Tokai Forest Leisure Ride

Tue

Sep

2008

Written by Brent Boswell

On Saturday 13^th September 3 members of AmaOneTya, Johnny, Flo, and Brent, met up at Tokai Forest for what was intended to be a leisure ride in the forest. The ride in fact turned into quite an epic 4 hour ride. There was a full compliment of wheel sizes with Johnny on his KH29", Brent on his Qu-Ax24", and Flo on Johnny's Qu-Ax20". Having the different wheel sizes made missioning around quite interesting, although Flo was like a demon on the 20" and easily kept up with both Brent and Johnny and frequently outpaced Brent despite him being on the larger 24" wheel.

The ride started with the long slog up the steep jeep track to Vasbyt at Level 2 before a short rest. The group then rode down the new downhill'ers trail going down Lizard with the big drop down the massive rock which Flo did on all 3 Unicycles, Johnny did his on the 29" and 20", and Brent did on his 24". They then continued up Lizard again to Level 3, through the Pixie Garden, up along Boulders and finally getting to the highest point at Level 5. All this was still within the first hour with plenty of riding yet to come. It was a glorious day and the forest was full of Mountain Bikers so the day also turned into quite a social occasion with many chats and discussions being held with the Mountain Bikers at almost every stop the group made. There was a lot of interest from the MTB'ers and the group also got the usual "you guys are insane" comments, along with the smiles and shakes of the head.

At level 5 the group took a short rest before heading along the jeep track towards Mamba to start the long haul back down the mountain down the single tracks. Mamba is a great single track which flows really nicely with only a few technical drops and has a great drop onto the jeep track half way through, which Johnny, Flo, and Brent made with ease. A few jokes were made with some MTB'ers who took the easier chicken run down onto the jeep track. The 2nd section of Mamba was then taken which has some great tight turns which are always fun. The trail however was really bogged down in mud near the end.

After another single track with an exciting drop over a big rock the group made their way along the jeep track on Level 2 towards Vasbyt. Heading down Vasbyt the group were met by a huge contingent of Mountain Bikers and Downhill'ers who abviously viewed them with interest and amazement. The group then decided to stop and practice a particular ramp drop where Johnny managed to get a pinch flat after making a massive rolling hop over the drop which gave Flo and Brent some time to practice the drop quite a few times, with Flo doing some extra Trials while Johnny repaired his 2 punctures.

Getting going again the group meandered through the rest of the single track down to the Quarry before heading down My Roots, the final single track for the day, and finally emerging on the jeep track for the last kilometer back down to the parking lot. It was an epic ride on an awesome day.