My day started early today, woke up at 4.50am to get up at 5.00am, quick shower tie the bike down and get going to Chickens. Stopped at Freemans Waterhole to get a sausage roll and a can of Mother to prepare me for the Chicken Run. Phone rang at 6.00am it was TB seeing if I was there yet. TB had to direct me to Chickens from all the way up at Waughope. Found Chickens place front light was on the XR sitting out the front ready to go. Couldn’t find Chicken so I decided to start getting the WR off the trailer (didn’t want to wake up the Chicken household by knocking on the door at that time of the morning) Chicken came outside shortly after said gidday and we unloaded the WR and I got myself ready. We left just before 7.00am to head out to Putty to check the gates for the Old Bull Longest Day next month. We had a good run out to Putty with no one out at that time of the morning.
Todays ride was a bit of a testing ride for me – to test if I liked the 450 and to test the what the fuel range was like on the standard tank (also to keep Chicken company)
Both tests ended up with a BIG tick from me. Well sort of the fuel range was better than what I thought I would get. I had to go onto reserve at 102km so not to bad.
Did I like the 450 – HELL YES – what a bike. I reckon I must of bored Chicken to death with saying how much I liked it and how good it is.
We got to Putty early and fuelled up, quick break with a coke and smoke (for me anyway) and we were off again. It’s the second time that I have been through this area (aborted Denman ride) and the tracks were nice, fast and flowing. Chicken and I took turns at riding up front, we had a good pace going which I enjoyed. We made it to the first gate and had a bit of a scout around. We aborted our scouting and headed off again. I am hopeless at remembering were the hell I am on a ride so I will let Chicken put in the places that we went but it was all good. I do remember we ended up at Raspberry junction and turned left to go down towards Denman. We rode down the hill for a bit and when we got to the bottom we turned around and went back up. We continued on and done the loop that we done on the aborted Denman ride. My fuel range was a bit of a concern but luckily Chicken the mobile fuel tanker spotted me a couple of litres to get back to the Halfway House. We fuelled up the bikes and ourselves and headed for home. The trip from Putty back to the Watties had a few tight sphincter moments for both of us, me getting to carried away with twisting the wrist a bit to much, the Suzuki Vitara that I nearly hit, the KLR (or whatever it was) wanting to share the same side of the track as me going in the opposite direction though.
But Chicken, man you are the winner on this ride – I was having a little run up the front and came across a Hilux coming towards us, I slowed down and passed the Hilux, I stopped up the road a bit to make sure Chicken was still coming I turned my bike off to listen how far Chicken was off but could hear nothing. Thinking the worst I turned around and slowly went back up the track to see where Chicken was, I was looking on the sides of the track hoping not to find Chicken in the shit, got up the track a bit further and heres Chicken with the XR up on a log, with the back wheel off. I thought he must of copped a flat but no the XR decided it was time to spit the back wheel off, the axle nut had undone enough for the wheel to come off. With the XR re-shoed we were off again. We got back to the Watties with no more mishaps. We did however see one knuckle head in a Ford Festiva driving down from the Watties towards Laguna he must of mixed up 4×4 only to front wheel drive only?
We got back to Chickens around 3.00pm with 380km clocked up for the day.
Thankyou Chicken for your company and the good ride.
But one last thing – F*CK ME I love the 450, what a bike.
No pictures or video from today though.
Here I was wondering how you got going again so easily!
