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Title: Go West Young Man ! Post by: Paul Smith on July 26, 2009, 02,30:55 AM The middle of winter in Victoria can be pretty cold miserable and crap. With the bushfire devastation in Victoria closing a lot of the tracks that are easily within reach of Melbourne there were fewer and few opportunities for some decent riding. And with a lot of annual leave there for the taking and a great event coming up in WA run by a bunch of top blokes, I started to think about heading west.
Before I knew it I’d book flights and arranged freight and I was on my way West. My first two days in WA were marked by fairly constant heavy rainfall. On the third day the skies cleared long enough for a ride. There was a lot of water in the paddocks though. This photo (taken 10km from the beach) should give you some idea. (http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/WA%20July%2009/WetPaddocksInWA.jpg) I turned up at Capel where my bike had been shipped by many and various people to a freshly serviced bike thinking just this one thought. Good mates are worth their weight in gold ! The chief sweep Carl wanted me to ride the course check the marked miles (distances) and verify that the course was appropriate. After an hour or so adjusting to the sandy whooped out sections (big enough to bottom out the bike in spots), pea gravel (more like orange ball bearings) and sections of coffee and gravel rock that popped out at various points I managed to get the hang of things. We did the full course via the longest route that day (Main loop plus 5 or the 6 enduro sections) and I managed to run out of fuel 1km from the ride start. While I was beating myself up for not putting in the extra 1L that I could have at the start of the day Dave and Carl went and got me a poweraid bottle of juice to ride the extra km. I was really enjoying the riding here. (http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/WA%20July%2009/ST-Heaven.jpg) We gave the bikes a wash down had a snag or three and washed the bikes ready for the next day….. This time we started putting up arrows and checking arrows on the main trail sections. The first thing I notices was how much the bikes handling was affected by 1Kg of arrows a staple gun ! Now too bad but very different. We did the full main trail finishing section 2 & 3 with arrows and danger signs. Thursday Dave Jeremy and I came back and arrowed the enduro loops while Carl was at work. I had no riding buddy for my arvo activities when Toby turned up and babies his bike and sore shoulder around the course while I completed yet more arrowing and danger signs. Friday Jeremy and I did some mile markers and track mergers (where the endure sections joined the main trail) marked any nasties with pink paint just in case the danger signs weren’t obvious enough before I headed back to Perth for my Aunties birthday.. Saturday I arrived in time to complete the last of the remaining on trail signage and a final loop before the event with Carl, while Jeremy and the boys setup an excellent highly technical enduro loop through the forest on his property for the kids to ride while the seniors were riding the full course. Sunday. Leaving home at 5.30 we were there just after 6.15. There were a lot of people there and more turning up every minute. Fortunately Jeremy had done a Stirling job setting up the entry to his property and had he eldest directing the punters into the car park (a 5 acre flat paddock in front of his house !). The car park filled with the all the usual and some of the not so usual vehicles that you see at such events. Motorhomes, caravans, winnebagos and trucks galore. And utes. There are a lot of utes in WA. At the commencement of the event the first six riders thought that the four arrows on a log and tree pointing to the right meant…well I don’t know what they thought but they didn’t turn right instead choosing to mono over the log and continue on, fortunately ending up doing a loop and coming right back to the property. I managed to get some unplanned exercise running for the staple gun and bunting to clarify the first section of the course…… After all the blokes had left Carl and I rocketed off doing the main loop which we knew off by hart and passing a lot of blokes until we got to the rocky road where we found a busted bike that needed nursing back to base. We tried the sat phones but they didn’t work too well (AT ALL on a sat phone to sat phone basis). Then we got word that a bloke needed help out of the bush with a busted leg so we grabbed one of the ambo fellas and headed out with him and his kit. One of the other 4wd’s managed to get there before we did allowing us to drop the ambo off in that 4wd for the trip back to base. When we got back we sent Toby’s dad Bob out to point 3 to get pickup a bloke with a buggered bike. More on this later….The bloke with a busted leg from Rockingham way was the ideal patient calm cool and collected. We organised to get his bike and gear back and took his details while the ambos loaded him (and another bloke with an ankle) up into the extra ambo they had called. It turns out they need one ambo on site all times for the closed course enduro loop to run. A couple of hours later we had lunch and set up a new plan from comms and then waited for the 1pm cutoff before Carl and I went out to sweep the full course with all enduro loops while a few others swept the main trail. Two of which came across that bloke that Bob was looking for in his 4wd. By now this course was becoming like and old friend. A snappy old friend though as I got snapped at once or twice as did Carl when we upped the pace. I managed to push over the lip of a berm and only managed to stay on via the excellent handling of the bike. Carl snagged a root in the pines and put a massive flat spot in his rear rim. It is amazing how well the trails stood up to the number of bikes at the event. In fact I suspect that they fared better than most of the riders !!! Toward the end of the day I rode the last two enduro loops with Mick and a few other blokes from IARC as Carl was buggered from working 12 hour days at work the 12hour days at the event. I was a bit tired of waiting for him at every intersection anyway ;-) When we all got back we were packing out gear and loading out bikes before the presentations when we notice Bob turning up with the busted kwaka on the back of his ute. He’d missed a sign and managed to find the bloke with a busted radiator after about 4 hours of searching. They put all of the goodies on the table and let each winner pick their item as they came up and thanked each sponsor for the items donated. It worked really well as people got to choose what they wanted, and blokes who already had a bashplate were able to choose something else instead. Three big guys snapped up the XXXL AMTRA High Country Ride T Shirts on offer. Here are some photos of the event. 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(Part 2) Post by: Paul Smith on July 26, 2009, 02,31:40 AM With the event over the work was all done – NOT ! One of the conditions of the event (specified by DEC – WA equivalent of DSE) was that we removed all of the signage from the course. Carl and I returned with a young bloke called Steve on the Monday and removed all of the arrows from Section 1, including all of the enduro loops. The number of arrows on the course meant that it took most of the day to fill our bags in then had to come back to the property to unload them. Knowing we had a good ride coming on the Wednesday (at North Bannister) we decided that it would be best to call it a day. I was thinking about coming back for more arrow pulling on Tuesday when commonsense got the better part of me and I had a days rest. Wednesdays ride at North Bannister was great. Dave picked up Carl and I from Carls place in his truck and we headed off on the 200km journey. We basically headed toward Perth then headed for the hills as we got to the metropolitan fringe then headed south east until we got to the area and met up with Dave’s mate Odin. The place is a hoot to ride with narrow trails everywhere. For some reason the 4wd’s rarely ever touch this place, the result is some excellent flowing tracks somewhere between what you’d find at Stradbroke and Mirboo. We did a morning and arvo loop and had a great time, although Odin skipped the after lunch bits. The riding was really good and with many of the tracks being narrow tracks we knew we were not going to run into 4wd’s so we upped the pace a bit more. Dave and Carl knew this place well and with so much of it being narrow it really suited their 250 4T’s. Here is a couple of pics and a movie of some of the interesting bits. (http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/WA%20July%2009/dave.jpg)(http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/WA%20July%2009/Carl.jpg) (http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/WA%20July%2009/Paul.jpg)(http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/WA%20July%2009/Truck.jpg) YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ZL_ivfT50 YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA-wINDl5yI The next day Carl and I pulled arrows from the 3rd section of the Capel loop. Leaving section 2 for James to finish off. I’d love to day I spent the next few days relaxing or riding but I spent then fixing a problem with the back yard at my home in Bunbury. It turns out Bunnings do as well out of me on the West Coast as they do on the East Coast. (http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/WA%20July%2009/IMGP0347.jpg) (http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/WA%20July%2009/IMGP0374.jpg) (http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/WA%20July%2009/IMGP0349.jpg) (http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/WA%20July%2009/IMGP0371.jpg) We managed to book one more ride in with Rick from MAWA near Mornington. I’ve ridden this area once before with Carl some years back and it never fails to impress. When we turned up we thought we heard Rick coming and were quite surprised to see Steve (who had ridden with us at Capel the previous week) there with a mate. A couple of other blokes turned up, then Hamish followed shortly after by a grumpy Rick who had managed to make a donation to the policemans ball on the trip down. We asked if policemen actually have balls, nobody could reply with a straight answer. Anyway, we decided that we’d ride as a group of 8 and after a few minutes we managed to almost split the group up and get lost. So we got our act together and found a volunteer tailman and ran the cornerman system and it worked pretty well considering the rest of the guys have hardly if ever used it. We rode some great narrow and 4wd tracks and Carl clearly knew this area really well as he managed to find a lot of very overgrown tracks which have not been ridden on for a long time – excellent! The rain that started coming in was not too cold although the locals didn’t seem to think much of it. Those WA boys are a bit gun shy of the cold. I shudder to think what they would thik of the high country snow. In the afternoon we were fortunate enough to find a freshly marked loop that was a real hoot. For once we managed to find some good hills which I really enjoyed, what I enjoyed most was watching Carl go flying past me then splat into the mud in an erosion mound on a huge downhill. There is always a measure of I told you so in situations like that. We found a few dead ends and a pile of new tracks but we had an absolute hoot for the day. Rick even took my bike back to Perth for me (and washed it) so I could get it to the freight depot. Here is what happened to young Steve when he zigged (he should have zagged!), then his mate having a few issues on his XR250 on a hill. What you can’t see is Hamish ,Carl, Rick, and I (read the old bastards) yelling out words of encouragement from the top of the hill. (http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/Mornington/IMGP0376.jpg) (http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/abbeyard/Mornington/IMGP0377.jpg) I finished off making the repairs to the house and washed and packed all my gear ready for shipping back to Vic and headed off to Perth knowing that without doubt I’d had the best holiday I’ve had in many years. For me there were two things that stood out while riding in WA. Pea Gravel. There are sections of pea gravel in most riding areas in the Southwest of WA some are small others last for 5 km or so. This stuff is basically orange ball bearings. As you come up to a corner you turn the bars and nothing happens you can quickly lose confidence. The only way to ride this stuff is to stand up, get on the power and drift the back end of the bike. Something a bit similar to how we ride our greasy clay. Whoops. I’ve ridden some whooped out stuff in VIC that was a reasonable heads up for what to expect in WA. What was surprising was the depth of the whoops in places in WA. If you stopped with your wheels in the ruts you could bottom the bike just sitting on it and sometimes it didn’t even take a backside on the seat to do that. The fluffy sand really gets chewed out in some places so you have to be prepared to gun it and try and skip across the top not even backing off for changes of direction. Having not had a background in MX this was new to me but have to get the hang of it quickly as you either do it of get sea sick and eventually lose the front and high side if you just keep rolling over them. Special thanks go to Jeremy, Carl, Dave and the rest The Ironstone Adventure Riding Club (www.iarc.com.au), Yamaha Australia, James at Busselton Yamaha, MAWA and all sponsors for their support of the Capel 200 and to all of the people who I had the opportunity to ride with while catching up with old and new friends.. Title: Re: Go West Young Man ! Post by: OZinUS on August 12, 2009, 03,10:57 AM Now that's a ride report. :)
How did they time the sections of the enduro? Do they have score cards? |