1999 Ithaca Dirt Riders Dual Sport
By : Nick Sperduto
Myself and my friend Russ decided we wanted to ride the Ithaca Dirt riders dual sport. I had known Russ for six years, but he hadn’t had a bike since I met him, so I was unsure of his riding capabilities. Since the advertisement for the dualsport was "overall easy, with challenging sections", we decided to do it. We loaded up the truck on Friday and took the three hour drive up to Berkshire, NY. Since it was expected to be extremely hot, 95 degrees and humid, we would get a motel instead of camping. We stayed at a nice clean place in Owego, NY called the Sunrise Motel. On Firday night, we headed up to the firehouse, signed in, had our bikes inspected, picked up our meal tickets, t-shirts and route sheets. On the way back to the motel, we stopped into the local bar, the Tioga Sportsmen Inn, had a couple of adult beverages a bite to eat and then headed to the motel. Before bed, we loaded in our route sheets, caught the reruns of All in the Family and Sanford and Son and went to sleep. We awoke around 7:30 am and headed back to the firehouse, ate our free breakfast, listened to the riders meeting and headed out into the trail. We only went about 2 miles before we hit the first trail section, it was a rocky stream bed labeled as "difficult". Since the stream bed was dry, it was not very difficult, but to someone who’s on their first dualsport ride, it may be difficult. I let Russ take the lead since I was unsure of his ability and unsure if he’d be able to start his newly aquired DR350s (kick start model). He made it through everything fine. Saturday course was fantastic. It covered about 105 miles with quite a few optional sections. What made it so great is you would ride a few miles of road, then a few miles of trail. It swapped back and forth between trail sections and road sections all day. It made it very enjoyable because everyone had a little rest between sections. We rode all of the optional sections except for the very end which was only marked in the woods and not on the route sheet. It was marked "Super Hero". We were pretty tired and decided to pass on it. The optional sections seemed to be some jeep roads or parts of their enduro trail consisting of primarily nice dirt trials, often going through pine forests and across farmers fields and back into single track enduro sections, with the occasional pile of rocks scattered around. None of the course was impassable and we didn’t hit any bottlenecks all day long. Near the end, we came to an intersection that had the right listed as 1.5 miles
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Challenging trial and left as 4 miles difficult trail. I looked at Russ and said Men go left, Women go right, so needless to say, we went to the left. The trail was excellent with twisty single track and an off camber trail along side the mountain. After some more road sections and jeep trail, we arrived back at the fire house at 4:30 pm. There was another 9 miles you could go back out and ride, but since we were tired, we passed on that section also. The firehouse cooked us up a great pork chop dinner. Then they gave away some door prizes, it seemed we all won something. Then it was back to the motel, no tv tonight and right to sleep. After an overnight rain, we started all over again Sunday morning. Riding some of the trail sections over from Saturday. The trail was a lot harder this morning because it rained over night and the dirt was now like grease. At one point, we were going down a jeep road and somehow while going through a puddle, I hit something and got knocked down. My leg was stuck under the bike and I was floundering around in about a foot of muddy water. Needless to say, Russ thought it was pretty hysterical. The only good thing about it was it wasn’t as hot anymore since I was wet. I was dry by the time we stopped for gas. As soon as we left the gas stop, Russ realized he had a flat tire. It was very hot and we were lazy and tired. so instead of fixing the flat, we pumped the tire back up. We looked at the club provided map and decided to cut the course. Once we got to within a few miles of the firehouse, we pumped the tire back up again and Russ returned to the firehouse and I rode the last 15 miles. The trail part in thise section was a little harder to follow since not too many riders had gone through before me. By 3 pm we were packed up and on the way home. Overall, it was an excellent ride and I would definitely recommend it to other riders. Whether you’re experienced or not, their ride has something for everyone. Mark it on the calendar for next year. |
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