A local riding buddy, Phil, and I went to the Pine Barrens 300. Phil is 29, a Cop, martial arts expert, etc. In other words, a fine example of what a man should be physically. This is important later. Info about the rally here http://www.pinebarrens500.org.

We got there late Friday night. Traffic around Baltimore was terrible. It took 4 1/2 hours to do a 3 hour drive. Saturday morning we met a old guy, Pete - age 67, who allowed us to ride with him since we were sand n00bs. He said his buddy, also an old guy, was a slow rider too. Liars! It was all I could do to keep up!  This is Pete below - never trust smiling old guys!

Here's the lunch stop.

Here's the end of some killer whoops...

This first day was 160 miles broken into 4 stages. I wore out at the end of stage 3 and bailed out. Phil finished the whole day. The prick also came back to the hotel smiling and laughing - I was dragging my ass and my back was tired from picking up a 350# motorcycle.

Did I mention they put a size limit on the bikes? Last year it was anything goes. This year it was a 500cc minimum. I had prepped the 450 for this and at the last minute had to spoon knobbies on the KLR. I would have had a ton more fun on the 450. Next year, I'm scraping the stickers off of the 450 and telling them it is a 500! The 450 only weighs 250#.

Sunday Phil woke early and bounced out of bed - I hate young guys. I reached for the Ibuprofen and coffee. Phil went with Fast Pete - they were doing a speed run. In fact, they were the second group of riders to get in.   Here's Phil surveying the Competition.

Sunday was broken into 3 stages and was about 140 miles. I met another guy, also named Pete, who was a n00b like me and didn't have GPS. So we rode together - it was a good match-up. We intended to take all the hero section bypasses but they didn't show up on the GPS - so what the heck, we rode the whole damn route. Made it too I might add. :) 

I had one impressive get-off. I was getting used to deep sand and was getting a bit cocky when we hit a particularly deep stretch. I lost it and went over the left handle bar. Pete said I was about 6' in the air after getting launched - felt like it too.

Did I say the sand was deep?

There was a bit of everything to ride; deep sand, tight single track fire cuts, fire roads, etc. One section of single track had whoops about 3' tall - was a bitch to ride those. Anyway - it was fun! I'll definitely go back... but on my KTM!