The weather looked perfect for a day on the trails, maybe a bit dry with the potential to be pretty dusty..  I arrived about 9:30, and most of the group were already there.  Being only my second ride with AMTRA, there was only one familiar face, which was Phil who was also on the last Marysville ride, and it was a great opportunity to meet some more members.

Given it is a long weekend and a great day for riding, there was nobody else in the bike unloading carpark apart from our group, which was a bit strange.   There was a strong contingent of Yamahas in the group (about 7 from memory)

Scott got everybody together to  provide the pre-ride briefing, and ensured that this time he would do a final count to make sure nobody was left behind in the carpark (apparantly that is what happened last time), and Ron was given the honour of tail man.

We set off on a cruisy pace, and everybody was kept pretty busy marking corners as there were a lot of offshoots from the main tracks.  It was a nice start with the wide open and flowing main tracks of Neerim South.

Not more than 4kms in to the ride, we had our first (and only) rider down.  I was marking a corner and suspected something was not right after waiting about 5 minutes.  Unfortunately Geoff had come unstuck on a rut, which sent him off line for about 20 metres or so, and ended up running alongside and into the embankment.  He copped a bit of a knock the the left shoulder, and he was given plenty of assistance to make sure he hadnt done any serious damage.  Once he confirmed that he was OK to head back, we turned back to the carpart to help him load the bike up and head home to get the shoulder checked out.

Waiting for us at the entrance to the car park was a friendly policeman, very keen to get us to pull over and check our licences and rego.  We all pulled over in the car park entrance to diligently retrieve our licences, when his more senior partner suggested it was not a good idea to have us all blocking the entrance.  They sent us back to our cars and then came to do the checks.

Probably a bit behind schedule at this stage, Scott did a great job in getting all of us (minus one) back on the tracks.  It was a great cruisy ride with a good mix of skill levels.  We got back to the car park again with a touch over 50kms, mostly wide open trails that could be ridden at a good pace, and a couple of nice hills.

The vote was in, and the majority decided to call it a day.   Thanks everyone for a great ride, and Scott and Ron for Leading/Tailing the ride.

Simon