Yesterday a friend invited me to join him for a day of riding with these guys: https://www.ontariooffroadadventures.com/ about 1.5hrs east of Toronto. Great bunch of guys, basically doing training and guided tours in tight forest trails on Honda 250's. I highly recommend it if you are ever out this way. Naturally, I wanted something bigger and was kindly lended a Husqvarna 450 with fuel injection and a happy button. Spent the morning cruising around with a group of four including my wife riding through some of the most amazing forest scenery I have seen on little single tracks.
After lunch my friend had to tend to the wife & rugats at home and the Mrs wanted to relax, which of course gave me the opportunity to wring hussies neck (the bike not the wife! ;D). So I set out with the instructor and another experienced guy called Philip.
We hit some amazing technical single track through a dense forest. Lots of short steep hills and tight and rocky stuff dogding trees. I was on the heels of our instructor all this time, and noticed he was a bit squirrely. At one point he even missed a turn and left the track up in a pile of logs - quite a struggle to extricate himself :imaposer: . He clearly was pushing the envelope riding and possibly his riding limit riding with us. Foolishly, we did not back off and before we got onto a rough "fire road" where we could open up a bit. As we came over a blind rise at about 100kmh, all hell broke loose.
A couple of bad 40cm deep washouts criss-crossed the road and he nearly lost it crossing the first one. I had no problem hopping it and knew it was time to slow down. As this thought crossed my mind, Alex hit the next deep rut a good 10-15m in front of me. His rear wheel hooked down to the left and the rest was like a slow motion movie. The WRF lashed back and high sided, cartwheeling both him and the bike into my line about 2m to his right. I ripped further to the right and into the depths of a washout running parallel to the road. I was able to hold it for perhaps a second or two and perhaps if he was not still moving into my new line I could have made it. Not wanting to ride over the poor guy, I basically committed hara-kiri and locked the front brakes. It was quite cool watching the rapidly panning aerial shot I had of Alex beow me until I said "howzit" to his still bouncing Yamaha. I came to an unpleasant stop a good few metres further on, face down on the ground with both bikes somehow on top of me.
My chest burned but my thigh burned even more from an exhaust and even though I could not breathe, I managed to lift the bikes a little to get the heat off my leg until Phil arrived to help me up from under the bikes. It was carnage: Phil said all he saw were two flying bikes and bodies and he dropped his trying to avoid the melee.
We both got off relatively lightly given the speed we were doing: Some broken ribs (I think from hitting the bike), some lacerations under the armpit, a 1st degree burn from melted plastic on my thigh, bruising all the way down the left side of my body and a very sore neck thanks to the Leatt brace doing its job (again!). Alex's broke his left wrist, suffered some mild concussion, and tore a lot of skin off his hands. He smashed the mouthpiece part of his helmet beyond repair.
The Husky seemed fine apart from the front fender which had broke off completely and the melted plastics from the zorst on my leg. The Yamaha suffered a broken clutch lever, broken hand guard, smashed inition switches, badly bent zorst, and some melted and mangled plastics as well. I reckon the frame might have been compromised as well.
My personal learning points:
After lunch my friend had to tend to the wife & rugats at home and the Mrs wanted to relax, which of course gave me the opportunity to wring hussies neck (the bike not the wife! ;D). So I set out with the instructor and another experienced guy called Philip.
We hit some amazing technical single track through a dense forest. Lots of short steep hills and tight and rocky stuff dogding trees. I was on the heels of our instructor all this time, and noticed he was a bit squirrely. At one point he even missed a turn and left the track up in a pile of logs - quite a struggle to extricate himself :imaposer: . He clearly was pushing the envelope riding and possibly his riding limit riding with us. Foolishly, we did not back off and before we got onto a rough "fire road" where we could open up a bit. As we came over a blind rise at about 100kmh, all hell broke loose.
A couple of bad 40cm deep washouts criss-crossed the road and he nearly lost it crossing the first one. I had no problem hopping it and knew it was time to slow down. As this thought crossed my mind, Alex hit the next deep rut a good 10-15m in front of me. His rear wheel hooked down to the left and the rest was like a slow motion movie. The WRF lashed back and high sided, cartwheeling both him and the bike into my line about 2m to his right. I ripped further to the right and into the depths of a washout running parallel to the road. I was able to hold it for perhaps a second or two and perhaps if he was not still moving into my new line I could have made it. Not wanting to ride over the poor guy, I basically committed hara-kiri and locked the front brakes. It was quite cool watching the rapidly panning aerial shot I had of Alex beow me until I said "howzit" to his still bouncing Yamaha. I came to an unpleasant stop a good few metres further on, face down on the ground with both bikes somehow on top of me.
My chest burned but my thigh burned even more from an exhaust and even though I could not breathe, I managed to lift the bikes a little to get the heat off my leg until Phil arrived to help me up from under the bikes. It was carnage: Phil said all he saw were two flying bikes and bodies and he dropped his trying to avoid the melee.
We both got off relatively lightly given the speed we were doing: Some broken ribs (I think from hitting the bike), some lacerations under the armpit, a 1st degree burn from melted plastic on my thigh, bruising all the way down the left side of my body and a very sore neck thanks to the Leatt brace doing its job (again!). Alex's broke his left wrist, suffered some mild concussion, and tore a lot of skin off his hands. He smashed the mouthpiece part of his helmet beyond repair.
The Husky seemed fine apart from the front fender which had broke off completely and the melted plastics from the zorst on my leg. The Yamaha suffered a broken clutch lever, broken hand guard, smashed inition switches, badly bent zorst, and some melted and mangled plastics as well. I reckon the frame might have been compromised as well.
My personal learning points:
- Don’t push the riding instructors, take it easy on a guided outride.
- Leave at least 30m between yourself and the bike in front of you at any significant speed unless you are planning to pass.
- Always take your HD camera so as not to miss out on the awesome action
