We met at the Glenburn servo just prior to 9am, and had a brief delay as Mark tried his best to confuse the servo staff with a sandwich order for his lunch.
Then off in the cars again for the short haul to the unloading area.
The forecast was for rain from midday onwards, but the blue skies and zero wind made the start of the ride pretty much perfect for the 7 of us. The tracks were ideal - damp in spots, but not too slippery overall, and there was even some dust at times.
Wade led us on a nicely challenging section of track as a warm-up, and as everyone seemed comfortable with it, the tone for the ride appeared to have been set for the day.
We tackled lots of overgrown tracks for the morning loop, including a couple of challenging hill climbs covered in ruts and tree roots. The clutch on the AJP got a solid workout going up one of the climbs, and I could feel the clutch lever getting softer the more I tried to keep it slipping.
Lunch was back at the cars, and the blue skies had been taken over by dark clouds, but with no sign of the forecast rain as yet. We were promised a more open loop for the arvo, so it was back onto the bikes as soon as the food was scoffed down.
The arvo session was a little more relaxed – I even managed to get a brief lie-down in the mud at one stage when I lost my focus whilst crossing between ruts. The group flowed really well, and there wasn’t much passing needed, as everyone was keeping to similar speeds.
We did have 2 casualties for the day, a Go Pro, and my Garmin camera were both ripped off by overhanging branches, but were both thankfully recovered with only broken mounts.
The general consensus was to call it ‘quits’ when the first rain drops started mid-afternoon, and the final track back towards the cars tested our balance skills as it got even slipperier due to the rain combining with the shiny clay surface.
73.6 kms on the speedo, and happy faces all round – Thanks for a great day out Wade, and thanks also to Lefty for being tailman all day - his comment that ‘the group made it easy as there wasn’t anything for me to do’ summed up the ride nicely.