January 21st Review and Video

Four flat tires…
A busted radiator…
A ripped off skid plate…
Several fuel intake problems…
Severe thunderstorms (yes, in January!) that ended just after sunrise…
Heavy fog that clouded the overlooks and caused the group to get separated a few times…

But despite all that, we had a terrific ride with a great group of people. We had 32 riders take off and had a terrific group.

I was so glad that my good friend Bellman was able to come. I’ve always looked up to him, and he deserves a lot of credit for making adventure tourism big in eastern Kentucky. We hadn’t got to ride together in a long time, and it was a pleasure to show him an area I had wanted to take him for a while. It was also good to ride with KyKodiak, who I’ve been wanting to show some of Bell County’s trails to for several years. Our fearless leader, Larry, and his son in law Woody came and helped tremendously, as did a lot of the original club members who came out for the ride. Also thanks to Don, who helped me guide during a lot of the trip. Also had a big group from just up the road in Gray, KY show up who were all really nice people, as well as Sammy and his wife from TN. Was also good to ride with Derrick from Knox County, who Larry and I had rode with up there this past summer. We also had several new Holler Crawler members show up and it was great to see new faces on the trail with us. Also, some of the Holler Crawler Louisville Chapter came down. Marty and I took them out the night before for some good greasy pizza and a few beers, and we talked a little about the club and the ride tomorrow. Really good guys and I’m glad they are really interested in this club and riding down here.

We took off from Marty’s about 9:45 AM, rode up behind his house to trail 66B. From there, we took the group onto some off-park trails that were mostly moderate level trails with a few red spots thrown in for fun. The heavy thunderstorms that had ended just a few hours earlier caused the entire ride to be blanketed in a thick fog. While this ruined any chance of enjoying the great overlooks in the area we were at, it gave the woods an eerie, almost ethereal look that was very cool to ride in. It would have been perfect conditions for the Haunted Forest Ride.

The temperatures weren’t that bad, they stayed in the upper 40s for most of the day. I didn’t wear gloves or a face mask until the very end of the ride, when of course it got a little chilly because it was still January and still at night. The heavy storms that ended right before the rain had turned the trails into a muddy mess. It made some trails that normally wouldn’t be difficult into challenging ones, but we all managed to get through them all, even if some spots took a little more time than others.

The rain had also swelled the creeks. While it made for some awesome scenery and made some really pretty waterfalls, it caused us to take a detour. Our original ride plans were to take across several creek crossings that in the winter can be 16 inches or so deep. The rain changed that. We still had to go through one creek crossing and while it wasn’t extremely deep, the water was very swift. And considering this was one of the shallower of the crossings, we figured the other ones would be impassable. Instead of trying to cross any more rushing torrents of water that could have been 3 feet deep in places, we decided to take a detour. We stopped at a cabin in the woods to eat lunch, and after talking with Don, who also knew the area, we decided to take a detour trail.

The detour trail was a blast. Heavy rains this past year had caused it to become rutted out in several places, which made for slow and technical riding. I got swallowed by one of the ruts and had to have Woody hold my front end down to get out (thanks bud!). After crawling up the holler (see what I did there), we finally made it back up to the gravel. We took the gravel for an hour or so back to the wooded spot where we had entered, and ventured back to Marty’s ATV Oasis, arriving just after dark.

Our trip was plagued by technical problems from the start. One of the guys from Gray lost control of his RZR coming down a muddy hill and high centered on a log, busting his radiator and causing him to go back. Luckily he was near a road where Marty came to pick him up. Then we lost our friend Joel and his wife due to some fuel intake problems. Our buddy Bellman tore his skid plate off after dragging it down the trail for a couple of miles. And we had enough flat tires that we made the stock of tire repair kits sky rocket. Also, the fog caused some problems in people being able to stay with the pack. We had at least half a dozen times where the fog was so thick that you couldn’t see 20 yards in front of you, which caused folks to lose the folks in front of them. But that’s to be expected in those conditions, and although we had a lot of time lost due to it, the ride was still amazing.

This was the first ride I have done since the night ride before the Haunted Forest Ride and it felt so great to get back in the woods. And even though there were things that went wrong during the ride, the great company that we had made it all worthwhile. Now I’ve got riding fever again and can’t wait to hit the trails again as soon as possible!

looked like a great time Jon!!!

Looked like you guy's had a blast. Thanks for posting it.