Ride Reports

[Ken R]

Yes - thanks Mat and to Brad for the initial setup.

I was glad the numbers were down as the dust was a problem, but still a good variety of tracks with some long rocky uphills testing my stamina and that long rutted downhill testing my patience and reminding what a difference it makes when you weight the outside footrest

Lots of Fauna spotted on the weekend - A Koala, 2 Snakes, 2 big greys by me on a walk, a Wallaby that took a liking to Dougs rear end and of course Rudis hair - LOL

Charnwood doing the catering worked well with plenty of good tucker just waiting to be eaten and having a shower available after the ride before the drive home is a treat.

 Thanks to all for the good company.

Whens the next one?

[Brad]

Thanks Mat for running the ride.

[flipper]

Thanks for a great weekend guys - it is a good mix of tracks up there! Thanks especially to Brad for the initial organisation, Mat for taking over the ride leaders role, and to our tailmen for keeping us in line all weekend.

Within the first kilometre of the ride, I had stopped twice to see if my rear tyre had gone flat or if my wheel bearings had collapsed. A very coarse granitic sand on the tracks made traction a bit hit and miss, but gave us all a chance to do some huge powerslides

The meals were huge and well prepared, and having a chance to wash all the dust off with a shower straight after the rides was bliss.

Mat kindly let a few of us more impatient riders have a blast at our pace every once in a while, and there were some technical sections to keep us on our toes.

Thanks for the ride on your KTM300 Scott - I'd been keen to try one for a while.

Here are a few happy snaps - sorry for the lack of action shots, but the camera was difficult to get to in a hurry.

We even scored a garage for keeping the bikes in over night:


Having a rest:


Even managed to find some mud:




Day 2 - Twelve of us in the crew now:


There were plenty of rest stops as Mat deciphered the maps:


Peter D

[dennisd]

I's taken me a little while but her eis the text of my ride report that will appear in AMTRACTION with Flipper's photos.

This was a two day ride of the Strathbogies originally organised by Brad to be based from Charnwood, the site for the 2007 High Country Ride. Unfortunately, due to Brad’s injuries from a previous ride, he was unable to attend so Mat stepped up to take on the leader role for this ride, using Brad’s marked up map. The facilities of Charnwood are really good, with comfy beds, hot showers and flushing toilets and a lounge area for evening relaxation over a few drinks. The house also has a garage for overnight storage of the bikes. Home comforts all round! Out through the back gate and you are straight into some fabulous riding. John from Charnwood did all the catering as well, from Saturday breakfast through to Sunday lunch. It is hard to get much better than this for $100 a head!

With fine, sunny but not too hot weather, we were looking forward to a terrific two days of riding. We got away soon after 9:00 am on Saturday after a hearty cooked breakfast of bacon and eggs and cereal and fruit. Unfortunately it turned out to be very dusty and with little to no wind to clear it away. Nevertheless the nine of us who went out on Saturday morning had some great riding before returning to Charnwood for lunch, fuel and a rest. It must have been a bit much for Ken as he decided that after lunch a shower and a lie down with a bit of reading sounded better that riding out again.  Now down to eight, we continued to ride some of the marked course as provided by Brad, which mostly followed the course from the 2007 HCR. However, it gets a bit hard sometimes to be sure which intersection you are on, as there are so many up here. Needless to say we took a few wrong turns and finished up on different tracks, but it was all good. Mat did a terrific job of leading with not too many stops for map reading. We even found one bog hole among the many dusty tracks. We got back to Charnwood at around 4:00 pm for showers and some cold beverages, having completed around 150 km for the day.

Saturday night after dinner was time for poker. My son Scott brought along his poker set with cards and chips. We all got around a table and played until sleep slowly decimated the group to a couple of diehards. It was a good way to get together over a few drinks and enjoy the entertainment of some brave betting – just as well that it was plastic chips and not real money.

On Sunday four more riders turned up for the day, giving us 13 starters. Out the back and through the gate we rode to the first obstacle, a big tree down across the track. We had gone past this twice on Saturday with no real difficulty and it now seemed even easier, but Colin on a KTM250F somehow managed to get himself stuck between a big rock and a hard place (the base of the tree) and a cloud of steam issued forth. On inspection it appeared that coolant was leaking and that possibly the radiator had suffered some damage on the rock. Given that we were only a couple of km from Charnwood, Colin decided it was best to head back and load up and go home. Down to 12 now, we spent most of the time in the southern section where some of the best tracks are and though still dusty, it was very good riding.

Although the tracks were very dusty, it was very pleasing to see the bush so green. We were fortunate to see some of the indigenous fauna, including a koala on the ground walking quickly but clumsily to escape up a gum tree. There are also quite a few kangaroos and wallabies, with one large one jumping down onto the track from a high embankment and nearly taking out Doug our tailman. A couple of snakes were also seen on the tracks.

Despite the dust, those who came had some very good riding and most of us completed a bit over 230 km for the weekend.
Thanks Mat for completing the arrangements for the weekend and leading the ride. Thanks also to Rudi for doing tailman duty on Saturday and Doug for tailman duty on Sunday. Thanks Peter (Flipper) for the photos).

Rider List: Mat Richmond, George Sanos, Ken Robinson, Peter D (Flipper), Dennis Dorman, Scott Dorman, Colin, Peter46, Rudi, Justin, Rob Crisp, Sean Crisp, Doug (Hobbit) plus one local friend.

Dennis Dorman