Hey, now before you think I am some pompous a-hole hating on you guys wheeling, I am not. The only reason I post this is for the benefit of the sport. I was reading my latest Low-Range mag and saw a letter to the editor about your last run to OFR or "that road" as we call it. In the letter it talks about you guys using the go around for the 2 sets of ledges. These go arounds are illegal to use, while the road is still a "public un-maintained road" both sides of the trail are not owned by the town. One side is DCR land and the otherside is private landowners, both of which are not legal to wheel without permission. Also the water at the far end of the trail is under scrutiny with the greenies and the NEA4WD association and all of its clubs' decisions is to turn around and not go through. Right now the NEA is getting ready to have the road surveyed to find where it actually ran to see if the water is ok to run through.

Again I am not here to criticize but more to try and educate, as the more people are educated the better it will be for the long term of out sport. Please check out the NEA as they are very helpful in finding out what is legal and not, also maybe your club would be interested in joining and help us make new england wheeling better for years to come

i am also cross posting this at nexterra
any questions or comments feel free to voice them
Derek

PS very surprised at how capable some of the rigs were when I watched the video

Derek,

First off, welcome to our forum. Thanks for the information.

If we ran off the trail, illegally, we did it out of ignorance and we do try to follow the guidlines of tread lightly and certainly do not want to contribute to trail closings. Although I personally did not run off the trail, that was only because I didn't have to, but we all thought the bypasses were part of the trail. Thanks again for your help.

I for one, will be checking out your site. Here is the link for others.

http://www.nea4wd.org/

this is what i am coming to find out from nexterra, is that you guys were not informed

in reality OFR is getting alot of use, and illegal use of the go around, so much that they now look to be part of the trail instead of just a go around

the go around for the first set of ledges was not even there on June 6th (the last time i ran the trail with my club) and then when i ran the trail again with a group of friends in mid October that go around looked like it got used nearly as much as the ledges

so whats the answer, if we dont want the trails shut down, to try and educate as many wheelers as possible and hope that they have the same passion for our sport to only do things the right way. will we ever get to everyone? No, but the more people we get to, the less will be out there screwing up our trails

Thanks for letting us know about it Derek. I will admit to using the bypasses, but like Scott said, only because we didn't know.

Thanks for the info.

Derek,

Welcome to the boards!

Thanks for the heads up!

Are you aware of other places that have situations like this?

Unfortunately there is a great pipeline/powerline trail about 15 minutes from my house that is illegal. People still run it on occasion.

like pretty much every where there is always someone that apposes what we do

basically if you only wheel legal trails and stay on the trail you will be fine

if you have questions about specific trials i can either answer them or can get the info about them

No offense, but -

I'm dissapointed that you felt you had to post this on the NEXTerra board (telling us you cross posted this onto the UYNX board) but didn't inform us that you also posted this in the rarely used and rarely viewed by members NEXterra Forum on XOC.

As I posted on the XOC forum:
In order to clear a few things up for those on the National XOC board who read this thread:

We were aware about the water crossing at the end of the trail (or beggining, depending on which direction you decide to run it in). Thus No one in our group went through the water pit.
Posting about that in the way you did here makes it sound as if we ran through that water pit, which we did not.

It's been openly posted about on a couple of websites Such as the Patriot Jeepers website... Yet curiously, the NEA4WD.org website requires you to be a paying member in order to view technical information like this...so we were aware about the water pit issue. Curiously, the by-pass issue you have brought up - I haven't found a solid reference to them being illegal on any other wheeling board.

Although a website listed as Jeeptech http://www.jeeptech.com/~txh3202/trail/florida.html wrote about issues with OFR during a Old Colony Four Wheel Drive club:
It is not clear if they meant the bypasses or some other area parrallel or near OFR. It does seem from that post that the "landowner" doesn't actually own the land that was in question on that day, from what was written.

Do a search on Google for Old Florida Road - you'll find some interetsing things.

To rehash a few things posted on the NEXTerra board:

Determining the legality of certain places has become a pain in the ass at times, especially when some groups will give misinformation to prevent others from using those trails (older members of this club were told of a trail being shut down and closed permanently - which I have learned was not entirely true).

And while it would be nice for landowners or the state to post "no tresspassing - private property" signs - They don't really have to, which sucks...somehow I don't understand how that doesn't get to be counted as entrapment.
(The "We know they shouldn't be there or be doing that, but nobody bothered to tell them before arresting them" syndrome)

I understand not giving out trail info to people who are not members - but that hurts the sport, because those who don't know that a bypass off a trail isn't legal can cause problems for everybody.
Making that kind of info more readily availible helps everyone.

As RIXterra pointed out to you in the NEXTerra discussion


For those of you who haven't been on the NEXTerra board to follow this thread, it has been brought up there (and by Spalind on the XOC forum) that Freedom Trail Riders did run a set of powerlines recently that we know Derek ran.

Freedom Trail Riders on Gutter "Road"


It is generally accepted that powerlines are private property and therefore would be illegal


Honestly, I just think it's fair for the information to be presented in the proper way. The way you presented it on XOC, NEXTerra and here makes it sound as if our group went out and knowingly tore through sensative terrain (which we did not), and that all of this information is widely availible and well known (which it is apparently also not).

ok i am going to try and answer all questions

first off about the boards i posted on XOC first as i thought that was the nexterra board, when i was informed that was rarely used and directed to their usual board so then i posted there, as you can read at the top of the thread

as for the water crossing i didnt know weather you went through or not, was merely posting info so you would know

as for the legalities of the go arounds, think about it this way, a town road (which flordia road actually is) has land on both sides not owned by the town, do you think it is legal to run through someones front yard? obviously i know you wouldnt, but by running the bypasses you are kind of doing that as you are running other landowners properties

pot calling the kettle black you say, well i say this is where being in a club and a member of the NEA wins. All the area where we wheeled is owned by the Cowls Lumber company, which the NEA and its member clubs have permission to run anytime. not only that but we have permission to open up any old logging trails on their property, netting us even more trails to run, on private land.

as for the legalities of powerlines, yes all powerlines in mass are illegal to run without permission of the landowner, which is either private or mass electric. mass electric will never give permission, but when it is owned by someone else (with mass electrics right of way) you CAN get permission to run it



i never posted as if you guys knew what you were doing and did it anyway, the only reason i posted was to educate. i know that all the info is not available for those that are not members of clubs, i am only trying to help here. im trying to help protect all of us, you for the next time you go to the trail and the rest of us who want the trail to stay open

by the way i am going to go post that on all the boards including nexterra and xoc so as not to leave anyone out

Here is some more info regarding Florida road trail.
My local club, Long Island Offroad, is a member in the East Coast 4 wheel drive association, and actively participates.
The legality of Florida road has come up many times before. They run it every year. I dont know specifics of that trail in particular but here are some links to info..
http://www.ec4wda.org/landuse.asp?ID=75
http://www.ec4wda.org/ general east coast offroading info

You can also email the people at EC4WDA directly and ask about florida road. They would have more info about it's legality.

Thanks for that info Ken - that's really helpful.

After looking around that sire, it looks like I may have to join up!

Derek -

Your points and clarifications are completely understood.

The reason why I made my post on XOC and re-posted it on UNYX and NEXTerra was twofold -
1 - XOC is a national and very public board, so it's easy for anyone to read somethng like this.

2- A couple of people did get the idea that we were being irresponsible in wheeling from reading your post, although I'm sure it is clear to them now that is not what you intended. The confusion came in the mention of the water crossing in the same paragraph where you mentioned the bypass use. The unintended interpretation was that we had gone through the water. There is plenty of information about the sensativity over the watercrossing on the net.

That implication and readily availible information makes our group(s) look bad and/or stupid and/or lazy.

I wanted to make sure that it was clear that isn't the case...

I also want to make clear that I wasn't the source of all the information rehashed from the NEXTerra board. I just wanted to make sure that all the key points from the discussion there was made availible

If I came accross as accusatory of improper behaviour I apologize. That was not my intent.

Jeff

all is well
if you need any info about other trails or anything just get ahold of me

I'm taking this way off topic here.

But I gotta say, I'm very impressed with the maturity of this conversation. NOTHING like XOC is on a daily basis.

I love this board, it brings tears to my eyes

I love you too, Jeff.