February 27, 2017 – Adventure Motorcycling, The Road Less Traveled

For those of you who do not know, the type of Motorcycle I am riding is designed and marketed for what they call “Adventure Motorcycling”.  The promotions show riders going across the Dakar dessert or scaling mount Kilimanjaro on two wheels.  In reality, most riders buy these very expensive bikes and then drive them on paved roads or to Starbucks for their lattes.  Considering myself in the latter category, even on this cross-country trip I have the bike outfitted with street tires, not off-road ones.  I have been grateful for the high clearance on the dirt roads leading to campgrounds but this morning I pushed beyond my comfort zone into “Adventure Land”

The campground I stayed at was on the edge of a dry lake in Ocala National Park in Florida.  It was a beautiful setting with a symphony of birdcalls and animal sounds at night interrupted by periodic gunshots from hunters somewhere across the lake.  The lake looked like a mini Serengeti as high grass had taken root when the waters had receded.  To get there I traveled about 10 miles on well-maintained dirt roads.  The kind of roads that a street oriented rider can handle and still boast of an off-road experience when they get back to Starbucks…

I should be honest here, I am not a highly experienced dirt bike rider, I understand the basics.  Keep your weight on the foot pegs and befriend don’t fight your foreword momentum.  The challenge of the “Adventure” category comes in the size and weight of the bike itself.  With all its gear I’m sure my bike weighs in at well over 600 lbs.

As I left the campsite in the morning steam was rising off the distant water left in the lake and I set the GPS to take me to Ocala, the nearest large city outside of the forest.  I have been learning to trust GPS, but it is kind of like riding blind.  The device tells you where and when to turn but it is not very good at giving you the entire route at once, or showing you the big picture allowing the user to make route choices.  

There are different types of dirt roads out there.  There are the graded flat dirt roads that are engineered but not paved, like the roads I entered the forest on and then there are dirt roads that are merely the byproduct of four wheeled vehicles traveling a certain path over the terrain.  In the morning I started off on the former, but the GPS directed me to take a right hand turn onto a pathway that quickly became the latter.  To make matters worse, the terrain quickly turned into sand as the road was not leading away from the dry lakebed but was actually a route designed to circumnavigate the sandy perimeter of the lake. 

I quickly found myself in the middle of nowhere.  With no cellular signals and on a road that was too sandy for even a regular motocross motorbike.  On my 600 lbs. beast I was too far into the sandy road to turn back, so….   I foraged onward in hope that the road would become more solid just up around the next turn.  It did not.  Two times the bike decided to lay itself down.  Once softly where the sand was so thick on the road it more or less sank over.  The second time was more abrupt, with the front wheel loosing its grip at slow speed but still fast enough to throw me off to the side trapping my ankle under the panniers as both the bike and rider went kerpluf into the soft sand.  This is when the term “Adventure” came into focus.  If I was going a few miles faster or the angle of the dismount had been a little different my ankle could have easily been snapped.  As it was it was only just sprained.  Still there I was, on a dry lakebed with nobody around, nobody aware that I was there, and no way of signaling for help….   After turning off the engine and checking my ankle and the bike for damage, I proved to myself that I am strong enough to upright a 600 lbs. bike in soft sand and continued inching forward again.  

At points I found it easier to ride off the road into the lake itself where the ground was firmer, with apologies for my minor transgressions on the environment.  Eventually the road winded around to the other side of the lake.  The first signs of life I saw were a few hunters who I gathered were responsible for the gunfire the night before.  I did not stop ..  Whereas the normal response to meeting a traveler on a road is to say “hello” or nod, in this situation the response to my appearance was a tightening of grip on the pit-bull leash so the dog would not follow its protective instincts…. I rolled on as quietly as I could in first gear hoping not to disturb the territorial waters of dog or master.

Eventually the road firmed up again and I made it back to a dirt road of the more graded variety.  At this point the GPS, being unsatisfied with its inability to cause my demise, tried to direct me to turn again onto trail roads and in two instances, directed me to turn in areas where no roads existed.  Having learned by lesson, I ignored my electronic guidance and moved on making choices based on the solidity of the riding surface, and some vague notion of where the sun was.  In time I found my way back to asphalt, and from there to the next city, and from there to the nearest coffee bar.  Now if only I had someone to boast to about my “Adventure Riding”…