15/06/11 Dirt Biking
The forests of Canada are alive not just with the whine of mosquitoes but with motorbikes as charley investigates what happens in the woods.
Start your Engines...
As you know I am passionate about motorcycles and so of course I jumped at the first sight of dirt biking. How lucky am I that I got to find out what goes on in the thousands of acres of prime biking environment in New Brunswick.
I have to say after exploring the amazing countryside of Nova Scotia, and oyster shucking in Prince Edward Island (more on that later) it was great to get on our bikes and go for a spin or five!
I love dirt biking, as do many people all over the world- there’s a huge scene in England who get together to participate over the weekend.
Anyway, back to New Brunswick, we met up with our fixer Mike and head breakfast together at ‘The Grocery Store’ a big biker hangout, and treasure trove of equipment. GOPROS and biking gear in place we arrived at the dirt biking site, in the middle of a forest.
It was pretty amazing, with loads of trails all running in and out of the forests and over 1,000 kilometres of ground to explore. On top of this we were lucky enough to get to hang out with a whole group of guys who were out for the weekend.
Charley's new biking friends in New Brunswick
Riding on the trails was fantastic, and the terrain made it very different to what I’ve ridden before. As we sped through the forest challenging ourselves with difficult routes, we came across beautiful fields of blueberries on top of a mountain. Intrigued I decided to follow the trail and discovered all the maple farms (sugar shacks) and trees that were connected together by pipe. I’ve never seen sap being collected, and thought I’d miss out because the Maple Syrup collection season is over, so I was doubly excited to see this in the middle of nowhere. What a great surprise!
I had a brief look inside the farm that collected it all before moving on.
So, all in all three or four hours of hard work, a great way of keeping fit and an awesome way of seeing the country. I’d recommend this to anyone in New Brunswick, or in fact, anywhere in the world, as this sport is so popular, yet uderrated. There are even clubs like ‘Hair and Hounds’ which is global and heavily supported.
So that’s it, until next time…
See you on the road…
Charley xx