RIDE REPORT

Throughout the week leading up to this ride, we had rain , rain and more rain. The forcast for the Fumina area on Saturday was very cold and more rain. With my other half often reminding me how wet and cold it would be i thought,'I don't care, i'm riding rain, hail or shine'. On Saturday 16th in Fumina we had exactly that, rain, hail and some brief patches of sunshine.
Al picked me up about 6.45 and we headed off for an 8.30 arrival and 9.00am start with 5 riders.
We soon noticed we had bikes from one extreme to the other with Lyntons DR200 looking every bit 20 years old (Not sure exactly) and Andre's EXC200 looking about 2 days old. I soon learned not to judge a book by its cover because Lynton was flying through the morning trails on his yellow machine and Andre was having a ball on his new set of wheels.
We headed off down the bitumen for about a kilometer only to find the first track blocked by a 4WD that thought the track looked like a good place to park. We had just enough room to squeeze past only to find that the first hill was going to be an impossible ask and had to squeeze back past the 4 wheeler and back onto the bitumen to go another route. It was along the open gravel road with the rain coming down that i thought this is going to be a cold a nasty day. We then went up a twisty and slimy track that re-enforced it was going to be a slippery event. I felt like i was sliding all over the place struggling to gain traction. Next came the long, down hill, off camber, slippery hill that always has me thinking i'm about to eat dirt. With all riders navigating the rolling hills without a spill we worked our way through to the first river crossing. It looked wider than usual, deeper than usual and was flowing faster than usual. Al was going to have a crack at crossing but after entering the water about 2 meters, it was obvious we would be taking an alternative route again. It was at this point that Phil decided that he was not going to push his luck today and made the trek back to the cars.
With 4 of us pushing on we made it into some great tracks and had patches of clear weather. After a nasty little hill climb that required some assistance to get Andre's shiny new orange machine to the top, we thought it would be a good time to have some lunch, however the powers above decided it would also be a good time for a down poor. We pushed on for another 10 minutes and found a sunny patch of weather that lasted just long enough for lunch. It was after luch that i had my only fall of the day, the only embarassing part was that it was while i was trying to get back on the bike!!
The single tracks that we got into in the afternoon were awsome and all had a great day. For those of you that know Al's ride you might remember the dodgy old bridge that we need to cross, and i'm sue Andre will remeber as i reckon he thought his new machine was going to go off the edge as he lost his footing while crossing the bridge.
Although we started the day with a few detours, Al knows the area well enough to change the loop on the go without having to backtrack and he put together a great days ride, clocking up around 95 km's for the day.


Ride List
Al Mason           WR250F (Ride Leader)
PhilL Randall      CRM250 (Morning Tailman)
Lynton McPhail   DR200
Andre De Vanny EXC200
Andrew Petrie    WR250F (Arvo Tailman and Ride Report)

Thanks Al for another great ride!

Andrew Petrie