Princetown '05 Fords ride

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Toubab
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Thanks to everyone who came out to play on Saturday....Especially Madmountainman and Charlie Batty who rode backmarker.

A good day out, with some good wet-offs :D

It started on Friday when Steve (Riverking ) and I nipped out to recce some places we didn't do last year......We intended to find the Horseshoe ford up on Dartmoor (OKehampton ranges) and Castle Drogo (tidal ford),but things didn't exactly go to plan ;)

We rode up onto the ranges and after examining the OS map thoroughly, found a new ford for the following day's ride, then tried to find a way to a new area but discovered there was no way of getting there as some git had left a rather large tor in the way.

So we rode over it :D

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There was no track up there, so we found our way over and after a rather nasty drop down into a rocky hole which stove in my pannier (it pulled out nicely though) we dropped down to the river again and found our target.

(Quite chuffed we were too......Wetroads.co.uk doesn't have a pic of it on the site so this is being submitted now :thumb)

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It's a very pretty place and we decided that if the weather was fine for Saturday ( :rolleyes: ) we'd suggst that we all takew picnics up there rather than finding a cafe.

Unfortunately, it was at this stage that Steve discovered that the plinger for his Datatool alarm/immob wasn't hanging from his keys.......

Realisation sunk in and as we realised that we were off road, a couple of miles from anywhere, with rain coming in and an immobilised 650 and no plinger :eek:

Off I went to try and find the plinger by re-tracing our route, and Steve started dis-assembling the bike , not holding out much hope that I'd find the plinger in the long grass, boggy bits and several miles of track we'd ridden since he'd last used it.

Remarkably though, a mile or so away, I did find the remote and started hurrying back to the ford (nope, we didn't have any 'phone signal ;) ) but by the time I got back, the immobiliser was already off the bike.

As soon as it had come off of course, it started going off and outside the bike, they're bloody loud, so the unit itself was under a foot of water in the river :eek

We fished it out (still making that bloody deafening noise) and looked at it with a view to re-connecting it, but it had 13 wires, all neatly colour coded.........in black :rolleyes:

With no way of re-connecting the alarm, it went back in the river to give us a moment's peace while we decided what to do.

Rather than leaving the 650 up on the moors, we decided to tow it out, so webbing straps were dug out of the panniers and with a bit of umming and arring about the best way of doing it, my Adv became a tow truck. :thumb

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It was remarkably successful, and after only three webbng breakages, we made it back to a track and then down off the moor, where we parked the little GS outside a nice couple's house, jumped on the Adv and headed back to Princetown to let the piss-taking of Riverking commence :D

(good job it wasn't the 650 having to tow the Adv though.....it probably wouldn't have made it :confused: )


On Saturday we set off from Princetown in the rain and drizzle in an exact re-run of the previous year's ride start, with 16 odd bikes, several pillions and all in good spirits.

The foirst ford, Meavy, is a lovely little one and the water was 4 or five inches lower than last year, so we had some fun there in the rain.....a couple of binnings (not caught by my camera but I'm sure someone will have got a few of them).

A few shots from Meavy;

You can see the rocks under the water, but it wasn't too hard to power across
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Speggo on the airhead doing it with applomb;
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Reverend Chuck giving it some;
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Adv's love water :D
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Tim and Tina
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Noddy making waves
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John Smith (yeah, but what's his real name ) proving you don't have to stand up to look cool;
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A bit of a rear wheel moment on the way out;
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And back-marker Richie on the gas
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Next stop was Lopwell Tidal run, a 300 metre river crossing that at low tide is an extremely slippery concrete base with an inch of water, but an hour after high tide (when we arrived) was a four foot deep river.

We wimped out of that one and didn't even bother looking at Bere Ferrers as it would have been the same.

From there, we went to Coryton and found a small and slightly dissapointing concrete bottomed ford which was depatched easily, then off to Lewtrenchard for a nice one that caused some fun last year.

It was dark, wet and mank down there but it was a nice ford to play in;

Charlie guarding the entrance slope to the ford to make sure no one nicked it :D

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It's fairly deep but has a fair bottom with some loose rocks- nothing to slow people down too much though
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Shame about the raindrop but Mrs Speggo WAS grinning :D
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Erm....aren't you supposed to use BOTH hands while doing this sort of thing??
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:rolleyes: Guess who was showing off again :rolleyes:
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But Tim managed to beat MMM's bow wave in style
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Dahoum keeping the 1200 owners proud
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There's a bike in there somewhere!!
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Me on the way back
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After a bit of nosh up at the cafe at Okehampton station, we set off again with a few riders departed for the HP2 launch and other things, and headed up onto the ranges.

The water this year was at least four inches shallower- this is Charlie last year in the first ford on the ranges, followed by Charlie this year at the same place from the same angle(ish).....

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Speggo and Mrs Speggo made it through...take a look at the grins inside the helmet :D

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Ken wasn't so lucky and took on an engine full of water;
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But after a push out, pulling the plugs and firing out the water, no damage was done and he was back in action straight away.

The scenic shot
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This ford is quite deep over on one side;
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John had a bit of a moment but made it;
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But then it was Noddy's turn........

OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!
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As always when we drown a bike, ther plugs came out before attempting a start, but the pots were dry and apart from being rather soggy, no damage was caused :D

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While all this was going on, Speggo tried to sneak across the bridge rather than do the ford a second time, but was caught out :D :dabone :dabone
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Unfortunatly, the park rangers were out in force and when we tried to go down the track towards the new ford and then towards the tor crossing and horsehoe ford, we were told in no uncertain terms that we weren't allowed, so we did the ring road and headed off to North Bovey ford to finish the day off.....

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Noth Bovey is one of my favourite fords in the country- a few small rocks but a largely sandy botton, and a very pretty location witha mile long byway to get back to the roads.

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Timolgra and Mrs Timolgra doing it with style
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Ken concentrating hard
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Some bits deeper than others
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Sadly, Ken's concentraion levels lapsed :D :dabone
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And we rounded it off with the obligatory team piccy :clap :clap
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When we got back to Princetown we checked the final drives of the 11xx's and it proved to be a worthwhile exercise, as five of the bikes had decidedly milky shyte in them :eek:

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Many thanks to all who came out to play- I thoroughly enjoyed the day in your company and look forwards to doing it again :thumb
 
Thanks Bill another great ride with dubious company :thumb

Half an hour from home I stopped by the big ford near Corwen for a look, you'll remember the wide river and loads of fun. Discretion won though, I quit whilst ahead.

Tim
 
pic of Mr and Mrs Speggo up to their cylinder heads in water on an airhead that looks just like mine...printed out to show Mrs Og.
will let youz know what reaction i get after the inevitable "you expect me to do THAT?!" response :D
Excellent thread by the way :thumb
Og.
 
Boys, boys, boys...

You spend a lot of money on GPS, and still you can't find the roads.
You better do as I do; get a map and a compass! :D

:p Liv.
 
so....i showed the pics to Mrs Og.
her only reaction (rather than horror at the thought of being on a bike doing that ) was....
"aw the poor BIKE!"
Og.
*exits shaking his head*
 
Fanum said:
Sadly, Ken's concentraion levels lapsed :D :dabone
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You are right - I wasn't concentrating on some goon driving past me and hitting my panniers and knocking me off :spitfire

The guilty party is by now behind the cameraman :nono
 
Quality ride out Bill, even though your GPS sent us the wrong way a couple of times!!!! Seriously though, i think i may have to ammend my route on Exmoor next year, judging by the time it took everyone to get through the fords we did... there's closer to 30 on my route!
 
Ogmios said:
so....i showed the pics to Mrs Og.
her only reaction (rather than horror at the thought of being on a bike doing that ) was....
"aw the poor BIKE!"
Og.
*exits shaking his head*

She may have had a point. Bike's currently at the menders with a knackered starter motor!
 
Madmountainman said:
Quality ride out Bill, even though your GPS sent us the wrong way a couple of times!!!! Seriously though, i think i may have to ammend my route on Exmoor next year, judging by the time it took everyone to get through the fords we did... there's closer to 30 on my route!

No don't do that, we'll get up earlier, ride faster and finish later. :thumb
Tim
 
Madmountainman said:
Quality ride out Bill, even though your GPS sent us the wrong way a couple of times!!!! Seriously though, i think i may have to ammend my route on Exmoor next year, judging by the time it took everyone to get through the fords we did... there's closer to 30 on my route!

I often get surprised looks when i tell people the fords rides are never more than about 90 miles.......

It takes a surprising amount of time to get through them, pick people up, drain plugs , take pics etc etc, and 80-90 miles with up to a dozen fords is about max unless you can count the riders on two hands I reckon.

It's also definately worth doing a recce...that one where we had to turn round and then the ford only turned out to be a flat concrete splosh that wasn't worth seeing was a perfect example, I hadn't seen it before but it was a 'new' ford to the wetroads site and only two miles from Lewtrenchard (the dark gloomy one) so I added it to the route....It won't be appearing on next year's ride :D

PS the GPS had it right anyway..it was a landrover appearing suddenly on that titchy bridge that made me cock up that turning ;)
 
Madmountainman said:
Quality ride out Bill, even though your GPS sent us the wrong way a couple of times!!!! QUOTE]

Here, here. I mean how much time and fuel did we lose running up those dead ends, and only to have to turn and come all the way back?
Still, it was not as bad as riding out of Dartmoor on Sunday with Mr & Mrs McSharry using his GPS system - talk about doing off-road stuff again, I was thinking that I was fully loaded and as the back wheel began to twitch "Aaaaahhh help!" :D :D


ps I did enjoy it Jim & the company
 
This is and 6 years old thread, and the pictures look like last week or last month... :roll
Thank you for doing this, I would LOVE to see it ''live'' once more! :thumb2

I miss you! :tears

:beerjug: Liv.
 


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