Trail Report: June 1 2003

Mention - Rob - Took a tumble while crossing track on foot.

HOG Award

Rob - Ran out of fuel on tar on way home. Required assistance.

Some of the lads entered the enduro down south this weekend. This left numbers lower than normal for a local run, but enough players gathered to enjoy the conditions. Overnight and morning rain had set the trails surface back to grippy and dustless.

All suited up / warmed up, and ready for some local pine forest action, the idea today was to get to some of the 'further out' areas and have a look around to see whats available.

Mild splatterings of rain were limited to when Rob and Brad removed their rain jackets.

A few local laps of the car park area, and the lads decide to go on a long run. I measured 16 km's before we turned around. Terrain was interesting and varied from pine needles, to sand, to deep sand, to limestone. Some of the trail areas were nice and fast, and a bit of racing was going on amongst the guys. There was some sections with trees and logs crossing the track that became interesting as we all came by. One nasty section had a colour camouflaged stump poking out of the ground, that was hard to pick out and see.

Its funny how when your younger and those 80cc bikes seem quite fast. I clocked Jeds gearing at 45-60 wide open. We could be in for a sprocket change to get the KX motoring a bit better. Good to see these sorts of trips can be done on the smaller capacity bikes.

Meanwhile Phil was nice enough to put on a riding display for all of us. This, and general hard and fast riding the rest of the trip, earns him Rider of the Day.

The decision is made to head back to the cars and fuel up for a bit of a trek around our normal riding area. We really noticed how good it would have been to get some food into us. No Andy means no barbie, and we were a bit short in the planning department between the rest of us.

The 'Goat Track' trip is done out to Barbagello's, and then a general rip around the high traffic area there, before heading out to the Pinjar end for some small jumps and a bit of a play.

Dano started a bit of roosting others in mud, but turned out the worst when the favour was returned.

Brad Carvin' up the berms on the 525

The small track layout got a bit choppy, and started exposing a few tree roots. The call is made to head back and do some of our local laps near the cars. Phil, Dano and Tim were up in front of me at the time, but were getting pretty quick by now. All day the "Changing of Direction" system of really spinning up the rear wheels to mark all the corners had been working well.

Anyhow, I stopped to corner mark for Brad and Jed behind me, but they turned off too soon. This left Brad and Jed to make their own way back and me to make my own too - after losing the trail.

The 3 of us were back for a little while when Phil and Dano turned up without Tim. Tim showed up about 10 minutes later looking a bit worse for wear with punctured front tyre, and cracked exhaust system after having a tumble in a rocky - blackboy section.

Sore head and ribs complaints are made. The ribs are the worst pain especially when you start laughing and coughing - OUCH!! Thats stack of the day taken care of.

Brad and I decided to head for home on the tar. I decided that Andy's bike doesn't seem to ever need any fuel (and I had just finished saying this to everyone 5 minutes before I left), so I wouldn't even check mine. Soon found out the fuel range is 75km. Wouldn't be so bad except when Brad went back to the boys to get me some fuel, my wife Bec drove past heading down to see where I was, and here's me with the 500 lent up against a power pole. I am too embarrassed to answer her question of 'Whats wrong?'.

It only gets worse from here. Help arrives 3 minutes apart. First Brad - Dano - Phil/Jed - Tim. Everytime a car pulls up, the windows are down and "HOOOOOOGGG AAWWAAAAARRRRDDDDD" is heard. heh. You piss takin' bunch :)