Myself and my friend Damian (his 4th time riding) arrived at the Meeting point a little early, at about ten to eight. To my surprise there were already a few riders getting ready (talking crap).
I had a bit of a chat to a few of the guys as more and more riders arrived, just because it was cold, wet and pretty much everyone had to leave home in the dark didn’t seem to be affecting numbers.
There were a lot of new faces, Yamaha was the brand of the day you could count the other brands on one hand. And the flavour of the day was the TTR250, I think there were 6 or 7 in total. We set off on the ride as usually everyone was really eager to hit the trails. The tracks were pretty slippery, there wasn’t really that much water on the track I don’t seem to remember there been to many more puddles than a few months earlier.
We had the first re-group fairly quickly, which was probably a good idea given that there were a few very new riders and it would mean there was no hope for them to escape! The tracks that followed were reasonably easy a few little hills here and there and some glassy corners kept everyone on there toes. The ride was flowing quite well until we came to the first slippery little hill. It wasn’t particularly steep but it was slippery and a couple of tricky ruts made it a challenge for some. The pack seemed divided to which side was better (left or right) but one thing seemed to be clear you needed to hit it hard and Paul demonstrated with ease on a doaner WR.
We seemed to getting along really well, I think I was 3rd or 4th behind Paul when we hit a couple of seriously slippy hills. Again they weren’t steep but getting traction was a big problem. There was about 4 or 5 of us on the hill on the left, middle, right, far far left all trying to keep going! We all made it up and continued up the next hill, the trick seemed to keep going and go as fast as you dared. I was feeling rather happy with myself for getting up when Paul made the call that we should go back and help the others get up. By the time I got back down the majority of the group had found a little goat track around the first and slippiest of the hills. Everyone made it up under there own steam and after a bit of a regroup we continued on.
At the next re-group Paul gave us a warning that the track up ahead were really really slippy and when going down hill the best approach was not brake at all. I’ve been across the tracks with Paul and Phil a few time in summer and there succession of up and downs really good fun, not too hard. But in the wet the tracks were seriously slippy. I could feel the back of the bike sliding around on the flat sections, as for going down the hills I found myself having to keep a little on the throttle because the engine braking alone was enough to cause the back to go wild.
I have to admit on one of the down hills I grabbed a little too much front brake and lost it. I thought I’d gotten away with it, no-one was behind me or around me so I got up kept going and thought I’d keep that little one to myself. However and the re-group at the end of that section Ted said “you’ve changed colour” you just can’t get away with anything!!
We headed towards lunch via the cars and down a few more extremely slippery tracks but everyone seemed to make it through unscathed. We lost a lot at lunch time which was a shame but considering were Paul took us after lunch may have been a wise move.
So after eating too much (again) and re-fueling the rest of the group headed off again for some more punishment. I think Paul may have the attitude “if they weren’t scared off by the morning, they will be after the afternoon ride!” because we went up some of the slippiest and trickiest hills I have ever been up. The tracks were totally awesome, and I really felt like I achieved something getting to the top, but I felt a bit sorry for the beginners expecting a beginners ride!
Throughout the day the usually AMTRA support and friendliness was out in force. Everyone who went out both morning and afternoon completed the ride, on the tricky hill there were people on the hill to help catch and lend support, and after a few goes. There was the embarrassment of having your bike ridden up by someone else.
A big thanks to Paul for leading the ride I’ll be back for more in about four weeks, and thanks to sweeps I know they were kept busy at times.
Bellow are a few photos I took prior to the ride starting and quick clip made up from just a pinch of the mountain of video I took on Sunday.
