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I had this one all planned – finish a big job for work Wednesday lunchtime, tidy up Thursday and then plenty of time on Friday to prep the bike and saunter up to Beckinridge in the daylight. Reality; job went overtime and finished Thursday night and since it was the end of 14 weeks graft we all had to have a beer (or three) – result I found myself leaving Sydney for the ride home to Newcastle at ten on Friday morning. So much for the plenty of time. Friday afternoon disappeared in a few urgent household duties and it wasn’t until near four I got to the bike, it was then a rush to change the wheels over to the set with dirt tyres, bung the GPS in the mount, rip the Gearsack off the back, ocky strapping a bag and a fuel caddy in its place and commuter is changed into adventure bike (well as much as you can change an old KLR). Then three hours up the highway and I just made it in time for the briefing on the map sharing exercise. Fortunately my riding companion, Allmech was more organised than me, and had arrived not only in plenty of time but had brought some liquid refreshment with him, so I was able to then slow down and enjoy some entertaining conversation with Tryhard and others (sorry can only remember your faces not names) for the rest of the evening.
Saturday, what can I say: a fantastic days ride
. I wobbled up the early bits of track trying to get the feel of riding on dirt again. I haven’t ridden a huge amount of dirt over the years and this was the first since the last Nav Ride – and thirty years of near daily road riding has pre-conditioned my brain to think if a bike is moving around on the surface its going to instantly throw me off. Unfortunately Plummers Road reinforced that thought – albeit at about 5 kph and no harm was done. To the earlier writer who talked about his paddling skills, all I can say is I was there competing with you. The rest of the day passed in a (very enjoyable) blur. I’m amazed at the level of details some of you can remember about the tracks and the places we’ve been; all I can remember is a slightly disorganised sequence of details. I’m too busy trying to stay upright and follow that purple line to look around and allow the brain to store anything more. The details I do remember are that long climb up the single track ridge line (just look where you want to go -don’t look over the edge), the long narrow downhill, the tree across the track (and the relief I felt when I found the sneaky track around it) – and many more. Unfortunately we managed to cut a corner in Kempsey and miss the servo’s so whilst we got to Taylors Creek by the 3pm cut-off realised I didn’t have enough fuel to get to the finish, so missed out the last track and ducked straight to the finish at Nambucca Heads. That last bit on the road was interesting; there were four of us following our leads GPS to Nambucca Heads which delivered us to Macksville Cemetery! We then had the scene of four of us failing to work out how to use our GPS’s to get directions to the finish. We did eventually succeed, but really we should all open the manuals one day.Saturday nightwas great fun and a great feed (top choice of motel TB) – although I did feel the group was a bit more subdued than the previous night, a few weary bodies maybe? Was sorry to hear about Puddles – realising it just as easily been me.
Sunday came around too quickly, but got off to a start pretty much on 7:30 as I had no need for breakfast – the smorgasbord from the night before was more than enough. Just like TB predicted I immediately missed the first turn off the highway, but managed to get it on the way back up the road. Again, the same story as the Saturday, a fantastic days riding but again a blur of details. Jacob’s ladder stands out – lots of muscle clenching as I went down that; I’m glad it was bone dry. And bone dry sums up the rest of the day as I slowly chased Allmechs dust around the countryside. The last couple of sections were especially good and a great way to finish a fantastic weekend
.All in all another fantastic ride TB – thanks for sharing that map. And again many, many thanks to all the others, Amy, Eagle, Lefty and the ones I haven’t yet met who do all the sterling work to keep us marshalled and mainly out of trouble. Also special thanks to Wolfy and Yahama for their support I really appreciate all you are doing to support the sport.
Despite the lack of preparation I was pleased how well my bike got me through the weekend – but by the end it was idly roughly and on the trip back home I noticed the fuel consumption was way up. When I pulled out the air cleaner last night I could see why – enough dust to plant potatoes. Ah well a quick service a change of wheels back to the road ones and she’s running as good as new as a commuter again.
Enjoy yourselves folks – and think of us poor folks who have to be at work.
This was my first ride with Old Bulls and I had a marvellous time. I saw more variety of dirt road and track in the one weekend than I’ve managed in many years on my own – and for me a nice mix between the challenging and the relaxing. A big thank you to TB, Amy, Leftie and all those who I didn’t get to meet who put in a fantastic amount of effort to organise two superb days of riding – they even managed to keep the weather gods reasonably under control for most of the weekend. (And with all the rain I got on the way home I won’t even need to wash the evidence of a couple of minor mishaps off the sides of the bike)
All the best
Hallo all,
I’m after GPS map advice.
I have a Garmin Etrex legend HCx – currently on it is the OSM map of Australia. Is this the correct (or suitable) one to have for the ride? If not what should I have loaded / where do I get it / is there anything else a GPS novice should know or do before the ride?
Many thanks for any advice anyone can give.
Martin
