Trial by clay

This Sunday it was time to tackle another trail ride on the RMX.  It had been a while since the last one and I basically wanted to the first one that came up so when I discovered one down near Johnsonville (Wellington) I was pretty much always going to be there.  Unfortunately they got a bit of rain in the lead up to the ride...

I left home around 7am and tootled down in the ute, following GoogleMaps until I got out on the road to Makara where I spotted other vehicles with dirt bikes heading up the Ohariu Valley.  I figured that they might just be heading my way and tucked in behind the convoy...

Unfortunately, someone upfront took a wrong turn (and we never spotted any signs) and our little convoy of maybe 10 vehicles got led up a road that eventually deteriorated into a track that got a little rougher and occasionally muddy the further up it we went.  Eventually, they twigged to the error and we all ground to a halt.

Now we had ten vehicles stuck on a single track road with not much in the way of turning options.  And some of the vehicles were 2WD or towing trailers...

With no options we started trying to make our way back down.  I'm not sure really what was happening to some of the vehicles up front but someone did need to borrow my tow-rope...

I managed to reverse down a little way and then turn the ute around in a slightly wider spot - 4WD came in handy - but the poor bloke in front of me had to reverse his SUV with trailer a fair old way...

Back out on tarseal we were met by one of the organisers (great bloke) who apologised for the stuff-up and pointed us in the right direction.

I think the ute enjoyed getting a little dirty...

After unloading the bike I got to talking to the guy parked next to me and he warned me that the ride could be quite technical.  He was also a little surprised that I'd driven down from Palmy for it but hey, I'd been counting the days since my last outing on the yellow bike.

While we were getting ready the organiser bloke came around and gave us some great news...apparently it was going to be slippery.  His advice was to air down to 8psi.  I didn't have my gauge with me but did know what pressures I'd left with so knew I needed to drop some.  I let quite a bit of air out of the rear but not as much from the front, gave the tyres a squeeze and decided that they were about right...

Before kick-off there was a really good riders briefing where there was more riding tips, suggestions that the tracks would get better once a few bikes had been round and instructions to look out for each other etc.  Really good stuff.

And then we were off.  Or perhaps, the keen young guns were off while I waited a while to let them blaze the trail.

Finally underway, I followed some bikes up the gravel road and then we turned off onto a grass track where a girl in front immediately fell off.  Bummer.  Slow speed and nothing hurt except pride, she was up straight away and looking for her boy friend to help her pick up the bike.

I carried on past getting a feel for the slipperiness and got through the first little section and back out onto the gravel again before catching up with a bunch of riders trying to work out where we were supposed to be going.  After much umming and arring they disappeared over a bank and plunged into some trees...I was dumb enough to follow...

After a bit of bush bashing we stopped before another descent and waited while other bikes got through what looked sounded like another gnarly section.  We were there a wee while and there was much discussion as to whether we'd taken a wrong turn, got onto an A section or what.  No other bikes had joined us in a while and after a phone call went unanswered we figured we might be on the wrong track or going the wrong way around the circuit.  As it turned out it was the latter and once we had clambered out of the scrub we ran into someone who pointed us in the right direction.

Now the ride started in earnest and it definitely had it's moments.  There was the occasional easy bit where there was a decent track but there was a lot of very slippery clay in amongst the pine trees which was pretty hard going - especially where there were also a lot of tree roots across the track.

Basically, you had to maintain your momentum at all costs.  If you got stuck on a slope with the rear tyre on a root then you were going nowhere.  A number of times this happened to me when I came up on someone else stopped (and no way past them) or when I stuffed up.  This sort of thing generally resulted in having to roll back down the hill (trying to stay on the bike) and attacking it again on a hopefully better line.  Throw in stalling a hot bike and a fat, unfit rider and it was hard work.

Due to the whole fat, unfit thing I needed the odd breather and even managed to get the camera out for a couple of photos at one stage.  You'll note I didn't get off the bike, this was due to not being able to get the stand down on the steep hill - I guess I could have laid the bike over but then I'd have had to lift it up again...

Just after these pictures there was actually a short open section where I even saw third gear and didn't die once!  And then I was back into the slippery stuff again.

If you can be bothered watching the video at the end, (it's terrible helmet cam that I find hard to watch) there is one steep (hard to tell how steep in the video) section where I had a stab at it but was hindered by a stopped rider again and pretty much slid back down the hill again.  I ended up taking to the scrub and gassed the 450 straight up through the trees, over a small log and very nearly made it to the top if it wasn't for shooting out onto the track proper and coming a gutser...Oh well, at least I was having fun...

More slipperiness followed and then I came up on a slightly bigger obstacle:

Helped through that small obstacle by some new friends we now plunged into some serious shrubbery.  Weaving in between trees where some of the gaps were narrower than the bikes bars was a real mongrel (perhaps nicer than clay + roots) and once again I was working fairly hard - although perhaps not as hard as some of the guys who were having to haul bikes back up onto the track after an excursion over the bank...

Eventually I came to a piece where I had to turn a hard left before clambering through some mush and up over a tree stump before another hard right.  This seemed familiar to me and yes, it was the part of the track we'd done earlier after going in the wrong way.  Another charge up a nasty bit and I popped out just below the road where I stalled the bike and toppled off over the downhill side of the bike.  A bloke helped me up - the bike also fell the wrong way down - and I leaned it right-side up against the bank while I had a wee rest in the nice long grass...

Once I'd got my breath back I fired the bike back up, climbed the last little bit and made my back to the ute.  Losing some gear, I wandered off to the BBQ and inhaled a couple of snags while taking on plenty of water.

And that was it for me.  I wasn't keen for another lap and more of the same misery so I loaded up and left the keen guys and girls to it.  Yes, it was hard work for an old fart, but, I still enjoyed it - it's got to be good for working on my offroad skills and is definitely good exercise!

Here's more of that horrible video.  If you watch closely you may even see me binning the bike once...or perhaps twice...