I’ve been riding this hidden sand track in the woods behind my house since I was a kid and never had any problems. Recently people from other parts of my state have been traveling out here to ride after seeing people post about it on TikTok. These people have no riding etiquette parking their trucks and trailers on the side of the main road bringing the state police’s attention to the spot.
I was out riding yesterday when I was ambushed by 2 state cops (nowhere to run since I was surrounded by water) and given a $500 ticket for trespassing. They told me if I come back they will give me $1,000 in tickets and impound my bike. I’m heartbroken. I’ve ridden here hundreds of times since I was 7.
This isn’t the only riding spot in my state that’s been cracked down on, it just hurts more because it was so personal to me. My uncle who got me into riding has told me about all the awesome New England riding spots he rode growing up in the 70s and 80s and they are all gone now either turned into apartments or blocked off and patrolled by cops. It just sucks to lose so many riding spots. Rant over. Here’s some pics of the spot.
Yep, social media wrecks everything, including what should be secret ride spots
I'm in the same area as you and pretty much in the same boat , its getting crazy . As soon as someone posts a spot online its done, I stopped telling people where I ride years ago . People have no chill
Lost many spots like this over the years, some to development, some to clowns posting the location on social media….never tell anyone about your secret spot and Never post a video of your spot…..as you have found out…sucks….
The north shore has a few great riding spots but they are all closed off and illegal to ride. Really makes me tempted to buy a stark varg.
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I interacted with this post in the other forum where you posted it, but I'll share my two cents here too.
We need to be like fisherman with our riding spots.
I ride public/state land very often. My bikes are all plated, so I am mostly legal, but there are plenty of grey area spots I ride through.
I have a spot 10 minutes or so from my house that is just like this, and it's really important to me because it's basically my sand practice track. I will never tell anyone about it's location online, I would only take one trusted friend there at a time, and I wont ride there for longer than 20-30 minutes as to not bother the people that live nearby.
The problem was real bad when 4 strokes first came out in the late '90's early 2000's. Sound carried much farther and stronger and closed a lot of places down. Hate to say it but electric bikes will help the situation.
A guy I knew took his son to a spot everyone rode at. He was shot and killed by a security guard. None of the story made sense, and could likely still have pending court cases. I don't want to say more out of respect for the family.
My son and some friends were on some railroad land that everyone rode on to get to another destination, and got chased off by some old dude with a gun that lived nearby.
Be careful out there.
Ask the cops to spend their time in the local parks and give to tickets to the homeless druggies instead of people minding their own business riding dirt bikes.
Also, OnX hunting application is a great source to find out who owns properties. Maybe find out and reach out to the owner asking permission to ride and maintain the property. One of our local “fields” I take my kids to ride in is owned by Walmart Corporation. Probably the reason we’ve been able to ride there for years and not get hassled. Are we trespassing? Yes, but I don’t think corporate Walmart cares about some BMX jumps and a turn track like an individual property owner might.
To a lot of the population, dirt bikers are a scum of society and need stopped... "Look how happy they are riding that bike, I gotta put a stop to it now!"
There was a whole big thread on here about this when it happened. There's more to the story about how it was Federal Property and he failed to acknowledge the authority of the federal agent and thought he could fight with him and just run away. Sucks that he was apparently the guy they decided to "make an example of" after years of many riding there. But when you are caught you are caught and don't get to decide you aren't having it.
https://www.vitalmx.com/forums/non-moto/washington-rider-shot-and-killed
All I will say is the events discussed in that thread were said without very key elements being known. I've seen the video evidence, what you guys talked about is not what went down. It's not my place to say more.
The area is owned by the town. The local police do not care if we ride there. In fact I rode by 2 cops just last week when I was riding into the entrance and they both waved at me and kept going. It’s the state environment police who care and are cracking down. They got my friend last year at another sand pit in a different part of the state and gave him $750 in tickets while he was unloading.
The whole country (especially the coasts and built up areas) is going that route.
A land owner is worried about liability and people in general are less tolerant to fun, especially if it's loud and scary.
My childhood woods riding spot was closed down about 25 years ago.
I was bitter for a long time.
After my time in the Marines, I moved back here and it's a multi-use county park, now.
I ride my mountain bike there several times a week for cardio.
I've been lucky enough to have my own little sandy track for many years. I just keep it to a small group of my closest friends and people I race with. I also don't ride during the dry and dusty summer months. My neighbors are all on a friendly, face to face basis and living in the woods on a power-boat lake does help minimize the sensitivity of people to engine noise. So far I've had zero issues and it's nice to pop out of the shop to do a 30+2 on a weekday evening. Now that we had some rain this week, I can get out to ride and do some dirt work.
You are ripping Cw. I nominate you for one of the best non-pro riders on Vital.
It's a bummer. We used to have a ton of "bust free" riding spots in SoCal, but nowadays I'm limited to 4 riding spots. Private track, Baja, Beaumont (getting more sketchy), and one last Secret Spot that will not be named.
Every practice track I used to ride as a kid is now either a housing development or a shopping center.
I’m 69, it was hard to find a place to ride back in my day. It sure enough MX track now days or nothing for most places.
Same here, one I used to ride at back in 1981 had a great natural terrain mx track, steep hills, the real deal. Had cops tell me to leave because I was destroying the desert and disturbing nature. Now its a huge housing development. 100s of houses a few feet apart. wonder what happened to all the nature I was disturbing.
Pit Row
Sorry bro.
At the same time there's a pack of 20 kids in my neighborhood ripping Surons everywhere. All I can say is go electric
That's Carson Brown's video... All I have are helmet cams that make the track look flat.
I'm not terribly slow as a 40A guy, but he got around that track with a lot more style and speed than I currently do!
If the county ever cracks down on me over my "dirt bike trails" I will get a Stark Varg or some other electric option.
Most of the time I'm doing 30's on a YZ125 out here and I'd be happy not to clean the air-filter or change the oil.
The battery life, cost and weight are the things I don't like.
Neighbors and governments have so many things against dirt bike "riding spots" that it's a losing battle. The big ones seem to be:
-Noise
-Ecology
-Liability
-Hey, they can't have fun here!
We had a spot in a pretty undeveloped area for 30+ years here. My mom and dad used to go on dates there long before I ever existed. I have some sweet pics of them there. We lived about 40 minutes from it, but it was endless acres of free riding and we had some bad ass trail loops and a cool little sand track. Cops hardly bothered anyone, people would bring small skids out and reshape the jumps every once in a while. Went there once a week in high school after I got out to get a few motos in.
The area was basically a failed development from the 70s. So all the roads were in place, some lots were cleared, but that was about it. About 6-7 years ago the wheelie boys found out about it and started renting U-Haul box trucks, throwing their bikes in them (literally no straps or anything) and would have straight up block parties there with 50-100 people just riding on the roads. There were two separate instances where two guys hit head on, I’m pretty sure one of them died. Then at one of their parties a bunch of 16 year olds got hammered, encouraged by plenty of adults, and then went off-roading on what was the sand track we had. 16 year old chick got ejected and died.
After that the cops had no choice but to patrol it. About a year ago I moved 15 minutes down the road and was so psyched that I could plate my 200 and ride down and probably get a half hour of riding in. I drove through in my truck to check it out, and within 5 minutes a cop was on my ass out of no where. Idiots ruin everything.
Video of Jimmy D riding here a long time ago
Ama has too much focus on pro racing and ameture nationals. Local tracks and riding areas are the foundation of the sport. Pro racing will be the last to suffer just like Superbikes. I don't see how the manufacturers put so much into pro racing when it just does not propagate bike sales.
We had so many places to ride around Boston in the 1970's. I could ride in fields near me every day after school. The sand pits in Revere was a huge place to ride not far from the Tobin bridge. For racing, we had MX tracks in Middleboro, Ludlow, Southwick, and Pepperrell in Mass, along with Waterville Valley, Loudon and Central Village for NESC races. Of these tracks, only Southwick and Central Village still exist and we even lost Southwick for a little while. Most of these places are all gone now and have been replaced by housing projects. To just go for a spin on your bike these days, you have to drive far and pay a lot of money.
Yep, how OEMs and AMA can’t protect and work on providing riding areas is beyond me. Who’s going to buy bikes and be AMA members if they’re no places to ride??
Where was that riding spot? Jimmy Decotis' dad, Carl, lived down the street from me and was part of our little riding group in the 70's.. We would ride Howard Farm's in Saugus, Cherry Hill in Danvers, The Pits in Revere. Those were good days and the riding spots were awesome and free.
Only a matter of time before electric bikes are looked at in the same way, it's already becoming heavily regulated. Give the lawmakers a few years to catch up. 🤷♂️
The last few years I’ve been splitting my riding time between my motorcycles and my e-mtb. Communities everywhere are building mtb trail systems and bmx tracks. It’s so nice to have great trails(mtb) close to town and several trail systems to choose from. For dirt bikes you drive far enough out in the sticks that nobody cares. Actual legal moto riding is almost non existent or so lame nobody goes there. The difference in the way we are viewed compared to how the bicycles are viewed is huge. You have community service districts applying for grants and planning mtb trails on their own property vs moto guys can’t even ride on their own property with out pissing off everyone close enough to hear it.
The idiots who ride stolen bikes in large groups and invade city streets doing wheelies doesn't
help our sport any. This photo was taken earlier this summer downtown LA.
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