New Jersey | ADVENTURE & OVERLAND MOTORCYCLE TRAVEL

How do I find Adventure Motorcycle Riding Buddies?

by WorldCrosser Admin | Oct 29, 2017 | Adventure Motorcycles, Explore, New Jersey

Find a group Adventure and Dual Sport motorcycle Riders to explore the trails.

It is great to ride motorcycles with your like minded group of friends, for not only companionship but also for safety reasons. If a motorcycle breaks down or if person hurts themselves, having a buddy will really come in handy. If you don’t have a steady ADV riding group, finding riding buddies shouldn’t be too difficult. Riding the local trails and fire roads, state parks, and other cool roads usually get the ball rolling. So one of the best things to do is simply invest some saddle time and get out on your bike and ride, you are sure to have another enthusiast start chatting when you are fueling up, taking a lunch break or making a stop. My opinion is that the ADV/dual sport riders are simply an amazing quality group of great people.

But just in case that isn’t panning out, here are a few other ideas for finding riding buddies:

A top suggestion would be advrider.com and go into your geographic forum. Riders are always posting rides and would be happy to have you along. Make sure to read the post or ask what type of riding they are doing– as you don’t want to be taking your 1200 beast down single track with some light agile small cc KTM’s, or vice versa.
Another is checking meetup.com for riders and “meet ups” in your area for dual sport or adventure riders
Going to adventure or overland events or meets are also a great idea. Like horizonsunlimited.com or overlandexpo.com to name a couple.
Check out our WorldCrosser event calendar for adventure and dual sport rides and events that you may want to attend.
Check out social networks like Facebook for adventure motorcycle riding groups, join a group that is built around your bike – like the KLR 650 for example.
Speak with your local dealership for events, rides, manufacture days.
Register for a motorcycling training course, obviously an off-road or “adventure” centric course like PSSOR.
Go on an organized professional adventure riding tour you will be sure to meet some like minded individuals, but some of these tours can cost a lot of money. i.e. RawHyde, RideADV, and Ayres Adventures to name a few.
Phone apps, well there are a few like WeRide, Rider, Rever and others.
If you are riding more off road dual sport type of riding, which can fade into adventure riding at times, a great place to start are enduros and hare scrambles. Check AMA, American Motorcycle Association, site for many of these sanctioned events. Remember these are dual sport rides, so be prepared with light nimble bike and motocross gear, no big GS1200 and flip flops. ; )

Hope this is helpful advice and you find a good group to ride with on regular basis. Also WorldCrosser has a number of members that ride together here in NJ and will be integrating clubs into our site, in terms of forum or social app aspect down the road- still in beta. Anyway, sign up as WC member on our site and be part of the inception of this club aspect that will bring ADV riders together!

Enjoy, and as always, ride safe and have fun out there!

ADV ride in NJ Pinelands – aka “The Pine Barrens”

by WorldCrosser Admin | Nov 8, 2015 | Destinations, Explore, New Jersey, Roads, Routes

Dual sport motorcycle in NJ Pine Barrens

In the most congested state there is is still an area the has not been developed and is great for dual sport and adventure motorcycle the Pinelands. Also know a the Pine Barrens. There are a few state parks that encompass the Pinelands, the largest is Wharton state park, there are plenty of fire roads and dirt roads throughout the pine barrens, plenty of stream crossings and lots of large puddles, unless it hasn’t rained in a while. A couple cool place to check out are Apple Pie Hill – a forest ranger tower that on a clear day you can see Philly and Atlantic City. Batsto village an old glass making town or village that has a great lake , visitors center etc, also ride along the mullica- some great roads there, Atsion Lake and Goshen Pond are a few more areas to explore. There are so many roads and trails that you could spend weeks going through it all and still find cool places to ride.

There are trails for all type of adventure riders, there is a lot of single track, although rumor is Hiking club is trying to stop all single track riding, there are some nice “quad size trails”, say double track, these are my favorite, and of course there are dirt roads that are not inundated with sand that the big Adv bikes will love. So bike choice, small dual sport, 250cc-400cc for single track, KLR or DR 650-ish bikes for medium trails and sandy forest roads are perfect, and big bikes are best on the forest roads and some packed trails/roads. Okay, Okay, I hear you yelling, now there is always the exception, where you can ride your big bike down a single track that is a blast and fun but that is the exception not the general rule when riding the Pines. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of miles to ride and explore in the Pines, and there it would take a number of days to see just get the highlights. Always a nice serene place to ride, that I ride often.

Couple tips when riding in the Pines:

Make sure you are running low pressure and knobbies as there is a ton of sand, but it is a great time.
If you stop for lunch our in the bush- bring bug spray they grow mosquitos big in NJ
Always ride with a buddy
Plan you ride, ride you plan (I know that goes against the adventure spirit)
Let a loved one know where you are planning to go.
Bring your GPS, as cell service works but it’s not very strong
Remember some areas of the Pines cell service is limited or nonexistent
There can be some deep and big puddles, be careful
Watch out for the Jersey devil!

And after it rains there are some serious puddles!

[message type=”Be Warned”]Supposedly Rangers are cracking down on single track riding in the Pines, and they have released a “Motorized Access Plan” or MAP for roads that one can be one. Here is Wharton State park’s “MAP” Map that shows legal roads for motor Vehicles.

Click on Wharton State Forest map to see larger version or see original on NJ website here.