A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at a military map of Ft. Benning and thought to myself, "Hmmmm, there are alot of little roads and tank-trails all over the back country on Benning. I wonder if I could try to ride the border of the post on the Uly?"
Looking at the map (not this one), there wasn't a boundary road per se, but there were lots of trails that went up and around. So I thought I would take a Friday morning to go poke around with the Uly. Today was windy and threatening rain, but seemed t be holding out, so I put on my usual gear, along with a camel back and big orange reflective safety vest in case an MP was out there for some odd reason.
Went down Hwy 80 to about where the "80" symbol is on the map and then cut south to where my map said there should be a trail that skirts the boundary of the post. Thought I found it, and gingerly rode around the locked gate (DON'T TRY THIS A HOME KIDS! Even if you have a DoD card like I do!) and rode down a promising road.
But it rapidly petered out into not much more than a logging trail like this:
I did maybe a mile's worth of poking down various forks but could never find a main tank trail.
Most of Ft. Benning is covered in fine, almost beach sand and the Uly with is Pirelli Syncs was not to happy. They were pretty much as slick as well... slicks in the sand. Had to slow way down in it and basically lug along in 1st gear, which made the bike even hotter and less happy.
Back tracked and got back on the paved road on the GA side, and tired to go further east to find another trail and come to a condemned bridge over the left creek you see in the Yahoo map. It had dirt berms blocking it off that I briefly thought about trying to ride over, but then thought better of.
Stymied again, I doubled back and went up on Hwy 80 to try to go a little further East. Got all the way to Upatoi without seeing any promising ways south. Pulled over and pulled out my map and saw that there really weren't any other paths around that side of the post (its all ravines and streams).
Giving up, I decided I had better things to do that drag my 500lb. street bike thru the woods. On the ride home (70mph on smooth blacktop made the Uly MUCH happier) I reflected on this mini-adventure.
It was good to get the bike on some sand to see how it rode. Even with its solidly street biased tires, I feel confident that I
could ride it down a goat path, but sloowly and carefully. And it really wasn't much fun. I had to constantly scan the ground in front of me for the path of least sand and obstacles instead of just letting the bike ride along.
The bike was much more at home on the rough and broken old pavement on the roads around the reservation, and I think that is probably where I will keep this bike. If I ever try this again, I'll need more time and a much smaller bike.
