Charity Ride 2013

Every year I throw together a little ride to benefit a local charity. This year I chose Helping Hands Center as the recipient, and I asked riders participating in the ride to donate non-perishable food items. As in the past, this year's ride was a success in both participation ad donations. We had nine riders on dualsport bikes (all of us met on ADV) and the food donations totaled three large cardboard boxes. So, a big THANK YOU to all the participants.

To lure riders over, I scouted about 60 miles of local trails, abandoned class VI roads, and as little paved connectors as possible. Thanks to my trusted sidekick CJ for helping me scout the area for some challenging terrain.

The day started out nice but the weather soon turned warm. This has not stopped us from completing 95% of the route, but by 03:00 pm we were pretty beat and decided to call it a day. Although there was enough enthusiasm to do a second ride in the fall, so I take it the guys liked what I had planned for them.

Despite all the rain we've been having, the terrain was surprisingly dry. We started easy, on a few class VI roads so everyone could warm up. Once we knew the riding ability was there, we had a quick lunch and headed deeper into the woods and off the beaten track. Overall, there was not a lot of mud or water, but we still had sand, rocks, ledges, gravel, and everything in between.

 Starting easy on a grassy path.

 An old class VI road through the woods.

 A happy DR350.

 URNUTS showing us that KTMs, as submersible vehicles,  are way overrated.

 Is this deep enough?

 Junyah showing the KTM how it is done. Go WR!

 Mrs. M slipping to the side...

 ...and coming out after a short pause.

 Ross proving that speed is your friend.

ADVRich testing the depth and seeing whether the sweet Britannia fairing on his WR has a built-in periscope

 Lunch break. At this point, there were eight of us left.

 Mrs. M no longer concerned about riding in the sand seems to be having fun.

 ADVRich playing in the sand.

Just a shot to show you how large the sand pit really is.

And Junyah showing us how to park a WR when you only have a limited space. After a careful consideration of his argument and style, no other rider decided to try his unconventional parking method.

It was a great day of riding in a good company.