4-wheelin'
Last Wednesday, I went with a group of guys from work to a place called the Badlands Off Road Park, in Attica, IN. We took our 4-wheelers, for a day of mud slinging, hill climbing fun.
We left Bloomfield around 7:45 am, after breakfast at the local DQ. We had six guys going, and we had just enough room for all six quads, two Polaris Sportsmans (400 and 700), a Yamaha Kodiak 450, two Suzuki 400 sportquads and a Yamaha Raptor 700. We got to the park around 9:30 or so, attached our $5 bicycle flags to our 4-wheelers and got riding.
I've not done a whole lot of riding, but this place seemed like it had it all: mudholes, hills, jumps, rocks, sand dunes, and even a jeep sized culvert.
It was pretty cool in the morning, and we took it relatively easy for an hour or so, until we started getting hot, went back and took our heavy gear off and got back to riding. I took a donut kind of hard, and my quad threw me. I was able to kick it back onto its wheels before it rolled over on top of me, but my pride, my back and my arm were hurt. I went back to the truck, dressed the wound and got back to riding. I almost got thrown again later going off a jump, nearly went over the handlebars.
I got hung up in the mud in the morning, and had to be winched out. Later that day, Gary decided to go through a big puddle, that turned out to be deeper than he thought. His quad was up to the seat in muddy water, and when he jumped off of it after it died, it was floating. We pulled it out, turned it on end to drain the water and towed it back to the truck. After changing the oil (the old stuff looked like chocolate milk), he was back on the trail.
One of the sport quad guys went up about an 75 degree hill and got thrown off his bike at the top. The bike started back down the hill, but luckily didn't tumble. He must have had a golden horseshoe up his butt.
Towards the end of the day, we were looking for that big culvert and my belt started slipping. Waterlogged, right? nope, not a drop of water came out when i took the drain plug out. It just gave up the ghost. I had enough to make it through in low gear, but no more big hills for me. We found the culvert and Gary rode his quad through it and jumped out the end into about 18" of water.
In the end, the only real damage was to my elbow and Brian's leg got scraped up. He's lucky it didn't break though. My belt was probably going to go anyway, and after 3 oil changes, Gary's good to go. We rode about 6 hours, and had about 5 hours of drive time. It'd be more worth it if we'd have camped out and ridden for 2 days, but i'm not sure i could have handled a second day!
We left Bloomfield around 7:45 am, after breakfast at the local DQ. We had six guys going, and we had just enough room for all six quads, two Polaris Sportsmans (400 and 700), a Yamaha Kodiak 450, two Suzuki 400 sportquads and a Yamaha Raptor 700. We got to the park around 9:30 or so, attached our $5 bicycle flags to our 4-wheelers and got riding.
I've not done a whole lot of riding, but this place seemed like it had it all: mudholes, hills, jumps, rocks, sand dunes, and even a jeep sized culvert.
It was pretty cool in the morning, and we took it relatively easy for an hour or so, until we started getting hot, went back and took our heavy gear off and got back to riding. I took a donut kind of hard, and my quad threw me. I was able to kick it back onto its wheels before it rolled over on top of me, but my pride, my back and my arm were hurt. I went back to the truck, dressed the wound and got back to riding. I almost got thrown again later going off a jump, nearly went over the handlebars.
I got hung up in the mud in the morning, and had to be winched out. Later that day, Gary decided to go through a big puddle, that turned out to be deeper than he thought. His quad was up to the seat in muddy water, and when he jumped off of it after it died, it was floating. We pulled it out, turned it on end to drain the water and towed it back to the truck. After changing the oil (the old stuff looked like chocolate milk), he was back on the trail.
One of the sport quad guys went up about an 75 degree hill and got thrown off his bike at the top. The bike started back down the hill, but luckily didn't tumble. He must have had a golden horseshoe up his butt.
Towards the end of the day, we were looking for that big culvert and my belt started slipping. Waterlogged, right? nope, not a drop of water came out when i took the drain plug out. It just gave up the ghost. I had enough to make it through in low gear, but no more big hills for me. We found the culvert and Gary rode his quad through it and jumped out the end into about 18" of water.
In the end, the only real damage was to my elbow and Brian's leg got scraped up. He's lucky it didn't break though. My belt was probably going to go anyway, and after 3 oil changes, Gary's good to go. We rode about 6 hours, and had about 5 hours of drive time. It'd be more worth it if we'd have camped out and ridden for 2 days, but i'm not sure i could have handled a second day!
posted by ScubaSteve at
1:14 PM
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