Moonshine Ride-Rocks, Water, and Hillclimbs!

I've been a member of a dirt bike club, Reading Off Road Riders (RORR), for 8 years now. While I don't participate in off road competition events like hare scrambles and enduros any longer, my enthusiasm for my comrads out having a good time at these events hasn't waned.

Nothing is better than doing some offroad riding and rooting-on your buddies! Moto Mike, MsMetz, Mitch and I all met in Brandonville, PA, for the start of the Moonshine Enduro. Our RORR buddies would be riding some of PA's toughest 65 miles of rocks and mud and hills with more rocks and mud.

MotoMike and I came equipped with our AA Dualsport rides, KTM 640 and KTM 950. Metz and Mitch were on their street friendly machines, BMW 1200GS and FJR1300. This report is what Mike and I were up to during the event, since we got ourselves into places you probably wouldn't want to be on their bikes.

Enduros usually start 4 guys every minute. Here's a line of RORR guys, that's Rooster on the left, he counts as two guys.


From the start it's right to the grass track. Early morning dew made things quite slippery!


We followed the riders down some blacktop and dirt roads to the first check point, where they then entered the woods for some knarly single track. We chatted with the check crew for a while and headed out to find the trail in the woods somewhere ahead and wait for the riders to come by.

Did I mention that it rained for a few days before the event??

Here's Mike and I exploring around looking for "THE" trail.


Mike with an oops.


There was this stream, how could we not cross it??

Here's my oops. Don't stop on the low side!


We found "THE" trail and followed it backwards to a good spectator point. We were way ahead of the riders, so there was no concern that we would run into anyone coming the other way.

We camped here for 30 or so minutes before the first rows came through.

Unfortunately, it was kind of dark and dreary, so many of my shots didn't come out very good. But here's a couple, of some of the best riders at the event.

We watched the first 20+ rows come through, which is where most of the fast guys are. Then, we rode out and headed to spectator point 3B, the MOON ROCKS.

We could have walked the trail back to the spectator point, but what fun would that have been.


This is one popular spectator spot. It was packed! It was also pretty damn AWESOME!! These guys are getting their entry fee's worth today!

More fun at the MOON ROCKS!






This is one of my favorites!

The event was coming to a close. There wasn't a whole lot of trail left for these guys to run, so we followed some of our RORR buddies down the trail for a bit and split off on our own.

We headed for the famous Underwater Tunnel. But we could not overcome the urge to explore the unknown. When the opportunity arose, we jumped on it, literally!!

We found this monster hillclimb, it wasn't hard talking Mike into trying it on his 640. I stood by and documented the event for future generations. Going up!




Coming down.


He made the first hill ok, but there was second steeper hill at the top, out of the camera's view that he didn't fare so well on.

Great stuff, thanks for sharing.

More hillclimb fun! This one didn't even look doable! It was nearly verticle at the top. I was surprised at just how far I made it, Mike looked as though he was going all the way!


All the way, it was not today. There'll be plenty of other opportunities!

I wasn't scoring too high on the hillclimb charts. Here I am stuck again. What you can't see is the shear rock cliff along the right side of the trail. You go off and you die!!


Mike waiting for me at the top. Bastard!


Me going back down to my bike to try again.

On top of Mt Smoky!

After a lousy second attempt and not making it up the hill, we backtracked to the UNDERWATER TUNNEL. Did I mention that it had rained for days...

MotoMike



Nightstalker




WOW!! Was that water deep!! It was cold too!

Into the tunnel!




From there we headed back to the Moonshine finish line. Hung out with our buddies and took off for home! Awesome ride, all the way around!

The aftermath...

I had kinda put a hurting on my skidplate a couple of rides back. I think a 50 MPH G-out on today's ride put the finishing touches on it.



I think a Touratech will be going on there shortly.

nice report terry ! It was good meeting you at Moonshine. We'll have to ride together sometime soon. Why don't you ride enduro anymore? The Moonshine enduro was a blast and those moon rocks were fun to ride over. Racing through Paragon around the $80k Land Rovers, Jeeps and ATVs was very interesting and a little scary :eek1 (Dakar/Baja esk).

One of my favorite parts of the trip was checking into the hotel with the bike. It was fun riding through the halls of the hotel and opening the doors with the bark busters; gotta love PA.

Sweet!!!!!

Another great ride with the nightstalker. I twisted my knee pretty bad on Sunday, couldn't walk on Monday but it's getting better today. The 640 amazes me every time i ride it. For the record most of the pictures of my get offs happen when I'm standing still. GReat pics tz.

BY the way look back at the pictures to see my rt. blinker missing.