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2016 AMA Dual Sport Series

4K views 13 replies 7 participants last post by  Bill10 
#1 ·
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to ride in the first leg of the 2016 AMA Dual Sport Series in the Brooksville, Florida area (pretty much central Florida). The event was managed by a southeastern club called Dixie Dual Sport (DDS) of which I’m a member.



Although the AMA event was on Saturday and Sunday, DDS put together a nice adventureish ride on Friday for all the folks who arrived early. I rounded up my camping gear and made my way up to the ranch set up as headquarters Thursday night so I could get the Thursday Ride in. I am not a big camper, but there was a lot going on when not riding so I decided to camp. I lived.













Continued…
 
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#2 · (Edited)
As for the rides, there were three levels of challenge on Saturday and Sunday. They were Dual Sport, Discovery and Adventure. The Dual Sport challenge was befitting of smaller, lighter, torquier dual sports in the 250-500cc range. The Discovery challenge was designed for mid-sized dual sports, like the KLR650, Husky Terra650 and similar. It tracked most all of the Dual Sport track, except it included eight bypasses around some areas that they thought might be too technical for that size bike. Lastly, for the big adventure class bikes like GS and Tenere, the Adventure Challenge was a lot dirt and gravel roads; nothing technical at all. Out of 150 riders, there were 5 KLR650s. Of the KLRs 4 (including me) did the Discovery on Saturday and 1 did the Adventure. On Sunday we all went the way of the Adventure challenge, except one that had enough and left. On Sunday we were also joined by a WR250 who had enough of the swamp.

Since I know this area very well I led my team that included 2 Gen2 KLRs and 2 Husky TR650 Terra (plus the WR on Sunday). One of the things you can bank on once off the paved road here in Florida is sand…and mud…and flood. About 20 percent of the Discovery was paved so we got our fill of all those.











The thing about the water crossings is they’re all deep and muddy on the bottom. Unfortunately, after a hundred or so of the smaller bikes go through there it’s really muddy and even gave my TKC80s a rough time.



Waiting their turn through…



Continued…
 
#4 ·
Okay so I had two falls over the weekend and I got stuck twice. Falls are falls; getting stuck is usually the result of doing something stupid. Momentum is your friend.









There were a couple vintage bikes in the rally which I thought was cool. There was an early 70s RT360 and an XT500 that rode together. Other vintage bikes were at the rally but these were the only two I saw riding.









All in all it was a great rally and I’m now looking over the Dual Sport Series Schedule to see what other rides in the series I’d like to do in 2016.
 
#5 ·
Jealous....

That is awesome! Wish I could have been there! Especially love the guy with a tent for his bike. hahaha
 
#12 ·
LOL! The camp was under half and hour from my home, so I lugged all my camping gear up in my car, set up and went back and got the bike. I now have both a hitch carrier and a small trailer, so I can skip that exercise in the future. :smile2:
 
#13 ·
I've done the Dixie DualSport C-FL and Devil's Creek "adventure" (mix of highway and dirt roads) level rides in 2014 on a Ural sidecar rig. Swampy is a good host. I'm not skilled enough to ride the swamps yet, but looking forward to taking the KLR to a DDS Adventure-level ride.
 
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