Virginia Off-road... What exactly is legal these days?

I've been hearing and reading a lot lately about guys getting ridiculous fines and worse for being in the wrong place when Ranger Rick was within sight...

So, where exactly is it legal to take a spin in the woods?

Also, can I take my nephew, (who is 15 and learning to ride,) on fire roads in the nat'l forest on a non-street legal dirt bike?

I think I know the answers but with things I've been hearing it's not clear...

The only place is VA to ride non-street legal bikes in the national forest is in one of the four designated riding ares. Everywhere else in the forest is foot traffic only. And it's only a matter of time before our tree hugging buddies shut down these areas.

The best one IMHO is Pedlar, but it can be quite crowed on the weekends. All my bikes are street legal now so I don't bother with these places anymore.

http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/recreation/ohv/index.shtml

You might be better off taking a look at MX parks, some have nice trails.

http://www.sladespark.com/
http://www.lakegastonmotocross.com/
http://www.aylettva.com/track/places2ride.html

So, I have the GW & J Nat Forest MVUM, is that all there is besides private land?

What about stuff like Shoe Creek and like FR 42 from Coal Road up to the BRP?

Cville, Hburg, Staunton riders? What's the deal there?


You guys on the Montebello route...what's legal and what's not according to Ranger Rick?

Basically NO for the unlicensed vehicle and no "M" endorsement.

If you can take a 4wd legally down the "trail" you can ride your plated bike.

OR

you can choose one of the "ATV" areas and deal with foolish kids on sport quads coming at you at 80 mph in a blind corner.

Yeah, that's what I'm concerned about. The kid is really just learning and hasn't done much more than ride around a couple of acre yard. I don't want to throw him into Pedlar on a weekend...:eek1

So he's not legal anywhere except the places I already know about? MVUM?

Back to begging private land owners I guess...

That's the truth! My brother crashed into one of those dummies on this DRZ400, broke his leg.

Would it do some good to contact a few private land owners and offer to pay or lease a few hundred acres of woodland? There are a few riding clubs around but I'm just looking for plan old single track through the woods.

It might do some good but landowners are scared of being sued and then the noise is an issue. I've got about 6000 acres here in Dinwiddie with permisson to metal detect and most of them won't let me ride there....


And it is hard to get permission to metal detect LOL.

In all honesty, just bite the bullet, and make a weekend trip to Hatfield-McCoy in WV.

Ride your unplated bike into town for lunch. Have so much trail that running out of gas is a real concern.

You won't put up with riding in VA again.

I'm pretty sure there is NO off-roading allowed in Va.
There are the public roads, some of which are unpaved, that you can share with cars and trucks.

Then there are private trails you can pay to ride on, and there are ATV trails maintained by the USFS, which you sometimes have to pay to ride on.

Man, I did a cross country trip to Hood River a couple summers ago (trailering lots of toys including our dirt bikes) we stopped in a small town in N.Idaho for lunch. A sheriff had been parked out side, so I introduced myself and asked where I could ride. He sort of looked puzzeled by the ?. Welll, He says just pick a direction and have fun and ride. Try not to get lost......Two of the bikes were un plated and I asked if the boys could ride them. Once again, he said he had better things to do than chase kids on dirt bikes.

Once in Oregon, We were pointed to thousands of acres of forrest managed by the paper companies that didn't seem to care. The main problem was that the locals would get a trail system set up and eventually it would be logged and the whole forrest would be gone......

There is quite a difference in attitudes between here and the West. Of course, those guys don't have a "Birkenstock Bolchevik" standing on every street corner demanding we be stopped.

Well I can't help the people in the western part of the state, but being in Richmond you could join the Tidewaterdirtriders club.. They have 2 pieces of club land to ride on and ATV's are not allowed.. it's all single track through the woods.. One piece of land is near Surry and the other is near West Point.. Due's are $100/year.. it's a great club, very family oriented.. Most of the people in the club race in the VCHSS and a lot of them are very fast.. Lots to learn from them.. Most of the time when we'd go ride we'd be the only ones at the land, especially at the location near West Point.. Anyway, PM me if you want some more info about it.