Wet Wet Wet in Aus, go the XR's

So Crash turned up about 10ish the night before, I had picked up some barkbuster mounts for his new bars / map reader / Condo750 setup and these needed to be fitted for today.


It was then into the house for a few rumskies oh and it rained the whole time matter a fact it rained here all day
The alarm went of at 4.10am, went up and woke Crash, we shuffled cars etc in the driveway and left, and yes it was raining at a steady pace still
We had a slower then planned trip out the meet Boulder in the Zig Zag railway car park because of the rain, rain, rain and fog. Boulder was there waiting for us in the dark


We unloaded the bikes, it was darker then planned because of the heavy cloud cover and constant rain


Crash had a protector for all his map reader and nav gear that he wanted to test before the Condo 750 which is a navigation event at Easter


We left and warmed the bikes up, we started into the singles and then onto the power lines track which has had the arse flogged out of it by 4x4 and constant bike traffic, this section includes the big hill that cause some trouble on the biggest weekend last year. Crash got stuck in one of the soft spots that were everywhere, it was mentally taxing looking so hard and guessing what each bit of trail held in store for you.


Boulder to the rescue


He was almost through to where the track was better


Boulder having trouble just walking :laugh:


Crash underway




Boulder straight through, “Good as Gold”




Still we kept going along the power line track here are some random shots, remember the camera does no justice to how steep it is or slippery




Retread hill from the biggest weekend which we all rode straight up


We rode on and ended up at the back of Angus Place


Boulder going through the endless job of cleaning your safety glasses on a wet and muddy days ride


Crash’s flight deck


View from the top of gap above Angus Place Colliery


We made only our 2nd real stop in 70 odd kms at a lookout over Wollgan Valley


The discission was made to head to Capertee for a bacon and egg roll
I lead us down through some sweet wide singles that twisted all through a valley included some obstacles
Boulder in action




Crash


Some of the tracks we used


Hill we came down behind the tree, bloody washed out and rutted




Boulder and Crash sitting up the top of the hill that caused Chris72a and Chopper so much grief the last time we rode out there, yet in the wet we all got straight up


Warning rerun footage to show the hill as I didn’t get any to give you and idea of the actual hill, again remember it doesn’t do justice to the hill
The drama from the last time in the dry
Chicken first he rode Choppers bike up after his, see him hit a rock and do the feet of the peg thing as he comes up
http://www.youtube.com/user/obtrailriders#p/u/138/5UmrgJKkGW8
http://www.youtube.com/user/obtrailriders#p/u/136/xZAf0SNtoyA
http://www.youtube.com/user/obtrailriders#p/u/137/S0Hnk5YSyO4

There was no footage of Chopper as he head butted a head on the right hander at the bottom
Once at the top we rode back down and wound our way out onto the Mudgee road between Cullen Bullen and Baalbone Colliery and did about 1km down the road and got back into a disused twin trail covered in leaves and slippery as that went for about 15mins that had you guessing the whole time. We crossed the Baalbone service rail line and rode the service trail to Ben Bullen, this is an over grown in places twin trail that goes up and down around slippery corners with no run of or room for error. This includes a heap of sharp kicker style erosion mounds and Chopper’s hill where he broke his wrist last ride I lead out there. From there we rode a couple of singles and a high speed run along a fence line into Capertee. The fence line run has a heap of big soft puddles, wet soft sand and some wheel smashing spoke breaking ruts.
We went to Capertee servo, fuelled and had a bacon and egg roll each


Boulder played with the finger biting bird in the cage :woohoo:


We meet a bloke from the north coast with some trick number plates (if you’re into that) :huh:


Funny thing was the bike he had on his trailer, but it was obvious he had more taste then his plates made out :laugh: :P True


It was exactly 99.2kms we had covered to this stage and it was still bloody raining
So after a bacon and egg roll we suited back up and left Capertee with a fun single up to the Mudgee road at the lookout. From there down about half a kay on the black top and back onto the railway service track along the fence line that has a heap of big soft puddles, wet soft sand and some wheel smashing spoke breaking ruts it was here the insaneo meter registered a 9 + when Crash and I spend sometime on the hammer with the 650’s winding out and leaving Boulder behind some, dodging ruts and talking over the blue tooth helps to make those silly times heaps safer. We worked our way back to Chris’s hill as I have named it and none of us made it up this time. I ended up of the track but still up right, Crash stopped and started going backwards with his only concern not to scratch his new side cover graphics but he crashed blocking Boulder.
We rode back up to the top of the range behind Cullen Bullen that are very rocky and this included a hill that would be at home on a Murphsburg. Crash had a flameout so Boulder and I waited when we got going thru the tight singles along the ridge I had a nearly over the bars arse puckering moment. No sooner had I composed myself I heard the call “MAN DOWN” Crash was down of the edge of the track which was fairly steep in places. Once going we came out behind Cullen Bullen Pub and dashed about 2kms up the road and went back into the scrub to follow and old power line service track that doesn’t see much use which had a big rutted rocky uphill and a really rutted rocky downhill
Looking back down the hill


Boulder and Crash at the top with Mt Piper power station in the back ground


We worked our way back out through the singles etc to the start of the Black Fellows hand trail and up to the pass






From there we just rode some fire trail, a heap of twins including the power lines again, some narrow leaf covered twins, some singles, retread hill (which is harder going down I reckon) heaps of rutted washed out trails and back to the car park
Zig Zag station




My bike with the white wet side covers


Crash’s Fiddy all dirty


Boulder already loaded


Mal 5.1 this video is for you after your safety concerns with Crash loading his bike (only because I couldn’t talk him into riding it on, he will next time I reckon)
http://www.youtube.com/user/obtrailriders#p/a/u/0/ZeZJIrVsamo

Crash and I went back to the Mt Vic pub for a beer and Rum and then home for Salina’s famous noodles, nice eh Crash?

TB

Great photos and report.
You've got some fantastic trails over there

That slick rocks sure looks spooky