Ramjet's Driver Reports

Trail 41 and the intersection of 51. We stop for a moment to get our bearings.

Lions, Tiger's and Mud, Oh My!

The Hatfield McCoy staff has always welcome us with open arms. These are really great people. There is still some concern and issues of our footprint size .We're at 60" give or take, and the trail limit I understand is 48". This appears to be an issue of insurance and prohibiting the jeeps and off road guys off the system. I feel we do less damage to the trails the some of the quad behemoths you see on the trails.

No Pilot in the land can breakdown without cause. Our POOA mechanical wizards can diagnose a problem from over 30 feet away! There's a ton of talent in this picture. Even the guy in the flip flops.

The trail system takes some time to get used to. Without a map you're pretty much lost. Without the sun as a reference point, you can get turned around pretty easily. The small post signs are helpful but make you ask questions such as" I'm on 18, but what part of 18?" After four trips here, I finally have a basic map programmed into my memory, but that didn't rule out some scary moments of feeling very misplaced.

The new trail permit decal.

A new permit decal is issued to all that ride. It is a self adhesive sticker that you affix to your helmet instead of the old zip tied version that we used to tie to the head net on the pilots.It's durable and waterproof!
I know, I tested it by taking a great dunking and a hard kick to my ego. My paper permit and trail maps did not survive my swim in the large KTM sucking mud hole I found on trail 18.

Looks mostly harmless eh? I really screwed up on this one.

Now I'm not the most talent guy on two wheels, and don't have many hours on my 200, but I was in awed at the speed Mosquito his "built for speed" team mates (Bryan and what's his name) attacked the trails with the enthusiasm of a testosterone teenagers in a room full of playmates.

These guys are aggressively fast. And I'm aggressively slow.

Moskito took pity on me and followed behind me while we tried to find the rest of POOA gang who have one speed - full throttle.

While tooling along at a brisk pace on trail 18, I came upon a huge puddle that seems to b

e a common design element on this trail. Dealing with big rocks was okay since they are a known entity, but these mystery puddles made you pause and think. And that's where I goofed. I thought about it too long.

I prepare to use the berm on the left side of this large expanse of water and just touch the edge of the water. From my point of view, it doesn't look too deep, so I give it a shot.

Now I'm wearing a KTM flight vest that I keep tools, food and my digital camera in the vest pockets. In less then a second, I slip and I'm over my head in cold, brown, mucky, water and my bike has disappeared. It's a strange feeling to hear the water rush into your helmet and your goggles fill with mud.

My only thought was "SAVE" the digital camera! It's one of my good ones and I can't have 2K go south on me. I leaped out of the water and scrambled to pull my vest off, unzip the right pocket holding the camera and dang I was lucky. Only a small amount of mud creep into the pocket. Sadly, I was soaked from top to bottom and I was miles from camp.

I pulled the bike out of the water and flopped down into the weeds. I hear a concerned voice behind me ask if I was okay. It was Moskito who followed about a minute too late to see the fall, but supported me that that infectious impish laugh of his.

The only dry thing I had left was my sweatshirt that I had taken off earlier and stuff it into the camel back pocket of the flight vest. I took a chance and fired the camera up. All functions appeared normal and I didn't see any water damage. My sweatshirt was enough to wipe the mud off and I gently rolled the camera into the soft cloth and stuff the whole ball into the front of my vest. It was the only way to carry it, but I looked pregnant when I rode back to camp.

Skeet and I hook up with the rest of crew and head back to Camp Vroom and I hoof it to the showers to rinse out the mud that had creep into places that it shouldn't be. To add insult to injury, trail 18 is marked green (green is easy) and my wallet, as I write this, still has traces of mud in it.

This is a great photograph of the second wave heading out to the trails.

This is my friend Bucked. I road with this crazed maniac on a rescue mission to save one of our own who's Pilot had just stop running. It's a strange feeling returning on pavement but it was the shorter of two distances to camp and we didn't what to leave the poor guy stuck in the woods like ol' Kiowa the last time we were here.

This is a quick list of everyone who was there for the 2006 Hatfield and McCoy trip. We need to do this once a year.

Odyknuck
Bucked
Hoodlum
Betel
Moskito
Bryan
Vroom
UPSMan
Throttle
Rocketman
Ramjet
Trailshark
FL500Nut
Lightspeed
Matt
Greg
Phillip
FL670R
Threewits

(who am I missing?)

Hoodlum returns from his tangle with the rocks. Cold, muddy, and tired, but posting a big smile.

So what is the general feeling of this ride? You can't find a better group of people to ride this awesome trail system.

Despite my swimming lesson, I give this ride an outstanding ten out of ten.

kind word or two about the loss of one of Hoodlums loved ones. He brought his family

Here's a few kind words about the loss of one of Hoodlums loved ones. It a sad story of a family of mice that were living happily in Hoodlums air box. They travel all the

way to Hatfield McCoy in the comfort of a nice dry air box unaware of the danger that was coming. Unannounced to Hoodlum, they went for the ride of there lives; literally.

It appears they road the whole day inside that air box and sadly, the mother mouse did not survive the first days ride. The four little ones managed to make it through though, dazed ,confused and probably pretty upset. Hoodlum released them to the wilds of this heavenly heaven, although small, orphaned and alone.