country camping kinda deal, or a home before sundown kinda ride? I'm up in VA so I'd probably sleep in the van/hotel. Ty

 

[MK3Brent]

I'm starting to wonder if my FZ would hang with you guys if I put some Dunlop mutants on my spare wheels. lol

I seriously don't know what I'll do with myself in the next few months.

 

[boike333]

Rough time per ride? Is this a back-country camping kinda deal, or a home before sundown kinda ride? I'm up in VA so I'd probably sleep in the van/hotel. Ty

I am in SC so I trailer down and back for the day. I’ll ride roughly from 10am to 5ish or so. Three of us going right now splitting the day in half, early being lighter gravel type stuff and then getting into then deeper sand for the second part of the day.

 

[boike333]

I'm starting to wonder if my FZ would hang with you guys if I put some Dunlop mutants on my spare wheels. lol

I seriously don't know what I'll do with myself in the next few months.

Time to get a DS ride!

 

[bmart]

I'm starting to wonder if my FZ would hang with you guys if I put some Dunlop mutants on my spare wheels. lol

I seriously don't know what I'll do with myself in the next few months.

Old guys do it on ridiculously huge adventure bikes...

 

[The B Team]

I am in SC so I trailer down and back for the day. I’ll ride roughly from 10am to 5ish or so. Three of us going right now splitting the day in half, early being lighter gravel type stuff and then getting into then deeper sand for the second part of the day.

Might have to tag along some time, sounds fun.

Old guys do it on ridiculously huge adventure bikes...

Offseason N2 MABDR run, anybody?

 

[bmart]

I'm open...and slow.

 

[bmart]

Rough time per ride? Is this a back-country camping kinda deal, or a home before sundown kinda ride? I'm up in VA so I'd probably sleep in the van/hotel. Ty

Not sure if this was about NC forest or SC sand rides. I do single day rides in NC. We'll likely be doing the MABDR bits once or twice next year if my body can handle it.

Uhwarrie tomorrow. Warmest location near here. ~39 miles of riding.

The little 250 Rally is coming along. Nice mods by the previous two owners and I'm replacing ugly red things with pretty blue things as fast as they get delivered.

Anyone up for some rides between this weekend and say...end of March? Trying to get a few things on the calendar to look forward to before track season.

 

[The B Team]

I'm near Richmond, so NC I reckon. You couldn't have picked LAST Saturday, when it was like 80?!? My other half is still healing from a wreck at Pittrace, but perhaps after the new year we could be convinced. I'm definitely down for MABDR...I bought a junkyard r1150 just for that purpose. I'm parting out a KLR rn then hopefully I'll find another something or other that's lighter than this big bitch.

 

[bmart]

Gotcha. I was riding last weekend. Unfortunately, I thought your note was for Boike for sand. Rolling out in 30 for a day at Uwharrie. High 57!

 

[boike333]

I’m looking at something on the 26-27th depending on weather and family. B RAD, also looking at either the 12/2-3-4-5 dependent on the same, We will see what happens!

 

[bmart]

We'll all jump in the Mystery Machine and follow Boike!

 

[bmart]

I hope that everyone had a nice holiday and not too much turkey. I'm focused on working my way through a pecan pie and saffron rolls this week. Still...we can't let those skills we worked on so much during the track season atrophy, right?

Last weekend was a street ride to Morrow mountain and around the lakes and before that was ~40 miles of off road fun. More coming up this weekend! (anyone? anyone?)

And while you making your list of things to work on for 2023, subscribe to Mike's YouTube. He does a lot of Champ school callouts! This new video is chock full of gold.