Trail Report: September 30th 2001

Mik and JAW headed off by themselves, Brad had arranged to meet them later at the Alkimos. First order of the day was testing the XR600. JAW had just done a complete teardown after the failure of the gear select spindle which is deep, deep inside the engine. With that replaced, new 2nd gear cogs, some slightly worn bearings replaced, a light hone, valve regrind and the whole thing thrown back together JAW was slighly apprehensive.

"Mik, follow me down to the end of Marmion Ave, I just want to make sure I have all the gears and that she's not making any strange noises."

The XR600 performs noblely, JAW is pleased, the lads return to the ranch to pack their gear and hit the tracks firstly to the halfpipe, then on to Alkimos.

The Alkimos is quite busy, it seems other dirt riders and 4x4'ers are thinking the same thing as the Crusty Quinns lads. Mik and JAW nip around the dunes with JAW easing off slightly. "I don't want to stress the engine too soon Mik, best let it get used to being alive again for a while."

Pretty soon Brad arrives and its time for the Yanchep scramble.

Up at Yanchep Mik starts playing silly buggers. He loves them donuts, ever since he used to ride the hog and it was the one thing the hog did well. "Hang on Mik, let me get some shots."

JAW tries to get into the scene and also kicks some dirt around, as does Brad, but there is no doubt out of the three that Mik was the 'nut king.

In fact, for putting on a generally good show all day Mik picks up Rider of the Day. Well, it stands to reason. Nice ridin' Mik.

Heading back to the Alkimos the lads decide to take some shots of a little "water crossing" they had found. Whenever it has rained there are two places in the Crusty Quinns riding area that hold the water - the strange black mud soak along the Quinns/Alkimos coastal strip, and the limestone minidam along the Alkimos/Yanchep strip.

The limestone minidam had enough water that when you rode through it would kick up a lot of spray, get you pretty much soaked all the way up and respray the bike with a matt limestone wash. heh ;)

A couple of passes by everyone for the camera, a bit of laughing about how cold the water is, um, in yer pants and some "hmm, I wonder how hard that is going to be to get off the bike once it is baked on" then the lads were on their way back to the Alkimos.

The players are having way too much fun to pack it in so they stop off at the Alkimos to tackle the big dune jump. It's still quite busy, there are annoying 4x4's getting in the way but there is a strong showing of other dirtbikers.

The audience doesn't stop Mik from trying, he was launching the XR250 with some style. He'd slipped on an oversize 15 tooth sprocket since the last ride for better revs-to-speed on the road but it wasn't slowing him down on the track. In fact from an observers point of view it looked as if 3rd gear nailed for him was just the ticket.

Brad is no slouch over the dune jump either. "Hit it on the left", he says, "it's lip is the best there."

Brad had one or two ungraceful stops - basically you'd land okay, travel on a few metres but the sand was so loose and deep and you'd come unstuck. A couple of guys including Mik had ungraceful dismounts like this. The sand was soft enough however that any fall wasn't going to damage rider or bike. Well until JAW had a go...

JAW was pretty satisfied that the XR600 was re-broken in aside from the same old same old carby problems, including a throttle stick at the carby from the water crossing ("Fix that bloody aftermarket carby JAW or pick up and fit a standard XR carby!").

The weight of the XR600 was causing a bit of a bottom out at the foot of the dune jump. JAW had set the spring tension to optimum for general use but the dune jump, essentially vertical quicksand, was proving too much for the '600.

JAW hits the base of the jump going hard in 3rd, bottoms out, loses a footing and by the time the bike goes over the lip JAW has already fallen off and the bike is sideways. Both parties fly through the air and land with a thump.

Stack of the Day is taken by JAW ;)