It all started when I sent a message to a friend of mine who had offered to help me change my tires. He said we could change them today but he was going camping Saturday, and oh, hey, why don't you ride out with us and have some fun? Sure, the road is dirt but there's a guy that rides with us on a big Triumph, so you'll do fine!
So, what the heck, I decided to go.
I mean, what's the worse that can happen, right? My buddy even said we'd go as slow as I needed to and if need be, I could turn around and go the other way in.
So, I pulled up at his house and this is his bike:
Hmmmm. I don't know a lot about KTM's but I do know they are serious off road bikes. Ok, reminder to self: be sure the roads are decent dirt roads with nothing crazy on them.
The guy that was camping with my buddy shows up on this bike:
Those two bikes weigh less than 300 pounds each. For reference, this is my bike:
It weighs a tad more than 275 pounds and as you can see, the knobbies are a little worn. But as the sticker I saw on a bike recently said:
So, we suited up and headed out. We stopped at Sonic on Capital Circle and I had their breakfast burrito. Not bad, but not What A Burger. And for some weird reason, Sonic doesn't give free refills on soft drinks.... But half of the people that bring you food are on roller skates, so that must count for something.
We headed out and they took a different route to meet up at the entrance road. We met up and headed into the Apalachicola National Forest. We took it slow and everything was pretty good, no serious slipping or sliding, just a little 'floating' and then we hit the first deep sand on the road.
And the fun ride came to a screeching halt. I didn't drop the bike but it wallowed around and I came to a quick stop. Got a little advice and we headed off again. Hit some more deep sand and kept a steady (slow) throttle and made it through ok.
Kept going and Sean (on the KTM) passed me doing a wheelie...which he had told me he very well may do. He slowed down to ride sweep again and the next time he came by, he was resting his feet on the handlebars. It was funny. The bastige.
We hit a tiny bit of paved road and I prayed that was it but after about 25 yards we headed back into the woods on a smaller dirt road. It was actually a bit tighter and was fine. I was actually able to look around a bit and this is what we were riding through:
I kept my eye out for one of these
but we didn't see one. Which admittedly was going to be hard since that is a picture of a Grizzly. And Florida is not a Grizzly habitat. See, entertaining and informative. However, I was on the lookout for one of these:
And we didn't see one of those, either.
So we kept riding and I kept slipping and floating but generally heading in the right direction when we hit a road that to the front wheel on the Bandit, looked like this:
See me on the Bandit in that shot? Yeah, that's what it felt like. For a little bit, the Bandit did ok. But then, the ruts got so deep that I probably clenched a little too much and the front tires tried to walk up the side of the rut. And then it tried to walk up the other side of the rut. Then the rear tire got into the action.
So, the bike went over. It didn't fall, it just sort of leaned over a couple of inches and I stepped off. I'd give myself a 9.2 on dismount. It was a very casual action, although at the moment I was a little umm excited. This is the actual road but imagine it with a lot more sand. A lot more.....
The bike was fine, no harm done at all. I did have to adjust the left rear view mirror, though. Sean then picks this time to tell me this is the where he broke his collar bone we he crashed here....
Now that is not the right thing to tell a guy on a freakin' street bike 10 miles out into the middle of no where, is it? That picture is actually from when he dismounted ungracefully...
At this point I was a little worn out and frazzled but I think I got a little better at the steady throttle and lean on the back and didn't have any mishaps and we made to their camp site.
After they set up camp and I enjoyed the complete lack of any man made sounds, except for the KTM and Yamaha running through the mud, I was talking to Sean when the Yamaha revved up and then cut off.
We looked over and there was the stuck Yamaha and it looked like this:
So we walked over ands they got it out and after a bit we decided to head out. We went the other way out and I did pretty good but the road was a lot better. We hit pavement and it. was. Heaven. Sean and I immediately took off and that KTM is awesome. We slowed down and I was thinking how cool that KTM is, when at speed, Sean decides to show us how capable the bike is by riding off the road onto the side. Bastige...
At the light in Crawfordville, they took a right to go to Sopchoppy, and I headed back to Tallahassee.
Very cool experience but not too sure I'll take the Bandit off road again. Unless I get some knobbies....
(By the way, almost all of these photos were stolen off the net. That is actually my Bandit and that is the road where I had the lean over.)
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