What off-road issues are at the forefront in your state?

[FJORD]

Access period seems to be the biggest issue on the eastern side of the US. I see pics all the time of our friends out west that seems to pull out their drive ways and are immediately on trails. its not like that around here. the closest public OHV is about 4 hours away.

[BMThiker]

Yes, there is a severe lack of open trails in GA. Oddly enough most available are open to ATV's and M/X, but not 4x4 vehicles. The State agencies are worried about erosion and so they closed all but two trails in GA and both are in danger. What I don't understand is that typically, the ATVs and M/X are the ones "trailblazing" and causing all the consternation with the Agencies. I think the national auditing that is going on now will ultimately result in NO trail access for us. What a shame!

[Kzoocruiser]

Ordoman previously said:

You have valid points...I don't really know how the politics work, but in general, organized campaigns work better than angry individuals. It's good to get as much information as you can from wherever you can get it.

I'd like to see just one organized orv campaign get started which didn't require that its participants forgo working together in the first place.
These damn "shared trails" organizers expect the average orver to have some kind of "pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain" attitude with both our money and our time..yet when the time comes for arrogant arses in their fellow national non-profits to shut the rest of us out of the land that we own for no damn good reason...we're all supposed to just sit here with our mouths shut and send more money in to further water down the concept of true multi-use trails and more importantly cross-sport cooperation.

By the way, guess what recently happened when I demanded that the state quit tying the public's right to formally ask questions of them in our regular meetings with another group's 'special' agenda that now obviously won't? (simply demanding that the '07 meeting schedule be published after over a month of screwing around):
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dn...E_180055_7.pdf

We can't keep allowing these people to set these kind of procedural precedents over the simplest of access matters involving either the government or even our own leaders.
These matters are not akin to saving the free world as we know it....and we have to start looking at just who is benefitting from these cowardly actions when each door is slammed in our face over simply demanding that no one group ever take precedence over another.

[Kzoocruiser]

Chaseman;274669[i]]
"...Thank you for posting this thread. The only local off roading rules I have found are in area specific forums [b]and it is usually by an admin telling others not to post pictures or talk about participating in illegal activites...."

Which is another thing that yanks my chain; as this is the same "hear no evil; speak no evil" attitude that the big national orv organizations have. I'm sorry, but I get sick of somebody stroking me about how "responsible" the majority of us are....when the fact is.....nobody has ever organized the majority of us properly in the first place!.
I'm supposed to support an area like Windrock in TN sporting absolutely fabulous offroad opportunities....yet keep my mouth SHUT in the national orv magazine about how I witnessed two 8-year-old kids ride unsupervised, helmetless and doubled up....straight up the damn mountainside?
How about my local motorcycle group forever snatching trails away from the majority riding community during the travel mangement determination period in our national forests....with our national orv organizations effectively riding 'shotgun' for these arrogant idiots (plinking off all who dare question same) during the entire process?

"...In Hawaii there are many rules that force private land owners to grant public access. The rules are not well defined and the land owners don't like to participate. I have found that there are many official looking signs that say no tresspassing which are fake and other areas where you shouldn't be that have no prohibitive signs at all. I tend to stay away from any area that I have not researched and found out what the actual rules are. Unfortunately it is hard to trust any source...."

Great commentary and how true.

"...I think it is very important to pay attention to what your local off road club posts about where it is okay to wheel and how you can do it..."

Again, very true and a statement which begs another....how much 'sense' does your local group actually have when it comes to these matters? (In other words, do they truly have intelligent leadership or not?).
I'm finding that with a myriad of issues out there; it sure does make a difference who can actually set priorities; who cannot and who sets those goals with only their selfish needs in mind....as opposed to the entire state's trail system as a whole.

For example:
We will soon have nearly 4,000 miles of trail in our state.....yet don't even own one piece of heavy modern width equipment to maintain same nor allow any talk of privitized maintenance contracts to do the job right.(guess where that money goes).
Yet the #1 topic for years has been (and you have to kind of picture Michigan as a wide-reaching two-peninsula 'whole' here)....just how in the heck can city slicker and suburbanite riders build an area "closer to home" that sucks the lifeblood out of every Ma and Pa tourist business in this state that currently serves Michiganders forced to actually VISIT the areas we are charged with being lifelong stewards over!
Can one even imagine how much money that these guys have been slobbering over all these years if their "gateway" riding area to our massive water-locked state is ever built in big-city Detroit southeast Michigan?
And what kind of giant sucking sound will be heard economically in these already hard-pressed seasonally tourist dependent counties...when this happens?

Sorry to go on for so long; yet I've just witnessed these crooks and their enablers in action for years now and the real money they've been waiting on for years now is just about to come down the pipe sans any kind of commentary whatsoever by the orv public.

[Kzoocruiser]

Yet another example of how our national orv organizations allow orv leadership at the local level to jam idiotic concepts down the riding public's throats:

Please read the very last commentary below by a long-time sitting orv advisory board member here in Michigan. This guy and our 'chairman' (who's working on his 2nd unannounced term extension) have just skated through yet another ignored term expiration without word one from anybody as to just why nobody has been allowed to even 'apply' for their positions.

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dn...s_179305_7.pdf

Now tell me something...with NOHVCC representation right there in the audience....how could anyone in their right mind expect the NOHVCC (or anyone else for that matter) to represent both all of us out here and this sitting Michigan orv advisory board member.....on this out-and-out ridiculous proposal?

Again, if the NOHVCC is so damn intertwined with this board that the state can't even schedule our public meetings without consulting with this 'non-profit' beforehand...why are our local representatives (who've been given 3 months between meetings to come up with what they think is of utmost importance to be revealed to us) seemingly 'backed up' by the NOHVCC on even the most time wasting of pursuits?
Do you want your money being sent in to the NOHVCC or any of these other "pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain" organizations out there WASTED by lobbying/chastising every manufacturer out there as to just exactly how they ultimately design their products and bring them to market?
For pete's sake, folks; look on page 3 of the above document under "Forest, Mineral and Fire Management"
WE HAVE GOT ALMOST 4 MILLION DOLLARS RECENTLY RELEASED JUST LAST MONTH TO IMPROVE THE DAMN TRAIL SYSTEM....THAT NOBODY IN ATTENDENCE THAT EVENING EVIDENTLY HAD THE STONES TO QUESTION THEM ABOUT!

Now I don't get around to every state and poke into their orv businness.....yet do all of you have that kind of money lying around in your orv accounts that nobody has the guts to stand up and talk about when you get together in front of the very people holding that check?

These board 'representatives' have proposed shutting down 'damaged beyond repair' atv trails in the past for "study"; bragged about quickly killing 60" trail widening bills sponsored by Polaris; cancelled all orv public meetings for up to 6 months at a time; forced the public to go through the DNR to even so much as contact them... and a boatload of other unbelievable acts much to numerous to list here at the single largest maintained trail system in this country.

And you want "me" to send my hard-earned money into national orv organizations beating me down every time I question just why all of this secretive nonsensitive crap is dispensed on a "need-to-know" basis or that I 'dare' question why all orv groups aren't forced to work together instead of apart with national level support?

"Oh, but they help us out here in the west...." selfish comments aside; this has been a bunch of crap for decades now and it is high time that this 'community' starts acting like one instead of vesting all of their confidence/money into leaders who haven't had the stones to stand up for true multi-use concepts all around this country from day one.

[k9crazy]

BMThiker previously said:

Yes, there is a severe lack of open trails in GA. Oddly enough most available are open to ATV's and M/X, but not 4x4 vehicles. The State agencies are worried about erosion and so they closed all but two trails in GA and both are in danger. What I don't understand is that typically, the ATVs and M/X are the ones "trailblazing" and causing all the consternation with the Agencies. I think the national auditing that is going on now will ultimately result in NO trail access for us. What a shame!

Don't give up yet Rick! We still have Beasley Knob! I am actively involved with the Southern Four Wheel Drive Club (full size ORV's) and we are trying to get the USFS to work with us and vice versa to help each other out. There are lots of funds available from RTP that can be used, it's just a matter of working together. If you want to get involved, that's the best thing that can be done!

[Ordoman]

k9crazy previously said:

Don't give up yet Rick! We still have Beasley Knob! I am actively involved with the Southern Four Wheel Drive Club (full size ORV's) and we are trying to get the USFS to work with us and vice versa to help each other out. There are lots of funds available from RTP that can be used, it's just a matter of working together. If you want to get involved, that's the best thing that can be done!

Thanks, that's the point I was trying to make.

[JoeKidd]

FJ Guga previously said:

My biggest issue, Florida is danm FLAT

Worse than flat, Texas has very little public land, most of it off limits to ORV.

[Kzoocruiser]

FJORD previously said:

Access period seems to be the biggest issue on the eastern side of the US. I see pics all the time of our friends out west that seems to pull out their drive ways and are immediately on trails. its not like that around here. the closest public OHV is about 4 hours away.

I obviously missed this great point earlier and couldn't agree more.
Not only have our national orv leaders demanded that we cow-tow to those seeking to exclude us from trails serving the vast majority of our community here in the east....they've destroyed any hope of said community ever being formed in the first place with their near exlusive focus on the west.

Bottom line....you cannot allow any one group of enthusiasts or leaders out there to operate decade after decade with absolutely no published public position on important internal access issues affecting THE COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE.(uniting against 'greenies' is relatively easy....standing up against self-interested individuals across the non-profit dinner table from you is not hard...yet simply requires a true "shared trails" mentality along with a backbone).

I witness very little evidence today of younger people seeking to get involved politically in our many motorized sports; yet continual evidence that younger and older have been disuaded many times in the past by an attitude of "you all just don't 'understand'....just let us handle it".(behind closed doors).

It's an arrogance that has killed us from day one and just continues to get worse as these guys/gals get even older and naturally more obstinate.

[EpicMale]

JoeKidd previously said:

Worse than flat, Texas has very little public land, most of it off limits to ORV.

There are some 'hidden' public off roading areas in Texas. If you want mud, just drive into the poorer counties of East Texas after a hard rain. There are unpaved county roads that will give paddle wheeled vehicles a real challenge. Just watch out for those low water crossings, sometimes the old wood bridge or tinhorn has been washed out.

Further west, there are unimproved, poorly maintained public ranch roads that can offer a mild to wild challenge. They are anything but 'flat'.

There are also some state forest roads that don't get graded often, which can be quite remote and offer a lot of fun. Just be sure you take a winch and have a recovery vehicle behind you!

Perhaps the moderators of this forum might consider starting a state by state compilation of little known, free, off roading locations.