My First Dirt Ride
by Mark Pringle
It was with some trepidation that I agreed to join Carl, Graham and Willie
to do part of the ride to Arniston on dirt. I have never ridden on dirt
before but seeing that I have a big trailie there was no excuse seeing it
was my weekend off.
Sunday morning bright and early I arrived at Damelin to find the parking
area empty, even the security guard gave me a funny look when he did his
rounds. Finally Nomads started arriving, I have come to the conclusion that
most of them are not morning people or was it just a lack of caffeine.
Once everyone had arrived we set off stopping at Kleinmond, for a leg
stretch, ciggie break and refuel. Then off to Stanford where Graham, Carl,
Willie and I took to the dirt we stopped just after we turned off where it
was decided that depending on the condition of the road we would do the dirt
or rejoin the others on tar.
Graham took the lead with me trying to follow with Willie and Carl bringing
up the rear. For a while Graham rode reasonably sedately it soon became
evident that the road surface was okay because he took off like a bat out of
hell.
I managed to keep him in sight sometimes just his dust cloud and rode with a
certain amount of confidence as my nonexistent skills allowed watching where
Graham rode to avoid the very loose stuff. The first stretch of dirt
approximately 90 kilometers of hard gravel with minimal dust, then a short
section of tar then more dirt.
This section was quite a different story, to start with this was a badly
potholed rode, which had received some heavy rain recently, with resultant
puddles a some rather muddy sections. Once more I watched Graham to get an
idea on what to avoid.
This went well except for one section with a very narrow section of hard
stuff between the potholes and puddles where the front wheel slipped into a
pothole the front wheel pulled skew and a very weird picture of me doing a
swallow dive into a very big muddy puddle flashed through my mind.
Fortunately I kept the throttle open and a firm grip on the bars and was
able to regain the firm stuff.
We arrived at Arniston, very muddy but happy and enjoyed a great breakfast
and a good chat. I was chuffed that my first dirt excursion had gone off so
well, but the BMW off road course in August looks like a very good option.
Thanks Sue for a great venue and Carl and the guys for the great ride.
Mark P
