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Trail Report: October 27th 2002

Players: Brad, JAW, Mik, Rob, Wolfie.
Venue: Alkimos and Yanchep
Rider of the Day: Mik - Cracks a 1:59 on the time trial.
Stack of the Day: Brad - a jump stack beats all other SOTD contenders.
Breakages & Injuries: Mik - Egg on the head from a stack, lost indicator lens, "adjusted" handlebar,
Brad - Egg with blood on the head from a stack, broken indicator lens,
Rob - Temporarily reassigned to the bush rear guard.

Report:

Again, there had been a few in-between meet rides but this was it; possibly the last ride of the season. The warm weather is on its way with spring well and truely set in - the impending summer means thirsty sweaty dusty riding - "the off season". It's still good to get that summer petrol pumping in your cylinder, but it does not make for the best riding conditions.

A Sunday ride was called with plenty of interest including some new players. When Sunday arrived it brought with it a thunderstorm and rain. By lunchtime the thunder was replaced with a light drizzly rain which for some reason put off some players. "Guys, this is it! This may be the last good ride for the 2002 season! It's only a light drizzle!" JAW starts harping on about some previous mid-season ride with Rob where "between every whoop was a swimming pool sized puddle, and every couple of kilometers had to stop and empty a litre of water out of each boot."

Even Brad was skeptical; nearly looked like only Mik, Rob and JAW were game...

picture

For all those people interested in Crusty Quinns riding terrain this shot was taken. It is about 180° panoramic, looking up at the track (hidden by the angle). This is an example of West Australian South Western coastal scrub. The predominant trees seen are Tuart trees, a member of the eucalyptus family. Normally they will grow to 30-40m high in ideal conditions, but even in non-ideal conditions such as these are still prevalent. This spot is slightly unusual in that there must be underground water available to the trees; most areas are treeless with only the low lying scrub and grasses as seen here covering the ground. Click for the larger picture


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Mik enters the sub two minute club for the first time.

...Finally Brad sees sense, and shows up with Wolfie who was alledgedly at the pub but, perhaps, even to Wolfie a good days ride is better than a pint at the local :) Only Mik and JAW put in time trial laps. With the increased amount of traffic the pressure to go as fast as possible around blind corners and crests is too high for some. JAW is still stuck on 2:03, but Mik pulls some good runs out of the bag for a personal best of 1:59. This earns him Rider of the Day

Rank Rider Lap 1 Lap 2 Lap 3
1 Mik 2:05 2:01 1:59
2 JAW 2:03 2:03 2:05
Time Trial Results.

No suprises for the regular readers that Alkimos is next on the agenda. There is a heap of 4x4s and other bikes, so much so that the lads bail out and take the infamous "Wolfies Agility Course" to Yanchep.

Led by Wolfie (of course), the tracks are tricky, tight and require a bit more skill than normal to navigate. And, in some places, you'd swear that there was no track at all and that Wolfie was making it all up...
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Wolfie? Punchup?
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Top of Alkimos hill is a usual rest spot...
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...top of the Yanchep "tanks" hill another usual rest spot.

Suprisingly there were no mishaps, no stacks or ungraceful stops on the agility course. Not even one. Moreso, the pack was always together though the pace was fairly quick. Nobody had much to say about it - unnotable due to its, um, classiness and skill? ;)

At the tanks Brad once again takes the antisocial award for bringing his single mars bar ("you can have a bite if you want"). Fortunately Mik, Rob and Wolfie are not antisocial and each cracked out enough jelly babies to give everyone a sugar rush for hours.

The ride back to the Alkimos was again well paced an without incident...well, until halfway back...

Now Rob, a fellow XR Anvil rider, has long pined for a two smoker. "Rob, they are noisy, peaky, vibrately, fuel guzzlers. Okay, so they are light, powerful, handle well, pull up well, but what do you want one of them for?" In an effort to fill his toolbox with different tools, Rob buys himself a '94 YZ250 ("The purple framed one, the one Metzger used in Crusty Demons 1, it's a classic") and has been out on a few rides previously becoming accoustomed to it.

Because he secretly loves Anvils, he had fitted a tool pouch on the rear tailguard to make it look more like one. However the smokey rattler shook tailguard off the back, probably in an effort to get the bad taste out of its mouth. Wolfie ever-on-the-ball stops and picks it up - Rob stashes it in the bush for later retrival.
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Stopped to examine the YZ250.
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JAW gets up from a sand nap...
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Mik eats some while he's down there.

Closer to Alkimos, JAW decides to take a dive while negotiating a sandy section. Stack of the day is called, but...

...back at the Alkimos getting as much air as the little two fiddy can, Mik hits pay dirt good and hard. With his dodgy hand-me-down helmet he's ended up with a big bruise on his scone. "How many fingers am I holding up Mik?" :)

Finally, after much debate, it is decided that Brad takes out Stack of the Day

Also getting some good Alkimos dunejump airtime Brad has gone down hard, hard enough for a bruised scone _with_ some blood.

Well blood is a relative term, as in not zero blood. If you look hard on the left of this photo you will see it, but I'm thinking the headache would have been worse.
picture SOTD:Brad.
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Obligatory "few beers" shot.

More of the same good form for the ride home, smiles on everyones dials.

Back at CQHQ Brad jams a can of bourbon and dry into each players hand. Good one, that makes up for the mars bar schenanigans ;) The lads kick back and go over a few of the key points to the days ride and all agree that it was one of the "mintest rides ever". Moral of the story is that a bit of rain always makes for a good days riding.