As this was the first time I had put my hand up to lead a ride, I thought I should arrive early, I was first at the unloading area and everyone one arrived shortly after, Frankie had the sign-in sheet, high-viz vests, first aid kit and Max.

For the past few days I had been trying to picture as many of the trail entrances as I could, the main issue I found was that most of them included an AMTRA member sitting on their bike pointing the way. The other issue was that the unloading area is reasonably new and I couldn’t picture the first turn after we ride out of the front gate.

As we were having our morning discussions It quickly became evident that we all use the same terms to describe directions, after the second tree past the hill on the left by the clearing, nobody knows what you’re talking about.

Thankfully Frankie gave directions to a trail and we headed off at 8.30, all was going well until the trail ended on a road and I thought now where do I go. I turned left and we road down the road for a while, I saw a trail to the right, I led the way in only to find the trail ended after 200m. So, it was back to the main road and continue, that’s when we saw Frankie waiting at a corner pointing to a small tyre track leading up a bank into the next trail. Who knows where we would have ended up as I would never have seen the trail.

It was again going great, heaps of connecting winding trails one after another, we also came across the sandy, hilly area Frankie sometimes takes us to (you know the area). This is about the time that I found that if you look back all the time to see who’s behind you, you tend to run off the track quite easily. We were also lucky to stumble across Frankie’s latest track, it still only had the signs of one other trail rider.

At 9.30 I came to a clearing that I recognised, it was the previous unloading area which is only 5 minutes from our cars! The area has four exits, we rode in the one exit that I had never ridden in or out of before.
As the ride was already unorthodox and I had a feeling that we should head to what I thought was the West, we headed out of the track that Frankie usually leads us back in on at the end of the ride.

We followed some more trails which I recall led to finding Government Road, we rode through some pine trees and recognised we were riding part of
Frankie’s ride in the opposite direction. We crossed over and found our way through trails which lead to the play hills, were now riding Frankie’s ride in the correct direction. The play hills looked wet although we found they had an extreme amount of grip.

We left the play hills via the usual post lunch trail, it was around 10.30 at the time. We found we were taking a mixture of open and single trails along the way.

I think the farthest point we reached on the day was the area with a black sandy hill that has a choice of three tracks to ride up, the recent rain had washed a large amount of sand down one track and the most difficult of the three tracks had a lot of the roots now exposed. We spoke with another
group of riders and as it was 11.30 had a bite to eat.

As we had ridden for three hours we decided to make our wayback. Finding our way back while trying to include single trails turned out to be more difficult than heading out to find the desired destinations. On two separate occasions, I led the group in circles. I learnt that when using maps on the phone you need to tap the correct icon to orient the map, with a combined group effect we made our way back to the cars.

We all made it back without injuries or bike issues. We said good bye to Phil as he was heading further east. Steve, Scott and I went around to Frankie’s to say g’day.

Thank you, Steve, for riding sweep, and thank you to all for riding on the day to make the ride possible, I enjoyed the adventure and I think it was a great team effort. 

A big thank you to you Frankie for offering to have your ride led by other members and for your help on the day.
 
Thanks,
Paul.

Well done Paul.

Pro active, the club needs more Pauls. 

Thanks for ya great ride report  Paul, when you fellas got back to my place for a coffee & to let me know how you went leading ya first ride, you all had a great input to put me in the picture, lots of talk about where you went , I should pay more attention on track names, I know a few but not all of them, I figured knowing where I am is enough, the problem I have is, I've got 70 years of good & bad memories in my memory bank, I find it hard nowadays to fit more in  having said that I should try harder to remember more track names, it can make it easier to explane  where to go.  

I should clear this up, when I said that I don't want people to come on my rides with their GPS & copy my loop for others out side our club, Colin P  has one that I know off, he told me that I said I didn't want anyone to use one, anyone in the club that keep my loop in the club are welcome to do so, if Paul had one it would have made it a lot easier & less stressful for him.

I have spent 2/3 hours a day  7 days a week for the past 3 years to put this loop together with my mate Max, it is now 4 different loops built into one, I have done it for me, but also for my club, I should change the name to AMTRA Ride at Churchill , because of all the name calling I got from other riders out side of our club is the reason I feel the way I do, I know my loop has been copied before, I used to think that everybody that rides a bike are good people, but since the internet came into our lives, I found that is not that case now.

Back to the ride day, I told the fellas that there's a nice little track straight across the road that will take them to Government Road, turn left until you get to a bridge, it's only hand rails on both sides no water is the creek, from the bridge you will see a narrow track that goes up a steep embankment, nothing hard, a nice little twist on the throttle will get ya's up there, I used to use that part of the loop in my earlier rides, anyway,  it's just around the corner from the cars, I thought it might be a good idea to drive around there & wait for them to get there & then point the way, it's good I did because Paul said he would have missed that track.

Riding in a group is one trap we all fall into, all we do is enjoy the ride & just follow who ever is in front & not take any notice of any land marks, looking for land marks is the only way to get to know ya way around, I was like most other people zapping around the tracks & not worrying about learning the loop because I'm not ever going to lead a ride, so no need to learn it, this ride is a perfect example, it's good to learn a loop because you never know when you are called on to take over a ride.

Thanks Paul for stepping up to the plate & gave it a go, as you found out there was no pressure put on you, because every one else on the ride was in the same boat & it turned out to be a great ride for all of ya's with a lot of stories & laugh's afterwards  over a coffee   50+ km for the day, good effort for not knowing where you's were going.

Thanks to Phil M, Steve M, Scott H, for supporting Paul's lead.

PS Oh yeah, a big thanks fellas for fixing my Windmill & bringing some fire wood to my back door.

My leg pain was quite bad yesterday, happy to say I slept good last night & felt a lot better this morning, I can't see any reason why I won't be ready for next month's ride.

I've still got no clue as to where we went !!!!

Thank goodness for Paul, Scott & Phil or I'd still be out there !!!!  going round & round in circles in a dark, mysterious pine forest.

Great work Paul for having a crack. It turned out to be a great day out on tracks that were as good as you will ever get......no dust, nice loamy soil & great traction, even the intimidating  "play hill" which looked incredibly  slippery  had super traction.

Thanks Frankie for the post ride afternoon tea.