ATV Florida Forum

was out riding today with my wife, sister-in-law, and my nephew.   the ride started off good.   till my nephew got stuck in some soup.   no big deal, he s got a winch.  he hooked up to a tree and pulled himself out of the soup hole he was in.   but then couldn t get enough of a run to get back to some good ground.   no problem.   he hooks up to me and i get him out.   that happens a couple times.   again no problem.   well he likes going deep.   we are rinding around this flag pond and he gets just out of my sight.   as me and my wife are waiting for them to come back,   we hear someone from the distance.   not thinking because i am listening to mp3 player.   i turn it off and realized it was my nephew calling for me.   as fast as i could i   started up my 4wheeler and headed in the direction in heard him.   before i knew it i was gettin it thru the flag pond cuz all i could see was his head bobbin on top of the water.   he d feel off in a ditch a sank his eiger.   literally he was up to his neck in the water trying to hold the front end up and his mom was trying to get the back of the bike to the edge.   i jumped in an we swung the bike around got it to the edge where we winched it out.   if we weren t there no body would have seen or possibly heard them.   that or his 4wheeler would have sank.   i am a big believer in riding with someone.   you never know when a bad situation happens.   now hopefully he didn t do to much damage to his eiger       

i think its too dangerous to go by yourself too. if you get injured you could be there for days before someone found ya. or sink like this. just too much of a risk. the bigger the group, the better.

I once had to spend the night sleeping on my quad in the middle of sawgrass so wet I couldn't get a fire going, with muck so deep around me when I tried to walk out in the dark I slipped in some waist deep mud and almost couldn't free myself.....and the twelve mile walk back to my truck in the morning sucked terribly with boots full of mud. Talk about raw feet.

A piece of advice, if you are ever driving up the gravel road at the Holeylands and see a guy covered in mud walking east, stop and give him a ride.

That said, I still ride alone, always have, always will. I will just never leave my phone in the truck again though.

The way I see it, it is safer than scuba diving solo, which is the only way to get the big fish.

I have a 2 up and my girlfriend is always with me. She can be the one to go back to the truck lol J/k I'm not that kind of a guy. I wish that I could of had someone help me out at Croom when I stalled out at the middle of the woods.

glad to hear it all turned out ok!

Rereading this makes me think of two things, riding with an MP3 player blasting in your ears is always a bad idea IMO, and given the choice of my quad drowning or me I would not go down with the ship.

ive thought about the mp3 thing. i cant hear anything anyway with my helmet and my illegally loud XR.

In the type of riding I do, I always dress to crash and hope I don't. I never ride alone unless it is in my own backyard. Just now, I was about to go riding at a track we have, but my buddy called to cancel. He asked if I was still going and I simply replied "nope". I got a little frustrated that I just loaded up my bike, but I look at it this way.. If I crash and no one is there, I may never ride again.

normally when i ride, i only got one ear bud in for the reason of being able to hear whats around me.   i d rather listen to music than my motor for 4-8 hours.   it makes the day more enjoyable.   and  i m sure if it was my nephew or the bike.   the bike we could always pull out.

I like some music also, but we carry boom boxes. Those ear buds just cut too much of what is going on around you for my tastes, and I would hate to get clipped by an airboat blasting 70MPH through the swamp cause I had some in and he didn't see my flag....I guess a PFD might just make a good riding accessory. Haha..

So did you guys get all the water out and get the bike back on the trails yet? Many members here can give good advice for such an occurrence. I think mine runs better since its last trip to the bottom of a canal.

i don t think he s done anything yet to his bike yet.   when he got home he unloaded his bike and loaded the dogs.   i ended up pulling him out again.   this time he was in his truck.   he went out to run a new dog he got the day before and he pulled off in some muck.   any suggestions on his bike.   it completely went under.   for how long, that i don t know.   we flipped the bike up and drained the air box.   then towed it back to the truck. 

Drain the crankcase and empty the oil filter of junk.  Stick it back on and refill it with cheap oil.

Pull the sparkplug and crank it to get the water out of the cylinder. Drain the gas if it is full of water, open the float bowl screw and wait till good gas starts coming out and if luck is with you, it will start with a shot of ether  when you throw the plug back in. Run it for a few minutes, drain the oil again and throw a new oil filter on and you should be good to go if it doesn't look milky in which case, do another oil change.

This is best done ASAP. The longer you wait the worse the situation becomes.

Have you pulled the dipstick to see if there is water in the motor?

i know he did check the oil.   it looked good, maybe a tad milky.   oil change is a definite.

good story man i was out at croom on a sunday afternoon not many peoplereally fun day,but there was 2 other buddys with me we were on the hill side climbing some hills we were ready to go back to the trailers when i was going up a hill my leg slip got cut under the right rear tire and broke my ankle and that was the end of a fun day. i it wasnt because my buddys were there with me i probably would have struggle a lot to make it back been that i broke my right ankle i ride a 250r with kick starter and with the pain i had i guarantee i would it have a hard time starting the bike.since both of them ride 400ex (elec starter is nice) they let me ride back on the 400ex. people be real carefull a fun day turn out to be 3 days in the hospital(surgery) and so far month and half out of work.if you ride always try to have somebody with you and be really safe. by the way now i am trying to sell my bike to keep up with the bills so if anybody ineterested or know somebody let me know. I really need to sell it christmas is around the corner and bills are starting to pyle up.Is a 87 suzuki 250r on the for sale section.

When it hasn't been run, the oil and water separate and can trick you into thinking the oil looks fine.




Sorry to hear this, especially during the holiday season...but look at the bright side, I just read a story about an older guy who was cutting down a tree and it fell on his leg. He was all alone and his only option was to remove part of his leg with a buck knife and walk(?) crawl eight miles or so....

I usually ride with someone but at times I do ride alone but you just have to use common sense by not trying to cross deep water or the nasty mud holes when you are alone unless you know you can get out. Of course things do happen that are you out of your control you just have to be as prepared as possible. Nearly 2 years ago I was riding my old Suzuki 500 with some friends and they where busy helping pull someone out and I got off my bike and rolled my ankle on a branch on the ground tearing something in my ankle. I had to hand shift the bike to get back and luckily had my friends around to help me load up my trailer without them it would have been an interesting afternoon.

Bill

We usually make the young ones ride the middle of the pack....and always have an experience rider bring up the rear. I would not ever ride solo if I could help it.

Sorry to hear this, especially during the holiday season...but look at the bright side, I just read a story about an older guy who was cutting down a tree and it fell on his leg. He was all alone and his only option was to remove part of his leg with a buck knife and walk(?) crawl eight miles or so....


your right trying to keep my head up thinking positive always knowing it could have beign worst

It could be worse...

I spent the night at holey lands from 12am-6am STUCK about 4-6 miles out with 1 bike with a blown motor and the other stuck, well they were both stuck, but 1 blew the motor. 

We got stuck about 3ft apart next to eachother side by side, we almost both got out, then his motor blew so I couldn't get out because of the winching angle. 

Needless to say, we took turns sleeping and running the bike for warmth, it was one of those 50 degree nights and we were muddy as hell and wet and cold. 

We WALKED all the way back and found an amazingly nice group with a track that got us both back.  Thank god!!!

We didn't have a flashlight, cellphone, or food...it sucked some major you know what.

So like i said, it could be worse

South side?

I was two miles north of the pumphouse under the holeylands signs when my incident happened on a Sunday at dusk as I was heading in, and EVERYONE was leaving. Just like you, I had to sleep on the bike and run it intermittently to keep from freezing. I didn't have my GPS, phone or anything, I had planned a quick levy ride so everything, including my cooler was in the truck. At least I had a new pack of cigarettes.

It really wouldn't have made a difference if someone was with me or not, since when we recovered the bike the 'trail' I was following ended in certain doom, as I had already found out trying to walk out in the dark. Let me tell you, it really sucked to have to walk north and find a way out, but a plus is I discovered an awesome trail you enter from around the bend a few miles, and I didn't have to spend the night fighting with a buddy about who's fault it was. ;)

It took all three bikes we brought back and a hundred feet of rope to free it from it's death grip.

The only difference is, I never ran into anyone but five giant bucks (which I crept up on and almost jumped on for a ride) until 1/2 mile from the parking lot Monday morning. I can't believe the Haitian guy on the gravel road even let me in his old Corolla.....

The only good part of the deal was my leg wasn't stuck under anything, because I didn't even have a buck knife.

Oh yeah I was sooo Stuck....How stuck were ya Joedirt.....

Not as stuck as I was........ ;)

This one time........ ;)

LOL...my leg fell off in the BOG and I had to drag my bike back with my teeth and a Mint Toothpick I got from Denny's... :o 8)

I would have paid $10 for a mint toothpick that night.

 Arent you glad I gave that toothpick to you when I was done with it?  lol

I would have liked a toothpick that night too...

yea jack that was on the south side, I was on the 1st airboat traila bout 4-6 miles out.

update on my nephews bike.   he pulled the spark plug and drain plug on the carb.   put it back and cranked her up.   she s running good.   he let it run for 5 minutes and checked the oil, and that was also good.   he s still gonna change the oil.   i want to thank everyone for the helpfull sugestions.

 ???  I too am now a huge believer in the buddy system! Thanksgiving night I was tightening a few bolts and an oil plug on my quad and decided to take a short ( quarter mile) ride down the dirt road to see if Oil would still blow past the plug. Two hours later some friends realized I was missing. I was lying at the end of the driveway passed out. For some reason my bike had rolled a few times and I took one to the head that knocked me out. don't even remember the crash. I'm just now getting over the headaches!  ???