Aussie ride, Orange 2 day adventure

Well what a great two days with a great crew, thanks again to all that made the effort to travel for the trails and fun
The ride started with Kylie Dan and Novice at home on Friday evening, I had fitted a new tyre to the 650 that arvo and it was all go or so I thought
When Kylie and Dan arrived we loaded their bikes onto my trailer and had a few quiet bundies. We discussed who drank Bundy when someone said Beagle drinks dark and stormy bindies, Kylie quickly added probably only half a Bundy which had Dan and rolling on the ground laughing. Mind you she gave a Dan a dress down later as the conversation got around the motard bike, Kylie wants pillion pegs fitted for some reason and we all know what woman are like when they want something
I said "Well Kylie if they didn’t come out with and you change the complete sub frame to fit a set the bike still wont be ADR'ed as rego legal for pillion use on the road"
Kylie replied with "I would really like a set but"
Dan said "Kylie its illegal"
Kylie takes a swig from her can of Bundy and said "Getting around with a head like yours should be illegal Dan but you still do it"
Ok so up the next morning at 5.30 and we hooked the car up down the road and meet Scotty ready and waiting, we travelled out and passed Crash and Mal 400 meters from the arranged meeting place for them at Yetholme. We had some bacon and egg rolls and left for Orange, I had found a broken spoke in my rear wheel on Friday arvo and needed wanted to get one if I could, it turns out this may have clouded my judgement
We turned out to be early so we ducked into the Honda shop in Orange and they gave me a couple of second hand spokes that they believed should fit, cheers Greg
We travelled out and meet Rocket and got to the olds place and started unloading the bikes


Someone said that my rear wheel brgs where rooted, I said no way I only fitted the wheel last night. So I walked over gave the wheel a shake and sure enough the rear wheel brgs rooted!!!! WTF!! How could I have missed that? I gave Dan and Kylie some directions to the local brg shop and I stripped the wheel they got back very quickly and we whacked the brgs in and away we went, very embarrassing
We got under way and into the sweet single trail close to where we parked and how good was it, a touch dusty in the pines but all good. We did some of the pine area and worked our way out the back to the bush area, there was one particular rocky hill that caused some drama

Kylie

Mal 5.1 on the Sherco

White Rocket

Kylie having a ball

Novice was having a few dramas with his bike so we headed back in to the pines and then into Orange to the Robin Hood tavern for lunch.

Bikes lined up at the Pub

Crash and Scotty heading in to slip on the feed bags
From there we headed out to Mullion Creek to ride the singles that Dan, Rocket, Bob and Axel rode last week. Bob went back to the car whilst we continued for a couple of hrs. Once finished we returned to the cars and grabbed our overnight back packs for Hillend, it was then Rocket noticed he had a front flat tyre. Out came the levers and a new tube was fitted. We then got ready again, everybody gathered out the front of the olds for a final debrief when I noticed Novice had a rear flat tyre, back to the cars and that was changed and away we finally go. Not 1 km down the road we come across and family taking their kids on horses down the side of the road, we as always turn the bikes of and roll past on the other side of the road as far away as possible and then it happens the older girls horse spooks it throws her off and the other one does the bolt with 4 year old on board, Kylie jumps off her bike on the move to try and grab the bolting horse. Finally all horse caught all kids ok, parents say they can’t understand what happened we had done the right thing when passing but who know, bloody horses.
We travelled out through Ophir and across a sweet twin trail to the Long Point road and finally climbed down to the Long point river crossing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWFQk27mDR8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDgBNimI5wI


Crash cooling down at the crossing
Once in Hillend we checked into out rooms at the pub and looked over the town as such





OK so checked and sitting out on the veranda having a Bundy with Kylie and Dan I get a bloody long splitter in my leg SOAB!! Kylie dug around and around forever getting it out god bless her she was so worried about hurting me but by this stage I would have just cut it along the splitter with a razor blade if I had had one. But she kept at it and did a two thumbs up job

Nurse Kylie with a small part of the on going process that was the splitter removal
Once everyone was showered and smelling better I made my way down the brains trust table

The meals turned up and again the Hillend pub bistro turned it on

Rocket’s steak

Mal 5.1’s steak
Mal 5.1 was unable to contain his excitement for the whole two days, below you can see the excitement just dribbling from him

Dan and I went and locked the bikes up



Then it was back to the hour of power while the world’s problem got solved

Mal (from Sutto’s) and Andrew turned up on their 625 katos having completed the better part of the bridle in the dark dodging roos and mountain goats (yes Boony sounds like heaven for you I know)
The tribe then took over the jute box and pool table. Mal confessed to being some sort of pool champion and he and crash started a rule of the table until Kylie and I took over the trophy for a short time. Kylie again showed her competitive nature at the pool table which frankly scares the shit outa me no wonder Dan is as whipped as he is
Lots of fun had here

Mal 5.1 the pool shark

Crash the slam man, if you hit the balls hard enough in a small table something has to sink

You can see Kylie’s competitive streak from here

Scotty watched on
I was paired with Kylie after she refused to team with Dan again because well he was embarrassing to watch play pool, it was during this game that I some what hit a ball rather hard this saw the orange ball leave the table, when we went to recover it found it had hit crash, or so he claimed

Mal (Sutto’s) sat and watched the antics, what a hell of a nice guy that can wheel stand a bike

Crash and Mal 5.1 carried on for a bit before the went of the bed

DAY 2
I woke early in the morning and went for a sit on the veranda, Dan and Kylie soon joined me, we could see Crash walking around Hillend reading the signs and generally doing the tourist bit.
Everybody was soon suited up for our 8am leave, we left and rode straight through to the top of the valley over looking the Long Point crossing and the Macquarie River. Dan and Crash changed bikes so it was to be Dan and I up the front on the fiddys, from here we rode down and crossed the river again and headed to the twin trail that joins the Ophir Rd and Long Point rds. This is a fantastic twin trail that you can really get into, it includes switch back and a creek crossing, ups and downs it has it all, and including a big washout that Dan collected at speed and had a moment.
From there we rode out to Ophir and had a walk through the caves


Group shot

Light at the end of the tunnel
From there we rode back to the cars and Novice left to head home, we put on some wet weather gear because it had started raining and headed to town for brunch, we went to Roberts’s bakery as recommended by ECKS in the pie thread


Mal (Sutto’s) and Andrew left for what would be a wet ride back to Sydney via Wombeyan Caves, cheers for coming along guys
We headed out to Mt Canobolas and cut some sweet very very slippery wet singles I had a lay down trying to get up an impossible (for the wet) hill, Rocket had a go but didn’t get that far because his tyre was rooted. Crash and I both fell over trying to walk down the hill in question. From there we rode around slipping and sliding until we came to the bottom of what has been named BOB’S HILL, it’s the hill that I took the photo of LC and Moto pushing the Kato’s up after Bob rode up with a bald tyre on our 4 day ride

Well the hill was very different it was wet, very wet and being clay based the general thought was no one would get to the top, being the leader I had first crack but turns out I took the wrong line trying to get a better run up

Fiddy stopped
From my vantage point I then took some photos and video, again it was discussed with Crash via Bluetooth that the hill was not going to be beaten this day

Scotty having a crack

Scotty turning around
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_rousjAS1A
Few having a go on the hill

Turns out that no one told Mal 5.1 the hill couldn’t be done this day, watch him go what a legend
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCp8tvn9wms
That was it then we started to head out of the forest when Crash had a big crash, it started with me running wide on a very slippery corner and nearly into the drop beside the track, I yelled to crash on the blue tooth to watchout slippery and corner tightens. Crash just shut the throttle and it was that slippery the compression locked the back wheel and he became a passenger, Mal has photos that do some justice to how long he slipped and slid for because he ate it. He replaced his broke front brake lever and we got going back. We punched out a quick couple of loops behind the olds and then loaded and headed home.
Thanks to
Mum and Gabba for the parking spot
Mal and Andrew for turning up and riding the Bridle trail in the dark to be there, very brave I reckon
Everyone for making the effort to join in my last ride for sometime and the last ride for the polka dot jersey, it’s been put out to pasture
Everyone for putting up with Saturdays dust and Sunday’s rain
More to follow later, some high lights etc
TB

That is some great looking riding and fun. You guys have some style down there...