This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

All terrain Miro

Posted by Miro

Today I continued my 9,532 day streak of not dying. I came closer than on most days, though. We went ATVing in the Sand Dunes of Oregon. The Oregon National Vehicle Recreation Area is the largest public area in the country for sand dune off-roading. Ehren says White Sands was a bigger sight, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Just in front of the ocean is a thin strip of sand, followed by a half mile strip of low vegetation, and then about a mile to two miles of sand dunes with almost no vegetation.

We rented our four-wheel ATVs from a place just south of Florence Oregon. They’re bright blue with thick ballon tires. They look like toys. They are not. I actually remember an article from Weekly Reader in 4th grade that talked about how unbelievably dangerous ATV’s are. Of course, the last Weekly Reader I picked up was brought home by Kate Snow and featured a disturbingly jingoist take on the Iraqi War. So I'm not sure how I feel about them.

Anyway, the ATV place allows renters to ride within a mile and half square plot of dune bounded by two tree islands. The tree islands are just like they sounds like: Oregon-coast sized trees in groves almost a half mile square surrounded by sand.

We rode for a while following the rental guy’s advice: explore slowly, make a path that you like (perhaps with a few dips and bumps), then travel that path a few times going faster each time until you’ve reached your comfort limit.

The rolls of the dunes and the even color of the sand can hide very steep drop-offs. It’s easy to crest a very small hill and had it drop almost straight down on the other side (the drops can be up to 10 feet, but most are 1 to 2 feet). The danger on going over these drops is the landing. The vehicle lands fine, but you can get thrown into and over the handle bars if you’re not braced properly and expecting it.

Riding is exhilarating. Today I blasted across the dunes of Oregon. I’ve never blasted across anything before. Think of a long, really fast downhill on a bicycle, except the uphills are that exciting too. I involuntarily whooped a couple of times. Early on, I did take one of those drop-offs unexpectedly. I almost slammed into the handle bars and could have easily flipped over them if the drop had been longer. But that was nothing compared to when I flipped my whole ATV about an hour later.

Coming uphill on those sharp inclines is a bit easier to navigate. When you crest them, inertia carries you a bit higher than the bike and you’re airborne for a moment. Apparently this was the cause of my little mishap. Based on my memories and what Ehren saw, here’s what we pieced together:

I was coming down a the longest incline in our riding area. Our guess is that it’s about 200 feet tall at a 40% incline. I was going top speed (because it’s fun) along a route I had traveled before. I took a slight detour off that route to follow a path Ehren had just traveled. I’m not sure what happened, but I think I took a small upward incline at enough speed to launch myself farther than expected into the air. High enough in fact that while I was still holding on the handle bars, my legs came up to clear the entire seat. I must also have been turning slightly, because when my legs came down, they both came down on the left side of the seat.

I have a brief memory of thinking that I was going to manage to stick the landing sidesaddle. Not so. My feet or body slid leftward, my feet caught in the sand and stopped me while the bike kept going. I ended up sliding downhill, throwing my shoulder and then head against the duneside surprisingly softly.

With the steering column turned slightly, the front tire of the ATV caught the sand at an angle on the landing and flipped the entire ATV end over end. I didn’t get to see any of this, but Ehren caught the whole thing. By the time I got my head out of the sand, the ATV was on it’s side in the sand with the wheels still spinning. Ehren came over. I spit out a lot of sand. We righted the ATV. Ehren took photos. I spit out more sand.

We looked over the ATV. It looked fine other than sand caked everywhere. Then we noticed the pole and flag on the back was bent at 90 degrees. We straightened it. Then I got on the bike and noticed the ignition was pinned under the steering column. That was new. I had managed to bend the formerly upright steering column about 45 degrees. It still ran, but the handling was totally different. I took it easy on myself ATV for the rest of our time.

Oh yeah, I also lost the flag and pole later on.

Total damage: I won’t give you numbers, but I did lose my deposit. I’ve also got a slight headache and soreness in my left shoulder. What Ehren calls my hipster PDA (a small spiral notebook) is buried somewhere out there. Also: sand everywhere.