Popped my offroad cherry at the weekend
 

As part of my Enduro Africa trip I'm doing this November, we were sent along to LLandovery in Wales to meet up with some guys who are doing next years event for a bit of basic offroad training.
The guys have links/ran GB motorcross team, Enduro events etc. So they were well experienced. Up turns 24 individuals, half of whom had no or very little offroad experience. After 2 days and 5 different bikes (1 aching groin from kicking over this KTM 400) I'm a little bit more eperienced now.
Would I do it again too right, am I thinking of getting an offroad toy.............. too right, what a blast.
For those that have not done it before give it a go, as long as you have the equipment it's ok to fall off.
One guy had knee protectors and road boots, was ok for the first day, on the second day he caught a forward facing branch and it skewered him in the leg between the gap of his low boots and knee pads, removed a nice slice of skin, and off to hospital he went.
So what did I learn, well I'm too old and slow to react to peaky race tuned 2 strokes, the on/off of the throttle was a bit severe, would get a 250 4 stroke if I was going to ride technical stuff in the woods or a KTM 400 if it was fast open track based.
It was fantastic of these guys to turn up with their own bikes for us all to practice on, one guy brought a 250 2 stroke that won the UK championship, it was renamed the ASBO as everyone that got off it alive was taken back by it's speed.

Glad you enjoyed it, i've raved about off road for years, so much fun.

Bet you experienced something like this:lol:

Amen...amazed more riders don't try it, althoug with the new limited access laws in place now...stringing a good ride together is proving difficult.

You've wetted my appetite now, going have to fit the dirt wheels to the DR and get dirty this weekend!!!

A couple of pics from last year...

Fortunately I only had 2 offs, they were the commedy slow speed ones, front wheel dug in and stopped the bike then fell off into a bush. :)

The last one of the muddy lane was more like it.
We were in this private wood that was also used for the Welsh/UK Enduro championship events with some savage decents, that we stayed away from!
We either had fast open gravel roads or muddy lanes with deep water filled ruts or technical tree lined climbs/decents through the woods.
Went to Wales for 2 days and no rain. :eek:

Harv your 3rd pic reminds me of what we're doing this weekend. Trail riding from MAnchester upto Northumberland, stay overnight, then trail ride back, yeeha and the weather forecast is good as well:D

Your gonna have fun...those pics are from our little trip last year (or was it the year before???) anyway, great fun.

I plotted the entire route on a garmin GPS prior to leaving and just trusted it the entire way. Only had to look at the map once on a 250 mile trip, virtually all off road. Great bit of kit.

Planning on doing it again later ths month hopefully.

Don't forget to take some piccies and post 'em up here.

WHere did you go on your trip Harv?

Don't worry i'll be taking the camera

From home in Oxford, headed South West...to Salisbury Plain...nearly got shot...camped for the night...and then a different route back.

We didn't go till Late October last year...and with no lights, we had to be stopped by 5.30 ish.

We planned on doing a much longer 3 or 4 dayer this summer...the thought of 12 hours in the saddle had me grinning from ear to ear...but it just never happened due to work/families etc...next year maybe.

Jeff.....sound's like you had a great time & I bet you can't wait 'til your Enduro Africa trip.

I've got a 200 2-smoke KTM for the on/off throttle response you mentioned.....great fun, but then I grew up racing 2-stroke crossers from 6-16 yrs old! I've been doing some enduro races on it this year, but I've discovered I don't bounce or heal as welll as I did back then though!

Harv....your avatar cracks me up every time I see it!

After the weekend I sort of now know what to expect when the bike is sliding around when we are on the loose stuff.
I was on a race prepared 200 KTM it was outrageous, I swapped it with this kid who was on a slightly softer 250 2 stroke, when going through technical stuff it was just too responsive on the throttle when I was not used to it, that's why I preferred the Yamaha 250 4 stroke for the more challenging stuff.

I did the Yamaha offroad school a couple of years ago (I recommend it to anyone thinking of having a go off-road) & got to ride the 250 & 450 4-strokes. There's no doubt they're easier to ride, but the only bike that (re-)lit my fire was the YZ125 stroker. So much so, it prompted me to get back into off-roaders! The 250 4-stroke was the easiest to ride & I could lap faster on it, but I'm only doing it for the fun factor so ended up with the 200

That's what I found out, the 4 stroke was the first bike I road and was comfortable and quick enough, a guy was following on a 250 stroke but could not keep up in the bends, which I can only assume was throttle response as when you rolled off the 2 stoke it seemed to take time to build up a head of steam again if you were not in the power band, the 4 stroke was easier to roll the power on and off without loosing too much speed.
The 400 KTM 4 stroke was a bit more of a handful after the lighter 250.