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Big weekend at the Kowen Forest ride.
Set the alarm on the phone for 5.30am before going to bed that night thinking it was an 8.00 am ride start with sign in and scrutineering to be done. Woke up and looked at the hotel clock. :ohmy: F%&#@ me it 6.20, bloddy alarm, jumped in the shower and quickly got dressed then the alarm goes off. Checked the time, yep 5.30 and I am already dressed and near ready to go, :angry: F#@*’n hotel clocks not right. Go outside and start getting stuff organised, look at the ride details sheet. Scrutineering at 9, ride starts at 10, :angry: F#$%&’n organisers.
Anyway get some fuel from the servo across the road, everything organised, back to the room and lie down for half an hour til breaky turns up. Have a feed and off I go, the start point is only 10 minutes from where I am staying and so I am there dressed and ready to go 2 hours ahead of time, :angry: F$%&’n waiting.Camp Jeffro, not too many others around at this time.
Eventually others started to trickle and before long it’s near star time, quick riders briefing and were away,North loop is the harder one they say, should take anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours to complete with the South a bit longer but easier and should take about the same.
A few pre-ride shots of bikes in the Parc Ferme and riders ready to go.
Once the riding started, the photography (such that it is) stopped and the riding began, I did get quite a bit of helmet cam footage though, some I have already broken down into shorter segments and will upload tonight hopefully and post then tomorrow.
The trail went straight into the pines and was very technical, twisting in and out of the trees with rock, roots, stumps and branches on the ground everywhere. It wasn’t long before the arm pump started, paticularly as I haven’t done any tight stuff since before Christmas, but as usually happens with me, after about 20 minutes it seems to go away and generally doesn’t come back.
It certainly got he blood pumping and the sweat flowing (which wasn’t helped by the fact that i expectd it to be cold and had my thermal underwear on,( :angry: F#%^$’n thermal underwear)which lead to most riders stopping regularly for breaks, not me though, I’m too stupid for that, I just keep going and finish up a mess at the end, and so it was. Had a bit of trouble on a hill which is on video 4 I think and if you listen closely you can hear me make the now traditional Old Bulls call (thanks to Crash) of “man down” as I am on the ground.
Anyway I finished the North loop, first to do so I might add, kind of a proud moment even if no-one new or was even trying to beat me, but first I was
:ohmy:2 steak sanga’s anda can of coke and it’s time to hit the south loop, jump on the bike and look down, no fender bag, gone, :angry: F@%$’n fender bags. If you look at video number 4 when I put it upat 1.25 into it you can see the bag come off, sadly I didn’t at the time.
South loop started much the same way as the north with tight twisting trails through the pines before coming out onto some faster single, twin and fire trails while now and then dipping back into the trees for some more tight stuff, again no pic’s as that would have meant stopping and I like to ride. Selfish? Perhaps but ride I did
. Ride was going well, not many other riders aroundno-one passing me, me not passing no-one unless they where stopped for a rest. Eventually I was hooking along and came over a small rise that looked like a nice little jump,then I saw what was in the landing zone, 2 rocks sticking out like saw teeth across the track. The back whell seemed to land right on them and I thought for sure I would have a flat but luckily not, (note to self: remember that on the next time around tomorrow). up the track a bit more and I came across a group of 10 or so riders so I tagged along with them, making my way through the pack when I reaklised that there were no more directional arrows and these guys where using the corner man system :huh: . Turns out they were the beginners group on a seperate ride, :angry: F$%#’n seperate rides. Stuck with them until they could point me in the direstion of the proper trail and continued on my way but not sure where abouts I had rejoined the track, it seemed like evry 30 second I was changing my opinion as to whether or not I had already done this bit. Turns out I hadn’t and from what i saw on day 2 it looks like i only missed a km or 2 pof the really tight stuf so happy days.Finally got back and the GPS had all the stat’s
Packed up and was driving out when I spotted Beamer (hadn’t sen him until then) so pulled over and had a chat, turned out he and his mate Rob where staying at the same hotel so we met up later with some other riders and went to the leagues club for tea, all very nice people. One bloke was nicknamed Porky, I think he is the Kelly products man or something similar, has a prosthetic leg but still rides. Used to ride enduroe in the UK I think someone said. He apparently came off on the sunday, rolled down the hill a bit and got his helmet (complete with head inside) stuck in the fork of a tree and had to be helped out, (F@%$#’n tree, now that’s funny :woohoo: )
Anyway day 2 and again I’m too early but not as bad as day one, of into the south loops again feeling like I am a hundred and three aftyer the day before, eventually get into the swing of it and having a grand old time when I came upon the same little rise with the same saw tooth rocks and no I didn’t remember my previous day’s note to self, again hit the nasty rocks, near throwing the bike away in the process and this time, not so lucky with the puncture. By this time I was 3/4 of the way around and wasn’t planning on doing another loop sio I rode it back flat taking as many shortcuts as I could find.
Got back and jumped on a Sherco 4.5fi for a spin on the demo loop, I have to say that it didn’t feel as though it had anymore go than the DRZ, even with the map switch on the power setting. i t handled better but it alays felt like I was in the wrong gear, it was either too high or too low and didn’t seem to have the torque to pull down low.
After that I’d had enough and got changed to wait for the raffles to start, no prizes for me though. The bloke that won the WR450 bought his ticket off a mate who was going to come and then pulled out for whatever reason. Don’t think his mate will be too happy when he finds out.
Couple more quick pic’s here, the first is the rim where it hit the rocks, the secod is the rime after it hit my hammer (well actaully it wasthe back of my block splitter) not perfect but pretty straight now, and the 3rd,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, slight miss-hit and managed to desroy a spoke :angry: F&$%’n miss-hits.
Anyone got a spare spoke? :unsure:
F@#$n hell jeffro, you’re supposed to hit the rim It was as good this year as it was last year but better on the Sunday thanks to overnight rain which made the tracks much better and less dust.
The North loop has a lot more tight twisty single through the pine plantation and it was very demanding on me after already riding on the Saturday. Relentless first gear and slipping the clutch Km after Km, and just when it opens up with sone twin open track and you think you can relax, NO, it’s only enough to adjust your grip, have a deep breath and back into the single again for a couple of Km’s.
Very tiring but there was also some good fast open trail to be ridden.
I managed to catch a magazine thrown into the crowd as the raffle & prizes were being done, only to find later it was over 1 year old! :angry:Anyway after lunch and a free Monster energy drink I hit the South loop again and it really surprised me that after so much riding I still had heaps of stamina and I was really enjoying myself, it was excellent.
Many people left after lunch Sunday which meant we who stayed virtually had the whole place to ourselves – no traffic, no dust just perfect riding conditions and I was on fire
Excellent weekend.
look forward to the videos Jeffro.
Use youtube its heaps better Jeffro
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