PaAtving ride the Six Mile Pa Poker run

Registration began around 9:00am while the bulk of 200+ participants rolled in between 8:30 and 10:00am in a solid stream of rigs that seemed to appear from around the bend from nowhere. The ride did start a little late in the morning in my view, “11:00am” leaving the participants all geared up, and baking on the tarmac at 10:30am before the kick off at 11:00am
The fast riders lined up for the first of three staged starts about fifteen minutes apart, designed to keep traffic jams at a minimum on the trail. I hung back in the second start to get set up for some great camera shots of all kinds of action I would run into during the day.

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PaAtving

Bedford County, Six Mile Fire Company put on a run that was one of the best of the season.

The run located in one of the most remote regions of the state was a challenge just to find let alone ride. Haven driven up the night before navigating my way to the Six Mile Fire dept parking lot, felt like being totally lost at one moment just to round the bend and arrive at the destination Extreme had arrived at just hours before. We sat around for a while contemplating the next days adventure.

In addition, an adventure it was to say the least, the event organizers had mapped out an extremely good ride of twenty-five miles plus that contained everything a PA ATVer could want. Steep hills, plenty of woods riding, always twisting and turning trails that provided hours of challenging entertainment, including an optional detainment basin to test a riders submarine captains skills.

Fifteen minutes after the first wave of riders left, I could tell some shenanigans were going on already between the Honda guys and the Cannondale guys. It seems the Honda guys got the holeshot of the ride, and got far enough out of view to stop and switch a trail sign that the Cannondale riders followed to a quick end of their ride, ending up right back at the starting line. Putting them out of contention of ever seeing the Honda guys for the rest of the day.

At this point, the second round of riders was dispatched to the system with myself included. The ride began with a nice two mile easy stretch to warm yourself up and make sure everything was running right on your machine. Then the trail ever evolved into an ever-increasing amount of difficulty and diversity. By this time, riders had spread out into a nice streaming line of dust-covered fun.

The ride snaked itself at times up switch backed mountain trails providing new challenges at every turn from rock climbing tight turns with incredible vistas to behold. Once past the first 30% of the trail I was thinking, “It doesn’t get much better than this”. Well, it did get better, then better yet through the entire ride. The first 30% of the ride snaked up the side of a mountain to arrive at a high plain that provided about six miles of open rolling hills ridding where you could see a mile ahead of you and open your machine up to flat out top speed with impunity and very safely.

Winding down after the rolling hills speed run, brought you to the 60% mark of the ride down into a valley and into a checkpoint and food stop. A burger later and I was back on the trail and heading back down the mountain through many tight turns switchbacks and trails that were cut into the woods generations ago, and fine tuned over years to provide the best trail lines and experience possible through the forest.

One of the best ways to make a great experience out of the very dusty conditions was to hold back from the rider ahead of you about 500 yards, and follow the end of his dust trail providing an excellent field of vision for the trail and the scenery.

After a good run, I decided to take a break, pulled over in the shady woods in the company of a handful of resting Pa riders, and get a good drink to wash the dust out of my dehydrated body. Discussing the great experience of the day with the group I was informed by some veterans that the best was yet to come. After a good replenishment of fluids I got back on my way, the trail was through the woods and was carved through the forest like an Indy track with fine swooping trails that held a nice third gear pace. Arriving at the bottom of that mountain was a short respite of level riding that lead to the steepest section of the ride yet. At this point, the ride was at the 75% mark, and the last leg was the most challenging by design, and rightly so as the previous miles of riding had limbered me up for the day’s best challenge, while being lapped by my managing editor Extreme who was dogging the trail for a second time.


	The last leg lead right up a steepest mountain of the day, switchback after switchback, steeper and steeper the assent went, providing one hell of an adventure to finish the day. Once to the top, it was the same for the ride down, requiring heavy use of all braking systems and thought processes to execute the best line down the mountain, woo, what a ride! The event culminated at a retention basin just a mile from the end of the ride where weary riders who had made the trek successfully were then, presented with the opportunity to partake in crossing the basin if they so dared. There was one rider who held no quarter to the basin or his machine and repeatedly, amazingly crossed it without fear or trepidation. It was just amazing to see this guy go, once in so deep that his machine started to float, losing all traction, he had to dismount and glidingly walk his “running” machine to shallow water and nemo his way out of the basin fifteen minutes later. No sooner out of the basin, he did a lap around it then charged right back in again.


						Upon exiting the basin area, I arrived back at the starting area where everyone was going over the days stories and de-mudding/dusting their machines and themselves, all in all I would have to say the Six Mile ride is a 10 out of 10 for a days adventure, outstanding in it’s course layout and design, and saving the “drowning of the machines” area till the end of the ride. Providing a short tow to the unfortunate few. Rating the Grub: The food sold at the event could use allot of work, and by no means compared to the quality of the ride. The drinks and the prices were reasonable but the burgers tasted, well, lame. Moreover, the dogs were soggy, but besides that improvement, it was one of the best rides of the 2002 season. Talk about this years, and last years ride in the forum \| Driving Directions

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