It was a foggy start to the day, but before the rider’s briefing had finished there was already a hint of blue sky starting to peek through the mist. Once we started to get some elevation, it was straight into clear skies and sunshine.
With so many people going away on the Queen’s birthday long weekend, I was expecting a very small turnout for this ride. Surprisingly, there ended up being 19 riders in the group – not a bad effort for the middle of winter!
We had a bit of an awkward start – we lost one of our new riders early on, and a bit of back-tracking was required to locate him (thankfully back at the cars), and so we all regrouped and took off again.
No-one appeared to be struggling, even though the tracks were greasy and had been chopped up a bit by some 4WDs recently. Based on the competence being shown, I figured there were no true L1’s in the group, so it would be safe to aim for tracks more suited to Level 2.
So, a couple of the usual ‘optional’ challenge routes suddenly became ‘mandatory’ ones, and a few of the slightly harder tracks were added to the mix. The aim was to get across the highway to play on the slippery hill climbs on the Narbethong side before lunch, but unfortunately some mechanical issues caused a bit of a delay - those hills will have to wait until next time.
Instead, it was a quick blast to the creek-crossing spot at Marysville for lunch, followed by some mixed trails over near Dom Dom saddle.
The Dom Dom tracks were much less slippery than I expected, however I heard that a few people still managed to get an ‘up-close and personal’ view of the clay. Lefty was our tailman for the whole day, and said that there was plenty of entertainment to watch ahead of him.
A few riders chose to head back to the cars at 2pm, either due to mechanical issues or deadlines to keep, but 14 of us continued on for some more action.
I have to say ‘well done’ to the guy on his WR250R (Tom?) with claw-patterned tyres fitted. The ride was a little harder than I’d originally planned, but he showed some good skills in making those tyres work for him in the more technical sections.
On the way back to the cars, a few of us had a quick blast up Strickland Spur as an ‘optional’ challenge hill. All I'll say is that those big 'square-edged' rocks don’t get any easier to conquer when they’re wet!
Thanks to everyone who came along for the day – I certainly enjoyed it. Thanks also to Lefty for doing the tailman duties, and to Mark for clocking up lots of extra k’s whilst doing searches and leading the early departees back to the cars.
To those that went home via the Black Spur Rd – how long did it take with the stand-still traffic? I gave up and went home via the Acheron Way instead…
