Let's off-road!

Honda Off-Road Experience at Meashams, near Ringwood. Tearing around a site
of special scientific interest on CR250s (awesome) and XR400s (lardy old bus
by comparison). £140 quid for the day, all bikes and kit included, and I
just did it. Thoroughly recommended.

And, more importantly, I rocked.

 

Sometime around Fri, 22 Apr 2005 20:28:57 +0100, simonk babbled on about:

Can you still walk? I am booked in mid July with Honda, and really
lookinmg forward to it despite having not ridden an off road machine in
anger for over 25 years.

 

No. HTH

 

yeah yeah. Have you got your MilleR yet?

 

Tomorrow, assuming I'm in a fit state to ride anything by then ...

 

Mountain marathons? Kid's stuff!

 

On that note, anyone else game for this? 140 quid is pretty reasonable,
and I've been thinking about doing it since K first mentioned it ages
ago.

So if anyone's up for it, two's company. Three's a crowd though, so
anyone else can **** off.

 

I'd do it again, actually. And try to remember not to run out of nurofen

 

We went to Pismo Beach a few weeks ago, it is several thousand acres of
sand dunes where you can take your ATV/4*4/whatever and have at it. We
rented 2 ATVs (Honda 250) and had a fun time.

http://homepage.mac.com/mike.bothe/PhotoAlbum20.html

--
Mike

SV650
UKRMMA#22
Skype: muddycat

 

I'm game. Not just yet, though - have to wait for the weather to get
a bit less wanky before I want to be playing off-road.

 

That's half the fun, playing in the wet/mud.

 

You forget this isn't california. Wet usually implies cold.

 

yes, well I forgot that.

--
Mike

SV650
UKRMMA#22
Skype: muddycat

 

"Paging BGN"

Could be useful ;-)

--
John (jsp)

SV 650
Black it is
And Naked

 

Reminds me, I'll have to nudge flook about getting his CR250/500 hybrid
fixed. I'd love to take it out for a blat round some off road bits.

 

I'd be interested. So, what do you think of the new bike?

 

I've been thinking about doing an off road day/weekend since Bear & Co
mentioned it to me when I first passed so that I could get over my
fear or cramming on the brakes and binning it big time (Oh… I've
already done that now!). I intend to do it over the few months, but
doing it on my own will be boring, so it would be nice to pop along
with someone else.

However, I'm trying to avoid holding anyone back, as I would feel more
of a problem than I do already and no one in here appears to be at my
level. Over-confidence != Experience.

Thanks for thinking of me, though.

 

Hard to tell so far. Because the insurance company have cocked up a bit, the
bike's not registered yet. I rode it back from Wheelpower untaxed, and it's
now in the garage[1]. Hopefully the paperwork will be sorted out very very
early next week.

Initial impressions, after riding back from the shop in the rain - definitely
more sit-in rather than sit-on, as all the reviews say. Motor is a bit
quieter, less road-drill-like, but seems much revvier. Handling, who knows,
seems easier to steer at low speeds.

Umm, that's about it really, I rode it back 3 miles from Raynes Park in the
wet, fucked from off-roading and rowing this morning. Roll on next weekend
(or some "working from home" this week)

[1] There are ANPR cameras all over the shop at the moment (there was one at
the end of the road last week, FFS) and I'm not keen on getting pulled

 

The people I did it with (rowing club mates) did it last October, on a dry
day but after a week of fairly solid rain. They fell off at least once a lap
(of a 1700m circuit) and got very very very very cold wet and dirty indeed.
Booking a session at the end of a dry spell seems to be the way forward, but
as you say, getting one of those reliably really means waiting till the end
of August

Yesterday the track was completely dry (mainly loose sandy soil) with a
couple of damp bits in the shadier areas, and with the sunshine I was
sweating like a rapist after half an hour.

 

BGN wrote:

regarding off road riding:

Oh I don't know about that. I would assume that I'm not alone in not
having ridden off road. Well, not since I was 15 and 'owned' a rather
illegal puch maxi [1]. I can make progress on road, but have no idea
whether I'd be good or crap off tarmac.

My pleasure.

[1] did I really just admit to that?

--
John (jsp)

SV 650
Black it is
And Naked