January 19 – 20, 2008 - Quad Ride

I had not ridden my Yamaha Banshees in a year or so. Myran (son) said let’s take them out. It was cold – 40’s and raining. What is he thinking? I said, “Yes, ok.” Why I said that I do not know.

Banshees are known by people that ride. They are light, two stroke, and fast. There were a lot of other makes out there. They only sell four strokes now as far as I know. There is just something about a two stroke. It is the snap into the power band, and hold on when you get there.

They were deep in the garage with things piled on top of them and the dust was thick. We drained the old gas out and put in new. We kick started them and they eventually started right up. Once we got there, they worked great after a good long ride and then they started up every time.

First problem, how do we get them there with all of our stuff for camping? The trailer will only hold one - what to do? Take the sides and back off the Utility trailer and put three 2 by 14 by 8 feet down side ways and two the length of the trailer. Lag screw them down. I know, it looked hokey. We lifted them up on to the trailer and strapped front, back and side to side. Yes, it was hokey but worked well.

We have been to Sand Lake. It was a lot of fun but wanted to go to Florence, Oregon. There was Myran, Trina, Vellen, Ilene and me. We took the van and Vellen (son) drove his Chrysler with the Hemi - something about wanting to get back early (yea right).

Camp sights are hard to get where you can ride out of the camp. We got one in Honeyman State Park but we had to drive to the staging area (not a problem and not far). After jumping through all the hoops, it was time to ride. Myran and Vellen took the first turn. They were gone an hour and a half. Myran rolled it, Vellen got stuck, and the height on the dunes just could not be that tall and steep. It was so big an area that they had a hard time finding the place they went out of.

My turn - OH MY GOSH! THEY ARE TALL AND YOU CAN SEE THEM AS FAR AS YOU CAN SEE. There are all kinds of riding here. The sand was not tracked and flat, but not for long. You ride one way and there are drifted mounds of sand. When you try to go up they are soft and you just sink in and are stuck. When you go the other way, it is a drop off of about 100 feet give or take. It was really scary to go over the edge and down about 30 degrees and hope it didn’t plant when you reached the edge at the bottom. The first time will give you a real thrill.

These are things that happened through the weekend. Then onto the flatter stuff where the mounds are only 20 feet tall and you think, “No problem.” Wrong. There was this running water that looked about two inches deep. It wasn’t. The water went up past the pegs. There was a narrow track through the trees that was a lot of fun. You just hope you don’t meet someone going the other way (no place to pass). There was about 10 miles of beach, I think, and a few trails through the dunes. After a few miles of that, you think you have had a work out. If you go in and out of the dunes, that is really hard on the one end because if you don’t make the turn to go back in, it is a ten foot drop to the sea. We went down a road 200 yards that had 2 to 8 inches of water on it and then came back out. There were flat places where you could go as fast and the Quad would go. I found a pool of water that was about 3 or 4 inch deep and went real fast and never got wet. Don’t try this unless you rode slowly threw it first. Some of them are a foot and a half deep.

This was Trina’s first time riding. Now picture this - a very small power band and asking what lever is the brake and what lever is the clutch on a very fast Quad. Trina was under tremendous tension.

I never quit early but I was so sore and tired I had to give it up. That quad riding is just a riot.

It rained hard at night but was great during the day with a little sun.

Try this and you will start to be Byranized!