Sorry i'm late with the pics , busy weekend
WOW…….had a great time yesterday but boy are arms and particularly my legs letting me know about it this morning. My first time ever off road and I can’t believe how much hard work it is standing on those pegs with bent knees, trying to absorb the bumps and let the bike move underneath you. I could barely get up and down the stairs this morning.
Massive thanks to Gary, Richard, Chris and my good mate Phil for the tips and the support. Quite pleased that I only “parked it" twice . Big respect to John for doing those trails on the big lardy 1150
. There is no way I would’ve attempted them on mine. Sorry to hear about your leg tho' John 
Phil said you took a bit of a nasty tumble on that downhill stretch . Hope its sorts itself out 
I know there are quite a few other guys and gals ( Ela ) that take the big bikes off road but I’ve never seen it first hand before and I was just amazed at where Gary was taking his 12, unbelievable he’s just not right
I am sure there are much more difficult and technical trails we could’ve done but from a novices’ stand point ( and having ridden it briefly on the road ) even something more focussed like Phil’s 950SE to me seems just too big , heavy and damn tall to haul around some of those trails we went on and yet he made it look easy.
As a road rider you lot who take those big twins, from either brand , off road have my utmost respect
Anyway enough hyperbole here are a few shots.
Blokes at play in the countryside. Peak district regulars will recognise the location;
Top of the trail where Gary put his GS on its side as seen in his picture above. You never get the sense of gradient in these shots do you
This is “ The Epic “ . Despite the drizzle We hadn’t seen any mud all day, just some nice big puddles. We took this forest trail which was compact at first adn Richard and Chris said it was a nice fast easy one. Phil suggested I keep my speed up and let my suspension do the work becausse i'd been going a bit slow. So I sped off. It was going really well for all of 200yrds then it got well slippy. I tried to keep the throttle on and was sort of flat out in 3rd but all of a sudden the bike slowed dramatically ( due to the foot deep muddy goo i'd hit) , nearly spat me over the bars and then I lost momentum & course and chucked the bike and myself into the soft muddy bank at the side.
The big boys behind me then got well and truly stuck .
Here is my bike “parked” with Phil in the background after we got his bike out
Phil just about got level to where I stacked it and you can see what happened to him in this short clip. Something got stuck on the lens at the start. Oh and turn the volume up
<embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i218.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid218.photobucket.com/albums/cc139/Rushy_02/1st%20Off%20Road/20081004_1857.flv">
Sometimes in life a man has to plough his own lonely furrow:eyesdown :eyesdown
In the picture above you can see my wheel track off to the right drifting into the centre of shot.
If it hadn’t been for the skid plate and the physical size of the engine Gary’s bike would have sank without a trace
Trying to push it out from the rear of the bike I was knee deep in the gloopy porridge like mud. The 3rd pic is of my legs later when we stopped on solid ground.
This little clip is me walking back from helping to retrieve Gary’s bike. I’m actually walking at the side of the trail where the ground was nice and firm , relatively speaking.
<embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i218.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid218.photobucket.com/albums/cc139/Rushy_02/1st%20Off%20Road/20081004_1865.flv">
Gary back on firmer ground
Where the forestry boys left their machinery it was nice and solid so we had a rest but we had some more nice and gooey stuff later, it was great fun.
Take a close look at the wheels on the big thing in the background. It had huge ‘paddled’ tyres on it but they still obviously had grip problems with it so they had attached big straps across the tyres similar to snow chains. That’s how bad the mud was.
Last shot my DRZ –E in its ideal habitat . Timpo put me onto it. I paid top dollar but it’s a lovely one owner machine in great condition. Perfick
Anyway sorry about the excitable rambling, all of the above might be normal to you off road regulars but I had a great time Thanks again guys and it was nice to meet you all for the first time, hopefully not the last 
.
Ian
WOW…….had a great time yesterday but boy are arms and particularly my legs letting me know about it this morning. My first time ever off road and I can’t believe how much hard work it is standing on those pegs with bent knees, trying to absorb the bumps and let the bike move underneath you. I could barely get up and down the stairs this morning.
Massive thanks to Gary, Richard, Chris and my good mate Phil for the tips and the support. Quite pleased that I only “parked it" twice . Big respect to John for doing those trails on the big lardy 1150
. There is no way I would’ve attempted them on mine. Sorry to hear about your leg tho' John Phil said you took a bit of a nasty tumble on that downhill stretch . Hope its sorts itself out I know there are quite a few other guys and gals ( Ela ) that take the big bikes off road but I’ve never seen it first hand before and I was just amazed at where Gary was taking his 12, unbelievable he’s just not right
I am sure there are much more difficult and technical trails we could’ve done but from a novices’ stand point ( and having ridden it briefly on the road ) even something more focussed like Phil’s 950SE to me seems just too big , heavy and damn tall to haul around some of those trails we went on and yet he made it look easy.
As a road rider you lot who take those big twins, from either brand , off road have my utmost respect
Anyway enough hyperbole here are a few shots.
Blokes at play in the countryside. Peak district regulars will recognise the location;
Top of the trail where Gary put his GS on its side as seen in his picture above. You never get the sense of gradient in these shots do you
This is “ The Epic “ . Despite the drizzle We hadn’t seen any mud all day, just some nice big puddles. We took this forest trail which was compact at first adn Richard and Chris said it was a nice fast easy one. Phil suggested I keep my speed up and let my suspension do the work becausse i'd been going a bit slow. So I sped off. It was going really well for all of 200yrds then it got well slippy. I tried to keep the throttle on and was sort of flat out in 3rd but all of a sudden the bike slowed dramatically ( due to the foot deep muddy goo i'd hit) , nearly spat me over the bars and then I lost momentum & course and chucked the bike and myself into the soft muddy bank at the side.
The big boys behind me then got well and truly stuck .
Here is my bike “parked” with Phil in the background after we got his bike out
Phil just about got level to where I stacked it and you can see what happened to him in this short clip. Something got stuck on the lens at the start. Oh and turn the volume up
<embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i218.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid218.photobucket.com/albums/cc139/Rushy_02/1st%20Off%20Road/20081004_1857.flv">
Sometimes in life a man has to plough his own lonely furrow:eyesdown :eyesdown
In the picture above you can see my wheel track off to the right drifting into the centre of shot.
If it hadn’t been for the skid plate and the physical size of the engine Gary’s bike would have sank without a trace
Trying to push it out from the rear of the bike I was knee deep in the gloopy porridge like mud. The 3rd pic is of my legs later when we stopped on solid ground.
This little clip is me walking back from helping to retrieve Gary’s bike. I’m actually walking at the side of the trail where the ground was nice and firm , relatively speaking.
<embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i218.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid218.photobucket.com/albums/cc139/Rushy_02/1st%20Off%20Road/20081004_1865.flv">
Gary back on firmer ground
Where the forestry boys left their machinery it was nice and solid so we had a rest but we had some more nice and gooey stuff later, it was great fun.
Take a close look at the wheels on the big thing in the background. It had huge ‘paddled’ tyres on it but they still obviously had grip problems with it so they had attached big straps across the tyres similar to snow chains. That’s how bad the mud was.
Last shot my DRZ –E in its ideal habitat . Timpo put me onto it. I paid top dollar but it’s a lovely one owner machine in great condition. Perfick
Anyway sorry about the excitable rambling, all of the above might be normal to you off road regulars but I had a great time
Thanks again guys and it was nice to meet you all for the first time, hopefully not the last .Ian
, broken ankle, and getting married 
