AMTRA High Country Ride 2016
By Rick Los
When my mate Paul rang and asked if I wanted to do the high country ride I jumped at the chance. Then straight after I hung up the phone I thought to myself, holy shit I haven’t ridden for eight years and here I am going on a challenging two day ride in the High Country. What was I thinking?? I spent the next few weeks excited, but also stressing about it, wondering how the heck I was going to go the distance. Paul says no worries mate. It will be an easy 120k’s max on the first day and then 50k’s tops on the second day. You’ll blitz it in. Then 2 days before the ride I get an email from AMTRA and it’s about 150k’s on the first day and 100k’s on the second day. There’s no way i’m doing the second day, I thought. No way.
Before you knew it we were rolling up to AMTRA’s property all ready to go. Met the rest of the boys, who drove up the day before and set up camp. There were 8 of us clowns all up so we decided we were going to hang to the back of the pack and stick together for the whole ride. Joe went lead rider and Rocket went tail rider for our little group. We figured if we took it nice and easy there would be a better chance of finishing the ride in one piece and if we stayed at the back then nobody would be able to run us over.
The 200 odd riders and us 8 clowns lined up at the start gate. The ride started with a few k’s on the mini bike track, which is a tight single track with handlebars scraping on the trees and steep downhills full of tight bends, whoops and ruts. Ya gotta Love it. So what happens…I get stuck behind a slow rider and before you know it he loses the front wheel in a hole and gets stuck. So he drags out the front wheel and goes for the button and he’s got a flat battery. Then he gives it 2 kicks and says he can’t start it cause he’s exhausted. At this stage we are about 2 k’s into a 150k ride and I’m thinking, hows this bloke gunna get through the rest of the day if he’s buggered after 2 k’s. So I look around for the hidden camera in case this is a practical joke, but no this bloke is serious as he pushes his bike off the track to let the line of riders behind me through.
From that point on I didn’t feel so bad being as unfit as I was. After the tight stuff we grouped up and did a transport section of about 10 k’s and then turned into Razor track which had just been freshly dozed so it was full of very deep bull dust and lots of very square shaped sharp rocks. The first good hill we get to and there’s a huge queue waiting at the bottom. Apparently there were bikes sprawled all over the track and the bloke in the middle has had a major cumagutsa and injured himself. It wasn’t long before one of the 4wd back ups rocked up to give him a lift out and we could get going again. So I charged this hill like a bull and right at the steepest rockiest section, the bloke in front of me drops it and blocks the track. So I dart across to the right just missing him, gassed it up and managed to weave my way through the rest of the bikes and just made it to the top. What a relief.
We grouped up at the top and waited a fair while for Rocket, our tailie to turn up. Only to be told that he was sent back as the track got too congested and he’ll meet us at the next check point. So I decided to go tailie till we found Rocket back. Off we went, spacing ourselves out for the dust. Good fast flowing tracks for a few more k’s and then another queue for a steep rocky hill. These were the two hardest hills in the whole ride and the only spots we had to stop and wait for the track to clear. We all made it up without any hassles and spent the rest of the day on some of the best fast flowing trails you could ask for. Really enjoyable riding.
At the 100k mark we hit the lunch stop and sat down for a good feed. The Ham and salad rolls, fruit cake, crisp fresh apples and soft drinks were a very welcome sight. After lunch we only had about 50k’s to go, so we figured we were past the worst of it. Then came the big sharp rocks, 4,000,966,752.5 to be exact. Lots of very long steep hills and then an unbelievably long and incredibly steep downhill all the way down to a deep and rocky river crossing at the bottom with a steep bank on the other side with lots of loose rocks. The sheila at the bottom dewatering her bike didn’t help our confidence either. So Paul cracks the throttle on his 16 years old KDX200 and gives the river a go, only to stall it on a rock right in the middle of the river. Then I have a go at it, a bit of a squirt on the right hand to get over the rocks and i make it all the way across and then dropped it in the loose rocks on the other side. We cracked up laughing and then picked up bikes and kept going.
We get to the end of the ride with Paul and Coighty in front and come to a couple of signs. Right is the hard way back through the tight stuff and left is straight back home. So Coighty and Paul go straight ahead. I’m thinking, that wasn’t an option. So I took the easy way home and they soon figured it out and eventually found their way home. Definitely time for a cold beer. We met up with Rocket who had done the whole ride on his own and laughed ourselves silly as we exchanged stories of the days ride. What an awesome ride it was.
After a nice hot shower and a good feed we hung around for the raffle. There were two Pauls in our group and one of them bought a few raffle tickets but was too tired to hang around for the raffle so he gave them to the other Paul and went to bed. So we’re sitting there listening to the first number being called and Paul checks his tickets. Nope that’s not me. Serge calls out the number again and nobody claims it. So he starts describing the ticket several times over and still no takers. Then paul looks at the ground beside his chair and there is the winning tickets. He jumps up and claims his prize and he won a $500 suspension tuning package. How lucky can you get. There were so many great prizes given away that night. We finished the night back at camp sitting around the fire telling jokes, crissed as pickets.
Come day 2 and we were all a bit hung over, muscles aching and I was thinking. How can I get out of this next days ride. So I mention to the boys about an idea I had that we could just do the mini bike track and then head back to camp for a few cold beers. Great idea they said and laughed their heads off. That Rick is a real joker. Little did they know that I was actually serious this time. So we prepped up the bikes and joined the queue of around 100 odd riders and our 7 jokers as well. Yes 7 not 8 because Rocket had to go home as he was going to Tassie with the missus the next day. We hit the tight stuff again and then did pretty much the same tracks as the first day but in reverse order with some sections taken out. Started with the rocky river crossing and then straight up a steep hill. Several very long and steep hills with plenty of very square sharp rocks and then onto some awesome fast and flowing trails.
There were a couple of extra river crossings thrown in with a bloke taking pictures on the deepest crossing. The last one had a big log and tape across is it, so you had to ride in the river and do a tight zig zag then straight up the bank to get across. So nice of the AMTRA boys to go out of their way to make the ride a bit more exciting for us. The tracks started to get a lot dustier after this with deep bull dust and lots of rocks on a lot of the hills. I had the go pro mounted on the bars with Paul in front of me and we were heading up this dusty track when a couple of sweep riders went flying past and stirred up heaps of dust in front of us just before a very steep hill.
So we charge this hill together and we couldn’t see a thing, but we were committed by this stage and had to keep going. Paul’s arms and legs are going everywhere as he nearly loses it and then he lets this huge rooster tail go in front of me as he looses traction, so I dart of to the right to go around him and so does he. Cutting me off big time, I yell out GO RIGHT as I nearly take out Wiggy who is sitting on the right side of the track. Well he moved over and we both just made it to the top and kept going. Whew…that was close. I reckon Wiggy must have had a heart attack on the spot. Then the last section of the ride was the very dusty, rocky and mega steep razor track. But this time we did it in reverse, so the steepest parts were down hill instead of up hill. When I finally got to the bottom of the biggest hill. I thought to myself, how the hell did we get up that the day before. It was so steep.
It was an awesome ride and we all got through without any carnage so we were pretty happy about it. I was so glad I did that second day as it was such a blast. Thanks heaps to the AMTRA boys for an awesome and very well organised ride. Oh and thanks to the sponsors for all their support. Now who were they?? Let see, there was Suzuki, Dirt action magazine, Force accessories, Tralrider magazine, Barkbusters, B&B aluminium, Safari tanks, Chad’s off road setups and Clake. Hope I haven’t forgotten anyone.
Oh and my mates Joe, Coighty, Paul, Paul, Anthony, Rocket and Golly. If you’re looking for more after reading this then theres a short video on you tube that I put together as well. Just search for AMTRA High Country Ride 2016.
See you on the track
Rick Los.
