ATV Source - Articles - 2008 - Off-Road Riders Association Assists in the Never-Ending Battle to Protect Black Hills Riders

Off-Road Riders Association Assists in the Never-Ending Battle to Protect Black Hills Riders

For any state off-road or off-highway association to be successful, it needs the strength and assistance of local clubs. An example of this is the Off-Road Riders Association (ORA) and how it assists the South Dakota Off-Highway Vehicle Coalition and all off-road riders in the state of South Dakota.

The Off-Road Riders Association was officially born on November 27, 1991 when off-road dirt bike riders Mike batista, Mike Sterling, and Ross Brown as well as others pulled together the largest gathering of dirt bikers outside of a major motocross race. "With a lot of effort, in our first year of existence, the Off-Road Riders Association prevented more than 50,000 acres of land in the Railroad Buttes area from being closed," began Ross Brown of the ORA. "The ORA began creating relationships with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. We put up signs and installed cattle guards and gates to prevent uninformed riders from leaving gates open and upsetting cattlemen. In the Victoria Lake area of the Black Hills a joint U.S. Forest Service/Off-road Riders Association team-three representing the Forest Service and 60 of us-set an efficiency record that's still talked about today. A hill was badly eroded from 4x4s trying to climb it. Our friends from the Forest Service estimated the project to restore the hill would take several days. Under the direction of the Forest Service, ORA volunteers carried logs and steel posts up the steep hillside, drove the posts into the ground, set the logs in place and shoveled dirt and rock against the logs to divert runoff. The whole project took one hour!"