Man it was a long time since I'd had a dirt bike out, but marks had said on the Welly where next thread that he was starting from Waikanae at 10am today so I thought I might as well take my XR250L out. Mrs merv said look after your body its a bit out of training.
The usual thing will be that the day after the day after I might get some stiffness, but what a shame I'll be back at work by then.
In the end I had a few hassles, not with my body but with the bike, firstly marks took his mirrors off but I thought oh mine will be OK. Well on the first leg in the right one came loose and then fell off and I had to walk back to find it. That will teach me to (a) take it off first, (b) if not, stop as soon as it comes loose, instead of thinking I'll do it when the other guys stop. Didn't break it so that is OK.
Then you'll see in the pics the boulders at the river are quite big. being a short arse if I got caught with wheels on top of two I was a bit tippy, so on the way back gunned through one of the river crossing and then promptly skidded in the soft sand I hit on the other side and decked the bike when it was virtually stopped. Bugger me the right front brake lever broke clean off. I had replaced the lever with an adjustable one but damn its not as strong as the originals.
They say things come in threes and damn the rocks are rugged in there and I pinched the front tube and had a bloody flat tyre. My first in about 10 years, but then I don't ride too often eh.
Back home now and everything is all fixed I had all the spares I needed here. The boys wanted me to change the tube in there but I left it until I got home because I tried Slime in it - no good - so cleaned all that out nicely with the hose, something we couldn't do in there. I have two rim locks on my wheels so I was able to ride out OK and there is no apparent damage to the rim or tyre, but there were two parallel tears in the tube like classic pinch marks.
Here's a few of the pics I took. The others may post there's somewhere and tell the rest of the story, as they went on but I headed home once we got back to Akatarawa Road.
The first pics are at the Waikanae coffee cart. Clean bikes.
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