After last years great run put on by RORR, I decided to ride the event again this year. The start location was from the Echo Valley Campground in Tremont, PA (same as last year). There seemed to be considerably less riders this year than last. It could have been due to the colder temperatures or the Pine Barrens enduro being held the same weekend. I left my house at 6am and arrived at the start about 8 am and met 3 riding buddies, Dave, JC and Dennis. We breezed through sign up, got ready to ride and took off around 9:30 am. It was about 2 miles of pavement and then onto a power line. We go about 2 miles up the power line to the first reset and we realize Dave has a front flat already. We spend a bunch of time changing his flat and heckling him on his first ever flat change out on the trail. JC and I played on the hill climb and I proceeded to send my KTM RXC into a loop at the top of the hill and smash it too the ground. No major harm done. We Finally get the tire done and continue on the trail, except for JC who went up the hill climb and never came back. He somehow found the trail and eventually wound up ahead of us. We ran about 2 miles of two track when we stopped and directly behind us were the course workers taking down the markers. Great, were 6 miles into a 90 mile day and were already holding up the sweep riders. The next section took us into a single track that was full of rocks and one fun uphill. Directly in the middle of the rock garden, I got bobbled up and stalled the bike and looked at the tree in front of me and there’s the sign "Remember, we are and ENDURO club". That section was less than a mile long, but it’s fun to ride the difficult stuff sometimes, it’s what makes you a better rider. After that it was a little bit of blacktop and a bunch two tracks with lots of puddles covering the entire road and some single track. We came into two pit area’s to play in, but being that the sweep crew was behind us, we didn’t have time to play. On the next section, we were cruising down alongside some railroad tracks when the trail cut down the hill to the right, I remembered this section very well from last year. It was a short section of trail maybe 0.3 miles to get you around a train bridge. Unfortunately, Dave didn’t and he turned right, went down the hill and got stuck in the mud and swamp, just as JC was about to make the turn, Dennis screamed NO, he remembered this section also. We decided to walk our bikes over the train bridge. It was a little scary cause one little bobble and we could have dropped the bike into the water. Dave got his bike unswamped with the help of a RORR member and we were on our way. The rest of the morning was single track mixed with two track coal roads and a lot of standing water. We finished the 45 miles and had lunch, which consisted if 2 burgers, candy bar, chips and drink, all supplied for the $20 entry fee.

It was another excellent ride by RORR, I would have liked to see more Pennsylvania trail in place of the 16 miles of blacktop at the end. The temps were a little chilly in the 40’s , but it was pretty comfortable in the woods. The terrain on this run is quite different, it ranged from loose rocks to larger basketball size rock gardens, mud, hard pack dirt and soft dirt area with pine trees. A bunch of people seemed to leave at lunch time, I’m not sure why. We rode at the back of the pack most of the day, the bad part to that is you always have the sweep riders behind you and you don’t have time to mess around in the play areas. The good part of it is that you never have to worry about people passing you or passing anyone else for that matter, a short line at the lunch counter (if there is food left) and no traffic getting out of the parking lot at the end.