I was asked by Mr Badger and the organizing folk to put together a ride for adventure bikes for this event.
This is the fifth holding of this off-road Toy Run, and the first year with an Adv bike ride.
Eish but there were plastic bikes - couple of hundred of the noisy things ;D
I was unsure as to how many adventure bikes would pitch, and the level of the the riders, so I suggested to Mr Badger that I plot a route that I know well rather than "unChartered" routes and have the danger of having to do U turns and getting lost with a pack of 20-50 bikes.
So I plotted a fairly standard valley route that I could lead without fear of missing a turn (or shebeen). - Sort of like the Durban equivalent of the ubiquitous Gauteng "Canal and Rock" run.
The other challenge was time - we had a start at 09:00 and were asked to be back by 13:00-14:00, so that did not give a big riding window or time to go exploring.
I need not have worried. There were only nine bikes in the pack - an ideal number for a little ride, and much to my delight about half of the riders were folk I had never met, and who had not been along all, or parts, of the planned track.
What was interesting that there was only one "pair" among the bikes - MadDog and my 660Zs the rest comprised:- 990, 690, F800, DR650, Super Ten, Xr650 - what was the ninth? - I have never understood "one brand" rides - I love it when you get a shuffled pack and you can see all the bikes and see how they handle.
Track was as per the planning thread here:-
https://wilddog.net.za/forum/index.php?topic=82566.0
I asked MadDog to take the lead so I could do my normal sweeping duty - Thanks D. - only one minor problem was on the top of fields hill where some of the pack had truck issues and overshot the exit, and we had to regroup.
Personally a ride for a cause is always nice for me. The ride collected almost R30k(?) for a Children's home - well done guys!!
Some personal feedback for next year:-
1. The 09:00 start is too late, and the loop structure is restrictive.
Plastic folk need to trailer/carry bikes and seem to need an hour of tinkering to get going, so my suggestion would be to start and register the Adv bikes earlier and at a different location - we ride our transport, so we can do a start to finish ride rather than a start to start one.
So if we were to start at, say, Gear Up in Umhlanga at 07:00, we could have done a far bigger loop and taken in more scenic terrain and then met the plastics at the end.
2. Lucy Dip Draws are chaotic and take forever.
It is great when sponsors give prizes, but we were there to drink/eat/karkpraat and to waste an hour and a half on pulling names from a jar, and then trying to winkle the winner from the pub, braai, toilet or trailer park area, is to me a no-no.
There must be a better way to do it. How about writing all the names up on flip chart paper, drawing names and writing the prize number next to the name? There must also be a "lucky loser" list for folk to get the prizes of the people who did not collect their prize in a reasonable time - the no-shows.
But it was a lekka day, and I think we can make it better and get more adv bikes involved.
Thanks for the guys who came along, and a special thanks to MadDog for leading us admirably up front.
And it nice to have a nice t-shirt that gets around my expansive torso. ;D ;D
This is the fifth holding of this off-road Toy Run, and the first year with an Adv bike ride.
Eish but there were plastic bikes - couple of hundred of the noisy things ;D
I was unsure as to how many adventure bikes would pitch, and the level of the the riders, so I suggested to Mr Badger that I plot a route that I know well rather than "unChartered" routes and have the danger of having to do U turns and getting lost with a pack of 20-50 bikes.
So I plotted a fairly standard valley route that I could lead without fear of missing a turn (or shebeen). - Sort of like the Durban equivalent of the ubiquitous Gauteng "Canal and Rock" run.
The other challenge was time - we had a start at 09:00 and were asked to be back by 13:00-14:00, so that did not give a big riding window or time to go exploring.
I need not have worried. There were only nine bikes in the pack - an ideal number for a little ride, and much to my delight about half of the riders were folk I had never met, and who had not been along all, or parts, of the planned track.
What was interesting that there was only one "pair" among the bikes - MadDog and my 660Zs the rest comprised:- 990, 690, F800, DR650, Super Ten, Xr650 - what was the ninth? - I have never understood "one brand" rides - I love it when you get a shuffled pack and you can see all the bikes and see how they handle.
Track was as per the planning thread here:-
https://wilddog.net.za/forum/index.php?topic=82566.0
I asked MadDog to take the lead so I could do my normal sweeping duty - Thanks D. - only one minor problem was on the top of fields hill where some of the pack had truck issues and overshot the exit, and we had to regroup.
Personally a ride for a cause is always nice for me. The ride collected almost R30k(?) for a Children's home - well done guys!!
Some personal feedback for next year:-
1. The 09:00 start is too late, and the loop structure is restrictive.
Plastic folk need to trailer/carry bikes and seem to need an hour of tinkering to get going, so my suggestion would be to start and register the Adv bikes earlier and at a different location - we ride our transport, so we can do a start to finish ride rather than a start to start one.
So if we were to start at, say, Gear Up in Umhlanga at 07:00, we could have done a far bigger loop and taken in more scenic terrain and then met the plastics at the end.
2. Lucy Dip Draws are chaotic and take forever.
It is great when sponsors give prizes, but we were there to drink/eat/karkpraat and to waste an hour and a half on pulling names from a jar, and then trying to winkle the winner from the pub, braai, toilet or trailer park area, is to me a no-no.
There must be a better way to do it. How about writing all the names up on flip chart paper, drawing names and writing the prize number next to the name? There must also be a "lucky loser" list for folk to get the prizes of the people who did not collect their prize in a reasonable time - the no-shows.
But it was a lekka day, and I think we can make it better and get more adv bikes involved.
Thanks for the guys who came along, and a special thanks to MadDog for leading us admirably up front.
And it nice to have a nice t-shirt that gets around my expansive torso. ;D ;D
