What a great day for a ride,, rain over night left the mornings tracks in excellent condition,, an off by Greg left him chest sore ,, so he decided to pull the pin after lunch and head home---- hope the injury was'nt as you thought Greg and the ribs are ok, .... A more detailed report to follow , but everyone left on Saturday afternoon somewhat fatigued but with big smiles on their dials,,,, 160-170 km for the day and only the lack of fuel and day light stopped us. More to come......................
part two...........
Ok ,back to the start- With myself and eight other riders all revved up and keen to go and a brief ride briefing done with, it was time to get this show on the road
,,, my biggest piece of advice was to not sway to the temptation of going hell for leather in the first hour or so,, as this place just begs you to get on the throttle ( note to self---take note of your own advice
),, a reasonably quick blast to the first curve ball -a bloody hill, cripes where did that come from?? well not really a hill, but in this area they are few and far between, then a quick zip to what I affectionately call the "death bowl" ,, I am assuming everyone went through it and not around, nothing technical just a fun thing with a chance to demonstrate ones crusty demon side on the exit
. From here it was into the first bit of narrow stuff with an unexpected deep rut or two thrown in for good measure
, on the exit of this a quick chance for a photo or two from our fabulous support crew, Al even managed a mono for the camera, didn't you Al?
From here it was a short road leg to the first of the sand and the first of the woops, not that there are many of them
, well actually there's more than one or two or three
. This section led into what I have been told was part of the A4DE back in the nineties, to me this part is riding heaven,, tight, twisting, a woop or two, an open section, a tree, oh that's right that's the one I ran into, got a bit keen there,- great, no one was watching
-, I got the feeling that everyone else was enjoying this section too, as there was talk by some of certain parts of a males anatomy being hard, but it was only talk, and no proof was obtained., From here it was a quick blast to what I call the "Sandy wooped Track", this track you can absolutely hammer down, throttle pinned, a blast!!!!, just not long enough
, We passed another group of riders who had pulled over out of the way and as it happened they were also fellow AMTRA members and friends, ( Paul & Annie, Mark,&Steve), a quick zip along "bog hole track" and then a really neat track that I have only recently discovered -awesome- narrow, trees to jump over, fast, did I say awesome?. Lunch time...............Our fabulous support crew were patiently waiting at the Big Tower for us, the billy was hot, the welcome and smiles were in abundance and the sh*t slinging was in full force. It was at this point that Greg said he was a bit sore and would like to sit the afternoon leg out-our support crew led Greg back to the cars but only after another photo shoot of us playing on the exit of another new track I have only recently discovered, affectionately known as "Coops Track", which is a super fun narrow track to ride,,,from here was into the "gully System", we had also picked up Paul Bryce for the afternoon leg as he and the others were camped at the lunch spot, this area has one main gully that runs through it and the track criss crosses it several times,the interesting thing here though is that the area is basically flat and then all of a sudden the track just disappears -sometimes vertically 4-5 metres into the gully and pops out just as quick, I really like riding here and did a sneaky revisit a couple of times, somehow I think they were onto me folks
, the DSE had burnt off part of my ride earlier in the week,but thankfully it hadn't affected the tracks too much, mind you a loaf of bread and a dozen snags would have gone down a treat, as by this time the sun was getting a bit lower in the sky and it was time to think about heading back to the trailers
. Zebs track, Steves track the dragstrip, Bobs corner and back to the trailers right??, um no, Tims outa fuel,, luckily Pauly was also on a 2T so a quick decant from his bike and into Naths containers and lets go, The dragstrip says it all ,just a super quick ride, oh hang on it's dusk and is that a Kangaroo- no- it's 6 of the buggers, ok get off the throttle Johnny and use your head, so a nice sedate ride back to the trailers, but not before a "crikey" moment when I nose dived over an erosion mound, complete with feet off the pegs and a this isn't going to end up well feeling, but it did,,, "did you see that" I said to Nathan, "yep, I did the same thing"
, funny as! and so did Karl on that bloody great DRZ400 he was riding as though it was a 250 crosser
. So just a quick blast back in the fading daylight to be met by Shaz, Coop, and Bob, who I must say made this day so much easier, by carrying the fuel and lunches and by just being there, awesome job. So there you go- Stradbroke and surrounds........ come and see for yourself
.
Thankyou to everyone who came and shared with me this awesome playground.
Thankyou to Lefty for being our tailman all day, -outstanding mate.
Thankyou to Sharon Mason, Cooper Mason (you theman)and my lovely wife Bob
,for just being there for us all
....
