As the starting point for the ride was only 5 minutes from home i thought i would get there early so i set off at about 9am to find half the crew already there.The rest arrived shortly after so we hit the road pretty close to 9.30 am as planned.There was a good mix of bikes BMW , 2x 800GS, 2x 650GS, 2 Africa Twins (identical
) Husky 701, KTM 690, DRZ400, Triumph 800,DR650 and a Tenere 660.
We headed out through Gembrook under the powerlines and then down towards Glideroy.It was about this time Geoff was losing faith in his Triumphs tyres so he let some air out for a slight improvement.We regrouped at the start of our first real bit of offroading, Worrely track.I think everyone enjoyed this track Rob even caught up to a couple of blokes on dirtbikes.A couple more nice tracks and lots of dirt road riding and we found ourselves back at the main road too Noojee but because i had missed the turn into one track, we were ahead of schedule. I was going to do the single track after lunch but as we were early and i knew it would only take 30 or 40 mins we headed straight into it.It was a good change of pace and there was some nice AMTRA teamwork getting some of the bikes safely over the occasional log.
Off to the Toolshed for lunch , i was a bit worried when we got there as it was very busy but we got a couple of tables in the shade of a giant oak tree and had a very enjoyable lunch and a couple of drinks.
After lunch we started heading back towards Gembrook , first up Limberlost rd then into the BT Divide track all was going well till the surface turned to hard pack with a fine sandy layer on top and the track got steep and rutted and slippery "AF" .I was really feeling the pressure watching the Africa Twins come down the hill and then Geoff had a small off and i reckon i was sweating more than he was as he rode down the hill but everbody made it ok and from there it was a fairly easy and uneventfull ride back to Gembrook.
I had a great day with great bunch of blokes and hope we do it again soon, a huge thanks to Dave (CHAPPA) for being tailman and enduring the dust.The distance covered from the starting point of the ride to the finishing point was about 200kms, so a fully registered enduro bike with a long range tank and maybe a bigger front sprocket would have been fine for this ride.Hooray i finally have an excuse to buy another bike.