Over the last few months, with the introduction of the Ninja, the little Ruckus has lost most of my mileage, but not my heart. The little guy has been handed down to my lady-friend who loves it to death.

Both of us being very purpose-driven, we find it hard to just cruise for the sake of cruising. The destinations on most of our little trips around the area have been geocaching sites. We let our GPS guide us to coordinates where we find boxes left by others filled with interesting little treasures and explore areas that we might otherwise not find. The able little machine is perfect for finding those out of the way caches.

As we find more and more, we have to travel a little further outward from home. Yesterday, we made it through my favorite stretch of road - covered by shady, century-old trees and perfectly windy - a beautiful path for any two wheeled vehicle and one of Florida's true treasures. We ended up at an area that I'd passed by hundreds of times, but had no idea it even existed.

Sandwiched between the old forest and acres of pasture, the GPS led us to a collection of paths maintained by the St John's River District. While my companion searched for the cache, I thought that I'd see what tricks the ol' Ruckus had up its sleeve.

For a tiny machine that has a hard time blowing dust in a pile of loose sand, it's capable for low-speed trail cruising. Sure, I'm easily amused, and if I'd ever rode a dirt bike in my life, I probably wouldn't be impressed... but it was fantastic!

I only completed one ride, as the day was fading and the temperature was dropping below a comfortable cruising limit. I didn't bring a camera, sadly, but I plan on going back and documenting another adventure soon. In the meantime, all I have to offer is this static-reenactment supported by Google Image Search and my novice-level Photoshop skills.



On a side note, I later found that a sign at the entrance prohibited motor vehicles, but I didn't see anyone there to enforce it! Viva la Ruckus!