Loooong report for 9th May wattagans ride

I decided we’d park at casuarina unless we spotted some other riders at the pines in which case we’d gauge if we wanted to join them to help with navigating. We stopped at the pines and Brendan and Adam knew a couple of blokes but didn’t want to ride with them so we decided to go it alone. I was a tad nervous because I’ve only been through the wattagans twice and had never led a ride but I figured we’d give it a shot. I took the guys through that short run from the pines to casuarina to warm up and then gathered them up to run through the cornerman system and explain that if they got separated they should wait on the corner and we’d find them. A few not-too convincing nods and I explained that I’d be leading them through the S/T parallel with wattagan forest road so if we got lost we could find it and start again.
We set off around 10 and started through the s/t behind the sign and heading east. After about 3 sections I accidentally brought us back out on the main road and the pressure was making me a tad anxious but we soon found our way back in and that feeling soon let go. The corners were mostly dry and soft so the running was pretty steady straight away.
I had my first off early when I came to a fork and chose the wrong side but thought I could do it. I waved the others around the easy way then popped up the rut pretty easily only to have a sneaky black boy jump out of nowhere bringing me and my bike to a dead halt and tipping me back into the knee deep ruts. I don’t know if i fell slowly or thought quickly but I had just enough time to think oh shit this rut is going to break my leg when the bike falls on it but not enough time to do anything about it. Thankfully I was wrong but I was knackered by time I got the bike out of the rut and went around the chicken track. I caught up with the boys and started leading again only to take another hard alternative which was a knee high log. Again I thought bugger it and kept into it getting the front over ok but didn’t carry the momentum so the back didn’t make it and I had to drag it across.
We waited at the next open junction and could hear a fair bit of revving from what we figured was the boys trying to get over the log I got stuck on. When they made it out they explained that the ’09 250f was stalling and running rough so they had a bit of a look and figured he was flooding it getting on and off the throttle too hard. He flogged the guts out of it (‘cause that fixes everything ).

Over lunch the guys said they were getting into it and wanted to stay with us so I planned to take them along the 2 way stuff on the north side of the forest rd heading back east. We set out and it didn’t start off too smooth but once again we picked up a good flow between 2way and s/t stuff that was keeping everyone happy. Till my brother ran out of puff again we were taking off every time he caught up again and it didn’t give him a chance to breath so he let out a very definite “JUST WAIT A DAMN MINUTE I’M ROOTED!” which I mocked and laughed at because I’m his little brother and that’s what brother’s are for
We ran for quite a while having a great time and finding some new tracks and riding some I recognised and even found a couple of hills that we sent the others around while we played. I wasn’t positive on where I was relative to the tracks I’d ridden previously but I was feeling fairly confident I knew where I was along the way so we kept a reasonable flow and had a great time. We got to a point that we all agreed we’d head back taking our time by exploring as we did. We found some more short singles and 2 ways along the way and then came to a boulder hill which looked too fun to go around so we split the group and a couple of us had a play but it wasn’t too much trouble. After that I told the guys that were struggling that they could tap out when they wanted to and we chased each other through some tight sandy stuff having a ball. Before long it was just me leading and Andrew and his brother and we picked up the pace and kept it flowing all the way back to the pines without stopping. I hit the woops in the morning and didn’t go too bad but couldn’t quite get it flat out so I hit them harder this time and had a good run through the first three sets but then didn’t flog it all the way through the tree lined set because I was feeling it a little. I knew I had to give it a good run after Ollie got into me for letting him pass last time

That’s my good time face :silly:

Cheers guys. Noone gave me shit I just felt like I was “entertaining” the guys since I asked them up here so I wanted to show them just how good it is compared to appin and menai which is where they ride. I also wanted to convince my brother that trails are so much more fun than MX.

TBH I really enjoyed my first lead because once we got going the exploring was part of the fun and they were a good crew of blokes to ride with. A few of them were good enough to push me and give me some pointers which is what I really like the most.

I think it’ll take a few more runs to get familiar enough to lead you blokes though

I’m heading to lovedale long lunch (all day drink)on saturday then doing bike maintenance on sunday mate.