18 people , a beautiful day , grippy tracks and very little bust “ you wouldn’t be dead for quids “
I turned into Tynong North Road muttering because I had a slick run through town and would end up at the meeting spot 45 min early, at that stage all I could think about was the 45 min extra sleep I missed out on. Turns out I wasn’t the only one because two of the other boys were there before me so straight out of the car and into meet and greet mode followed by a great chat and the 45 min quickly evaporated and before I knew it North Tyonong Road was jammed with cars trailers and BIRT BIKES of every shape and size, actually most of them were Yamahas as usual but 3 of the 18 bikes were Huskys so the percentages are improving and 2 of the three Huskys we 2 bangers ONYA MARK CLARK for seeing the light that new WR 300 of your rips .
We assumed the formation and headed to the unloading area, it’s a long haul in there and this time we did it without losing anyone . Everyone suited up as the sun started to bite as the mercury started climbing , rider briefing over and away we went . Along Black Snake and up the Ash Landing climb to the top of the mountain, nice open run to get everyone warmed up. Everyone reached the top without incident at their own pace, some fired up the hill power slides and all and some crawled up but everyone got their eventually without incident . After a short breather Al Barrett lead the group back down while I took the tail and rode down with Jade who was feeling a little uneasy , happy to report she got to the bottom at her own pace without incident .
We were now ready to ride some proper trails so I swapped back with Al and we rode around to Nash Creek Loop , a nice 4 Klm loop with a little of everything that starts and ends on the same fire road . After a short regroup I made the eager mob aware of what to watch out for on the way around and let them loose and away they went except for me as I had decided to stay back and ride around with one of the very new newbies who wasn’t quite sure about what to expect . After some encouragement we hit the track and it didn’t take long to get to the first short uphill where we discovered a bottle neck . Mark Dwyer was parked at the bottom and pointed out to me that half way up the hill there was bikes and bodies everywhere so I went to have a look , Ben had gone down half way up in the ruts and as some of the other guys had tried to go around ended up a little cross rutted and stranded. It took ½ an hour or so to clear the bikes and get everyone going again and I gotta laugh when I think about Clarkie on his new WR 300 who must have done the loop about 6 times while we tried to clear the bikes. ( Thanks for the help Clarkie )
Considering how much trouble the short up hill section was causing I decide to regroup the riders and send them around in the other direction which seemed much better for everyone so away they went around and around , stopping every couple of laps chatting with the experienced riders about what they were having difficulty with and then they would head off again and try it out ….. I am summing that everyone enjoyed our little endure track because every time I wanted to head to another area I got “ can I go around just one more time “ . Wish I had a dollar for every lap of Nash Creek Loop we did as a group I would be rich , anyway at 12.30 we headed back to the cars for lunch and the mercury had hit 29. During lunch a large portion of the group decide that the muscles had enough and headed home shrinking the group from 18 into 8.
The remaining group being predominately level 2 or better we jumped on a bike and decided to head to the Northern end of the park we headed up Western Track , down Gentle Annie then around Tee Tree , this loop is about 25 klms in total and is like trail bike bliss , Western track is a nice steep uphill that goes on for about 10 klms and winds its way from the bottom right to the top , an erosion mound about every 100 metres or so and the best grippy surface you could ask for the boys really got on the Gas , Gentle Annie is a steep down bit boring cause its just been graded and Tee tree is also a down covered in ruts and mud put them together and they make a great loop. And that’s all folks we had had enough , we hit the powerline track and headed back to the cars .
107 klms on a 32 deg day was a good effort by everyone, every single level 1 person improved over the course of the mornings ride well done guys and everyone else that came along and helped me thank you , Grandpa , Ken , Mark , Darren , Al and everyone else sorry cant remember all the names thanks for going the extra yard, and AL for tailing most of the day cant have been easy going that slow for so long but hey you got some throttle time in the arvo so hope that make up for it.
Rider List
Peter Laytone WR400 Memmber
Ben Persson KTM 250F Member
David Arentz TTR 250 Non Memeber
Mick Mason TTR 250 Member
Darren Lynch XR350 Member
Alistair Barrett WR250F Member ( Tail )
Lee Mainnie WR426 Non Member
Jade Donaldson TTR230 Non Member
Dave Donaldson CRF 250X Non Member
Luke Cameron WR250F Member
Ken Robinson KTM 450 F Member
Mark Dwyer RMX 450 F Member
Oscar Barrett TE250 F (Husky ) Member
Steve Morris CRF250X Member
Mark Clark WR300 (Husky ) Member
Andrew Martin WR450 Member
Rusell Peterson KTM 450 Member
Zeb WR250 (Husky )Ride Lead and Written Report
