DAMN Riders - No rules, Just ride!

John F wrote: ↑Wed Apr 27, 2022 9:10 pm Thanks for posting this. I’m hoping to do the MABDR this year on my new to me sort of ADV bike, and maybe the NEBDR on my DS bike. Did you camp or hotel it? And if I can find the time, it’ll be later in the year when the water depth is down.

I grabbed a hotel the first night since I was wiped from the ride down and Damascus was a neat little town to check out. Other than that I camped out. There are plenty of primitive campsites along the route. BDR website doesn't exactly advertise how prevalent camping is along the route but i'm sure if you picked up one of the butler maps they reference in the FAQ you'd realize campsites are everywhere.

Laoch wrote: ↑Thu Apr 28, 2022 8:18 am Iron mountain trail sign says no motorized vehicles. Is that part of the route? I can't see Adv bikes on that goat path.

Yup it is, the sign says motorcycles are good to go on the trail (far right symbol on that sign). I'm guessing the "closed to all other motorized vehicles" is more for quads because I don't see how one of them would be able to make is safely across some of those traverses (e.g. IMG_7728.IMG).

The DR handled the trail fairly well. A better rider could get a larger bike like a t7 or africa twin through there no problem. Going early spring also helped since the trails weren't overgrown yet.

aai wrote: ↑Thu Apr 28, 2022 9:28 am

Laoch wrote:Iron mountain trail sign says no motorized vehicles. Is that part of the route? I can't see Adv bikes on that goat path.

Jojo, friend of mine whom you met at the Christmas ride just sent me these pics Bruce, they took a mini track loader and cleaned up a lot of the rocks on iron mountain. This section is from Chilhowie area to Damascus. It’s open for DS bikes from what he’s told, approx 15 mile section




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Interesting... Did that just happen? I saw the initial creek crossings were improved (gravel visible in IMG_7726) but no evidence of larger trail modifications or equipment tracks like the pictures your friends shared.

This may have been further up the trail. I stopped after what I think was like 8 miles to make an easy connection with the normal BDR route. There are a lot of mountain bike shops/ shuttles that run out of Damascus and I can't imagine they would be happy about losing good trails.

Yes, they were working on it last week. He lives down there and a stones throw away from that trail. I rode it before 6 years ago on a Honda cb 500x and was much rockier like the green trails at anthracite. That whole place is nice to ride tarmac or dirt. Back of the Dragon Rt 6 runs through there also. He has a nice farm down there and always welcome friends to come down and base camp and ride. I was down there last June camping and riding from his place


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