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One of my good local riding buddies, Dusty (formerly '89 KDX200E, now '97 KDX220R) decided he wants to have an informal KDX meetup at Wayne National Forest in the Appalachian hills of Southeastern Ohio later this year, most likely mid-September.
I wanted to post up an unofficial mention of this just to get people interested and tuned in while Dusty and I work out the details.

We aren't planning an official ride so to speak, more of a KDX day / KDX weekend meetup and campout, with everyone meeting up and breaking off into smaller groups. Those looking for riding accomplices can post up or just mingle in person and make it happen.
If it rains prior or during this weekend, we can do some larger groups of riders as the trails won't be too terribly dusty, but if it's really dry, spaced out groups of 2-4 people are best to not be chasing everyone though large clouds of dust. Clean your air filter beforehand in preparation in case you do get back in a pack a ways if it's really dry. Immediately after rain is best for riding the official trails.

There are 3 good large camping areas at Long Ridge, the first is a mile before the top of the trailhead road on the right. The other two are on the left near the trailhead pit toilet and main Long Ridge parking lot.

There are campgrounds off the Main Corridor trail a ways North if you want running water and showers etc. There are also cabins there and AirBnB rentals in the area.

Here's some nice tantalizing photos from Wayne National Forest Dorr Run / Long Ridge / Purdum / Snake Hollow areas for ya!
There's close to 100 miles of 50" wide trails in the portion of Wayne National Forest that we frequent near Nelsonville/Haydenville/Glouster Ohio, and for this type of trails, they really are top notch. Fast flowing winding trails nestled into an area with almost non-stop hills with very little flat terrain anywhere, hills averaging 100-200ft tall, with the tallest near 325 or 400 ft. Very nice flowing trails with a lot of mildly banked corners.

TBC...

Official website:

https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/wayne/r ... recid=6225


There is a $35 annual trail pass or I believe $20 3-day pass available.

The one catch is, to be legal here, you have to have a titled registered bike, unless your state does not title off-road bikes whatsoever - then you need to obtain a 1-year temporary off-road vehicle permit (see ORC 4519.09 below).
The Rangers do stop people at the trailheads occasionally and do a quick visual check for trail passes and registration sticker or street legal license plates. It's a minimum $150 fine if they catch you without proper registration and/or trail permit.
Street bike / dual sport plates are sufficient, or your state's off-road registration.

You can get an out of state temporary operating permit from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles if your state doesn't register off-road motorcycles - cite the Ohio Revised Code # 4519.09 to the BMV or title office staff, as they seldom do this at most of the BMV offices and most employees will most likely not be familiar, although I'm certain they all have these off road vehicle pass stickers in their offices. https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-cod ... on-4519.09
The Ohio BMV temporary off-road registration is very inexpensive, at iirc $11.75 good for a year.

The Wayne National Forest OHV trail passes can be obtained at most of the local gas stations, as well as motorcycle shops and at the Wayne National Forest headquarters office on US33.



More pictures of Wayne National Forest riding:

Here is the official geotagged trail map for this area, fseprd546375.pdf - which is a bit difficult to find from navigating the official websites:

https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DO ... 546375.pdf

You can open this on Avenza Maps on Android or iPhone and it will show your current GPS location when you are within the map boundaries.

I have GPX and KML files of the trail system as well if you use a more advanced GPS app.



All of the official trails are 2-way 50-inch OHV trails. There are some extensive single tracks, although they are illegal.

When camping, we usually primitive camp at the Long Ridge Trailhead area, as more bikes go there and it is a bit less frequently visited versus the Dorr Run area trailheads.
Long Ridge doesn't officially directly connect but is directly adjacent to the Dorr Run area, and you can ride the blue marked Cawthorne Trail to the paved road (Carbon Hill - Buchtel Rd?) & Ride the pavement at 35 mph maximum up to the MonDay Creek Trailhead entrance, and hang a left on the main Corridor Trail and take that and or the snake Hollow Trail which crisscrosses it, across another paved road, and then into the Dorr Run trail area where the most flowing sections of trail are. The outer Dorr Run Loop is quite a long trail, and loops the whole area. Stay on this and get familiar with the area and you will have a blast. We always detour off of it to hit the Purdum Loop, which is where that high up Rocky outcrop area in the photos is, although that one is sort of an extension at the beginning or end of what they call the Purdum Loop. That's a real fun 2 minute climb up to that spot if you go the right direction and catch it uphill westbound where the CCC trail dead ends into it. If you're not looking at the maps you would probably just continue on CCC by default. There's also a seasonal waterfall / cliff area on the very edge of the national forest property on the map where you see the purdum trail crosses a creek on the far left side adjacent to where the pertum connector shortcut trail goes across. Skip the shortcut connector and do the long Loop and the Deer Stand Loop. We hit the second intersection of the Deer Stand Loop and run it back and end up 100ft prior to that & continue on, it's a little more fun that direction.
My other favorites are the goat Trail portion of the 1985 Trail off of the Dorr Run Loop near the Scarlet Oak Trailhead. You'll miss it if you aren't watching out, as the trail starts out as just an oil and gas access road, then on the right side, a narrow goat path cuts off. We Run The goat path section both in and out. It comes up to a cleared out 50 ft circular area with another Trail of the same name running to the back. That one loops a really big hill climb that's always fun at the end, we go straight up the hill but you can also go to the left and end up running it backwards of that.

Long Ridge doesn't have much in the way of mildly banked turns like the Dorr Run area has, but is also good fun and is where all the hard enduro guys & racers go to partake in illegal riding activities...
Dorr Run area Mineshaft Trail, Timber Road Trail, and Paramount Loop are begginner friendly trails. When the place has been recently groomed, nearly everything qualifies as a beginner trail although some are steeper and more winding. Long Ridge gets less frequent maintenance, and when it gets typical ATV left&right track ruts in the steeper sections, the steep hills can be very intimidating for beginner riders due to the steepness and slightly rough nature.

This area is a lot of fun for all skill levels.
If you want steeper trails, plan a couple extra days in Ohio and hit Pike State Forest southwest of there, and for legal single tracks and legal off trail riding, and a lot of hard enduro, go explore all of the user defined trails at Perry State Forest. A lot of the Hard Enduro guys will Mark out their favorite single track lines with 1-inch high vis. ribbon tape on tree branches etc. Only use the official trails to get to the good stuff, most (but not all) of the official trails aren't anything special, as this was an old strip mined area. The former strip mining nature means they left behind a lot of what they call High walls, very steep hills at the edge of where they excavated for strip mining. Hill climbers paradise basically. All the videos you'll find on YouTube are mostly of hill climbs at Perry. You basically just want to go to this area and record your GPS tracks and explore all day on every single track and hill climb that you find.


Here's Dusty (left, #56) & I right before our hare scramble at AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days 2023, Dusty is the one who thought up this KDX meetup @ WNF:

TL;DR but I will be checking in on this to add to calendar when you pick a date, I would love to join you guys out there.

I've seen Wayne National forest on my way to do Copperhead and Baby Burr dual sports. Would love to see more of that terrain, it was awesome.

I should be good for September, open calendar at this point.

This didn't end up happening this September as Dusty had hoped, but consider this an open invite for anyone to come out to Southern Ohio and ride these awesome flowing trails!
There's singletrack nearby, and 55 minutes E-NE, there's Perry State Forest APV riding area where off-trail riding and "User Defined Trails" are 100% legal (singletracks and hill climbs EVERYWHERE @ Perry State Forest).
Perry Backwoods Campground is next door for anyone looking to stay overnight, & also where some of the hardcore riders meet up.

This summer was blisteringly hot, & neither of ys got much riding in until mid-August. Dusty has also been out of state working all the storm damage for the power companies non-stop this Sept/Oct... Next year, of temps in the 90's continue steadily & consistently, I'll have to change my riding habits to show up at 6AM & ride until noon late June - August...

Chuck, I think I'd probably take you up on that next season, I really want to ride the Wayne National forest after riding those dual sports in the same relative area. Awesome terrain for sure. Perry sounds awesome too. I wouldn't mind coming out and camping and riding for a day or two, have a couple friends I think would be interested as well. I'll keep you in mind when planning rides next year.

Tyl3r wrote: 10:11 am Oct 17 2024 Chuck, I think I'd probably take you up on that next season, I really want to ride the Wayne National forest after riding those dual sports in the same relative area. Awesome terrain for sure. Perry sounds awesome too. I wouldn't mind coming out and camping and riding for a day or two, have a couple friends I think would be interested as well. I'll keep you in mind when planning rides next year.

AWESOME!
I would openly invite you & friends sometime between now and Thanksgiving, as it's prime trail riding season now with the weather cooling off, except that last Saturday I fractured my scaphoid, the primary bone that gets broken when you catch yourself from a hard fall... Medium difficulty rock sections both directions uphill and downhill after going out solo with saws to clear some tree blockages for the group ride the next day there at our favorite trails, Redbird Crest Elisha Creek trail system, @ Daniel Boone National Forest in Southern Kentucky, and was blazing past, probably qualifying as a recklessly fast, on an easier section of trail, hit a stray loose large rock that I failed to catch visually, which sent me off course the opposite direction that the trail curved, and into a log pile and tree trunk. I rode 4.5 miles out quite rapidly, as I thought I was going to run out of gas as I split the exposed upper portion of my beloved purple '97 gas tank & ripped off the gas cap threads...

Recovery is delicate with just a plaster cast over a two or three month healing period, so I'm opting to have a surgical screw installed to clamp the bone back together into proper alignment and to eliminate chances of not having it properly fuse. Only 6 weeks recovery with a surgical screw installed!
Also of noteworthiness, the doctor advised me that smokers have a lot harder time & longer time frame than non-smokers during recovery from broken bones! Lucky for me!

Tyl3r wrote: 10:11 am Oct 17 2024 I really want to ride the Wayne National forest after riding those dual sports in the same relative area. Awesome terrain for sure. Perry sounds awesome too. I wouldn't mind coming out and camping and riding for a day or two, have a couple friends I think would be interested as well. I'll keep you in mind when planning rides next year.

The official trails at Wayne National Forest's Dorr Run & Long Ridge areas aren't generally too difficult, more primarily all fast and flowing trails with a large amount of mildly banked corners. They are quite fun though. Favorits are the long Dorr Run loop trail, the Purdum Loops + Deer Stand Loop thrown in (seasonal waterfall & cliffs off Purdum make a nice break spot), & the non-access-road segments of the 1985 Loop (look for the narrow technical trail on the right about 1/8th mile in, I run that both directions and skip the oil/gas road grade section parallel to it).
And all of Long Ridge - more natural terrain, not much in way of banked corners, the single fiends and climbers gravitate to here, & camping is more private as well but only 4 campsites. The steeper areas, especially at Long Ridge, get pretty rutted out and get more fun for intermediate riders .
These are all 50" width trails. The singles that can be found throughout several areas in Wayne are not legal trails, mind you

The official trails at Perry State Forest (62" SxS rough mud hole ridden trails routed in a very easy manner) are mostly garbage, but the singles and hill climbs are what make Perry amazing


Perry State Forest a few weekends ago:

Heal up soon!

That all sounds fun to me, I'm down!

We are approaching the season opening dates here in less than 1 month for both of our semi-local trail systems in Southern Ohio, Wayne National Forest and Perry State Forest!

At the beginning of February 2025, when they announced the opening date based on the long-term weather forecast, my buddies were already texting me trying to get a big group ride the very first day of the season Friday April 4th at Perry State Forest



Perhaps this season we will be able to get a group ride together of some sort?

If anyone is in the vicinity and wants to link up with us, let us know! I don't really personally care for keeping track of more than 5 to 7 people, even six or a little more is a chore! A lot of slow downs...
but I would welcome anyone to come join us and we can show you around! On a big group meetup, we'd still likely do more of an informal meetup type gathering, where everyone pairs up in small groups of 2-3 riders and goes out to explore with a GPS map...