A few weekends ago I was somehow persuaded to accompany Colin on another outing in his side-by-side. He'd already taken me for a run on the beach at Red Rocks (see below pics/video) and demonstrated that 200hp in a wee buggy makes for a bit of fun so the persuading job wasn't too difficult...
This time around we were joining up with a trail ride organised by AFC motorcycles. The event was in Lismore forest, just North of Whanganui and comprised of two loops (one with an expert loop) through some closed off forestry roads.
The ride started off pretty much the same as a bike trail ride with a briefing where all the rules were laid out and then we tore into it.
We started off on the left loop and soon were splashing through mud and bouncing over the odd obstacle - there was one neat little diversion where a couple of short but steep climbs had to be negotiated. Colin had mud tyres on and it was soon very apparent that grip was never going to be an issue - the thing will go anywhere.
After the first loop we then took in the right hand one where the track was mostly fairly quick but there were a couple of very muddy bits to negotiate before we tackled the expert section which was more overgrown and had a reasonably steep and bumpy descent back onto the main track. Then it was a much faster section back to the carpark.
Once Colin had had a couple of laps of each loop we stopped for a coffee and then he did something silly. He let me swap seats...
So yeah, first drive of what is a serious offroad weapon, what could possibly go wrong?
As it happened, nothing went wrong as I was nervous as and didn't want anything to go wrong. One of my first problems was getting used to LHD and working out where my wheels were. The navigator was quick to point me in the right direction.
I got to do both loops (skipping the expert section) and really enjoyed the drive, even though we were going a lot slower, I got to "feel" the course properly, didn't crash and didn't get stuck.
Swapping seats again, Colin had had his warm-up laps and was starting to get his eye in. We did at least 2 more laps (probably more) of each loop and Colin got quicker each time. Even his navigator enjoyed it, laughing my head off as we surfed into corners and then hammered it out of them. The thing has grip!
Eventually we had to pack it in and you can see the results below...
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| Different riding gear today... |
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| Setting new fashion statements wherever we go |
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| Just the lightest wee bit of mud splatter |
Oh, and here's some video of our first few laps, I should have saved the battery for our last ones instead...
Not a bad way to spend the day without motorcycles...
