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Gremlin's Tall Stories

NGARNZ Southhead Adventure Ride (11/03/2012)

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The alarm rings at 6am. Urgh, why did I set it this early again? I have to be out at Southhead by 9am, and it will take a little over an hour to get there. Mind you, I haven’t yet packed the gear I would take.

It’s pouring with rain outside. Hardly an incentive to get out of bed I muse. I ride enough in all weather conditions that deliberately heading out for a fun ride in pouring rain holds no appeal whatsoever. Still, the system is meant to have passed over during the night and today is supposed to be much better. Devil is already txting (I’d conned him into going on this ride) and saying he’s not interested in getting rained on and is going back to bed. I call him a pussy (desperate to find other stupid people besides myself) and tell him I’m going anyway.

I guess I must confess however. While getting ready and having breakfast I’m also having serious doubts. The rain sounds very heavy indeed… why would I want to ride on gravel in pouring rain? My bed is so warm. There are another hundred reasons I could bring up, but I decide I have a reputation of craziness that requires upholding, so stuff it, I’ll head out, see who turns up and decide from there. An hour on the road isn’t exactly very far anyway.

It’s my first adventure ride with the new club that had unofficially started last year, called the Northern Gravel Adventure Riders NZ (their website: http://www.northerngraveladventureri...com/index.html). The last few of their rides (including training days) had always ended up clashing with other rides, so it was something I put on the back burner that I wanted to do, but didn’t currently have time for. Early in the new year they had become more official, with membership available to make rides cheaper. The fees were put towards gaining insurance and permits, which would make more places happy to allow us to ride over their land.

I’ve done plenty of exploring before, most of it probably road, but still plenty of gravel roads (as can be found in previous blogs) and I always turn around when I hit private property or forestry areas. The appeal of the club was that they were working hard to get permission to access other areas the general public couldn’t, so that definitely sounded like a bit of me. I’d sent one of the organiser, Sue, my details, and would pay on the day.

Back to the rain however, threatening to spoil the day completely. I was out the door at 7.15am (still far too early of course) and off to the local gas station. With go gas on board and rain jacket to keep out the wet stuff I headed out west along the NW Motorway then continuing on SH16. When I hit the roundabout at Old North Rd I decided I had plenty of time up my sleeve as it was only 8am, so headed through Old North and other roads, detouring around until I approached Helensville from the south and through their suburbs.

The bikes with smaller gas tanks would be filling here to give them the range for the ride, but no requirement for me. I continued straight through, the rain easing slightly and the roads still nice and quiet. The meet point was to the north, off Southhead Rd at Shelly Beach. The roads were so quiet I reckoned I would be first, at 8.30am, but no, Roger and Sue were already there. I signed their necessary paperwork, got my membership card and also another bit of card for entering the forestry section.

Checking my messages and Devil has decided he is now coming along as well and I stand back and wait for all the riders to arrive. The weather had made a turn for the better, the sun was peeking out and my rain jacket was packed away. We even have some international presence in the form of Adam Shani, an Israeli who has been traveling the world for 4 years and visited some 65 countries on his BMW HP2 Enduro. He’ll be off to Australia shortly but has come along to ride the roads less ridden. The others continue to arrive, including Devil and the variety of bike choice amongst the riders is impressive. Everything from 250s to a couple of 1200s and everything in between. Road legal dirt bikes, bikes with Dakar heritage and bikes more used to being on the road (Vstroms, 800XC and GSA’s – of course). I don’t think there were more than 2 of any model of bike and most brands were represented as well.

Before heading off, the other organiser Jim (Sue’s husband) gave a short ride briefing and we headed up the Southhead peninsula to the forestry area and our waiting guide. I believe he had some sort of professional type of riding, so after guiding us through the forest he was off for further training, but he certainly had that smooth riding style that showed he was comfortable off road.

In the meantime, there was plenty of forestry roads he was taking us on, so we set off. We didn’t get far before we split into two. The guide led some bikes over a more demanding piece complete with soft sand, the casual riders staying on the gravel road and we met up around the corner. The advanced guys had grins on their faces, so they must have had a good time. Heading through the forestry was a touch boring on the normal gravel roads, but scenic.

We turned off the main road onto something more akin to a track, and the boredom was quickly lost, replaced with a gritting of the teeth, as the bike squirmed through bits of soft sand. I was still running the Michelin Anakee 2’s from the South Island trip and while a good compromise for all riding they were no match for rough off road and being over half worn didn’t help either. Still, the track was somewhat fun, and I’d already decided I would stay near the back, so I was third last and could go at my own pace. I hadn’t gone too far before people had stopped.

It turned out later that the track had been washed out, so we had to turn around. I’ve already learnt my lesson about where I stop on the GSA, so had chosen somewhere suitable, unlike a couple who’d made a common mistake. I hopped off and helped them turn their bikes around and followed everyone back to the main road. We carried on, another diversion up ahead for those that wanted (yeah, wasn’t interested thanks) and we got to the meet point before the advanced group, so I took the chance to remove the waterproof liner in the jacket as it was hitting 20 degrees and too warm.

As we continued the terrain got a little tougher and then it turned to sections of soft sand. I’ve never really been a fan and this was confirmed throughout the soft sand. With all the wheel tracks from the bikes in front of me I could find myself following one wheel track and then when one diverged the front wheel decided for itself which one to choose (normally the one I didn’t want). This resulted in an extremely nervous ride while the bike generally did it’s own thing and I was a passenger for a decent part of it (you were welcome to move the bars around but it didn’t really dictate which way you’d be going). Somewhat inevitably I guess… I didn’t make it through unscathed. The bike twisted sideways, the front washing out and while I caught it from falling with my foot, I quickly realised it had gone just far enough to make getting it upright too hard. I slowly dropped it, stepped off and picked her up again. I love adventure bikes with the big crash bars

Once I’d finally fought my way to the end (and cursing the soft sand throughout) the others had stopped for a brief break for a drink and bite to eat (if you brought anything – which I had). One of the group noticed the two dead sharks down on the beach, but no-one tried the steep descent for an easy dinner! After chatting amongst ourselves, the guide was eager to continue so onward we went. I told Adam to move ahead of the Vstrom as he was clearly a bit quicker.

A slightly more challenging section and I was glad of the Vstrom in front of me, who I termed my soft sand finder. He was also running normal dual purpose tyres, heavily biased to road, the same as me, but the bike probably wasn’t quite as capable, although lighter. Whenever he squirmed and had problems, I knew that wasn’t the line to take He had the odd moment now and then, when we hit softer sand without warning, but did far better negotiating one mud pool than I.

He went left and had an OK run, while I went right, then realised the line after it was better on the left and tried to cross over. I say tried, as I ended up perpendicular to the track, one wheel in each wheel track, sliding sideways whenever I tried to cross the wheel tracks. I managed to get out of it and we carried on. The advanced guys also carefully marked out one crest, with a severe washout on the other side. As one of them put it, you wouldn’t want to come flying over the crest at 100kph and find it. Uh yeah… like I would be doing 100kph on this stuff. I was doing more like 30-40kph.

I chatted briefly to the Vstrom while we waited for everyone to arrive, chuckling about our experiences, and he’d had some rather eye opening ones. One of the advanced guys appeared from his guiding us around obstacles. He was on a blue KTM 990 Adventure, complete with the orange crash bars, and more importantly, had a set of FMF pipes fitted. With knobblies on, he was making easy work of the tracks and I was getting some serious horn on listening to it, remembering what I’d given up when trading the 990 Supermoto for it. It didn’t help that he wasn’t shy on the throttle either, but then, is there a KTM owner that is soft and gentle?

Once re-grouped we continued, more gravel, but unfortunately, this turned into soft sand just as I was starting to enjoy myself. More battling with the bike then, as it was pretty much a rinse and repeat of the previous section, and yes… I dropped the bike… again The soft sand was getting old, but I hoisted the bike up again. Think of it as a free workout… I know I do. In the soft sand the bike never goes flat on its side, resting on the extensive crash bars, so I simply lift it straight up, facing the bike.

More stumbling through the sand… no fun at all and every time I seem to go through soft sand the more I begin to hate it… I negotiated it without any more rests, to find a couple of guys at the end directing me down another track… except this was soft DEEP sand. The KTM rider advised me to stay far right, which ended up with my front higher up the bank than the rear, the rear digging a trench and basically going nowhere. The other guy kindly lent me a hand and we got the bike forward so I could get down a short hill, but it was all soft deep sand, but thankfully they were motioning everyone into the forest as a diversion and this was actually quite fun.

I rolled up that without issue (plus enjoying it) and once up parked to one side I guided the others behind me where to go. Most of the more road going bikes were cursing the sand and I’m quite honest when I say I didn’t buy the GSA to go heavy off roading, or navigating soft sand. Devil was quite proud of the fact he made it up the sand path, but pah, the forest bit was much more fun. The big Katoom let loose through the forest, going back and forth, the odd jump and basically having a ball.

So much so, I was seriously considering if I’d made the right choice, because damn, that sound was good. Realistically however, while the KTM was excellent here (and obviously the rider on top), it was more dirt orientated with bigger rims, and I knew if I was doing long road km I’d definitely be wanting the BMW, plus the tyre selection was much more limited for road on the KTM with a 21 inch front wheel and 18 inch rear. Once the KTM was done, it was another short stretch of sand and we were back on the gravel road. We took a few gravel roads that took us back to one of the intersections we’d passed through near the beginning, and options were provided.

Those wishing could do another advanced route or more gravel roads were the second option. Some elected to do the advanced section (naturally I wasn’t keen) and a large chunk of us decided to take a break. I felt the gravel roads could be done any time (simple gravel roads) so we hung around and chatted about various topics, including grilling poor Adam about his experiences. The temperature had been climbing into the early twenties and there was definitely none of the rain clouds threatening us now, so the ride had really turned out excellently. Hard luck to those that pulled out due to the rain in the morning!

Once everyone was back (and Jim had gone KTM hunting – yes, despite a GPS he got lost) we headed out of the forest, thanking our guide for an excellent tour and headed to Helensville for a late lunch. The road was far more to my liking, especially with the road biased tyres, so I found myself quickly going from the back to mid-pack. Pulling into Helensville a few needed gas, but Devil and I had barely started scratching the depths of our tanks so asking for the lunch stop we went straight there, which was the café behind the gas station.

We had a nice lunch, especially as we were hungry. The odd coffee was accidentally stolen by another and I highly suggest denying caffeine to those addicted is not advised… they get nasty! Devil interrogated Adam about his travels and some of the finer details of being on the road.

Some of the guys after lunch were off to explore more gravel roads before finding the motorway, but I had other things to sort in the afternoon, so I headed off back through Old North Rd to the NW motorway and made my way home.

The day was actually quite short on mileage, around 200km for the entire round trip, but it was high on fun and experience. I’m no riding god, but perhaps with a few more outings I might manage to not drop my bike during one!

Credit to Ian Robertson for this video I believe:
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Comments

  1. raftn's Avatar
    low in mileage, high on fun....kind of sums it up pretty well I reckon. personally i think you did very well on the sand, my bike is a lot less in weight and it was a mission at times. Great fun though
  2. gijoe1313's Avatar
    Its always amusing to see how ol'gremlin has got used to the idea of dropping his bike now ... And the pangs of KTM ownership still runs deep in his veins!
  3. Gremlin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by raftn
    low in mileage, high on fun....kind of sums it up pretty well I reckon. personally i think you did very well on the sand, my bike is a lot less in weight and it was a mission at times. Great fun though
    Yerp... Never bought the bike to spend all day riding sand, so I accept the downside. Would be nice if the bike didn't think it was a perfect time to rest... every.single.fucken.time
  4. Gremlin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by gijoe1313
    Its always amusing to see how ol'gremlin has got used to the idea of dropping his bike now ... And the pangs of KTM ownership still runs deep in his veins!
    It's got more crash bars than most bikes I've come across... makes it easy to be "happy" to drop it... After all, you can't have fun on a garage queen can ya? Yes... my heart still hankers after a KTM, but my head tells it to stop being stupid and that's it's only good for certain things, while the BMW is the better all rounder.

    Stay tuned, I'll put up the blog for Poronui in due course, and knobblies helps the bike greatly