Milton Ride Report 8-1-05 with Mark, Kim & Bram

Woke up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep.  Must have been the excitement of the days upcoming ride at Milton.

Bram picked me up at 6am and of we drove to Milton meeting Kim there at 8:45.  The three of us set off at 8:15 in anticipation of a great long days ride.  We headed straight into a long single line hill climb ending in a very steep section which is always a good way to warm up and give everyone plenty of arm pump.  This one usually has any new comers wondering what they had got them selves into.

Next was a steep downhill  followed by another uphill section with lots of jumps in it.  Kim lead with Bram following and me bringing up the rear.  I was having a great time getting into the jumps on the uphill section.  When airborne over one of the jumps I looked down in horror to see a huge rock on the other side right where I was going to land.  Unfortunately there's not much you can do when your in the air to change your line.  This rock had my written all over it.  Of course my front wheel slammed straight into the centre of it throwing me off into a bank on the left hand side.  I speared in shoulder first.  A stabbing pain shot straight through my left shoulder.  I laid there for a few seconds thinks "shit what have I broken now!".  After moving the shoulder around a bit and feeling around it I didn't think I had broken anything.  I laid there for a few minuted recovering then tried to pick up the bike.  That just hurt way to much so I waited till Bram came back and rescued me.

After a little more time to recover we set off again all be it a lot slower and a lot more painfully.  All my accidents seem to happen early in the day.  I thought I'd press on as I didn't want to miss out on a ride I'd been waiting 2 weeks for.  We then headed off for East Lynne with Kim & Bram leading and myself playing catch up.  I quite often pointed Kim & Bram down the rough single track section while I took the easy way around.

We arrived at East Lynne at lunch time for a feed of great home made pies.  After lunch I decided to take a break and let Kim and Bram do the big loop down south to Batemans Bay and back while I laid down under the shade of a large tree to try and recover.

Kim and Bram returned after about 2 hours.  They refuelled and had a quick snack.  I loaded up with pain killers and we headed off for the return trip to Milton.  After a two hour break I was feeling pretty stiff & sore so I kept falling behind.  I had no hope of keeping up to the others especially Kim who is absolutely on fire since he got his new KTM.  There's just no stopping him.  Actually he had a ride of Brams WR426F which was the same as him old bike.  His speed then dropped of dramatically.  Maybe there is something to those orange things.  I must admit they are fun to ride all be it a little twitchy.

We made our way back to Milton with myself skipping as much of the rough stuff as possible.  We arrived back at Milton at about 7pm to some well earned beers.  Kim headed of to Callala Beach while myself & Bram had a great Wood Fire Pizza at Milton before heading home.


Mark Ryan.