The 2006 Pine Barrens 500
Day 1 - The Northern Loop
It was still dark and cold at the Hammonton Ramada Inn when I woke up around 5 am. I had arrived the previous night around 9PM after a crazy couple of days trying to put the finishing touches on the GPS route that would guide some seventy five adventure riders more than 500 miles over three days. I had planned to have off the week before the event, to check all the details, prep my bike and make sure everybody had a great time for the first Pine Barrens 500. Things never go the way you plan them, and everything that could go wrong that week did. Last minute support calls from some of my customers and a mix up in my schedule left me scrambling Thursday to finish the maintence on my trusty but well ridden KTM LC4. I had probably clocked over 1000 miles in the previous couple of weeks re-riding and fine tuning the route, which would take us as far North as Great Adventure and Rt 195 and as far south as the shore of the Delaware bay. The previous weekend, Ray, one of the recon riders, and myself had been out behind Coyle Field trying to find a missing link, a trail to connect two great sections that the Fish and Game officers had asked me to change at the last minute.
We were in the Scrub Pines of Coyle Field, a section of Penn Forest that is cris-crossed by many sandy roads and trails, some severely whooped out from years of use by enduro and ATV riders when we got a little lost. Even with two GPS's and maps, I still wasn't sure where we were. After a few miles and a couple of dead ends we came upon one of the deepest, sandiest roads I've ever seen in the Pine Barrens. The sand was so white and fine, it looked like an ocean beach. After riding up and down this very difficult road two or three time to see if it could connect the sections, we were wiped out. The road was just too difficult to include in the PB500. We found the section we were trying to connect to and headed back to our vehicles.
I didn't look at my bike till the following thursday, and found both forks leaking oil bad. The fine sand from the previous recon ride did a number on my fork seals and they had to be replaced. I just finished the right side when my phone rang, it was my son's school, he had bumped his head playing with the other kindergardeners and the school nurse was out that day. Could I come and get him? I said I was a little greasy, but I'd be right over. Sean had a big bump on his fore head, but I'd seen bigger and he was going to be fine.
After returning home, I realized I didn't have time to finish the other fork, pack the car and still make it to the Ramada at a reasonable time. The fork will just have to leak. And the Garmin to Magellan conversion would have to be finished at the Hotel. I packed up the gear, a couple of laptops for the GPS downloads and my office PC, a DVD player for some night time entertainment and everything else for the long weekend.
It was now crunch time, a handful of riders had arrived at the Hotel Thursday night, and by the time I checked in, there were 3 or 4 messages waiting for me. All were from riders worried about downloading the route into their GPS's . For many, this was to be their first GPS ride. The concept of traveling over 500 miles through the State Parks and Wildlife Management areas using only a GPS for navigation had made a few guys nervous Of course the first guy to see me had a Magellan Sportrac, which I hadn't finished converting the route for. I told him don't worry, we'll get it in the morning. He didn't look assured. Most of the riders had already been emailed the GPS file for "Day One" and had downloaded into their units.
The concept for a GPS adventure ride is this, layout a course or "route" in GPS terminology. This can be done in a couple of ways, a GPS can record where you have been,your "track" and upload it to a mapping program. The software allows you to cut and paste the good sections into another map and save your new "route". This is downloaded into the GPS unit, and depending on the type and model of your unit, you navigate using the GPS, it telling you which way to turn and how far ahead. The advantage of using a GPS over the traditional route sheets and arrows, common for enduros and dual sport rides, is not having to put up and take down the arrows, which sometimes get moved or taken down by tree huggers and hunters, or having to do the turn mileage for the route sheet. It would take a lot of effort and man hours to have a 500 mile route arrowed, with the GPS, it just a matter of finding the trails you want and making a "route" by placing "waypoints" at the turns and linking them together. Here's where it becomes an art form. The accuracy at placement of the waypoints determines what kind of a day you will have.
Around 6 AM some more riders started arriving at the Hotel. The plan was to start signup and GPS downloads around 7AM. The Pine Barons Enduro Riders were sponsoring the event, and were setting up the signup tent in the parking lot.
Some riders trailed their machines, while others rode them there. The motorcycles entered covered the full range of street legal dirt bikes, from Sherpa 250's to GS 1200's and everything in between.
Here's Doc Gonzo with Bob and Chris from KTM Adventure Tours getting ready to head out .
We had a riders meeting following the GPS downloading, about 45 riders signed up for the first day, which I thought was going to be about 225 miles. We broke up the riders into groups of 7 or 8 riders, based on skill level and motor size. The group leaders were riders that had helped layout or pre ride the route over the last few months, Scott, who I call "Grasshopper" was to lead "the fast guys" , the more experienced riders on smaller , 400 - 600cc motors. Rob"Rally Boss" Pao also led a group of fast guys. Some riders went on their own, they had the GPS route loaded and just headed out when they were ready. That's how the concept of a GPS ride is supposed to work, and we are teaching the participants to be able to do this in the future. After looking around after most of the guys had left, I saw a bunch of "big bikes" looking a little uncertain of what to do next. I told them they would be riding with me. I knew that they wouldn't be riding that fast and probably needed some guidance and I wanted to make sure that they took the "big bike go around's" that we had put on the route to keep the event doable on the larger GS class bikes, but still fun for the others. My group consisted mostly of KTM 950's and BMW 1200's, I waited for everyone to get ready and headed out of the parking lot. The route left the Hotel and headed east into Wharton State Forest's southern end, near Batsto Village. The roads were hard sand and gravel with some sandy sections throw in for fun.
Here are a few pictures from my group, the one below I call "Gorillas In the Mist".
Here's Scott's group, right after we finished playing "Bowling for BWM's". Two of the GS's had a low speed collision at this corner, I just missed getting a picture, as mentioned on the advrider web site, "there's nothing like a $30,000 pileup".
You can see the Beemers on the left side, thankfully, there was no damage.
After everything got sorted out, we headed North through Bass River State Forest on one of my favorite twisty gravel roads, ended up at RT 539. This is where the first "Big Bike" go around was, but some riders missed it and one bike had to be towed out.
This section, which went through Stafford Forge Wildlife Area was a long, whooped out gravel road with deep puddles, most guys went around the them, the ones who didn't risked flooding out their motor. Here the official "rescue element" tows a stalled bike to the lunch stop. Lucille's is a popular spot with the Dirt Bikers and the Harley guys, located in Warren Grove, on Rt 539. What the riders didn't know was how many miles there really was to go.
