In June 2019, Dylan and I joined Ryan and Leanne in New Hampshire to ride in NETRA’s New England Classic rally. Since the last misadventure, I had picked up my DRZ-400S and Dylan was on a new-to-him DR650. Ryan was still on his KTM 1090, but Leanne had also downsized from her KLR to an XT250. Because of a fair bit of over-confidence from being on smaller bikes and having done a bit of practice, Dylan managed to convince us to join take the enduro route instead of the big bike route. The scrutineers and event volunteers shook their heads as we signed up for a class dominated by KTM 300 and 450 race bikes.
The first few hours of the day consisted of Ryan’s big KTM digging itself into the loose dirt and mud of the technical single track while the rest of us winced as faster riders on more capable bikes zipped by us on the tight trails. We got through it, but it was pretty clear that all of us were in a bit over our heads.
Later in the morning, we entered some private property opened up for the event and heard several volunteers talk about how this had been a “hero section” in previous years. By sheer dumb luck, I was the first to make it up the first hill climb of the section while the rest of the group had to go back down for more runs. We were able to walk Leanne’s little 250 up and Ryan eventually made a successful run. Unfortunately Dylan misjudged his line and ended up smashing his hand into a tree. After this hill climb, the trail lead quickly to a ravine we had to go down then back up. At this point Ryan was starting to suffer from heat exhaustion and ended up puking while we tried to muscle his his big twin up the other side. It was at this point the rally’s sweeper team showed up and helped get Ryan’s bike up the hill while the rest of us managed to ride out.
After lunch we decided to head back to our AirBnB and assess the situation. After much discussion (and a bit of worry about Dylan’s smashed hand) we decided that none of us were quite at the point where we could keep up in the event. We spent the second day leisurely exploring on NH’s Class 6 roads and powerline trails, which was much less dramatic and way more enjoyable.