Motos/Quads

Reggie

Reggie

Formerly ReggieHammond
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I've been seeing a quite a bit of moto riders out there with black tape over their licence plates. Overall, they've been very respectful and not tearing up the hard work of the local JORBA crew. I've politely reminded them that this is illegal and asked that they respect the hard work put in by the volunteers to keep these trails in pristine condition.

Over the past few weeks, I've been seeing quad damage on some of the single tracks within the park. Yesterday, we ran into a group of 5+ quads near the Subaru trying to get one of them unstuck. Luckily, this was just off the trail, but still. I know we're not supposed to confront them, but I couldn't sit back and watch them tear things up without saying anything. It had a potential of getting ugly, but was able to get the message without allowing the conversation to escalate. In the end, the "leader" shook my hand and said he will stick to the fire roads. Doubtful, but it's at least a start.
 
Just noticed this Monday. Was completely suprised at what they tried to ride. Someone obviously got new quads for Christmas. So riding up Stephen's park road (the closed section) and ducking into the powerlines, lots of fresh quad tracks entering from the local neighborhood up there. Might be a good starting point to notifing park authorities.

Motos I never have issue with quads make me crazy.
 
What makes the quads worse than dirt bikes? Just curious. Having grown up riding both, I feel like bikes shred dirt worse and leave more ruts... Is it just a persona thing?
 
Quads blow out single track to double track. Like the damage left the other day they knocked down built up berms.

Many of those berms were made by moto. I agree that moto riding in bad conditions like mtbing do more damage. Other times you wouldn't even know a moto other then a small roost here and there.

Most importantly this is IMO our area and not some place that damage can be more prevalent.
 
ahh, that makes sense. I'm surprised they even try to ride quads on the single track.... I tried that once as a kid, hooked my rear wheel around a tree and trashed the entire rear end. It was great.

I think in most scenarios they probably don't know any better and are just looking for somewhere to ride. It seems like that's getting hard to find these days and a shame that we have to suffer for it.
 
The sad part that this wasnt the first time I heard this recently. To top it off there is a large group of them (quads) not just one or two rogue riders.
 
mattybfat said:
The sad part that this wasnt the first time I heard this recently. To top it off there is a large group of them (quads) not just one or two rogue riders.
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The group I ran into was 5 deep coming in off of Station Road.
 
Moto guys hate quads too. When I rode 2x a week or more, I realized quickly how much the moto guys hate quads. They often make extra effort to make singletrack impossible to ride on quads.

As both a mtber and moto guy, my opinion is that some parks can actually benefit from light to moderate moto use. That said i've chased a few moto guys out of the woods with a chainsaw.
 
As a former moto guy I’ve always looked down my nose at the quad scene with an air of two wheeled superiority. But then again I got coal rolled a couple days ago by a guy with a dirt bike in his bed.
 
1-800-WARN DEP . Just give them a call for what it's worth. Dep will ask for a location, just do the best you can and give them a general one near a road. When I come across the unauthorized motorized, I give them the major stink eye and pull out the phone and maybe the finger. And to think I used to ride in there myself. ( but that was before putting tons of digging into the place.)
 
i'd bet some software would remove those tape pieces on the license plate right quick. get a pic of the taped plate. we will bury them.
 
1-800-WARN DEP You can even call based on evidence of where you see repeated tracks. Call, log the issue and give an area. e.g. the Fire Tower, Station Rd. (Budd Lake end) Dorset drive, Natalie Dr. (upper Hackettstown end) where ever. There will probably be some motorized use tomorrow..
 
Soundguy said:
ahh, that makes sense. I'm surprised they even try to ride quads on the single track.... I tried that once as a kid, hooked my rear wheel around a tree and trashed the entire rear end. It was great.

I think in most scenarios they probably don't know any better and are just looking for somewhere to ride. It seems like that's getting hard to find these days and a shame that we have to suffer for it.
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A lot of these guys are probably just looking for a place to ride, and probably know little to nothing about our sport. Growing up, we rode trikes, 4-wheelers, and moto without needing to trailer our bikes anywhere because the land was there. Now, there’s a McMansion built on every piece of open space. The biggest irony of all is that one of the primary places that we built trails and rode on is now a large county park, where all forms of 2-wheeled bikes are verboten. It’s ironic because the trails that we built are now hiking only, and have changed little from when a bunch of motivated 11 and 12 year olds first cut them.
 
Monkey Soup said:
A lot of these guys are probably just looking for a place to ride, and probably know little to nothing about our sport. Growing up, we rode trikes, 4-wheelers, and moto without needing to trailer our bikes anywhere because the land was there. Now, there’s a McMansion built on every piece of open space. The biggest irony of all is that one of the primary places that we built trails and rode on is now a large county park, where all forms of 2-wheeled bikes are verboten. It’s ironic because the trails that we built are now hiking only, and have changed little from when a bunch of motivated 11 and 12 year olds first cut them.
Click to expand...
I just got back from South Carolina, where I grew up, and every single patch of land where we used to ride quads, dirt bikes, beer kegs, etc is now developed into shopping malls or apartments. Off road vehicles are getting pushed in a corner and that’s what is causing them to rip up our trails. I’m not condoning their behavior, but if there were designated places for them we wouldn’t have such a problem.
 
I can honestly say, I ride my quads illegally all the time, but not on mtb trails. I got caught by park police maybe 17 years ago or so and got out of all the tickets with nothing more than paying a 50 dollar court fee. I was in wayway on my mtb couple months back and ran into a ranger just riding along the trails on an ATV. He was having a grand old time, was asking me where some cool trails were back their for quads. I work closely with the DEP at my job and while they will respond, they are not interested in chasing or even waiting for atvs. They are extremely short staffed. I mean for all intensive purposes, when I was at DEP in Trenton few months back for a meeting they told me when to ride in my area without any blowback, just saying. I generally take my machines to lost trails in pa, or to land in deposit and Greenville New York. You won't stop the atvs, just the nature of the beast. As it was told to me by the local PD, if the PD or forest rangers do anything that could get an ATV rider hurt, the PD and state are liable and the rider will win the suit.

That's just my 2 cents. I said above i ride all the time, but in reality not much anymore. My motocross quad kinda just sits around looking pretty as all my time in spent on the mtb or cx bike.
 
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