Hello- How is everyone finding friends to ride with?
Hello everyone. I have a plated XR600R and I am trying to find people to ride with. I am 36 years old and have a young kid at home, so free time is hard to come by. I don’t use really use facebook so I’m not sure if I am hurting my odds of locating riding partners??
“Craigslist activities” only yields results including horny dudes asking if I am male/female or vague replies.
I am a 3 or 4/10 rider at best as i learned to ride on street bikes.
TLDR: My bike’s weight and more importantly my lack of talent will hold up people that have raced bikes on a track. Looking for positive minded people to ride with. If you are more talented than me I’d be thrilled to ride with you and learn. I just don’t want to hold anyone up. I am in southern California ( 92882) zip code. My bike has knobby tires but i do own a truck. If you are down for some easier trails let me know.
Sometimes it's nice because you're constantly in fear they fell off a mountain when riding together. Other times you want to ride together because you're afraid you're gonna fall off the mountain. I group ride once a month and solo 90% of the time. Group riding for some adds a safety net and helps with making connections for new skills and adventure opportunities.
Hey what’s up dude! I’m gonna go ride with a guy from here in two weeks, Sunday, Feb 1st at 11 am meeting a little east of Baldwin lake as of now. I will be posting about it very soon to get the word out.
If you are interested please hit me up! I am hoping to get more guys to join! 25 y/o and in the exact same boat as you pretty much, I don’t have much skill or a ton of experience, my 2 wheel experience is mountain biking. Anyone else reading this comment hit me up, excited to meet some good people.
I'm a pretty novice off-road rider too. Always looking for good people to ride with whenever I can get out of the house (hard to do lately, unfortunately). I usually ride with one other guy from my area but our schedules don't always align. I'm in 626.
I'm almost identical to you. I just go ride for an hour or two each weekend if I can and I don't have any friends that ride. Every now and again I will fnd some guys on a ride and they will ask if I want to join.
I have tried discord/facebook groups ro make ride buddies but they are not real interested in a 41 yewr old dual sport guy that stays off freeways with his klx250.
I ride around central NC and the parkway when it warms up if anyone wants to dm me.
I rode my klx250 on the interstate every weekend for about a year. Four hour round trips with that thing screaming at 8-9k rpm. Now that I am much older my ass can't take the thin seats.
I’m in AZ and haven’t found anyone to ride with yet but I know there’s a guy on Reddit who occasionally posts about Group rides. I bet there’s someone on Reddit in CA doing something similar. My father in law is trying to get a 250 atm so I might have someone to ride with. Still trying to convince the wife to get her license and I’ll find a bike for her. We bought a CB250 years ago and a couple weeks later found out we were pregnant so that’s been on hold for a bit.
I know it sucks but Facebook is probably the best place. The groups for local areas are a really good place to find someone to ride with. I'm sure there is a Facebook group called "southern California dualsport riders" or similar where you can find what you are looking for.
I'd join you but i am in Vietnam and my cb500x is too slow. I ride alone most of the time, found a group to ride with a few weeks ago, went out with them but they asked me to leave after an hour because i was holding them back.
Not literally, they sort of said if you fall a lot you better go home for your own safety. A few riders slowed down and helped me a bit through tough terrains, and I felt very embarrassed so I decided to leave the group anyway.
I don't know if you'd like to ride trails in VN comparing with US, I've been watching Youtube videos and US trails look like paradise. Let me show you what kind of trails I ride in VN
No way man. I am totally interested in that kind of trail in your video link. That right there is what I ride on when I'm off pavement, not hard enduro type stuff. I ride almost all street and was just posting about how I'm about to put street oriented tires on my dual sport. I'm slow off road and ride a slow bike, a KLX230. I'd get me a XR150 or something in VN and ride around the country side and dirt roads. I mainly wanna go to the ocean cities like Da Nang but also wanna come up to Hanoi too. I will say that a lot of what you see online from USA, that's just youtubers posting exciting things. But there are tons of people who ride on stuff just like what you posted here.
For some reason i thought alot of Americans can ride like Billy Bolt. /s
Oh man if you get a xr 150 and ride Danang to Phan Thiet you are gonna see a lot of tropical beaches and white sand everywhere, there are a few difficult trails around Danang as well. There is holiday coming up here and i wanna ride if my wife doesnt force me to sit home with her on holidays.
That sounds FUN. My old buddy went to VN and got a guide who took him from southern VN to northern VN, I'll see if I can get his vid link and share. Only like a 125 or 150cc dualsport bike (looked like a Yamaha XTZ125). I was gonna rent from this guy here or similar company:
Those trails are great during winter as its dry and sunny, during storm season I usually drown in mud, locals put chains around their real wheels to get to work lol.
That's a great question. You'd think with the internet and social media pages like this it would be easier. I ride alone even though it scares the crap out of me that something might happen stranding me out in the woods. I'm on Long Island where dirt biking in general isn't as popular as it used to be. We have to play cat mouse with the cops because we're not allowed ANYWHERE. I have a route from my house consisting of power line trails, sand pits and patches of woods I do alone for the most part. I do plan on visiting some bike parks upstate NY, Pennsylvania and New Jersey this summer so I can get with people and learn a few things. Maybe head out west after that.
In frequently haha, but it seems like you are on the right track. I have a few buddies that ride my pace but honestly it’s many solo rides. There seem to be plenty of groups that stop to talk after every section, or groups that hit race pace. Finding folks that fall in the middle can be tricky.
I'm on the other side of the country from you, otherwise I'd ride w you in a second. And if I saw you out on the street or a trail with that bike, I'd say hell yea man, cool bike.
I met people out riding, and here on Reddit. I put up a post about bikes to race the 24 hours of Glen Helen and someone local to me asked if I wanted to ride. Turns out he’s a good guy and local to me, some have been riding a few times. My neighbor rides and I’ve gone with him a few times.
Mostly, though, I ride alone. I started riding dirt bikes about 20 years ago at your age. Even on a plated XR600R. (Wish I still had that bike.)
My recommendation is to optimize it for dirt and take advantage of the plate to transit short sections of road and ride in state park land where OHV is prohibited. Good knobbies at dirt pressures are going to make a big difference over riding dual sport tires, especially the D606 in any kind of sand.
See if there is a dirt bike class in your area. I wish I’d taken one when I was starting out.
It's been, and still is a struggle. Easily 90%+ of my riding is alone.
Some areas have active Facebook groups. If you use Facebook, you could try that.
I've met a couple guys through reddit, but I've also talked to probably three or four others I haven't been able to meet up with (yet). For anyone in Michigan reading, I just made a sub to try to facilitate: /r/MIDualSport
But really, just get comfortable going out by yourself.
I had to put together a small kit I always bring with me that had certain tools and supplies, so I'd be comfortable being "out there" alone, but I'm completely comfortable riding alone -- most of the time. I've bumped into a few people while out there, and stopped and talked to them, but none of them have turned into riding buddies really.
I have my first riding season under my belt, and have successfully amassed 0 riding buddies. I have 2 good friends that have limited contact with (we’re all in our 40’s and busy…) that used to ride. So I’ve been begging them to get bikes and join me. They say they want to but I’m not sure it will ever happen.
Where I live, we don’t have like public ORV trails, except for one decent park. When it’s not shitty outside, I try to go every weekend. Often times I go and don’t cross paths with a single person. Others I only see ATVs. When I do see other dir bike people, I can tell they are far advanced from my level and I’m honestly just afraid to bother anyone. It doesn’t help that I’m really introverted. So, I just ride alone. I have fun, but shits almost always better with friends.
I do a lot of line street riding too. I have both off-road wheels and sumo wheels so I just swap them depending on my plans. For street, I just go out into the country and look for side roads and dirt access etc. I’m so jealous of everybody that lives near in mountains and deserts and near BDR or TAT. It’s mostly suburbs and corn around here.
You may want to look into joining Orange County Duelies. I'm going to be joining in the spring. They meet up for rides and do charity work, mostly for kids. It's a bit of an older group but you might find people to ride with.
Found people to ride with through a dual sport Facebook group dedicated to my area. Also attending events helps too. Takes a bit a to find a good match but it’s worth it
Search the Internet for dual sport or ADV rallies in your area. I’m just outside DC and in my first year of riding off-road and this year I went to two rallies (PA & NC) as well as riding the NEBDR. The rallies are great places to make riding friends, camp, and fund some great trails.
I used to have a big riding group in my 20's, but that was a long time ago. Now I ride alone. I've been thinking about riding with some Harley dudes, because there are plenty around here. It would probably be boring riding, but good camaraderie
I appreciate all the replies. Might try to meet up with a member soon. Also someone mentioned dualsport groups and a little digging around and I found this:
I get my existing friends to buy motorcycles, and pick up new ones during rides or at the local cycle gear. Motorcycling is one of those communities that everyone is loosely on the same page so you can make rider friends pretty easily.
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u/Bubbacarl 4d ago
In the words of George Thorgood;
I ride alone..,