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My Son Ben and I headed up to Dungog at 1PM.The traffic was not to bad considering it was Easter,we made it to dirtbike heaven at 3.30 pm.Which gave me enough time to unpack the ute setup camp right next to the river bank and do an hours worth of riding around a top little private MX track through the trees and scrub. After that had tired us out it was a quick tubs in the rather brisk waters of the flowing Williams river and then a hot feed of snags and chili prawns and plenty of beers with some of my old riding buddies from years past. Got to the swag in a rather untidy state at about 2 in the morning.
Woke up early Saturday morning and was not feeling great I attempted to fix that with a double Berroca and a Panadol. We then had a real BBQ brekky and kitted up and we were off at around about 10 ish. The participants in todays adventure only numbered 4 me on the Gasser 300, Henk also on a gasser 300 Dougie on a Kato 300 EXCE and Speedy on an 07 WRF450.Comment was made that it was strange to see more two strokes than 4 strokes. We headed up Orange grove trail to the Gumleaf Hotel these trails will be used in September for the two day enduro and will need a bit of a cleanup prior as the Lantana had gone mad due to all of the previous rain the area had experienced. I managed to open myself up with a length of vine that ran right under my nose for what must have been about 4 feet of eye watering pain. We all stopped on the side of the trail when speedy said his Yamaha was running like shit. I said all of the oil running out of the airbox might have something to do with it! He pulled the tank off and tried to suss out what was going on , turns out his daughter had changed out his oil and overfilled it.
We then headed down some awesome single trails and up a few rocky hills for good measure. It was on one of these trails that Dougies Kato nearly pogo sticked him into the trees,he had problems with his suspension setup for a while and couldn’t get it working properly the normal PDS jokes came out, but we set about slowing down the rebound a few clicks which got it back in the ball park. We then headed off to an area called Jerusalem creek, which was flowing quite nicely, Dougie was the first in and was going good guns until his front wheel didn’t want to have anything to do with a large flat slippery submerged rock and under they went. The Kato managed to suck in a great lungful of the cold stuff. We drained the carby and wrung out the airfilter and after about 10 minutes of kicking from 3 different people we finally got the fire in the kato alight,it was quite amusing to a bunch of 4wd’s that had come up behind us to see water and steam gushing out the back end of this Orange beast. Finally on track again and up hill and down dale all was going well until Henk who is 60 and an ex gun Enduro rider was ripped clean off his bike by a vine landing him flat on his back,after realizing he was Ok the piss taking was thick and fast.
We headed back to camp via Frying pan camp area which was chockers and Gumleaf hotel all was good until dougie again had drama’s this time he hit a rock real hard and destroyed a front tube, he wasn’t having a good day. That took another 10 minutes to fix. On a long downhill we were all going warp speed with dougie out the front speedy close;y following and me chasing him, Dougie rode over a log about 3inch diameter and 5-6 feet long it flicked out to the side and Speedy copped smack dead centre on his right wrist this threw his hand off the throttle and put him in a wild death wobble I thought he was going to get tossed into the scrub but he managed to save it. When we pulled up we had a look at the resultant damage but it was only a bruise and some heavy duty scratches another 6 inches and he would have been centre punched off his bike. We eventually got back to camp at around 4 pm having covered about 90 km’s. The beer and bundies started flowing and we had a roast served up by a couple of the boys that had child care duties to attend and couldn’t come along for the ride.
We had a visit by Trent Lean who is the manager of the BMW Motorad team and owner of the property that we camping on. What a great bloke, he rode down on one of the pro’s bikes as his was being repaired after it got a dusted engine from a incorrectly fitted air boot. While he was there he invited us over to his other property the next day for some laps around his MX track and cross country circuit, yes please!! Lol That night we hit the piss again and we all sat around the camp fire and listened to every ones stories, the little ones were all excited about the Easter bunny coming, we kept telling them that we ran over him in the bush. We made it to our swags about 1 am this time and again the worse for wear, a small amount of rain came down in the middle of the night so dust would not be a problem. After Brekky which my young fella , knocked up for me we headed out into the bush again, this time we picked up 2 more of the old time local riders that I haven’t ridden with for years they were Forbsey on his 96 WR200 and Jack Redman on his 90 model RMX 250 that is registered as a TS! Lol .Jack has not had a great run of luck of late having been operated on 12 months ago for prostate cancer and just recently got flown out of Trents MX track after trying to jump the doubles and landing awkwardly and puncturing his lung with a snapped rib cage ouch ! the guy is 60 and was an absolute blidingly fast rider in his day and can still peddle pretty well now,nothing but respect for this guy !! We made our way back up Orange grove trail again and I think I found the same piece of Lantana that opened me up the day before as I had claret coming from my nose and tears from my eyes. We took an alternate route today and it was a steep decent down into Jurassic park, a lot of the track had wire mesh over the sections that would erode and it could be seen that a lot of hard work had gone into the trails. We did a short bit of very fast dirt road into Monkerei state forest which is where Trent Leans property is. But first we had a go at conquering this monster uphill, I would say it was easily a grade 5-6 that went up and up and it had a near vertical step up right at the top, Speedy was at the front and showed good form and blasted his way to the top, Henk went next and nearly made it but was stopped near the vertical section, so close but so far, Dougie was next but only got about half way, unfortunately he took my line as I was right behind him and no manner of trying to save it was enough to get my momentum back and I stopped about 20 metres in front of Dougy, No worries I’ll give it another go Jack got stuck in the same spot as me. At the bottom again Jack went first and peddled his way to within 10 metres from the top what an effort remember this guy is 60 and riding an old 90 model RMX, I give it my best shot I hit the incline in 3rd and worked my way down through the gearbox bouncing off just about every rock with the back tyre striving to find traction got past everyone and only had a metre to go when the front hit a loose boulder and speared me off to the side and I couldn’t recover it. Oh well the Hill had beat me this time not a bad effort but still a bit disappointed,Forbsey and Dougy didn’t even attempt to give it another crack as they knew they wouldn’t get up it. we then decided to take old farts and girly option around. We came upon Trents property and Fair bloody Dinkum I was blown away. The MX track was groomed to perfection, there was about 5-6 young kids going warp speed around it one them was Trents son Nick who is running second in the junior offroad series and another Young guy riding a RMZ who is the current leader of the Aussie offroad series in the juniors for his age (Mitch Kellner). These kids have no fear and can really haul arse. We had a talk with Trent and the Pit dads and I did a couple of laps on the circuit riding Trents factory BMW450 which he said “ Ollie don’t you bend it on me Im racing it at Orange next week” LOL The Beemer is a nice thing to ride with instant power right through the rev range, it seemed to get traction everywhere and absorbed all the nasty stuff easily, I found the front end pushed a little but that was probably because I was riding at trail pace not berzerko like Trent does. While I was riding the Beemer Trent was setting up Dougies Kato and doing some test rides to check it out. The circuit has all of the potential to be a real good dirtbike park and this maybe his intention in the near future. The cross country circuit was brilliant although a little bit rutted out in some sections due to having been flogged by a recent magazine test and also the BMW team practice sessions.We again headed off back through some of the best trails around, through farm land and state forest we were all getting into the riding,going flat knacker in sections that was pure Bliss, Jack and Henk were beginning to slow down a little and we needed to get back to camp so we could pack up all of our gear before heading back down the F3. Speedies bike ran out of fuel about 1 km from camp so I gave him a half litre from the Gasser. We pulled back into camp at about 3pm and having completed about 100kms today. I did a few more laps around the MX track, where I nearly flipped it on the table top but just saved it, don’t things happen like that when you have an audience lol My son Ben had already packed the ute and had the ramp setup for me to load the Gasser.
We all had a great weekend and I wont forget it for a long time to come.The notable Highlights I can think of are.
1. Bens riding has improved out of sight and I am a very proud dad.
2. The MX track that Trent has created it will be another Louee I am sure
3. meeting up and riding with my old mates Henk and Jack,I hope I can still peddle like them when I am their age!
4. The campsite on the river,truly awesome stuff
5. The bloody flies!! Jeessusss!!!
6. Riding in glorious conditions and top trails
7. the amount of campers at frypan creek
8. Riding with more 2 smokers than 4 strokes for a change.
9. Watching Trent adjusting the Kato’s suspension and steering angle
10. Riding the trick works BMW
Have a good oneOllie
[img]http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww215/ollie
My Son Ben and I headed up to Dungog at 1PM.The traffic was not to bad considering it was Easter,we made it to dirtbike heaven at 3.30 pm.Which gave me enough time to unpack the ute setup camp right next to the river bank and do an hours worth of riding around a top little private MX track through the trees and scrub. After that had tired us out it was a quick tubs in the rather brisk waters of the flowing Williams river and then a hot feed of snags and chili prawns and plenty of beers with some of my old riding buddies from years past. Got to the swag in a rather untidy state at about 2 in the morning.Woke up early Saturday morning and was not feeling great I attempted to fix that with a double Berroca and a Panadol. We then had a real BBQ brekky and kitted up and we were off at around about 10 ish. The participants in todays adventure only numbered 4 me on the Gasser 300, Henk also on a gasser 300 Dougie on a Kato 300 EXCE and Speedy on an 07 WRF450.Comment was made that it was strange to see more two strokes than 4 strokes. We headed up Orange grove trail to the Gumleaf Hotel these trails will be used in September for the two day enduro and will need a bit of a cleanup prior as the Lantana had gone mad due to all of the previous rain the area had experienced. I managed to open myself up with a length of vine that ran right under my nose for what must have been about 4 feet of eye watering pain. We all stopped on the side of the trail when speedy said his Yamaha was running like shit. I said all of the oil running out of the airbox might have something to do with it! He pulled the tank off and tried to suss out what was going on , turns out his daughter had changed out his oil and overfilled it.
We then headed down some awesome single trails and up a few rocky hills for good measure. It was on one of these trails that Dougies Kato nearly pogo sticked him into the trees,he had problems with his suspension setup for a while and couldn’t get it working properly the normal PDS jokes came out, but we set about slowing down the rebound a few clicks which got it back in the ball park. We then headed off to an area called Jerusalem creek, which was flowing quite nicely, Dougie was the first in and was going good guns until his front wheel didn’t want to have anything to do with a large flat slippery submerged rock and under they went. The Kato managed to suck in a great lungful of the cold stuff. We drained the carby and wrung out the airfilter and after about 10 minutes of kicking from 3 different people we finally got the fire in the kato alight,it was quite amusing to a bunch of 4wd’s that had come up behind us to see water and steam gushing out the back end of this Orange beast. Finally on track again and up hill and down dale all was going well until Henk who is 60 and an ex gun Enduro rider was ripped clean off his bike by a vine landing him flat on his back,after realizing he was Ok the piss taking was thick and fast.
We headed back to camp via Frying pan camp area which was chockers and Gumleaf hotel all was good until dougie again had drama’s this time he hit a rock real hard and destroyed a front tube, he wasn’t having a good day. That took another 10 minutes to fix. On a long downhill we were all going warp speed with dougie out the front speedy close;y following and me chasing him, Dougie rode over a log about 3inch diameter and 5-6 feet long it flicked out to the side and Speedy copped smack dead centre on his right wrist this threw his hand off the throttle and put him in a wild death wobble I thought he was going to get tossed into the scrub but he managed to save it. When we pulled up we had a look at the resultant damage but it was only a bruise and some heavy duty scratches another 6 inches and he would have been centre punched off his bike. We eventually got back to camp at around 4 pm having covered about 90 km’s. The beer and bundies started flowing and we had a roast served up by a couple of the boys that had child care duties to attend and couldn’t come along for the ride.
We had a visit by Trent Lean who is the manager of the BMW Motorad team and owner of the property that we camping on. What a great bloke, he rode down on one of the pro’s bikes as his was being repaired after it got a dusted engine from a incorrectly fitted air boot. While he was there he invited us over to his other property the next day for some laps around his MX track and cross country circuit, yes please!! Lol That night we hit the piss again and we all sat around the camp fire and listened to every ones stories, the little ones were all excited about the Easter bunny coming, we kept telling them that we ran over him in the bush. We made it to our swags about 1 am this time and again the worse for wear, a small amount of rain came down in the middle of the night so dust would not be a problem. After Brekky which my young fella , knocked up for me we headed out into the bush again, this time we picked up 2 more of the old time local riders that I haven’t ridden with for years they were Forbsey on his 96 WR200 and Jack Redman on his 90 model RMX 250 that is registered as a TS! Lol .Jack has not had a great run of luck of late having been operated on 12 months ago for prostate cancer and just recently got flown out of Trents MX track after trying to jump the doubles and landing awkwardly and puncturing his lung with a snapped rib cage ouch ! the guy is 60 and was an absolute blidingly fast rider in his day and can still peddle pretty well now,nothing but respect for this guy !! We made our way back up Orange grove trail again and I think I found the same piece of Lantana that opened me up the day before as I had claret coming from my nose and tears from my eyes. We took an alternate route today and it was a steep decent down into Jurassic park, a lot of the track had wire mesh over the sections that would erode and it could be seen that a lot of hard work had gone into the trails. We did a short bit of very fast dirt road into Monkerei state forest which is where Trent Leans property is. But first we had a go at conquering this monster uphill, I would say it was easily a grade 5-6 that went up and up and it had a near vertical step up right at the top, Speedy was at the front and showed good form and blasted his way to the top, Henk went next and nearly made it but was stopped near the vertical section, so close but so far, Dougie was next but only got about half way, unfortunately he took my line as I was right behind him and no manner of trying to save it was enough to get my momentum back and I stopped about 20 metres in front of Dougy, No worries I’ll give it another go Jack got stuck in the same spot as me. At the bottom again Jack went first and peddled his way to within 10 metres from the top what an effort remember this guy is 60 and riding an old 90 model RMX, I give it my best shot I hit the incline in 3rd and worked my way down through the gearbox bouncing off just about every rock with the back tyre striving to find traction got past everyone and only had a metre to go when the front hit a loose boulder and speared me off to the side and I couldn’t recover it. Oh well the Hill had beat me this time not a bad effort but still a bit disappointed,Forbsey and Dougy didn’t even attempt to give it another crack as they knew they wouldn’t get up it. we then decided to take old farts and girly option around. We came upon Trents property and Fair bloody Dinkum I was blown away. The MX track was groomed to perfection, there was about 5-6 young kids going warp speed around it one them was Trents son Nick who is running second in the junior offroad series and another Young guy riding a RMZ who is the current leader of the Aussie offroad series in the juniors for his age (Mitch Kellner). These kids have no fear and can really haul arse. We had a talk with Trent and the Pit dads and I did a couple of laps on the circuit riding Trents factory BMW450 which he said “ Ollie don’t you bend it on me Im racing it at Orange next week” LOL The Beemer is a nice thing to ride with instant power right through the rev range, it seemed to get traction everywhere and absorbed all the nasty stuff easily, I found the front end pushed a little but that was probably because I was riding at trail pace not berzerko like Trent does. While I was riding the Beemer Trent was setting up Dougies Kato and doing some test rides to check it out. The circuit has all of the potential to be a real good dirtbike park and this maybe his intention in the near future. The cross country circuit was brilliant although a little bit rutted out in some sections due to having been flogged by a recent magazine test and also the BMW team practice sessions.We again headed off back through some of the best trails around, through farm land and state forest we were all getting into the riding,going flat knacker in sections that was pure Bliss, Jack and Henk were beginning to slow down a little and we needed to get back to camp so we could pack up all of our gear before heading back down the F3. Speedies bike ran out of fuel about 1 km from camp so I gave him a half litre from the Gasser. We pulled back into camp at about 3pm and having completed about 100kms today. I did a few more laps around the MX track, where I nearly flipped it on the table top but just saved it, don’t things happen like that when you have an audience lol My son Ben had already packed the ute and had the ramp setup for me to load the Gasser.
We all had a great weekend and I wont forget it for a long time to come.The notable Highlights I can think of are.
1. Bens riding has improved out of sight and I am a very proud dad.
2. The MX track that Trent has created it will be another Louee I am sure
3. meeting up and riding with my old mates Henk and Jack,I hope I can still peddle like them when I am their age!
4. The campsite on the river,truly awesome stuff
5. The bloody flies!! Jeessusss!!!
6. Riding in glorious conditions and top trails
7. the amount of campers at frypan creek
8. Riding with more 2 smokers than 4 strokes for a change.
9. Watching Trent adjusting the Kato’s suspension and steering angle
10. Riding the trick works BMW
Have a good oneOllie
/Dungog%20o9/hill-1.jpg[/img]
Rider friendly accommodation
Hatfield Park Country Home
Fosterton Rd
Dungog NSW 2420
Telephone: (02) 4992 1088Thanks Fezza, The photies took a bit of dicking around,my mate speedy put them on facebook,then i had to save them on my puter then upload to photobucket.Didnt get any of trents MX track
These rides dont happen enough,hope to be getting up there again real soon.PS does anyone know where you can get those nose guard plastic thingo’s that attach to your goggles, I mainly use Oakley
Ollie
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