Funny isn't it? When I ride my bike solo in Baja CA... or parts of the Mojave... or in the desert surrounding Phoenix, I think of those places as somewhat dangerous.
In fact during my spring ride of the Crown King road north of that city, I questioned my relative sanity several times. After all, here is a road (using the term loosely) that few but avid off roaders travel, and then primarily on the weekend. My ride took place on a Monday. In fact other than the road crew before the CK, and the yawning Ranger on an ATV just before I got there, and then the two guys on quads near the end of the route... I saw absolutely no one. Sure a couple of F-15's passed low overhead at about 400 knots, but other than that, nada. No one!
Whenever I ride in places like that, inevitably alone by my lonesome, there exists the potential for disaster repeatedly. Lest you think I am some berserko maniac that charges "banzai" like at every obstacle I encounter, let me set you straight. Even when I raced MX, I rode first and foremost with my head.
Risk taking not only is a part of life, whether you personally choose it or not, it is the nesessary 'spice of life' we all need in our otherwise bland daily existance.
Even riding my Triumph on the street is inherently "risky" far more so than the Bank Nova Scotia stock you hold. There are far too many variables that we don't control to be considered 'safe.'
No... when I trail ride my dualie, like my street bikes, I am pretty dang cautious. I know that even with all the precautions I take, I am still subject to the laws of Murphy and all his cousins, first, second or distant.
So what's funny about this you may ask?
I have ridden around my home turf for decades. Alberta and British Columbia offer spectacular dual sport riding opportunities. There are vast badlands to the east, and rugged mountains stretching all the way to the Pacific west. To the north, muskeg and boreal forest rules. I've been stuck up to the bottom on my tank in that crap!
Then of course, there's Montana to the south... now that's scary!
Yet somehow I rarely think of riding around these parts as being "dangerous."
Recently I rode the Maclean Creek Trail. In a province of immense territory (661,000+ square kilometers) and wilderness, off road recreation of any sort is extremely limited and regulated. This particular area is one of very few chunks of Crown Land that is accessable to off road enthusiasts.
Like California, huge tracts of federal/state lands have been closed for decades to motorized users. Barstow to Vegas, the Elsinore GP, hare scrambles, and recreational riding, has become ever more restricted, just like here. Here, unlike those places, there was no 'lobby,' no body, no voice to be heard... just closures. That continues to this day. I was a person that was allowed 2 minutes to voice my concerns on behalf of motorcyclists and snowmobilers waaay back in the early seventies, to no avail. The politicians and environmental lobby groups that were making the decisions simply "ignored" people like me.
So, a couple of weeks back I rode the Powderface Trail and more recently the MacLean Creek Trail. Now mind, I am riding a street legal motorcycle that complies with all the regulations which encompass hard surface and mud on public lands, not some moto-X racer thinly diguised as legal.
MCT, consists of an area roughly the size of a (a measly 202 square kilometers) medium city, with trails for single track, twin track and even Jeep tracks. It is situated in the fringe of the Rockies with steep climbs, water crossings, forests, rocks and bottomless mud holes. If you dropped an average city Joe in here, they could very easily get lost and perish in no time flat.
Yet for some reason, I've never considered riding here to be "dangerous." Although it surely must be. After all, besides all those natural hazards, there are bears, wolves and cougar in them thar woods!
Kinda makes you wonder if your comfort level nearer to home has anything at all to do with that?
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