Classic Velocity

Did not sleep well, due primarily to the bed roll. It is small and light, but not enough padding. Must shop at the rally. Got up very early and watched the dawn break and heard the birds begin their song. Best time of the day.

I decided not to follow the schedule tour for that day and instead hooked up with a few guys who were going to ride some of the trails in the Cook Forest and the Allegheny Forest. We ended up with a beginner in the group who is not even comfortable standing up on the pegs and she went down only a few minutes into the trail. A group of the stock to help her and she continued on her way but another five minutes later she was down again. This time she tweaked her handlebars and was a little bit shaken up. We all decided to get her back to the ranger station as by now the group of been separated a little bit and waited for everybody to regroup.by this time it was early afternoon and everybody decided to take a lunch break. A wasted half a day with little off-road riding. The beginner and a group of folks decided to head back to camp, but a couple of guys (Ed and Emile) and myself decided that we were going to go ride the rest of the trails

They were far better riders than I and we had an absolute blast following the intermediate trails that had a real mixture of mud, whoops, rocks, steep uphill’s, steep decline, and everything in between. Challenging for me and even for them at a few points. Ironically, I never laid the bike down for the entire trip of 80 or so miles off road, but Emile did once. It reminded me of exactly how heavy the R 1200 GS is when you have to pick it up on the trail. For about the last 20 miles of the trail, my fuel light came on. I had a liter bottle of fuel, but was reluctant to turn the bike off because I had such trouble getting the ABS to turn off. At the end of the trail was 20 miles of phenomenal blacktop that follow the river and lead us all the way back to camp. I arrived at the fuel station on fumes.