Dual Sporting the Free State 2021

[klaviator]

Six years ago I attended my first Dual Sporting the Free State.  I had a great time and have been to every one since.  Last years was cancelled due to every thing being shut down due to the Corona Virus.   So I was looking forward to this years event despite the fact that the weather forecasters were predicting gloom and doom for this weekend.  I knew even if it rained all weekend it would still be great to see the friends I had made at the previous events.

I headed out Friday morning with my bike and my "luxury" camping equipment all loaded in my truck and drove a little over an hour to the McDougle hunting camp in the Bankhead National Forest.  When I got there a little after ten Rich (2372ighost) and John (TWJohn) were already there.  Over the next couple of hours more people showed up including Al and Melony who organize and host this great event. 

Al brought this trailer which he checked out from work:



And this truck was filled with more stuff:



Many people had decided to upgrade from tent camping, maybe due to the monsoons last year.



John had a truck camper and Randy (Sweeper) had a cargo trailer that he would sleep in.

We headed out for an afternoon ride.  A few miles of pavement and we were soon on a dirt road.  I lead with Rich in my rear view mirror and 5 others behind him.  Its a fun dirt road, not particularly challenging but rough enough to make you glad you are on a dual sport bike.  I approached a small water crossing.  A few weeks ago there wasn't much water in it so I just blasted through.  The wall of water I threw up pretty much soaked my pants!.  Maybe all the recent rain had raised the water level?  Who would have thunk it :D

I looked in my mirror, Oh oh!  Nobody behind me so I headed back to find Rich and Chris stopped in the road.  They didn't see anyone in their mirrors so they had stopped.  We headed back but soon ran into everyone else riding towards us.  What happened?  John was riding along and hit a big bump which caused his tail box to pop open and created a yard sale of his stuff all over the road.  He didn't notice anything was wrong until he didn't see anyone in his mirrors and turned around.  He found the last two riders picking his stuff up, much of which had ended up in a puddle including his phone and a small air pump. 

[klaviator]

I took off ahead of everyone to get these pics:



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[klaviator]

We came to an intersection and turned right, rode a mile or two and came to another intersection.  Rich was right behind me but no one else was ::)

What???  It was a fairly straight paved road.  What could have gone wrong???

So we headed back until we found everyone parked on the side of the road by the last intersection.  Chris had a flat rear tire.  No one had an 18 inch tube but I had a tube patch kit so:

We figured we could fix it by all staring at the tire :D



My Quick Jack came in handy holding up the bike.



After waiting for the glue to set up, chris put the tube and tire back together.  John had a small air pump but it had been in a puddle from the "yard sale" and no longer worked.  Chris had a CO2 pump and tried inflating the tire.  It didn't hold so we went to plan B.  Randy rode back to camp and got his truck and trailer and hauled the bike back to camp.

[klaviator]

The rest of us continued the ride.



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[klaviator]

We got back to camp.  I had an 18 inch tube in my truck so Chris got back to work.



He found a stump just perfect for a stand for his bike.

So we tried installing the tube.  We couldn't get the valve stem through the hole in the wheel.  Crap?  It was a street bike tube and the valve stem was too thick :o  So we decided to try patching the old tube again.  The patch we put on earlier had held but we found another hole and patched that.  We tried inflating it again but it was still leaking >:(  Time for plan C.  I would drive him down to All Sport in the morning.  Someone else came up with plan D.  They rode a bit down the road to where there was a cell signal.  They got a hold of someone who was still coming.  He would bring a couple of tubes.

Time to hang out.



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After the tube arrived Chris was able to finally fix the tire.



We hung out some more.  This next pic is real blurry but I'm posting it for a reason.



There was a string of lights hung around the top of the EZ up.  Al had brought a generator but it hadn't been run for two years.  It started up but was surging so the lights were flashing on and off.  It was like being in a disco, or maybe a bad horror movie :D

[klaviator]

The predicted rain finally showed up around 10 as we were all ready to head for bed.  It rained off and on all night but never got very windy.  By the time we were ready for breakfast the next morning the rain stopped but it was a bit cold and gloomy. 

David's luxury camping setup.



Rich and his truck tent setup.



That reminds me of another story.  At the last of these events two years ago Rich had locked his keys in his truck on the last day and had to get his wife to bring him the spare set.  This time he managed to lose his key fob ::)  I'll let Rich tell the story but he ended having to go back home Saturday morning to get the spare.

The tent just left of the outhouse belonged to a gal that came all the way from East of Atlanta for this event.



Al cooking up some bacon for breakfast.



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The last two pics were taken by Melony

[klaviator]

Greg (Mojo1) showed up on his new Himalayan



Greg is a hard core rider.  He often shows up for rides having ridden farther than anyone else to get there.  In this case he got up real early and left his house in the rain to meet us for a day of dual sport riding.  Another pic of his new bike.



Al gives the ride briefing.



We had 15 riders.  It would have been 16 but Rich was off getting his spare key fob.  I think we would have had more but the weather forecast probably scared a few people off.

After the brief I took off early to set up somewhere along the route to take some pics.  Unfortunately my skills as a photographer were lacking and I got mostly blurry pics.  I'll post them anyway.



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[klaviator]

I caught up with the group but it turned out we still had two riders coming so I took this pic while we waited.



Then we headed off for the two dead end trails down to the Sipsey River.

I stopped and got this pic of Kay and Randy.



Kay was a new rider.  Before this day she had never ridden off the pavement or even wet pavement ???  This road had a lot of sand and I thought it was pretty squirrely so I can only imagine what she thought of it.

Al was waiting for us at the point where the road turned into more of a trail.  With all the rain it promised to be a muddy mess.  Kay and Randy opted to wait there.  Al and I took off.  We went through some pretty good mud holes and then got to the mother of all mud holes ???  OK, it wasn't that bad but it was the one where so many people dropped their bikes last year.  So we stopped and Al made a comment about it being a real mess.  I had been leading but I said "go ahead".  He said "no you go ahead".  After we repeated that a couple of times he went through.  After watching him nearly disappear in a couple of mud holes I wimped out and decided to wait there and get pic when they came back out.  Well I failed again in my role as photographer as a lot of the pics turned out blurry again.



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[klaviator]

Then it was time to go to the second trail.  This involved back tracking, going past the road we came in on and going straight to the second trail.  Most of the riders where well ahead of me.  I came to a fork in the road and John was waiting so I knew which way to go.  So I stopped to wait for the riders behind me. I waited.........and I waited.  After a while I decided to go back and see what happened.  I came to the intersection where straight was where we came from and right was the road out.  Which way to go???  While I was trying to decide Greg, Kay and Randy came from the first trail.  Kay had crashed and now had some problems with her brakes.  So Randy and Kay headed for the lunch stop while Greg and I waited for the rest of the group.  After we re-grouped we headed for the "Bridge".

We rode quite a while on some nice paved back roads.



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Approaching the bridge.



So all 13 of us rode out on the bridge and parked.  Why were we parked??



Nice view.



I walked up to find out.

Houston we have a problem ???

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Time to take some more pics.



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Time for some good ole redneck engineering?



I don't think so!

This bridge has seen better days.



But it probably didn't have as much character when it was in better shape.

[klaviator]

I climbed down to the bank to get a different view.



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[klaviator]

Time to head to Houston for lunch.



As always, lunch at Chef Troy's was great.



They put in this outdoor seating area in the past year.  At this time it was in 70s, perfect for sitting outside.

John and Paula joined us for lunch and then rode by us on their Ural when we stopped for gas after lunch.



Randy and Rich sporting the latest in Moto fashion.

[klaviator]

After lunch was a mix of dirt and paved back roads.



Because of the rain the night before there was no dust which made this ride so much better than the previous years where the dust was sometimes so bad it was hard to see the road.



We stopped at the rock wall that David and Al rode up several years ago.  Since then there have been no more daredevils willing to risk it.  I climbed up on foot to get this pic.



There are a couple of dirt trails on either side of the wall that are easier.  Finally the guy on the least powerful and lowest tech bike rode up.



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Just in case someone is thinking "that rock wall isn't that steep", Al and David rode up the steepest part on the right side.

[klaviator]

More riding.



There was one spot on a dirt road that had a rocky uphill with a giant mud hole just over the crest.  Ron (Merkur Man) went blasting up the hill and right into that hole.  He hit a rut in it and had what i heard was a spectacular crash.  I wish I was there to get the pic but by the time I got there he was already up.



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More pavement.



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Al decided to cut the long loop of dirt roads off the end and head back to camp.  I still ended up riding 139 miles for the day.

[klaviator]

I really like the riding we do at this event but just as enjoyable to me is being able to hang out with the great people who come to it. 



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Someone built a fire but we didn't really hang out around it like we did on some previous years.