SuperJason’s Personal Blog

Saturday I went up to Pembine to ride my ATV with my parents.  We met up with some friends that my mom knows from some online ATV forums.  I borrowed my parents ATV trailer, which can normally haul 2 ATV’s, but easily hauls 1 ATV.  I was very surprised when I got over 20 miles/gallon driving up there.  It was about a 1.5 hour trip from my house, so it wasn’t too bad.

Riding on the trails was a blast.  Most of the trails were much wider than I expected, because they were mostly logging trails.  They were basically dirt roads.  The soil ranged from sand to regular dirt.  That meant that when you were following someone, you would get all the dust in your face.  Luckily, it’s easy to ride far apart.  You can be a quarter mile apart, but you’re still riding as a group.  Each person is responsible for the person behind them.  It seems obvious, but not everyone really thinks about it before they go.  When you reach a turn, you need to wait at the turn until the person behind you catches up.  When they arrive, you are free to go, and they become responsible for that turn.  Even if something happens to the last rider, the person in the front will ultimately be aware of it.

Another thing that newbies don’t know about riding on the trails is how to communicate with other groups.  When you see another ATV from a different group, you need to show them with your fingers how many riders are behind you.  That takes a little bit of responsiblity off most of the riders, because the front riders need to be the most concerned with other groups.  Once each group find each other, they can drive very cautiously until they know they are past the other group.

I had a blast, and really got to excercise the capabilities of the machine.  It’s pretty easy to go 20-35mph over rough terrain.  That’s what the ATV’s are designed to do.  I had it up around 50mph once or twice, but it’s not fun riding at that speed.  You don’t want to make any sudden movements, or it could spell disaster.  Driving a moderate speed is definitely the most enjoyable.  My 500 high output did a great job of accellerating, and will keep the front end pretty light.  There were only a couple times when it would have been nice to have a bigger engine, but it definitely wasn’t necessary.

For my next ride, I’d like to go a little slower, and take Melissa with me.  I think she would have a lot of fun riding.  I would probably let her ride a little bit as long as she promises to go slow until she knows how to handle different situations.  She needs to learn how to identify dangers and how to deal with them.  Just because of the cost and time, we’ll probably only ride a couple more times this year at the most.  It’s a great sport to get into, and I look forward to having a lot more fun.

When you haven’t ridden your ATV on a trail, you’re labeled a “Trail Virgin”.  The label probably wasn’t that appropriate for me, because I have rode on many trails, just not any that were “official”.  Out by my grandparents house in Pennsylvania, the population density is very low, and all the land is basically in the woods.  Everyone knows my grandparents, and doesn’t mind if you ride on their land.

I got into riding ATV’s a long time ago.  My grandfather had a little ATV for my cousin.  We both barely fit on it, and it had no working brakes, but we had fun on it anyway.  We kept riding around the property line, getting progressively faster each time.  To slow down, I would just downshift.  Well, as you can imagine, we got going to fast on one of the trips down a big hill.  The entire field is basically empty, except for 1 stump right by the path exiting the field.  Of course that is what we hit.  I just remember my cousin being launched over my back.  I was standing up before he hit the ground.  He was pretty young at the time, so he just bounced.  Luckily, we were both alright.

I ended up getting the machine started again, although it didn’t look like it used to.  The front tires were no longer parallel.  They now pointed opposite directions.  I still managed to drive it back to the house.

After that incident, I quickly got a respect for the speed and power of the machines.  I had previously rode dirt bikes, and it’s a completely different experience.  My grandparents eventually got different ATV’s throughout the years.  My grandfather eventually purchased the ATV that I now own.

When I picked it up, we stayed at their house for a little over a week.  Melissa and I took it out quite a few times, and she drove it very well.  I let her take it out on her own just to drive around the field, and that’s when she decided to go a little too fast, and drive into a wire fence.  She had 2 high tension wires on one side of the machine, and 2 on the other.  The post was pushed into a 30 degree angle.  Luckily, she just got a few bruises, and the machine faired about as well as she did.  We managed to fix the broken parts, which were simply cosmetic.  That same day, I bought a tube bumper for the front.  If I had purchased it earlier, I don’t think any damage would have been caused to the ATV.  We got the fence, the ATV, and Melissa all patched up, and Melissa learned a good lesson just as I had.

This is a really great sport to get into, but you have to know what you’re doing, and you always have to pay attention.

Melissa and I are finally back from our big yearly trip to Pennsylvania. I sort of kept a journal of blog entries that I eventually want to publish here. I’m still trying to figure out if I’m going to back date them so that they fit in chronologically. I did upload the Young reunion photos to Fotki, so go ahead and have a look. I still need to add the descriptions and tags, but you can figure it out for now. I’m going to start working on sorting the Pennsylvania photos soon.

Now that my ATV is in my garage safe and sound, it’s time to accessorize. I’m still figuring out how I’m going to get the plow system, but I have settled on a winch. It’s a Gorilla 2500lb ATV winch. I ordered it on eBay, and it includes everything I need, including the rollers, contractor, switch, mounting bracket, etc. I only paid $111, but from what I’ve read, the Gorilla winches work just as well as the Warn winches. Apparently, the biggest reason any winch breaks is misuse.

I’m also trying to find a cheap way to add some storage to the back rack. I need to be able to pack some stuff for when I get a chance to out on the trails all day. The ATV stuff can be very expensive, so it takes a lot of research to decide the best accessories to get, and where to get them.