Another big weekend on the bikes here this weekend, with an invitation for the Old Bulls to try out the BMW G450X, 4 of us met at my place Saturday morning and headed via Bago SF to the HVMCC raceway.
The riders were Tripper630, Moose, China and Me. We headed through Bago, via the Bago Quarry trail, I dunno what it is about this trail but it is notorious for carnage, possibly it is because it is one of the first trails we do on a Bago ride and we haven’t warmed up properly by the time we hit it. Anyhow, half way along it, I hit a bog hole at speed and before I knew it I speared off the trail and into the bushes, a small bush caught the footpeg and I took a bit of a tumble. If it wasn’t for the little bush the XR would have been down over the bank in a rather precarious position, that would have taken a fair deal of effort to get the bike back up onto the trail. That is my first stack on the XR, so now that is out of the way, I don’t have to worry about scratching it anymore.
We rode the single trails near old Bottle butt and then made our way to the raceway, where the test ride was being set up.
There was 8 brand new G450X’s lined up, ready for us to play on. We all grabbed one each and followed the lead rider up the road, we got straight into a sweet little hill climb and the Beemers handled it with ease, at the top of the Hill we were all still right up the lead riders clacker so he set a faster pace and we where having a ball!! China, who rides a KATO 300 has never ridden a modern 4 stroker before, took to it like he had owned the BMW for years and he was uncatchable and at each stop was wearing a huge grin!!! We did a few loops of the same trail and each loop got faster and faster until we where all suffering from major arm pump but still having a ball.
The BMW is a more than capable trailbike with a great hill climbing ability, the test bikes all still had the stock pipes on them and they are whisper quiet, so much so.they don’t sound like they are going that fast,if you are brave enough to have a bit of a glance at the speedo, you may very well get a shock at the speed you are actually doing!!
After the test ride we remounted our own bikes and headed for Bago again for a bit of a play on some of the trails up on Bago, it was somewhere along there that Moose noticed his front tyre going down so it was decided we had enough by then, so we headed back to my shed for a beer or two and to get things ready for Sunday’s ride at Bull’s place.
