I am fortunate enough to live in the Eastern Hills area of Perth surrounded by MILLIONS of hectares of state forests... Dual Sport motorcycle heaven.
We have had a shortage of rain in these parts lately making it too hot and dusty to be venturing out into the West Australian bush, certainly through the summer months.
Well, we finally had some minor rains, not a lot but just enough to drop the temperature and the dust down a little bit for our first ride out for about 5 months.
The story:
The plan was that we head out to the South skirting Perths main water catchment dam through a mix of gravel transport roads and single 4X4 trails and then loop back through some snotty single trail (old enduro loop) stuff that I knew of about 25kms from home.
The guys assembled at the Waspnest at around 11:00am and we hit the trail.
There was only the three of us. Me on the trusty S10 WASPmobile, my bro (and good mate) Mike on his point and shoot 450 Katoom, and my good ole mate Bargenator (Graham) on his S10.
First water/smoke stop was about 15kms out of base atop some huge rock formations. Dunno what type of rock it is as I failed that stuff at school, but they are huge and contain evidence of alien spaceship landings... Barge started going on about anal probes and shit like that which immediately signaled the time to be jumping on the bike and riding away quickly. Sorry Barge but we dont swing that way. ???
Nah, in all seriousness, I believe him when he says he hasn't been gay for a long time :-\
Tha ROCK.
I had seen (on the map) these hikers rest huts on the walking trails dotted throughout the forest and we found this one near the tail end of the dam overlooking a huge valley.
Spectacular views from all around so what better time to stop for a bit of lunch.
Brother Mike on the left and Barge on the right.
The camps are set up with tank water and a bush dunny up in the distance.
Apparently they can sleep about seventeen people, or in our case, me and the bro on one side and Graham as far away as we can get him while still keeping an eye on him.
On to the crash:
After lunch we headed off and straight into a skinny little overgrown single track that looked like it had not been used for quite a few years.
Prolly picked up a few panel scratches but hey, we ride these bikes, not just polish them.
The single trail opened up to some really twisty hardpack sand/clay terrain that had us all picking up the pace and getting into the power slides and generally having a ball.
It was just after this that we headed off down some relatively easy but rutted, rocky, and gravelly 4X4 roads that may have caught Barge off guard.
We rounded a corner and came across a bloke and his lady friend just loading their MX bike on a trailer. After heading bush around the parked car we gave the customary wave/nod and headed of up the gravel track.
I was leading the way (eyeballing the GPS) and Mike was right on my tail. We rode on for about two kilometers after the parked car and headed down a really steep rutted and rocky decent where I stopped at the bottom to make sure the other guys got down ok.
Mike headed down and we both waited for Barge but to no avail.
We switched the engines off to listen for him but there was nothing, so we turned around and headed back where we came from.
It's always a worry back tracking when you know there could be an oncoming riding buddy so it seemed to take forever to get all the way back to about 700m from the parked car to find Grahams bike on it's side in the middle of the track and him sitting of to the side in the bush.
We quickly but thoroughly established that he was all in one piece and in fact had absolutely no injuries apart from pride..
Time to eyeball the damage and assess the level of necessary piss taking required.
After asking Graham W.T.F did you do and H.T.F did you do it, he proceeded to wander down the hill to assess what kicked him off line so much.
Being a caring and concerned mate, I decided now would be a good time to whip the camera out and photograph him narrating his own accident.
The following needs few words as the pictures tell the story.
Graham says he was riding along like this:
Then the arse end grabed a rut and the handlebars went like this:
Then they went like this:
Then he hit this:
Good thing Barge is built like a brick shit-house.
On a serious note, after seeing the impact area on that tree I actually stopped joking around and had another good look over Barge to make sure he was ok and not covering up any personal injuries. Made him move arms, legs, ankles, neck, hands, fingers, and eyeballs around but, all was ok, so back on with the piss taking.
This is the view from the tree back up towards the bike.
Good thing Barge's head is filled with the same stuff as you would find in the aformentioned "brick shit-house"
No concussion or anything, but that stands to reason... You need brain to impact against skull to get concussion or damage.
After a goodly amount of piss taking, and realizing the bike wont run for too long without vital fluids, we remembered the couple just down the track and thought that would be a good place to scrounge a tow rope.
Thankfully the couple had packed up but were still there having a beer before hitting the road.
Being a fellow bike rider he had no problems handing over a tow rope and wished us good luck.
The crash site was only about 1km from a gravel haul road, and then a further 5 or 6 kms from the highway so we hooked up the rope and all enjoyed a leisurely crawl back home before telling lies over a couple of beers.
We loaded the injured bike onto my ute so that Graham could drop it into the dealers for assesment this morning.
I spoke with Graham this afternoon and he says he heard from the bike shop saying the damage runs to about $6000 FFFFF FARK
So. An expensive ride in the bush but thankfully one that he walked away from and lives to do it another day.
Expect to see more of the exiting adventures of Bargenator (re-named Crashenator) in about one months time with a freshly rebuilt S10.
Greg.
We have had a shortage of rain in these parts lately making it too hot and dusty to be venturing out into the West Australian bush, certainly through the summer months.
Well, we finally had some minor rains, not a lot but just enough to drop the temperature and the dust down a little bit for our first ride out for about 5 months.
The story:
The plan was that we head out to the South skirting Perths main water catchment dam through a mix of gravel transport roads and single 4X4 trails and then loop back through some snotty single trail (old enduro loop) stuff that I knew of about 25kms from home.
The guys assembled at the Waspnest at around 11:00am and we hit the trail.
There was only the three of us. Me on the trusty S10 WASPmobile, my bro (and good mate) Mike on his point and shoot 450 Katoom, and my good ole mate Bargenator (Graham) on his S10.
First water/smoke stop was about 15kms out of base atop some huge rock formations. Dunno what type of rock it is as I failed that stuff at school, but they are huge and contain evidence of alien spaceship landings... Barge started going on about anal probes and shit like that which immediately signaled the time to be jumping on the bike and riding away quickly. Sorry Barge but we dont swing that way. ???
Nah, in all seriousness, I believe him when he says he hasn't been gay for a long time :-\
Tha ROCK.
I had seen (on the map) these hikers rest huts on the walking trails dotted throughout the forest and we found this one near the tail end of the dam overlooking a huge valley.
Spectacular views from all around so what better time to stop for a bit of lunch.
Brother Mike on the left and Barge on the right.
The camps are set up with tank water and a bush dunny up in the distance.
Apparently they can sleep about seventeen people, or in our case, me and the bro on one side and Graham as far away as we can get him while still keeping an eye on him.
On to the crash:
After lunch we headed off and straight into a skinny little overgrown single track that looked like it had not been used for quite a few years.
Prolly picked up a few panel scratches but hey, we ride these bikes, not just polish them.
The single trail opened up to some really twisty hardpack sand/clay terrain that had us all picking up the pace and getting into the power slides and generally having a ball.
It was just after this that we headed off down some relatively easy but rutted, rocky, and gravelly 4X4 roads that may have caught Barge off guard.
We rounded a corner and came across a bloke and his lady friend just loading their MX bike on a trailer. After heading bush around the parked car we gave the customary wave/nod and headed of up the gravel track.
I was leading the way (eyeballing the GPS) and Mike was right on my tail. We rode on for about two kilometers after the parked car and headed down a really steep rutted and rocky decent where I stopped at the bottom to make sure the other guys got down ok.
Mike headed down and we both waited for Barge but to no avail.
We switched the engines off to listen for him but there was nothing, so we turned around and headed back where we came from.
It's always a worry back tracking when you know there could be an oncoming riding buddy so it seemed to take forever to get all the way back to about 700m from the parked car to find Grahams bike on it's side in the middle of the track and him sitting of to the side in the bush.
We quickly but thoroughly established that he was all in one piece and in fact had absolutely no injuries apart from pride..
Time to eyeball the damage and assess the level of necessary piss taking required.
After asking Graham W.T.F did you do and H.T.F did you do it, he proceeded to wander down the hill to assess what kicked him off line so much.
Being a caring and concerned mate, I decided now would be a good time to whip the camera out and photograph him narrating his own accident.
The following needs few words as the pictures tell the story.
Graham says he was riding along like this:
Then the arse end grabed a rut and the handlebars went like this:
Then they went like this:
Then he hit this:
Good thing Barge is built like a brick shit-house.
On a serious note, after seeing the impact area on that tree I actually stopped joking around and had another good look over Barge to make sure he was ok and not covering up any personal injuries. Made him move arms, legs, ankles, neck, hands, fingers, and eyeballs around but, all was ok, so back on with the piss taking.
This is the view from the tree back up towards the bike.
Good thing Barge's head is filled with the same stuff as you would find in the aformentioned "brick shit-house"
No concussion or anything, but that stands to reason... You need brain to impact against skull to get concussion or damage.
After a goodly amount of piss taking, and realizing the bike wont run for too long without vital fluids, we remembered the couple just down the track and thought that would be a good place to scrounge a tow rope.
Thankfully the couple had packed up but were still there having a beer before hitting the road.
Being a fellow bike rider he had no problems handing over a tow rope and wished us good luck.
The crash site was only about 1km from a gravel haul road, and then a further 5 or 6 kms from the highway so we hooked up the rope and all enjoyed a leisurely crawl back home before telling lies over a couple of beers.
We loaded the injured bike onto my ute so that Graham could drop it into the dealers for assesment this morning.
I spoke with Graham this afternoon and he says he heard from the bike shop saying the damage runs to about $6000 FFFFF FARK
So. An expensive ride in the bush but thankfully one that he walked away from and lives to do it another day.
Expect to see more of the exiting adventures of Bargenator (re-named Crashenator) in about one months time with a freshly rebuilt S10.
Greg.
