AMTRA.com.au

Murrindindi Ride
18th March 2007

By Dennis Dorman

You should not go out riding on your own. This ride report addresses some of the key reasons why it is always best to go riding in a group, and of course I mean with an AMTRA group. But first to some of the basics of this ride around the Murrindindi, Toolangi and Paul’s Range areas on the 18th March. This was to be one of Mark Clark’s regular rides he puts on in this area, starting at Marginal Road, in the car park close to the Melba Highway. It promised to be a great day for a ride – they had 35 mm of rain in the area a few days previously and the weather forecast for Sunday was fine and 25 degrees.

Sixteen of us headed off soon after the scheduled start time of 9:00am under the leadership of Mark with Leon as the trusty tailman for the day. Unfortunately we only got to the first intersection, about 300 metres up Marginal Road and it was all over for Mark. His fancy fuel injected Gas Gas did not want to perform, so it was back to the cars and home for Mark – what a bugger after all the effort to get there and he had already gone out earlier that morning for a quick blast and all was working well. Craig, who knows this area very well, quickly stepped in and agreed to take over as ride leader. So off we went again, now down to 15 riders.

(http://amtra.com.au/v1.2/forum/album_pic_187.jpg)

In the afternoon we came across a bit of a bog hole. There was a way around it, which some of us whimps took, although the detour was not that easy either. But a few tried to get through the bog, but some got a bit stuck, as can be seen above where Scott has an immovable object now jammed in deep sticky mud in a rut. Thank goodness for a few strong young guys to help to lift it out and over to the next rut. It would have been one hell of a hard job alone.

(http://amtra.com.au/v1.2/forum/album_pic_188.jpg)

So this is one of the reasons you should never ride alone. It is good to have some helpful friends not too far away to help you get out of trouble, as demonstrated in the above example. It all turned out well with smiles all round this time.

Here we go Scott, not too muddy and ready to ride on, thanks to the willing help of some willing AMTRA members.

(http://amtra.com.au/v1.2/forum/album_pic_189.jpg)

There are many other examples of why it is always best to ride with a group. An injured rider is perhaps the most important. With a group of you there can be someone to stay with the rider, send someone else for help, etc. Having trained first aiders on a ride is a great safety measure. Then there can be the task of getting the injured rider to a point of access for a car, or ambulance. A further complexity can be getting the bike back to the cars and potentially getting the rider’s car, bike and gear back home for them.

Similar aspects also can apply to breakdowns. It is a bit hard to tow yourself out with a dead bike. Also in a group there is often enough shared experience and expertise to get bikes fixed up and going again and spare hands to help out with essential repairs. There is also more likelihood of having all the necessary bits and pieces needed for a repair from a group.

I have had personal experiences with the injured rider scenario with my own broken arm several years ago and more recently with my son Scott crashing and sustaining concussion. In both of these cases there was lots of help available and provided. Another personal experience was with a mechanical problem with a welsh plug on Scott’s WR450 falling out and oil being pumped out and onto the hot exhaust. A quick discussion among the riders present worked out a solution and it was fixed in no time with some liquid metal putty stuff provided by another rider. (By the way I now always carry some of this stuff). I have also come across countless riders broken down that needed help.

These are just some of the examples that provide sure proof to me that riding in a group is the most sensible thing to do and that selecting AMTRA to ride with is also a good thing.

Back to the Murrindindi ride – it was a great ride in good conditions and with many interesting tracks. It became much more than a level 2 ride, but all handled it well and had a great day. Thanks Craig for a fantastic ride and to Leon as the patient tailman for the day. Mark has got his bike problem sorted, so look out for when he puts on another ride in this area, because there are lots of good tracks to ride. A few of the names I recall from the ride were:

Mark Clark - Gas Gas 450 – lasted 5 minutes   
Dennis Dorman – WR450
Craig Dawson – DRZ400 (Ride Leader)   
Scott Dorman WR450
Cameron Dawson – KTM300   
Ken Robinson – Berg450
Phil Randall – CRM250   
Leo Giannini – Berg450
Ruth Butters – TTR250   
Brad McDiarmid – TTR250
Leon VanKollenberg – WR450 (Tailman)