Late Morning Rip

Well, Tyne left for work at 9:30am and I wondered what I was going to do with myself. I was supposed to being doing stuff around the house when I thought I’d take the bike for a ride into the Bay and get some lunch.

As I was kitting up I remembered that I had bought my beach pass forStockton and still hadn’t used it. I decided that I would head to Birubi beach at Anna Bay and check it out. Only in jeans, trainers and a hoody I made my way along the entrance to the beach and hit one jump a bit too hard landing awkardly and stretching my groin. DOH!!

I got onto the beach and got going, once I got up to speed I got massive headshake so turned up the new Scotts steering damper. This meant I could now go faster…until I got headshake again, so I turned the damper up full which is not good for anything but a straight line.

Now I was ripping down the beach and crossing deep 4WD tacks at speed and at funny angles, the damper was magic in this scenario, you couldn’t ride this stuff at this speed without one.

I ended up heading all the way down to the Sygna wreck with the 450 gurgling away in 6th gear most of the time. I made it to the wreck eventually and could just see it through my salt encusted goggles. Having sat there for a bit admiring the wreck (it’s the first time I’ve seen it) I decided to get going……in front of everyone else. Bad move. Could I turn the bike with the damper set at this position? No. Could I spin the back round for a quick 180? No.

After getting off and physically turning my bike around (surely to the amusement of those watching) I went to set off…..errrrrr….no! :ohmy: Surprisingly, my bald Kenda rear tyre with 12.5psi in it wasn’t gripping too good and I was digging trenches :laugh: I ended up having to start in 3rd and build my speed up to get going :p

Riding the sand is damn hard work at speed. I now have an appreciation of what the desert racers go through. I was working hard to maintain 100Km/h across the soft sand. To make it worse, the sand all being the same colour, it’s hard to tell when there is a rise or dip in the beach and on more than one occasion I found myself gripping the bars very tightly and hoping for the best :woohoo:

I clocked up 50Km’s on the sand feeling quite tired after it actually. I think the way forward must be to have a sand tyre or at least a tyre with some knobs arranged ina well apced pattern, getting forward momentum was a bit like driving a boat, you had to get up on the plane to get any speed. I could feel it in 5th and 6th gears. Once you got to a certain speed you could go faster without labouring the engine, if you dipped below that speed the bike felt like it developed a sudden flat tyre! I think I’ll have to get a paddle tyre to properly explore the dunes in the future.

On my way home I dipped into the bush to have a look at a track that I’ve been wanting to check out for some time. The track shall remain nameless only to say that it devlops intom quite a few good little tracks that would keep you busy for a hour or two. I didn’t explore tham all but they are very close to my house so I’ll have to take Tyne there for a burn, it’s certainly closer than our other track we use.

Happy days!