Had a great turnout to the first ATV ride for the club this year, we had 16 ATVs and 1 Side by Side show up to do the new Rabbit Lake 2024 ride.
The ride started with some decent overcast weather, we started off at exactly 09h30 as predicted – although I think maybe we had some really anxious riders, I as the Lead showed up around 08h00 and there were already some people waiting to go…..
We drove down Rabbit Lake Rd – the morning was to be approximately 60-70% road riding – was a little dusty near the end of the line from what I hear although I did not experience any dust up front of the line. We made a detour to a “dam” bridge area for coffee break – where everyone, mingled and got to know each other, of course as we were preparing to leave this area the rain started – although it was almost just spitting out at this point. We all mounted up and made our way to the next branch off of Rabbit Lake Rd – to access our lunch area – we had some interesting riding along this trail with some fairly rocky areas, one downed tree and a nice rock bridge through a creek.
Everyone made it safely to the lunch area – we had some who started a fire to cook their lunch – seemed like a great idea despite the rain – they were able to get a nice fire going – to warm up a few folks along with their lunch.
We took off approximately 45 minutes later back up Rabbit Lake Rd to the next challenge. As we entered the trail there was a creek crossing – which turned out to be a little deeper than expected. We had 5 bikes turn around at this point of the trail as they were wet and felt it more appropriate to turn back. The remainder continued on the trail – where we had to stop multiple times to clear multiple trees from the high winds during the week prior to the ride. We had one incident where a bike lost control on the trail and he and his partner had to turn back as he had some damage to his ATV. The remainder of the group were able to complete the entire ride and arrive back at the vehicles for 16h00 – we were a little damp, but fun was had by all.
Lead – Rob Mineault
Tail – Joel Falardeau
