What a great turnout!
It was great to catch up with everyone at the RSL on Friday night, everyone behaved themselves knowing that they had to ride the next day. (With the exception of Boony, who looked like death Saturday morning, and the addition of the Tutu over his ride gear didn’t help at all).
With the extreme weather events we have had here over the last 2 weeks, that dumped 28 inches of rain on the trails, I was a bit apprehensive about what Bago was going to throw at us, as we had only managed to pre run 30kms of the proposed loop in the week leading up to the ride. I needn’t have worried as it turned out. Apart from a lot of extra logs and sticks on the trails, Bago was prime for riding!
As the ride leader it was great to look over my shoulder as we left Breckenridge and see 30+ bikes following me up the road.
It was also great to see the buoyant mood of the group at each of our stops as it was obvious they were having a great time.
The first big hill was our biggest challenge for the day, with no OPTION B around it, everyone had a crack at it with varying degrees of success, with the Old Bull Spirit in top gear, everyone jumped in and gave assistance, encouragement and also some piss taking of the finest order.
With a broad cross section of skill levels of riders, it was a little hard to gauge what to throw at the crew as far as trails go and still make it a great ride experience for all involved, this required a few of the riders with minimal trail experience to step up and challenge themselves, a special mention goes to Gero, who on only his 2nd trail ride ever, gave it 100% on the DRZ400! I bet he will be feeling it now though! Rach on her KTM350 had a go at almost everything and even surprised herself with what she accomplished during the day! Another rider that deserves a mention is Amy on her ADV WR250, that was a whole heap of bike to be punting around those trails and she did a great job, getting over logs and all manner of obstacles, all the while cussing me out, in a manner that would make a wharfie proud!
To have that many riders on one loop and the only two things go wrong were a punctured radiator and a broken clutch cable, is also a credit to all involved.
A few thank yous are in order,
Firstly to Barry and Shirley at Breckenridge Farmstay for their generosity in donating a lot of the food for the breakfast and then going all out and having those awesome roast beef and gravy rolls ready upon our return, how good were they!!! Their facility is first rate for a group and event such as ours.
Thanks to Snowy for donating all the orange juice for the weekend and TB for the cold drinks he delivered to us during the ride.
Thanks to Toes for the 5kg of prawns we smashed into after the ride, they topped the day of well! They contributed nicely to the ring of knowledge that went well into the late evening, I can’t remember laughing so much in my life.
A big thanks also goes out to the local Boys Moose, Toes and Gasit for their sweep duties, no ride as big as this can be as successful without the sweeps, cheers boys!
And big thanks to everyone who donated money for Down Syndrome NSW, it allowed us to raise in excess of $1300.00!!
Further more, thanks to everyone who turned up in the right frame of mind to have a ride and a whole heap of laughs!
What a great couple of days!
Flying Fish wrote:The old saying of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” sums up the ride for me. :blink:
Dickie wrote:Plenty of action on trails already.
