The last couple weeks have been pretty crazy in America and I think almost everyone out there will agree. Sometimes it seems like were living in the beginning of the post apocalyptic video game Fallout of which I’m a huge fan of that series. It’s a situation that none of us have seen before and has driven a lot of us up the wall. For many dual sport and adventure riders it’s caused many to pause or reschedule trips and to rethink our future plans.
While I’m not able to head out west and ride the Blue Ridge Parkway or other routes in the Appalachians I am able to do more planning for trips later in the summer and fall. My bucket list ride for the year is to ride the Mid Atlantic Back Country Discovery Route. This BDR has been on my radar ever since it was created a couple years ago. Some of the reasons that I’m interested in this BDR is it’s a totally different riding experience and terrain compared to the Colorado and New Mexico BDR’s that I’ve ridden in the past. It’s also in an area that I’m fairly familiar with especially the Pennsylvania sections; some of the northern sections go right through areas that my extended family has lived in and I’ve ridden those areas on ATV’s quite a bit when I was younger.
Originally I was planning to ride this BDR from its northern terminus to it’s southern terminus when I was doing my cross country ride last September however a hurricane and a crazy toddler got in the way and forced me to cut my trip short and take a more direct route. Looking back it’s probably a good thing I got diverted because at the time I really wasn’t prepared to ride a BDR. While I did have the MABDR’s map I did not have a reliable GPS and my phone was acting up at the time not to mention the KLR was also overloaded. I probably could of figured it out but it would of been an uphill struggle. Another reason is it’s recommended to spend 8 to 10 days on riding the MABDR where as I would of tried to do it in 5 days. This wouldn’t have enabled me to explore some of the sites on the route such Seneca Rocks, Harpers Ferry, or the Antietam Battlefield.
So since I can’t ride for the unforeseeable future I figured why not plan a trip down to the smallest details and that’s exactly what I have been doing. Right now I’m planning for a late August trip since it will allow me to escape the chaos of summer interns at work and it will be fairly decent weather wise in the Appalachian Mountains. This also gives me time to source some much needed parts for my bike such as crash bars, skid plate, and pannier racks. It also gives me some time to knock out a couple short day trips earlier in the summer into Northern Georgia and Western South Carolina to work out any issues. Overall I guess you can say I’m making the best of the situation that were in.
To close this entry I guess we can say if the pandemic has taught us anything you can say it’s taught us not to take the simple things for granted such as riding. Once this thing is over it will make a simple trip so much better and will help increase the quality of the adventures that we head off on plus it will be nice to actually meet some of you guys that live on the East Coast.
Stryker ADV 