There were 18 of us who set off from Big River, destination Woods Point.
First track off Big River road I saw 3 bikes in front of me go down like skittles. Very slippery red mud sections in places.
We did some good flowing tracks and a then stopped to regroup after about 10km. Having been through this area before I knew there was a bit of a challenge hill in front of us, especially considering how wet it was.
I think Chris must have re-considered and decided to give this hill a miss as we back tracked a bit and then set off up a main track where I had a rear puncture. As I had only just had a new tyre put on with an ultra thick tube you can imagine how pissed I was when I found that the tube in my tyre was not the one I had given into the shop. My tube had been replaced with a flimsy cheap tube.
I have since spoken to owners of this shop, who incidentally were away on holiday at the time. They are very apologetic and will be replacing my tube for me.Some mixup with a new staff member etc. Anyway that held things up for half an hour or so.
Headed off again, followed the corner men down a small winding track, bit over grown with plenty of slippery logs to jump over which eventually led to the hill where all the carnage took place. Seems Chris had been through here before some time previously but it had since got really overgrown, trees fallen down and so on.
Anyway he had committed with about 3 other guys and got to a point of no return. Chris had then climbed back up the hill to try and stop the rest of us following them down. While deciding whether to retrieve the 3 or 4 bikes that were already down there, another 3 or 4 guys had a go at finding a way through and basically ended up the the same position.
It was obvious no one was riding out of here. Fortunately a couple of guys had tow ropes and we all banded together and started pulling bikes back up this steep, slippery, log festooned hill with plenty of leeches. I found hopefully the last leech when I was having a shower at home.
Probably took about 3 or 4 hours to get out of there and I personally was pretty stuffed and my desire to do much more riding had dissipated.
So from there we headed off to meet Frank in the backup truck who was supposed to meet us for morning tea. As it was now I think about 2.30pm he had left a note for us that he had gone back to the starting point. This is where we headed for next getting back to the cars at around 3pm.
Chris put a lot of effort into the day, having arranged a backup truck to carry fuel to Woods point where a bbq lunch would be waiting for us and it was just unfortunate he picked the wrong track on the day.
At the end of the day everyone pitched in and helped out, no one was hurt and no bikes broken. It was a bit different but still fun.
i'd like to thank Chris for arranging an interesting day. Frank for driving the backup truck and Matt for tail man duties.
I will definitely go on the next Big River to Woods Point ride because if everything had gone to plan if would have been a brilliant day.
