SideXSide Action - January 2008 - (Page 26) { I 100 MILES OF I had heard about a trail that some of the group had been doing throughout the weekend, and I also saw much of the carnage that was brought back by trailer. I had to do this trail! - By Cody Fletcher KENTUCKY f you picked up the last issue of the magazine, you may have seen an article about the Side X Side Round-Up in Evarts, KY. If you’re near that area, you may have been there yourself. Even with the busy schedule of events that the Side X Side Round-Up had to offer, riding is the main goal of every single person who came to the event. So, with much of the event ending on Saturday and many folk packing up to leave on Sunday, I thought it would be an excellent time to get in some riding that Sunday morning. I don’t know what it is about a ride on Sunday after a three-day weekend of camping, but no matter where I’m riding, Sunday is always the best day of riding. If you’ve got the chance to take Monday off of work, I highly recommend just hanging out and taking your time. The ride you experience on Sunday might just be your best ride of the weekend. I had heard about a trail that some of the group had been doing throughout the weekend, and I also saw much of the carnage that was brought back by trailer. I had a chance to get out onto the main trails right outside the town of Evarts and the riding was spectacular. With huge coliseumshaped valleys, steep mountainous climbs, trees as far as the eye could see, and even a pond with live gold fish, I didn’t think the riding could get any better, but that’s a novice assumption. The trails can always get better. More importantly, the company that you travel with on those trails can be just as important as the trail itself. If you’re driving with a group of diehard rock crawler folks out for their first time in the sand dunes, it’s going to be a different experience than if you were driving with a group of seasoned sand addicts. The group that took me out on our Sunday ride was a group that made the whole trail experience an extreme journey in itself. These people knew these trails that we were going to be traveling on like the back of their hand, and for me, a rider who has always used a GPS for long distance rides, this was quite a sight. Now, I can’t say for sure that they new exactly where they were going, but if we were lost at any time on the trail, I didn’t know it. We left base camp at 10 AM and headed up to the trailhead. We headed out with three quads, a Yamaha Rhino, and an Arctic Cat Prowler – in my mind, the perfect combo for a good, quick-paced ride. I like to travel with a big group of people, but it tends to go really slow and the possibility of a break down is much higher. So if you’re looking for a quick-paced ride, shorten your trail ride roll call to a manageable size and make sure that everyone is fairly equal in riding experience. This will ensure a funpaced ride and you will enjoy the trail that much more. When we set out for our ride on Sunday morning, I had no idea that we would be covering more than 100 miles and that when we returned it would Monday. I also had no idea that it would be one of my best rides so far this year. So what did I know? I knew that the trail we would be taking was not one that I had been on earlier that weekend and that we would be riding right near the border of Virginia. I also knew that I would be sitting shotgun for the whole trail ride, which is a hard thing for me to do. 26 SIDE X SIDE ACTION MAGAZINE SIDE X SIDE ACTION ADVENTURES SIDE X SIDE ACTION ADVENTURES The first part of our ride that beautiful morning consisted of on-road driving. In fact, throughout the whole ride, I would say we spent about 15 miles on paved back roads. It was like a Sunday morning ride, in a convertible 4x4; this was something I could really get used to. After about 20-minutes on the road, we headed off-road. We headed out of Evarts on HWY 215 and up toward CC Road. This was part of the on-road driving experience and would get us to our off-road trail destination a little quicker. We hit a dirt trail and would continue on this dirt trail until we got to Cawood, our destination for lunch. The first dirt trail we got to was very established, wide enough in most parts for a truck or long-travel SXS. The trail was SIDE X SIDE ACTION ADVENTURES
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