I'm knackered! So tired....
Today I went on an adventure ride with a friend of mine. I borrowed a DRZ250 and he got a quad bike.
Note: It was my very first off road riding (not including gravels/ road works).
So, the ride started around 10:00am to 3:30pm. When I got on the DRZ250, I noticed that it was very high. First impression: "Holy shit it's totally different to a road bike". Practice riding was quite difficult at first. Due to bad weather, slippery grass was hard to get used to (at first).
It was fun watching my friend riding his first-ever-vehicle-other-than-car. He accidentally rammed over a fence, almost flipping the quad.
My friend on quad bike, just after ramming over a fence.
So off we went, over the hills and fields. Saw lots of sheep and cattles too. The difficult part for me was the mud and snow. They were very slippery. After spending hours how to figure out the way to ride over them, I came to a conclusion "When there's a mud pool/ snow, just GAS IT, HOLD ON and PRAY!". It worked most of the time (seriously). It was also fun loosing the rear traction, sliding side ways going up hill. Good fun indeed.
What else happened.... Ah yes, I binned once and bailed out of the bike twice (damn snow and mud together!).
We went over river crossing over and over and over again. It was fun and challenging. But those slippery pebbles were very unpredictible...
Instructor's DRZ250, mine and my friend's quad bike.
What else happened. Ah thats right, the friend on quad once turned sharply then hit a big stone or something. He almost flipped the damn thingIt was fun to watch.
My friend Danny (left) and I (right, the ugly one).
While I was riding all these horrific slippery terrain for almost 5 hours, I constantly thought to myself "Gosh how did Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman went around the world on BMWs which weighs twice as the DRZ250? Crazy!!"
Well ofcourse before we started the "trip", the instructor taught us how to adventure ride. The standing up position (which was amazingly comfortable along mud), tight turns, braking on wet grass etc... I learnt alot.
I had many trouble learning how to adventure ride. Thing is, I never been off road and I'm facing the mother nature's worst! But still I had much fun watching Danny learning how to ride the quad bike. Him going all over the place, bailing out, accidentally going over a bump at speed making him fly etc. One time he nearly drove over a cliff!
What didn't I like about adventure riding? Well err... dropping a borrowed bike 3 times wasn't satisfyingOfcourse, as a beginner adventure rider, I had extremely tough time learning/ getting used to riding on mud and snow. still I hate snow!
SO, will I ever do it again? HELL YEA! The instructor told us at the end that next time when I bring 3 mates or over, he will give us a massive 25% discount on the tour. AMAZING! But please, next time I would like to do it on a dry day!!!
P.S. I didn't know adventure riding was so physically challenging! My arms are sore! My right hand was numb when I got off the bike at the end. It's so tiring.......
Just a sample video. Sadly the camera's angle wasn't very good.
Thanks very much to AdventureRide.co.nz for the guide and tour.
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Originally Posted by Eddieb
I FEEL THE NEED, THE NEED FOR SPEED 
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