Epic 8 hours of riding

Mon

Sep

2008

Written by Brent Boswell

Over the weekend of the 27th and 28th of September Brent, Justin, and Ethan met up for some epic riding in Tokai Forest. Riding time totalled a whopping 8 hours for the 2 days doing 5 hours on Saturday, and another 3 hours on Sunday with some tired and sore bodies emerging on Sunday afternoon. Ethan handled everything very well and the 2 older guys had to try keep up with the energy levels and made a bold attempt resulting in some exhaustion and muscle cramps.

The ride on Saturday started off with the usual slog up the jeep track and then into the forest section up Lizard with the group practicing various drops and obstacles before making their way up the trail coming down into Lizard. Much discussion was held around possible lines to take at the very steep tricky sections higher up. Downhill 1 was next with an audience of MTB'ers watching Ethan and Brent attempt the downhill, with Ethan doing well. The group was then joined by Neil from Warthogs out for a leisure ride for the morning and decided to join the group on their mission. Neil convinced them to try the Bridal path, which Brent and Johnny had done before, so everyone set off for the longish ride to the start of the Bridal Path.

The Bridal Path is an awesome switch-back trail which is 1.5km's long down the side of a very steep mountain section with the switch-backs being quite tight. The trail itself is not a difficult trail to ride but is very interesting with an almost sheer drop-off all along the trail. You get a great adrenalin rush riding the trail and have a feeling of accomplishment when finishing it. Talking to some MTB'ers it seems that they are very weary of the Bridal Path and some even scared of it, so it's great to have some Unicyclers show them up. After the Bridal Path the group made their way back along the jeep track and on up to Mamba and the Northshore trail. Ethan and Justin tried the Northshore piece and drop afterwards, with Brent taking a rest. Seeing the trail run down through the forest the group decided to check it out and found a gnarly technical trail running down to the jeep track. This trail with no name was very exciting with a lot of tricky drops over rocks and around trees ending in a muddy patch. Following this was Puff Adder Trail which is quite short before getting to Snake Eyes. Ethan still full of energy went down Snake Eyes while Brent and Justin rode around.

Back on Level 2 jeep track the group made their way slowly to Vasbyt where some weary legs struggled with the big drops there before taking a slow ride down the rest of the single track before loosing Justin who decided to take a short-cut back to the jeep track. Ethan still seemed to have a lot of energy and went down My Roots joining up with the others at the end before short ride back to the parking lot.

Sunday's ride again started with the slog up the jeep track. The group decided to take it slower and easier and only managed to get up to the start of Lizard on Level 3. Justin brought his video camera with was the videographer for the day. Ethan and Brent rode various pieces, drops, and obstacles which Justin filmed. Spending some time doing things on Lizard the group eventually got down to Vasbyt with a group of MTB'ers wanting to see some MUni action got to see Brent attempt a large drop onto the jeep track which ended in a bail but still seemed exciting as the MTB'ers were still blown away by it.

After some more filming down Vasbyt the group moved a little further down for some more action shots on some drops before the energy levels were just about finished. A slow ride was taken down the jeep track back to the parking lot to end off the epic riding for the weekend. This was the most riding done by AmaOneTya in a single weekend, and could be setting the tone for the summer ahead.