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Clarence secret handshake ride 17 January 2009
This ride was only open to those who knew the secret handshake. Starters were:
JRD (Gasser FSR450)
MKB (WR250F)
Axel (EXC250F)
Grant (EXC300E)
Barry (KTM525)
ECKS-Man (WR250F)The idea was to follow a loop JRD had ridden with a bit added in from a loop Axel and I had ridden. JRD planned the tracks and lead all day, reading the GPS as he went. It was a top effort JRD, and all the more impressive for the fact the you hadn’t seen half these tracks before!
MKB and I set off from Wellington at 6am, laughing about the weather forecast for Clarence – 20° and drizzle – I mean come on, how often does that forecast actually happen, and in January??
Axel and Grant had headed down from Dubbo Friday night and met Barry. They camped the night and the stories they told!! Well, must leave something for them to explain so that’s their story!
JRD headed up, leaving at about 6am as well. We all met up at our rendezvous successfully.
The weather was, amazingly enough, exactly as predicted. We pulled up in drizzle and very cool temperatures – this was looking good!
Loading up:
Gearing up in the drizzle
MKB was prepared for the worst! (That’s a bandage!)
The Orange contingent arrive:
(Orange bikes that is!)After sorting out which trail to take, JRD lead us on our merry way, initially along some fire trails until the first secret track was reached. It was about here that my bike decided that electric start was for pussies and the battery died (dropped a cell). So it was kick start for me for the rest of the day! Didn’t seem like such a huge problem at first, but I’ll get to that later on!
The first loop was a sweet little run through the Clarence (Or Newnes) forest with nice flowing lines and nothing nasty to surprise the unsuspecting. This lead to other trails and single track, up and down, through trees and shrubs.. you know the drill, right?! With the continuing drizzle, visibility was awesome. Axel claimed that the raindrops on his goggles created a bee’s eye view and enabled him to see extra detail on the track!
He was full of shit!
My visibility was woeful, the goggles would get wet and fog up (I was working hard to keep up with these lads) and then my glasses would also fog up, leaving me with a thin stripe of clear vision, usually down the right periphery of my right eye! Useful!!
Eventually those of us at the back pulled up – Axel had a blowout – on his boot! So while he fixed it I snapped a few piccies:
The Master boot repairer at work!
After Axel stealing Grant’s tools for the boot repair, he figured he would leave Axel to his boot and go ahead to tell the others what was happening. We heard the bike start… then Crash, Snap #$@%^& &*!!@#… He’d met with a tree! No harm done though, but it was very funny!
So eventually the boot was repaired and we met up with the others at the bottom of the hill:
Axel taking a photo of me taking a photo of him taking a photo of …
Pretty soon we were back underway, following our intrepid leader JRD. The track went up. A lot. Grant thought it would be a good idea to try and throw the KTM off a cliff, but Axel talked him out of it:
Actually, he speared off the track to the right and highsided in a spectacular way!
So at this stage my speedo was starting to read 65km/h when I moved – at all, and faster still as I rode along. At the next stop, an awesome lookout, I pulled the plug on the damn thing so it wasn’t racking up miles I hadn’t done!
Oh, and this was at the lookout:
Barry
JRD and MKB
JRD, Axel and MKB
Barry
Axel and MKB
The view was as spectacular as anyone could ask for and by now the rain was clearing up while temperatures were staying at about the 20° mark – lovely! The rain going meant there started to be some dust, but to be honest I preferred the dust because it clears between bikes and doesn’t worry visibility as much!
So another hard slog up, down, all around, saw us reach another lookout. We had a few snacks and took a few piccies:
Barry
JRD, Axel and Grant
I tried and tried but Axel just wouldn’t be photogenic. So I’m posting the grumpy pics so that next time he will know to be photogenic!
Grant, Me and Axel, still not being photogenic!
Me – I never claim to be photogenic! Can’t win, don’t try!
See what I mean?
Grant and Barry
Someone had shamefully littered the forest with orange motorbikes, making it hard to find a place to park the nice red and blue ones!
Now, on a photo per kilometer basis, the story slows somewhat… The going got tougher and I started cramping up. I was on Pivot Pegs today for the first time and couldn’t get anything to gel. JRD led us up, down, all around again until we started up this ravine. It was tough. Real tough. Especially when we were already hurting! I made it up and collapsed beside Grant for what felt like 2 seconds but was in reality more like 15 minutes!
JRD and Barry looking at us and thinking what the hell are you clowns doing here???
Grant, looking better than I did at the time – how sad is that!?
JRD checking how far it was back to the car! I didn’t ask, I knew it was not going to be an easy fix!
Oh yeah, this is where we were:
Now the photos per kilometer rate drops to zero – because I was a burnt out turnout! Bringing up the tail and riding inside myself, with the thought that “These guys are so much quicker than me, I can’t let them down by falling off! Bad enough that I’m slow, DON’T FALL OFF!”
I didn’t but I was hurting!
Long story short, JRD led us up, down, all around and eventually we popped out at the car – LUNCH!! I was shagged. Just shot. Nothing in the tank and no will to live any more! Then JRD suggested another 15km loop he had planned… so we saddled back up, minus Axel and Grant (Pussies!) and headed out again.
It was torture for me – I was cramping in the right leg, then the left leg, then both, and then the right arm, left arm… I was waiting for my brain to cramp but I think it had left me for greener pastures!
One photo – JRD picked a poor line in a rut:
I said to JRD about half way through this loop “Mate, at this stage I am riding to make it back to the car, I’ve got nothing! Sorry!” Thanks to Barry for hanging back and keeping a bit of an eye on me!
We did stop for a break, whereupon I noticed that MKB had no front axle nut!
So that was it, we headed up, down, all around and ended back at the car. We flapped our gums a bit, loaded up and headed for the 2-and-a-half hour drive home. MKB slept a lot of it!
And here we are! Here’s a blurry picture of my bike and the dogs – why the hell not!
So that was my Secret Handshake Ride – bet you’re jealous!
I may be shagged, but tomorrow I’ll be wishing I was back on the bike again!
Hey when you say secret hand shake ride, was it not posted at dbw or are people refused? KTM01 said he read there was a ride he wanted to do from the other site and was told no :ohmy: and it was invite only and it was all secret carry on as well, that was on the QLD border area. Am just interested is all ECKS
Some of those photos look like a section of the black fellows hand track that we will go through in a couple of weeksTB
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