5/11/09 – Moto’s Saturday ride – A Westy local

Seeing no one else has put a report up yet I will be the first.

Moto’s Saturday ride – the morning session.

Saturdays ride was one that I thought maybe I shouldn’t be going on given Friday nights effort in the shed.

I thought maybe I would do some pre ride checks and just make sure everything was OK.
Put in a clean air filter that’s all good except for the crap that had got past the air filter after last ride (Westy to nowhere 2) decided to start the WR to check the oil, I hit the button – NOTHING, that OK the battery was flat never mind, go to the kicker. Kick, Kick, Kick – NOTHING. Fuels on, chokes out. Give it another go – NOTHING. Starting to feel a bit aggravated now, I know I will clutch it down the street. Roll off down the drive way, second gear pop the clutch – NOTHING. Push it back up the street put it in the shed, have a beer, text Moto tell him I am a no go. Go inside with the shits, get a text back from Moto, text back Moto, go back out into shed to have another look, Moto rings, speak to him for a bit diagnosing over the phone. Decided to check the plug for spark, off with the seat and tank, pulled out the spark plug, checked it, there was spark but not that great, tried a new plug, that’s better, put the plug back in, tank and seat back on, kick it in the guts, giddy up I am a goer, text Moto tell him I am back in, Moto texts back alls good FOR NOW.
Why not put some spray down the clutch cable, yeah that’s a good idea, pull the clutch in work the lever a few times while spraying the cable, SNAP, broken clutch cable.
F#@K ME – look at bikes in the shed for a donor cable, WR250R totally different, NX650 totally different, DRZ400 looking promising, pull the seat and tank off the DRZ hold the broken WR450 cable next to the DRZ shit I am on a winner here. Take the cable out of the DRZ, fit it up, bugger me it works. Put the tank and seat back on the WR, woo hoo I am back. Now lets give that hot start lever a bit of a spray as well. Pull the lever in, it sticks in wont come out. F@#k F@#k F@#k. Off with the tank and seat again, look where the cable goes, shit this all looks to hard. Work the lever a few more times with a bit of spray, hey presto it starts working again. Happy days. I am going for a ride. Looking at the time 12.30am – shower and to bed.
I am not superstitious, BUT after all this crap I was thinking that maybe all of this was a sign not to go.

Saturday morning get up, get ready, get fuel and out to the meeting spot. On the way WR is coughing and carrying on, must be my pre filter that I put in. Open the airbox door and bang she is back to life. Get to the golf course, rip the pre filter out and say hello to all.

This is the extent of Motos maintenance
There was five of us all up with me in the lead, we took off and hit the bush. I was leading the morning session so I wanted to take everyone on some of my favourite local tracks. The pace was good, with no real need for cornermen or sweep. We peddled through some nice singles and then onto some more open stuff before hitting the singles again.

A brief stop before hitting the singles again.
We were heading towards the gap for smoko, the track that we were going used to be decent but since the last time I rode it a grader has been through and stuffed it. It is now like a four laned highway (with drainage humps).
We got to the Gap servo with not too many stacks, I know that I made up for a lot of them on the day, with a few minor lay downs.
I briefly swapped bikes with Moto on the way to the Gap, man those 2 smokes have got some punch in them. But no bloody engine brake.
When we got to the Gap everyone went and got a drink and sat down to cool down.

Moto had a bag of Jack Links beef jerky – Good stuff that Jack Links and a proud sponsor of Old Bulls.

I decided to take a few pics of Diddels steed after hearing about some of his repairs / enhancements.

Quality wiring job


Rear guard

Juice container and gaffa tape – who needs a side cover
But in all fairness to Diddel and his bike, it kept going all day and Diddel was pretty much behind me all morning.

After leaving the Gap we headed towards some more sweet single trail. We got to do one of my favourite local tracks which someone has spent a bit of time arrowing and it is obvious that a lot of other people are riding it now as it is cut in beautiful. We nailed this loop and everyone had smiles on their faces. I did have a few more minor offs through this bit, with Moto cleaning me up after I stalled on a hill. Sorry Moto.
It was only 10.00am so I still had an hour or so. I knew of another track that I thought the boys would like. We headed up towards Mount Sugarloaf and veered off near the top. The track that we were going to do was one that Kylie and me hit on one of our RDO rides, except when we did it, it was very wet and slippery. The problem that me and Kylie had was that we had gone down to far to go back up. On Saturday it was far from being wet but it still had parts that were slippery cause of the dry. When we got to the bottom we re-grouped and carried on. The last time that I did this track I turned right on Saturday we turned left. I had never been up this track so I didn’t know what to expect. This trail ended up being pretty good, there was one hill that everyone had a few cracks at. When we got back to the top we weren’t that far from where we went in.
I had hit reserve shortly after getting out from this track, so I decided to call it a day and go home.
I totally enjoyed Saturdays ride and this was definitely my last ride for the year.

Dan

I do have to thank Moto for offering up his 450 Kato if I couldn’t get the WR going. He even offered to come down to my place early Saturday morning if I needed a hand with anything. Thanks Moto – true Old Bull spirit.