Hatfield McCoy DRN Dam Yankee Dirt Riders East Coast Hillbilly Ride 2005

Short version to go with Nancy’s short skirt:

Memorable quotes:

CA to PK “You CANT fix that!” PK “Get the Duct tape!”

“What IS Mann?”

NRB to JasonJ “Hey buddy, we have to talk,,, remember when I said you could put your stuff in our freezer????”

Matt “There are no go go bars in Gilbert….”

Dave to other riders “lets go”

Dave to other riders “this one is easy”

Dave to other riders “lets go”

Conversation with JasonJ in McDonalds parking lot: 

Wait a minute, your bike has a Pa plate.

(Jason) Yes

So riding into town is no big deal for you.

(Jason) Yes it is, why do you think I got the plate?

Matt “Hey Princess, want a hamburger?”

Jason to Treejumper on the trail “I have a second set of gloves in my pack that are dry, you want them?

(TJ) No I’ll be ok.

(Jason) You sure because I’m fine?

(TJ) No I’ll be ok.

(Jason) Fine Ill put them on then

(TJ) Ver ver ver ver ver vvvvvvvvvv ver. I can’t pull my Ca ca ca clu cl utch.

PK at the gas station in Mann. “Did you see that car come through the intersection and almost hit me?”

(Jason) Welcome to street riding.

Memorable Moments:

Matt falls over backwards in his chair down the hill

TJ’s paint suite

PK’s garbage bag raincoat

Jason ACCIDENTALY does not close the door on Nate’s cabin correctly before Hurricane McCoy opens it for some spring-cleaning.

Conner wonders out of the bathhouse through our campsite after the storm with no pants looking like a dazed refugee.

JasonJ molesting his bike to try and get it down from the hill he did not quite make….

Dave scrambling to start his bike in the mud hole so Jason could not get photographic proof.

Long Version:

I hit the road 9:15 AM and again at 9:30 (what, you never forgot anything?) The trip was mostly smooth. The Rotten Bapba (my van) was a real trooper. My Muffler fell down somewhere in Virginia and I had to stop and tear it off the rest of the way with a pry bar. But other than that all was well. I get in to the camp around 6:15. The guy asks whom I’m with. DRN I said, I’m Jason. What name is the reservation under,,, Uhhhhhh Ummmm, Captain Obvious? No no, Uh, I’m sharing a site with Treejumper, no no, Chuck? No, no Chuck. So I call TJs cell and he picks it up and I try to ask him who’s name the reservation is under but the phone connection is junk and I get nothing before it goes click. Man, I must be the first one here and I’m screwed! TJ walks in the door with his phone and all is good. I get checked in and see TJ has hooked us up with a sweet canopy and a load of DRY firewood under plastic! This turns out to be very good, LOL. I unload the bike and set up the air mattress in the van, puncture it with and screw, fix it with duct tape, and we get the fire lit and get some dogs on the grill. Everyone starts to roll in and settle in and makes their way over to the campfire for a great night of campfire fun. Our campsite rocks, its right next to the bathrooms but down a steep hill. Nate’s friend Matt sits his chair with his back to the hill and I watch him rock back in the chair a few times before rear feet sink in to the soft ground and finally he just goes over backwards. I can’t believe he did not just tumble all the way into the muck at the bottom of the hill. The nice guy I am I grabbed the chair and he held on to it, LOL. Slowly we all make our way to bed. We get up Friday AM to the rally call of Pancakes from Walt. Yes I will thank you very much. PK and crew roll in after I woke up, man they looked beat. Dave is ready to ride but PK and Rob decide to snack some pancakes and have a nap. We rolled around 10 AM and had an awesome day in the warm sun. Some mud and puddles from the rain the day before, but the warm sun makes it an excellent day to be on a dirt bike! The views, the trails, the mountains, man I was grooving it up. It was my first ride of the year and I struggled to keep up with Dave and TJ. Man Dave can groove those turns like an F-18. As the day goes on I get warmed up and more comfortable with the pace. Plenty of 3^rd and 4^th gear straights with 90 degree or more turns. I would hammer out of a turn and make up ground in 4^th gear and I had to work the brakes hard for the turns, by the time I exit the turn I here the ding ding of Eric’s YZ 80 on my wheel, man that kid can fly! I studied Dave’s turning technique and by the end of the day I was cornering much faster, sitting down, on the tank, foot out and leaning the bike hard riding the berms on the outside of the turns. Like TJ said, the only thing is if you slide out of the turn, the result would be a short trip off a long drop!  We start heading back in and I’m in the 2 spot just trying to keep Dave in my sights in the lead. I stop at a trail intersect to make contact with the riders behind me and then take off. I’m riding for a while and TJ comes up to signal me to stop. He felt Dave had made a wrong turn off the front since it was not like him not to wait for such a long section. Any way we loose about 15 minutes waiting just as we start to roll we run head on into a Thunderstorm that is packing 60 Mph winds, hail, Lightning and plenty of flat out down pouring sideways rain. I am a bit scared since the lightning is all around us and we just hammer down for about 20 minutes to get back in to find the campground ravaged by the storm. I mean tents blown over, ripped, canopies shredded, pants gone, everything wet. I secure some of our gear and unplug all of our soaked electric stuff and dive into the van. We are on the top of a mountain and lightning is all around us! I take off my helmet and see what I think is PK and Garry standing outside his truck bed tent leaning on the truck. Man, what are they doing! These guys are NUTS! Turns out his tent had ripped and PK the very cool guy he is, stood out there and held the tent down to keep the water out while Garry tried to mend the rip with tape. If you ask me, PK was holding the truck down too!

            Rain stops, sun comes out, and we try to start sifting through the wreckage. TJ’s canopy, the largest I saw that weekend, was the only one to stay intact thanks to what I thought was over kill on the anchoring to the ground! Everything is wet so we string up cloths lines and start drying. All of a sudden I see Conner come up the hill from the bathhouse. He wonders through our campsite looking dazed and confused wearing a MX shirt and no pants. You ok I asked? Huh? Oh yeah. Here he was in the tent when the storm came down and ran to the bathhouse! Smart!

            The Louisiana guys show up and we enjoy meeting them and talk a bit and agree to hook up in the AM. They have a helmet camera! I hope we can see some of that action! We revive the fire with the dry wood, and start some food. Matt’s burgers appear white in color and are of questionable origins. They throw one to the camp dog Princess and she hesitates to eat it, they then put one on a bun and give it to me. I eat it, its ok, not great but I ate it. Princess sees me eat it and has hers then too, LOL.

            I slept in my van, and I its quite comfortable in there, but that wind was so fierce that night, the van was rocking back and forth from the blast. YES, it was the wind!  I can only imagine what a rough night it was in a tent, much less if it had gotten wet! No surprise Conner was not felling well and certainly not a happy camper in the AM and Captain made the right call to pack up and head for home. Taking with him our plans to put the 92 bike in compromising poses and take pictures to goat its former owner. Breakfast in the cabin was awesome and Nate even let me in from the cold despite my nautical negligents….  10 AM came and went and the rain did not look like it was going to give us a break. Walt headed out and we geared up to slug it out on the trail. We all put on our “rain gear”. TJ with the white paint suite, Oh man you gotta be kidding me, only to be out done by PK with a trash bag vest. We rolled about 10:30. Mud, puddles, wet rocks, rocks with puddles IN them, no kidding, but the rain could not dampen our sprits, I was having a great time. We hit the harder trail and were greeted with the greasiest nastiest Ved out clay rutted decent following a wet practically vertical drop and 90 degree slide on the side of the hill. By the time you saw it you were committed. I hit my back break and slid the bike down the hill, sideways into the berm and eyed the clay crevasse. No time to think, riders were already sliding down behind me and would have knocked me right off the mountain, I let the WR slide into the rut, put my feet up and let out the clutch, there was no breaking here, point, shoot, and pray.  Wish I could have gotten a picture of that, but there was nowhere to stop to get a shot! By the end of that Nate was shaking and the next section up hill was enough for him and Matt who decided to hit some of the other trails. I was having a real hard time with my front end so I made some adjustments to stiffen up the rear and soften the front to balance the bike a bit better from Paragon Rock mode the McCoy mud mode. Big improvement, I now had the confidence in the front to ride the rest of the day in the mud without white knuckles and granny cornering. That trail was a technical trial with some steep rock up hills and the rain made for more of a challenge, but I think it was trail 34, was my favorite trail of the ride. I want to go back and check more of the blue and single-track trails. TJ pretty much described the rest, wrong way on 10 took us to the Mann trial head where after some debate we went to town, gassed up, and headed back. Between the time we spent stopped, the 40 MPH ride down the road in the rain and the dropping temps, hands were indeed cold. We spent a few minutes at the Mann trailhead warming our hands on our bikes before hitting it. TJ was really having a hard time with the cold hands and needed to stop to try to warm them a bit. Why, Ill never know but he declined my second set of dry gloves in my pack, so I put them on and was fine the rest of the ride.

            Most of the crew packed and left, so Nate and Matt offered a bunk in the cabin even after I had flooded it out on them! I accepted and we had a fun night of cards, good food, BS, stories, all that great stuff you do trips like this for. We woke to snow on the ground and trucks, cleaned up and rolled out. I had a long trip home. I followed Matt and Nate to Pa where they took the Turnpike. I being the cheapass I am headed up to 78 only to run into a 4-mile backup before the split. I herd the problems on the CB and was able to get off of 81 and follow trucker’s directions to Rt 22. I got back on 78 for a few miles only to run into an 8-mile backup. I was able to exit that after about 15 minutes and follow truckers instructions to Rt 100 witch I took home but it was 45 Mph going. Took almost 10 hours to get home! But I was glad to be home and see my girl that night.

            I had a great time! Like TJ said, only thing was the weather. We made the most of it like hard core DRN riders do, but I know we would have ridden more trails if it were dryer. I was ready to stay the day Sunday and ride and head out Sunday night or Monday AM if it was better sport. But like TJ said, the riding is only half the fun on a DRN ride, and the other half was just as good sport and normal.

            The trail system is well groomed and marked. The quad riders were among the most courteous I have ever had the pleasure of sharing trials with. Of corse with the weather we had, everyone on the trail was a hardcore rider just to be out there so maybe the sour weather kept the squids at home. The Twin Hollow camp ground rules, it’s right on the trail and the owners are awesome and friendly. The dogs (Princess and Buddy) are a welcome campfire comfort. The pictures and any description of the view from the camp is all but useless, you must see it for yourself. The towns of Gilbert and Mann are accommodating to the riders, there is even a big sign at the edge of town that says Gilbert Welcomes ATVs! I should have a picture of that! Where else that you know of right? I’m glad everyone is safe and home. Except for an egg on Rob’s arm I think and the gift my back wheel gave PK I think there were no other injuries.  Dam Yankees DRN rides RULE!