Doom & Demo Day
This morning was a hard starter for Apartment Five. Chris could barely stand with a torn ACL, Stephan was flat-out MIA, and I came to the realization that the damage to my Line Maverick 170s was indeed not a dream.
At some point during my shift yesterday I managed to tear the delaminate right in half, making my right ski look like some kind of rusty banana.
Chris was convinced it was fixable, but everyone agreed the skis would nigh perform as well as they once did.
Those skis have been with me since at least 2005, and kicking them off the roster as the go-to-guy was a pretty emotional experience.
With a ton of flex, manageable length and two front-ends, the Line Maverick is (was) undeniably one of the most versatile and fun skis I’ve ever ridden.
How could I forget all the carves, crashes, and pig-suit wearing ski days?
Pretty sure this was taken junior year of high school… I still use that jacket also. Christ, I’m poor.
But on this day I was determined to turn my frown upside-down. Mammoth wasn’t willing to give me a free pair of skis, even though I asked really nicely, but they did show me their secret stash of high performance ex-demo skis from last year. After learning of my plight they let me have a go on four models. So today I rode:
K2 Aftershock 181
Völkl AC50 177
Salomon Enduro 177
Nordica Hot Rod Tempest 178
I got no less than three runs on any one of them, and gave each a full workout complete with lumps, bumps, fastblasts, spins and plenty of roosting gapers parked on the hill (just kidding).
And yes, I did pick a favorite that will soon become a member of my toy box.
Full write-up of each and comparison to follow.
Australasian Safari 2011: A Reflection
A lot of time’s gone by since the Australasian Safari… and a lot has happened since we said goodbye to our fellow racers and friends at the finish line in Kalgoorlie.
But you never trusted this site to be timely, anyway did you?
I could give you a stat sheet on who was there, who was riding what and who won, but if you wanted that information you would have found it somewhere else a long time ago.
So here’s a quick reflection on what transpired in the Team OAT camp.
•••
We picked up our service crew at Perth International on September 20th. Okay, so it was one guy. Fresh off the jet from Albuquerque, New Mexico, our friend Rodger is a beer-swilling, spanner-swinging badass that we were confident could carry the team in the service department.
Magnus ran in to the terminal to find him while I was left in the truck to argue with the TSA officers about whether or not the massive Isuzu would fit in short-term parking.
Later that day we met the three other riders we would be supporting for the week, heavy-set Aussie blokes from Melbourne with enough body armor in their luggage to start a war with Sparta.
Our team assembled, we piled in the Isuzu and motored to the bike/car show and ceremonial start- followed by the KTM Kickoff Party at the Breakwater Club.
Most in attendance were rocking sport coats and heeled shoes… we rolled up covered in grease, but were allowed in with a quick flash of the team logos on our jackets.
While most other teams had spent the day polishing their helmets and signing autographs we had been flat-out for the last three days putting bikes together… and Magnus’ race bike didn’t even have tires on it yet. Rally racing legends Cyril Despres and Ben Grabham were there, among others, and Despres’ race bike was toted out for the admiration of onlookers. When Magnus saw the $130,000 work of art, he got inspired demanded his race bike look at least as cool by the end of the next day… so it was an early night for Rodger and I, leaving before last call for once in the hopes of starting another big day with just a mild hangover.
•••
The actual start of the race was over a hundred kilometers north of where the party had taken place, so the day before the prologue (pre-race race that determines everybody’s starting position) we packed up and boogied to the town of Geraldton with motorcycles in tow. It was the first time I had seen the cab of the Isuzu full… and I hope the last. There may be enough seat belts for six men, but no cab is ventilated enough to support those oxygen consumption/fart expulsion ratios.
•••
Once racing action got underway, Safari truly evolves from just an “event” to an experience. Helicopters sawing the air overhead, power tools wailing all through the night, radios going ballistic and engines roaring like dragons create a sensory-overland that rivals Japanese game shows combined with that first scene in “Saving Private Ryan”.
It’s enough to make any motorhead think he may very well have died and gone to heaven… I’d take a rally-spec Husaberg 570 over seventy two virgins any day.
•••
But desert racing isn’t all money for nothing and chicks for free. This shit’s dangerous… which we learned all too well on Day 2 of the seven day event. While waiting at a checkpoint for our racer to show up, Roger and I heard some chatter on the radio that was most disconcerting indeed.
Bike 22, our rider in the field, had washed out and couldn’t finish the stage. And more, he was being evacuated by helicopter and rushed to Meekathara Hospital- five hundred kilometers away.
Shit.
I had seen Magnus ride over, around, and through obstacles I couldn’t even look at without falling off. To hear about him coming off was disconcerting to say the least, but nothing could prepare us from what we saw at the hospital. After the six-hour punt across the desert, Rodger and I rocked up on the outpost medical center and rang the doorbell. The nurse knew who we wanted to see as soon as she spotted our truck, and we followed her to the bed our racer was lying on, looking worse than Gary Busey in a mug shot. We could barely hear his voice over the heart monitor, but he was conscious enough to greet us with his typical candor; “You’re a long way from tonight’s rally point.”
“Thought you might want this” I said as I dropped some civilian clothes on the table. Rodger and I were otherwise pretty speechless. What do you say? “Hey man, ya look like shit!”?
Mags told us to carry on supporting the rest of the riders, and to expect him at the event’s closing ceremony and afterparty in just under a week. Orders taken, we headed for the door and prepared for the massive drive ahead. As I hit the threshold Magnus summoned the strength for one more comment;
“Andrew. Be careful. With my truck.”
On the way out I chatted up the nurses a bit. They weren’t sold on the idea of motorcycle racing as a good way to spend your days and dollars…
“So you just, ride around the desert all day?”
“No, I mean, you have to follow a certain route, and go as fast as you can while navigating unknown territory.”
“And then fall off and get sent here?”
“Uh, well, ideally no…”
I could tell the conversation was drying up, and we had a long way to go to the next waypoint; a town called Sandstone.
The ride back was hell. The desert was pitch dark, the road was bumpy, and kangaroos were bouncing off the bumper like popcorn kernels in the microwave. We finally rolled into the bivouac around 9:00PM and recovered the race bike… which we saw Magnus had stubbornly tried to tape back together before calling in an evac. It was a valiant effort… but where there’s a will there ain’t always a way.
•••
The day after the crash brought its own set of disasters. Rodger and I were now in charge of Team OAT, as acting face, hands and brains of the entire operation. We would have to clean up our act and start acting like real professionals and uphold the sterling standard Magnus would set if he were around… by using the Bear Grylls signature knife as much as possible, answering questions with riddles, and being the first team to open beers every day.
But first, we’d have to get out of the parking lot.
Rodger and I had been disagreeing on the necessity of locking the truck when leaving it… which lead to the incident of the doors being secured while the keys were in the ignition.
“No problem, there’s an extra set in the yellow Pelican case.”
“You mean that one on the back seat?”
“Shit.”
We had to innovate. We considered picking the lock, removing the windshield, and using the angle-grinder to add a permanent sunroof… but none of those options really seemed viable.
Finally I spotted a crew with the same model of Isuzu. I approached and asked them if they had any insight. Naturally, they began by responding with sarcasm; “Got a brick?” but came over to help when they realized how distraught I was.
The driver of the other NPS showed me a battery access point in the rear of the cab’s underbelly. Too small to crawl through, but maybe big enough to get an arm…
I pushed through the panel and flailed my hand around while Rodger watched from the other side and guided me.
“Not even close.”
We didn’t have it yet… but we were on to something. I grabbed the longest screwdriver we had and made another attempt and knocking the lock mechanism, but the angle still wasn’t quite right.
After three more stages of evolution, genius struck. We could roll down the window much more easily than undo the lock, and so we set to contriving a new tool. We added a few inches to our extra-long screwdriver by taping a handlebar riser on he end, then proceeded to secure a large hose clamp to the end of that.
I wiggled the ridiculous contraption through the panel and moved it toward the window with Rodger’s audible guidance.
The window came down about four inches after forty minutes of laboring, with enough room for me to weasel my scrawny arm in and undo the lock on the left rear door.
Success!
Rodger and I cheered, slapped hands and bumped guts in a display worthy of a Superbowl touchtown.
Of course by this point everyone had cleared out… our truck was left alone in the middle of the desert. But it mattered little- we were victorious and would make it to the next bivouac with beers open before the first teams had the carburetors stripped.
If we step on it.
•••
We rolled into the Leonora bivouac and night’s camp early, striding straight through the parking field and into a central location where we flung open the doors and proceeded to unload our cargo. Sun was hot, Jimmy Buffet was pouring out of the stereo and life was good. But it wasn’t long before the Fun Police arrived to curtail our moment of glory;
“Hey guys, did you get a map of tonight’s parking area?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Didja look at it?”
I could see where this was going… so I answered honestly.
“Nope.”
We had parked in the caterer’s spot- a decision that would be most unpopular indeed when hungry racers showed up in a few hours.
So we piled everything on the trailer and dragged it ten meters forward to satisfy the race official… who threw his hands up in disbelief as another race team proceeded to occupy the space we had just left. I could hear the official repeating his comment as we re-installed our tents and tables.
Later that night we had a run in with the other Fun Police… this time, the guys with blue hats and guns.
Determined to uphold Team OAT’s “reputation”, Rodger and I convinced the mechanics from Team Husqvarna to come to the bar with us for a pint.
But once we got there, we learned we had shown up on a night when the barmaids were working the taps in lingerie. Apparently this is a Western Australia tradition, but in any case I had a hard time convincing the rest of the boys I not been apprised of it beforehand.
Photos were, let’s say “discouraged”, which is a damn shame- because the scene was something to behold.
Imagine a bar full of hard-faced and tattooed miners, being served by women in bikinis who were, let’s say “overweight”, and us standing in the middle wearing race gear and expressions of sheer astonishment. My bright white BMW jacket was pretty tough to miss between coal-stained work jerseys, and I estimated we had six-point-five seconds before I got my ass kicked. But we were determined to stick it out for a round, and whaddaya know, all was forgiven after a couple rounds of Jim Beam.
I folded my arms to avoid brushing the sleeves of my favorite jacket against the walls as my friends tried their hands at hitting on the strippers. Everyone was describing their jobs on the team until the barmaid, Kelisha or Kaylie or whatever, looked my way; “So what’s that make you, the pretty boy who does fuck all?”
At least she said I was pretty… I guess. Damn, are Australian chicks mean. A flood of retorts came to mind at various levels of offensiveness but not wanting spit in my next beverage I decided to take the high road;
“Hardly! I drive the truck.”
“Oh, I thought you were the guy who just stands around and looks good and doesn’t do anything.”
The boys were having a proper laugh at this point, and I had no clue if this chick was trying to flirt with me or make me cry. Rodger came to my rescue; “No, he figured out how to break in to the truck the other day!”
The conversation deteriorated from there as we convinced each other to buy more rounds. Finally a cowbell interrupted our babble and one of the barmaids yelled over the noise; “THAT’S IT BOYS, EVERYBODY GO HOME!”
Good idea.
I stumbled out into the street… I mean the one street in town… and into the arms of the local constable.
“Oy! Good-day, man. Any idea where the camp is?” I burbled in Australian/American hybrid vernacular.
One of the Husky guys helped me articulate; “Yeah, yeah we’re with the race cars! Is there a short cut back to the camp?”
The cops laughed and shook their heads.
“Yeah, mate we know yer with the race cars.”
The first officer looked at the second, and motioned to their vehicle- a Police spec Hilux with a big plastic holding cell on the back instead of a cargo tray.
“Seriously? Kickass!”
We were all pretty rapt at the idea of getting a free ride home, especially if it was in the back of a paddy wagon.
We piled in the back and laughed like idiots as we got tossed from one side to another when the cop driving jerked the wheel. The cops parked in the middle of the bivouac and we spilled out of their vehicle. We thanked them for the ride and they left with a laugh and something like “good luck tomorrow.”
The boys from Team GHR Honda, hard at work on their CRF 450’s, glanced up and laughed like hyenas when they saw us stumble into our swags from the care of Mr. Plod.
Reputation: intact. If anything, I’d say improved.
•••
A few days later we arrived in Kalgoorlie for the end of the race and the afterparty. Nearly everyone we knew who was competing had dropped out or sustained serious injury, and Magnus had since been transferred from Meekathara to the major hospital in Perth. But so determined was he to show up for the event’s closing ceremony that he hopped a bus from Perth Royal to the train station, and rode the rails for eight hours to meet up with us in Kal.
I parked the Isuzu, extra carefully, at the train station and Rodger and I headed to the platform to await our fearless leader. When his train showed up, they kicked him off about a hundred meters away from us.
For twenty minutes we watched him hobble toward us with broken ribs and a hematoma in his hip the size of a football. But he did look better than the last time we had seen him; prone and hooked up to a heart monitor.
We exchanged salutations and he snatched the keys as we headed for the truck.
“You sure you want to drive, man?” I said hopelessly, knowing full well my truck-commanding privileges had expired with the arrival of the boss.
“Yep. Gotta toughen up some time.”
He winced as he pulled himself into the driver’s seat, but was clearly pleased to be back in his “office”.
We updated him on what had transpired in his absence, and he was especially glad we hadn’t resorted to violence against the truck in our efforts to liberate the key.
Everyone at the bivouac was glad to see Magnus back in action, and congratulations were issued to the finishers over Coronas at the Kalgoorlie country club.
The Australasian Safari was a mind-blowing event that hooked me into racing that much more… if that was possible. I’m dead keen to give it go on two wheels next year, we’ll see if I can work it in to my compensation package next year.
Forest Foray, Nature Strikes Back.
Everyone said to go north from Fremantle this time of year. That makes sense, because here in upside-down America north is where the warm this. I know, I still haven’t gotten used to it.
But the 4×4 book I had requisitioned tempted me with a “circuit designed for off-roading and great places to camp” near the town of Waroona, about 150 kilometers south of Perth.
That’s less than 100 miles. How different could the climate be?
If that sounds like another ironically foreshadowing lead-in… it is one.
Waking up at the crack of noon on whatever day it was, I saddled up and headed south. I was no more than five minutes on the road before I started bitching to myself in my head.
My shoulder ached from the Camelbak full of tools I was wearing. My payload of camping gear and food was taking up some prime seat real estate, and consequentially my man gear was being vice-gripped between the fuel tank and myself. Since I couldn’t fit my jeans and MX pants in a bag, I had them both on at once which was not helping the scrotal suffocation situation one bit.
By the time I got over that I had forgotten which highway I was looking for to get to Waroona. Luckily that situation resolved itself when I realized there was indeed only one option, and down it I went.
After about 60 kilometers I had to get off the highway. It was noisy, wobbly and boring. Not to mention the tires I had fitted were heavily off-road biased and did not wear well on pavement.
So I hit an exit and ticked “Avoid Highways” on my GPS, hoping there’d be a more colorful route to this supposed 4×4 circuit I was heading for. I wasn’t disappointed as the bitumen quickly gave way to dirt. Even better, after about 20 minutes I was on a sandy little farm track that was somehow declared a road by my basic Garmin map set.
My first real solo off-roading, how exciting! Where will this track go? What would I find? How long would it be until I did serious damage to my body or equipment?
I came up on a water crossing and stopped the bike for a butcher’s. What I guessed was usually a bee’s dick brook had turned into a full-blown pond on the track due to all the recent rain. I figured it was well worth walking before attempting to cross with the bike.
I took a few steps and sank two feet down into a sticky, poopy, mud pit.
“Godamit,” I grumbled as my boot took on water. I was less than pleased with the additional discomfort.
“Well… that’s why we walk obstacles first,” I said to the cows enjoying the show from behind a fence. I decided to stuff it and find another way around. There was at least another 15 meters of water to negotiate beyond where I walked. Plus the triumph of a successful crossing would pale in insignificance compared to the inconvenience of dumping the bike in the cow poop creek, and with an attitude like that I knew I had better take a step back.
Can always give it a go on the way home if I feel so inclined, I thought as I showering frogs with sand in an aggressive retreat 180.
It wasn’t hard to find a bigger track heading my direction, and I arrived in Waroona mid-afternoon.
Stopped for a fuel up I was approached by an old guy on some massive road-touring bike. The thing was ugly as sin and sounded like it was powered by an electric razor, but I’ll always entertain a yarn with another rider.
“You’ve come a long way, mate,” he said “and on those tires!”
Who was this, the Obi-Wan Kenobi of motorcycling? How did he know where I was coming from? Fortunately my idiocy was trumped by deductive reasoning before I opened my mouth. Of course; the DR-Z was wearing a Queensland license plate which was indeed a very long way away.
I thought about talking about my job and how I had gotten there, but my tank was almost full and I really didn’t feel like yapping.
Nah, let him think I just crossed the country with a 17 liter fuel tank and a gym bag.
“Aye, it’s been a bit of a ride,”
He just shook his head and laughed as he pushed off like a sea barge with the wrenching of his throttle, which caused me to have the same reaction.
I buzzed over to a billboard-sized map of the area that was conveniently located across the street from the Caltex.
There was a maze of turns from “You Are Here” to where the roads became dotted lines, which I interpreted to mean dirt tracks.
Okay take a left there, straight for a bit, a few bends… I am never going to remember this.
From the looks of the map, the dirt roads were as plentiful as promised by the book that had lead me here. Memorizing directions would be boring, and getting my own map out would take time so I decided just to head east, where the dirt roads were, and worry about specific roads or routes later. If at all.
•••
I started looking for a camp spot as soon I was out of shouting distance from Waroona. I knew it would take donkey’s years for me to get set up and I wanted to minimize post-sunset firewood collection- cause we all know dark forests are scary.
I found a nice dry, rocky spot about 50 meters off the road and shut the bike down. Seemed good a place as any. Setting to break out my payload, I discovered my bag had melted where it was resting on the taillight. Guess that little globe retained a bit more heat than I would have expected… and my waterproof bag no longer was.
No matter, I bought a roll of 100 MPH tape just for this purpose.
Zip, rip, slap, done. Sorted.
I unrolled my tent in all its K-Mart blue-and-red glory, had it up and loaded my gear in within seconds. Climbing in, I was dismayed to realize it taken all of 90 seconds for the tent to stink of foot and ass… as if it wasn’t hard enough to bring a chick home when you live in a tent. But, such is life on the road.
Firewood collected, cooking gear splayed out and noodles ready to boil, I had just one last thing on the agenda for the day- lighting a fire.
Which, of course, took hours.
My thumb was getting charred from flicking my lighter so many times when I considered giving up. But I had only brought heat-dependent food on purpose. I was going to cook out here, godamit.
I finally got the right combination of wind, leaves, and noodle packet wrappers going to make a wee blaze.
With my tin billy boiling, I triumphantly wolfed two packets of the hardest-earned $0.69 noodles I’d ever eaten.
•••
I woke up the next day and got a proper fire going much more easily than I had the night before. I relaxed, cooked, ate, cooked some more. I was so pleased with myself that I had slept on rocks and made my own coffee in the bush that I hardly wanted to leave.
I made an early lunch of curried-spam with basmati rice, a recommendation from my boss that went off brilliantly.
But I was there to ride, so after a lengthy re-pack I was on my way down the track again, searching for some engaging off-roading.
A truck-sized path veering away from the main track that engaged my interest, so down it I went.
It got tighter and steeper, as paths do, and soon I was into an easy-but-stimulating ride, perfect start to the day.
As I mentioned earlier, the area is littered with similar trails. I explored the network for hours seeing great climbs, dips, ruts and even a few kangaroos (which I managed not to kill).
Just as I started hunting for the night’s campsite I passed a picture of a tent with an X through it, below the text; “Camp Only In Designated Areas”. Fair enough… I figured I must have been coming up on a campground.
I was, but not before the track opened up to a huge dry riverbed. A “5 Knots” speed limit sign looked strange in the middle of the dirt- the river was a kilometer wide at some points but there was hardly enough water to fill a jerry can.
It was a strange and beautiful sight, and made for an easy crossing. I hardly compressed the suspension as I bumped over the trickle of water flow at the river’s center.
On the other side of the river I found campfire pits, grilles and even a toilet. As far as campsites go, this was as “designated” as it gets. The place was empty as Chernobyl, so I figured I might as well take advantage.
A sign told me I was at Lake Navarino, and that the Waroona Dam was responsible for the lack of water. I didn’t investigate further, but I imagine they re-route the water in summertime for boat use.
There was no firewood to be seen near where I pitched my tent, so I grabbed some from the trail. Riding was sketchy at best holding down a pile of sticks on the back of the seat with a bungee cord and balancing a log on my knee, so I kept it in first gear but managed to retain almost all of the wood I had harvested.
With firewood collected and the tent set up, I took the opportunity to ditch my gear and go for a cruise down the 4×4 tracks unencumbered.
I had almost forgotten how much better the bike was to ride without gear on it. Almost.
I buzzed all over the place with a Joker-sized smile under my helmet, kicking up dirt and chasing kangaroos. The tracks near the camp were the perfect size for the DR-Z and I was really enjoying getting a feel for the dirt again.
In the evening I managed to get another proper fire going, boiled up some soup and went to sleep.
•••
But the night was only just about to get interesting.
The wind, which had been a kitten’s sneeze when I went to bed, started hollowing like an Everglades fan boat.
And then even harder.
The tiny tent quivered, rattled, clung to the Earth for dear life.
I prayed that the slave children who sewed my tent had mastered their craft, because this evening would be a true test of the little nylon dome’s robustness.
I woke up again around six and noticed it was quiet.
Yes, too quiet.
I peered out of tent to look for the motorcycle- thank god, it was still upright.
But overhead thick, dark clouds cloaked the stars I had sought constellations in before bed.
No sooner had I decided that rain was inevitable when a crack of lightening ripped across the sky, followed waaay too closely by a gunshot thunderclap.
Sigh. “Shit.”
Like a thousand ball bearings dropping on an airplane wing, rain came down harder than I thought possible.
Wwwwwwow. That’s loud.
Should I bail now or wait it out?
In a few minutes the decision was made for me- those tent seams I had prayed for just a few hours earlier had had enough, and water was pouring into the tent at an alarming rate. Stay or go, I was going to be soaked in less than ten minutes.
I started packing my gear up as quick as I could. The rain showed no signs of subsiding and I seriously considered ditching the tent and making a run for it.
But leaving equipment behind would be both wasteful and pussyish; neither sort of behavior would be authorized on one of my expeditions.
Using the toilet as a staging-area I sprinted one piece of gear at a time into the handicapped-accessible dunny.
Next I pushed in the bike, tail-first so I could stay dry while loading my gear.
I had originally planned on staying one more night, but I had no way of cooking in this kind of rain and I was getting hungry.
Stuff it, I’ll head back to town.
Blasting out of the bathroom on a motorcycle like some kind of low-budget superhero I braced for wetness and snuck a peek at my GPS… only to be greeted by the “Acquiring Satellites” message.
The river I had crossed to get to the campground would be impassible in this much wet; the whole area would be sloppy and I’d never make it fully laden.
I had to find another way, so I struck into the forest in the direction I thought Waroona and the highway must have been in.
After three turns I started getting nervous. There were so many forks! I had almost forgotten which I had taken since leaving the campground, let alone how to get back. I looked to the GPS again, safely wrapped in a Zip-lock bag.
No go; still “Acquiring Satellites.”
I cursed into my helmet. My outermost level of gear was saturated with water, my fleece jacket was next to go.
Alright, time to relax. I need more experience riding in the rain anyway. This is what adventure riding’s all about, isn’t it?
I decided to turn around and retrace my steps… the trail was getting too skinny to be nearer to town.
I thought about giving the riverbed crossing a go after all. Worst case, I could take off the gear and walk it across. But mercifully, a sign I had missed earlier made itself apparent and I saw my way out on a nice, wide dirt track.
Creeping to the highway I emerged from the forest sopping wet to see my first waypoint; “Perth: 110.”
Alright. Let’s do it.
No cute little dirt roads this time, I just wanted this ride to be over as soon as possible.
Before I even made it to Route 2 my visor lens was impossibly fogged, teeth were chattering and every single article of clothing I had on was waterlogged.
The next 110 kilometers were every kind of miserable. But I’m glad for the experience, at least now I know I can ride in the wet.
It seemed like an eternity before I made it back to the hostel I had left from but make it I did, shaking off like a wet dog as I stormed reception.
“Please god tell me you’ve got a bed open,”
The guy behind the desk laughed; “Ya ya man, go get a shower and warm up I’ll check you in later.” Now that’s customer service.
Back in my room I inspected the gear, discovering the tape I had patched my bag with hadn’t been the most effective repair.
My clothes, x-rays and other documents were soaked. Luckily my computer was wrapped in a case wrapped in a waterproof bag wrapped in another waterproof bag and was okay.
I treated myself to laundry and a $4 coffee, leaving gear strewn all over the hostel to dry.
•••
My next hospital appointment was the day after tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be approved for further riding, in which case the next trip will definitely be north.
Finke Desert Race
The Finke Desert Race is an annual event in the middle of Australia where mechanized maniacs from all over the country (and world) come to put motorcycles, buggies and trophy trucks through their paces.
•••Click Here for the Finke 2011 Photo Album•••
It’s a two day event- day one has competitors running from Alice Springs to Finke, racing back again on day two. The top ten finish each day in around two hours but hundreds of vehicles come out to give it a go.
We camped out right next to the track, cracked a few beers and had hours of entertainment while getting covered in dirt, exhaust and more dirt.
Add a few helicopters yawning overhead into the mix, and we had ourselves a proper race day atmosphere.
Just for an added bonus, a trophy truck caught fire about a kilometer from our spot. Not one to miss any action, Magnus powered up the Isuzu and I jumped in the passenger seat to investigate the giant plume of smoke we could see over the trees.
A blue race truck with a Dodge Ram façade was steaming like an over boiled bowl of Ramen, driver and co-driver shaking empty fire extinguishers in panic.
We pulled up with a big snort of exhaust brake and flung the doors open.
“Got an extinguisher mate!?” the co-driver yelled.
I dropped my camera (already rolling before we stopped) and unbelted the red bottle from our cab.
An R22 appeared and began orbiting low overhead, buzzing like a lion roaring through a fan.
The fire, later determined to be caused by oil dripping on a red-hot turbocharger, was arrested as the rest of our team rolled up.
With race trucks blazing by, the helicopter passing low and our motorbikes coming in hot the resulting video clip would be hard to top.
Miraculously enough of the Ram survived to complete the race, although I doubt the drivers were too pleased with the time after a 20 minute “fire break.”
Action continued for the rest of the day until the race was over, when the hoards of racers and spectators vanished as quickly as they had descended and left the town of Finke to its ten or twenty residents.
We carried on to Lambert Center (geographical center of Australia) for a camp.
Cape York Photos (May ’11)
Here are a few photos from the two expeditions to the tip of Cape York (and back) we did in May. Click the picture below to be take through to the album.
Cape York I (Early May 2011)
My first tour with OAT kicked off beautifully. Not only was I driving a massive vehicle I could never afford, but I got to dress like Steve Irwin and say cool things into a CB radio like “proceeding to rendezvous point.”
I still couldn’t believe my good fortune for getting this opportunity.
For the first few hundred kilometers I drove like a grandma. Slow, cautious, peering over the moon-sized steering wheel with trepidation.
But as I became comfortable with the truck, as one does, I started getting careless. Slow and controlled was NOT how these trucks looked on those YouTube clips I watched instead of doing my homework in college.
Wasn’t I supposed to be powersliding through sand and throwing up tsunamis of mud by now?
At the end of the third day there was one last creek crossing I had to negotiate before setting up camp for the night.
I was just four kilometers from the rally point, and I had passed through this creek twice already scouting the road for the bikes.
The previous times I had crossed in first gear, tiptoeing through like Magnus had taught me. But it was getting toward the end of the day and the guys would be wanting their beer. Surely going through in second with just a little more revs would be fine, right?
I came down the gully and dropped from third to second.
“This’ll be slow enough.”
The path I had taken the last two times was looking knackered and the creek was too stirred up to see the bottom. But I saw some rocks off to the side, and decided to use them to gain traction.
I scooted down the gully, into the creek, and started sliding away from the road up the river.
“Uh oh.”
The gully was pretty steep on the other side- I thought I would need some power to climb out. So I squeezed the throttle even harder.
“Uuhhh oh.”
The truck’s momentum carried it a few meters up the hill, but with the tires humming and traction rapidly dwindling the vehicles own weight sucked it back into the creek.
“No no no no no!”
But it was too late, I was bogged and each revolution of the tires sucked them a few millimeters further into the mud. The engine revving/mud squishing sound could have come from a Saw IV soundboard.
In a full-on panic I grabbed the comm. and yelled/stuttered like Andy Kaufmann into the mic;
“Ah, M- Mags I’m, I’m, I’m stuck”
crrrk “Worse than last time?” crrk
Yeah, the day before I had buried the truck up to its axels in mud. Trying to park.
“Um, a lot worse”
The squadron of motorcycles came roaring back, each rider shaking his head with the same expression behind their goggles.
These guys had been searching for a way to give the American a hard time since we left the city, and this little incident opened the floodgates of abrasive Australian humor on me.
Magnus was more understanding than I would have expected anyone to be, but that didn’t stop me from feeling like a proper asshole.
I had overridden my instructions with my own methods and now I was costing everyone time because of it. Thank god the water didn’t make it up to the cargo bay where everyone’s bags, cameras, and iPods were staying dry.
Once we assessed the situation Magnus and I dug the wheels out as best we could and set up the recovery straps. Now we just needed someone to pull us out.
Hours went by and not a single car, truck or horse-&-buggy passed us.
Finally a chick in a Land Cruiser pickup rolled up, crossed the river easily and rolled down her window
“G’day fellas. Why’d ya park there?”
We lashed the straps from her truck to ours but alas, when she hit the accelerator all the Cruiser could do was spin its wheels while both vehicles remained stationary.
She disconnected the cables and started to head off, but not before telling us she worked at the station we had planned on camping at that night.
She promised to return with a machine that could pull us out.
A machine?
Minutes felt like hours as we waited, and for me those minutes were practically eternities of feeling like the biggest dumbass on the road.
Finally the shelia from the station came back. With a machine.
We heard the rumble of a massive diesel engine and a twinkling orange light was rising over the crest of the gully.
The vehicle slowly revealed itself from the other side of the hill, as she crawled over the rise in a Case 950.
The “machine” she had referred to was a full sized construction loader with tires tall as me and more horsepower than our entire fleet of vehicle combined.
It was like watching the sunrise after ten years in a jail cell. That thing would pull us out.
She hitched a cable to our recovery point, pulled a lever and with a blip of the machine’s throttle we were out in seconds.
Uh, marry me?
The show was over and the boys rode off. I climbed back in the driver seat and headed forward dead slow. There was a puddle up the road Magnus’ voice crackled in over the radio
crkk “You alright on this one mate?”
Christ. This blunder would not be lived down anytime soon.
We finally got to the camp and I parked far away from the bikes. Shut the comm off, took a deep breath, and sauntering over to the team already bellied up at the bar.
In one fell swoop I had completed a trifecta of getting hopelessly stuck, held up the entire expedition and been rescued by a woman.
The Aussies had a good laugh or ten at my idiocy, which I completely deserved, but had the good heart to put a beer in my hand while I was razzed.
An Australian won’t soon let you live down a gaffe, but they insult endearingly and don’t hold a grudge.
The next day was easy driving to each rally point. I was firmly locked back in caution mode and determined to remain that way for the rest of my time behind this wheel.
At the last rendezvous with the bikes, I was to follow Magnus just four kilometers north to the camp site.
But the sandy, deserty track I had been driving on all day became increasingly difficult to negotiate as ruts sprang up and trees closed in.
This day’s drive would end up consisting of 300 trouble-free kilometers sand followed by four kilometers of the swampiest, tightest, most technical off-roading I had done in years. And I was in a godam 5-ton cargo truck.
Off-roading from the luxury box perspective is awkward and cumbersome. Where a Land Rover or Jeep keeps you near the center of the truck with a little slit of a windshield, the Isuzu placed you square on top of the front bumper with a movie-theatre sized windshield 20 centimeters from your nose.
At the point where the ruts on the track became craters I caught up to Magnus, perched on the BMW X-Challenge with his hand on his comm.
I had already learned that this was rarely a good sign.
crrk “Just keep it slow and take this bypass”crrk
He gestured to a pathetic turkey path not fit for a PowerWheels car.
I squeezed the mic on my comm; “Through there?”
Mags nodded.
I put the truck in first, leaned over the steering wheel and dropped a feather on the throttle, creeping around trees and onto the bypass.
Right turn, ok, straight, left tu-
ck “STOP!” ck
Mags was waving furiously.
“You’ve got to wait until the rear wheels are completely passed an obstacle before you turn”
What the hell was he talking about?
A quick glance in the mirror revealed that I had planted a sapling squarely into the side of the cargo bay.
I shook my head, backed up and tried it again.
This time I made it through, suspension creaking and tires making cacophonous love to the wheel wells- an annoying side effect of hard cornering with oversized tires under factory ride-height shocks.
I negotiated the next few turns trouble free and thought I was getting the hang of it. Then, Scrrrunnnch
Mag’s voice reverberated the comm; “You’ve GOT to stop doing that, man. WATCH those back wheels!”
Sorry, sorry! Jeezus this is a steep learning curve.
I executed about a 30-point turn and had myself on track again- pointed at a long, deep, soggy, bumpy, all-kinds-of-shitty stretch of swamp.
“All right mate, this is pretty soft stuff. You’ve got to power on, keep momentum and push through this”
“Schize.”
I could not. Would not. Get stuck again. I had already whiffed two strikes and another pathetic display of dumbness would get me fired for sure.
Clutch in. Engage low range, engage 4WD, lock differential.
I pulled into first gear and hammered it.
The comm crackled “Go Go Go!” and Magnus jumped clear of the trucks path.
I was a wild rhino of half-controlled fury. Ruts tossing tires in the air, axels plowing through mud and my ass getting a brutal birthday spanking from the truck’s seat.
One more splash- and-
I was through. Praise the mud gods, I was hitting the long track to redemption. Couldn’t help but crack a smile; that was some Land Rover promotional DVD-style stuntin’.
ck “Nice. Don’t hit so many trees next time. Haha just kidding, nice work. But seriously watch my paint. See you at camp.” ck
I came up on the Suzukis next to Cockatoo Creek and parked to make camp. The riders even took a short pause from reminding me of yesterday’s rescue to congratulate me on bringing their beer in a timely fashion for once.
But before I had time to feel any shred of self-satisfaction I was overcome with by the repugnant smell of wet dog ass.
Now if you’re off-roading and you didn’t bring Fido, that can only mean one terrible thing.
I dared a glance under the truck’s engine and my fears were confirmed: a steady piss of coolant was erupting from a badly scarred radiator.
The drip eclipsed Magnus’ shaking head, already on the other side of the engine bay… the outback veteran had recognized the smell as well. In seconds one of our riders, a mechanic by trade, appeared also.
We looked at the drip, each other, back at the drip… and collectively uttered a four-letter assertion.
“It’s gonna be a long night,” Mags added despondently.
The fan was fractured, shroud was in tatters, and the radiator had received American History X treatment. We were 50 kilometers from anything resembling a road and there ain’t no OnStar service on Cape York.
So we set to removing the crippled components. We took the radiator to the creek and washed it like a couple Laura Ingals Wilder characters, ignoring the “No Swimming: Crocodiles” sign for the sake of the Isuzu.
We marked off the leaks (where it bubbled when held under water) and Mags patched it with QuickSteel after setting it by the fire to dry.
Drying precision engine components with a campfire- now we were on an adventure.
We crawled all over pulling, patching, and twisting to set things right by headlamp light. By the time we got to bed we had about three hours of sleep to enjoy until the next morning when we re-installed our bush-patched radiator, the trashed fan and what was left of the housing.
Poured in some water, said a few prayers, aaand fired it up.
“Ouwa La!”
But it was still leaking like Polish submarine.
That is, until we got some insight from another rider on the trip.
“Crack a few eggs in there,”
At this point we had nothing to lose, and plenty of eggs in the food storage cases.
Mags got a couple and cracked them into the radiator, hoping to give it some Sylvester Stallone strength.
We waited, the truck ran, and the drip… actually slowed down.
There was no time to argue with this coup of logic. We had to get the truck on the main road before it burned off the Rocky sprit now frying in its cooling system.
Mags took the helm of the truck and I followed on the BMW.
Truck roared out of the campsite… and got bogged.
Despite the situation being decidedly shitty, I couldn’t help but feel just a touch better about my own crashes after seeing the Master of All Things Off-Road stuck 50 meters into his drive.
We threw rocks under the wheels and shoveled dirt away as I lost about 10 pounds from doing all this in full motocross gear.
The truck got free, powered through the swamp and got bogged again. This time I stripped down but still managed to work up a solid tropical sweat fighting the death-grip of mud on the Isuzu’s massive tires.
Once the wheels stop moving forward, the start moving down. Quickly. It’s scary stuff when you’ve got a quarter-million dollar truck sitting on them.
After the second recovery it was smooth sailing, apart from having to stop the truck every ten minutes to add water to the radiator.
The egg trick had reduced the bleeding, but we were off-roading in the jungle for christsake- the only way to make the engine hotter would be to drive back to Boston through the center of the Earth.
The jungle track gave way to sand again, and Mags and I could pick up some more speed.
I was getting comfortable with the Bimmer and sprinted ahead of the truck. As we got further from the tree the sand got deeper. I had negotiated it easily in the then-undamaged Isuzu the previous day, but on a two-wheeler it was a whole different ballgame.
I was sliding all over the place, anxiously resisting the urge to tense up. A X-Challenge 650 is not a light motorcycle, and with the boss man right behind me I was NOT keen on making an ass of myself by putting the handlebars in the sand.
The lack of a rear-view mirror meant I had to turn my head around every minute or so to make sure I hadn’t left the truck in the dust.
After a nice long turn I slowed down and glanced back, expecting to see the truck a kilometer or so behind me. But instead of a sandy vista I saw the Isuzu’s chrome bullbar about a meter off my taillight, ripped fan roaring and driver laughing manically (I think).
I panicked and wrenched the throttle. The torquey Bimmer rewarded me with a satisfied grunt and surge of power, pulling my wheels straight and frame upright as if to say “Why didn’t you do this five kilometers ago?”
Indeed. The note from the Remus exhaust was so intoxicating I found myself forgetting that Magnus had mentioned the bike’s rear wheel bearing was near the end of it’s life. High speed is the secret to stability in the sand, and I allowed myself to indulge in this concept for a few hundred meters.
Still hoping to stay in visual range of the truck, I backed off the throttle to enjoy the sounds of the wind, birds …and my rear wheel bearing about to frag itself.
Like, any second.
I reeled the bike in and pulled over. A few minutes later Mags stopped and hopped out, concerned look on his face and WD-40 in hand. He already knew what was up.
I held up the rear wheel and gave it a boot- it was about as stable as one of those wagon-wheel chandeliers in a wild-west saloon fight.
“You had maybe… another kilometer before this wheel seized and threw you into the scrub.”
Great. I had incapacitated our first and second most expensive vehicles on my first tour.
We weren’t carrying any BMW wheel bearings and the truck wasn’t set up to carry another bike at the time.
The only option was to hide the bike in the bushes, mark down the GPS coordinates and recover it on another trip up here. Next month.
I started to protest… were we seriously going to leave this sweet BMW in the weeds? What if it got cold? Or lonely?
But Mags knew what he was doing and said reassuringly, “Happened to me a couple years ago, had to leave a Honda XR in the bush”
…
“Came back to get it a week later, fire had gone through and melted everything by the frame. Let’s hope for better luck this time, eh?”
Indeed.
Dead End in Paradise
Spent a very satisfying 1,000+ Km burning petrol all over the Whitsundays region of Queensland doing my part to prepare our DR-Z’s for the outback.
Since engines, clutches, and brakes need to be “broken in” for a few hundred kilometers before hard use, I’ve been puttering around keeping RPM’s low and shifts gentle. A perfect excuse to get familiar with the Suzuki and take in the scenery.
While exploring the Shute Harbor region, I found a single-lane road that wound around the airport. After half a kilometer it turned to gravel. Then rocks. Then dirt. Then… ocean.
Usually a dead end is bit of a let-down on an exploration ride, but when the road stopped here I was anything but disappointed:
Didn’t see anybody around but I felt like a dick breaking the serenity with my exhaust, so I keyed off real quick. For a bike with a stock muffler the DR-Z farts like an elephant after Taco Bell.
Besides having a postcard-tacular beach to myself, this had all the makings of an epic moment- I didn’t know where I was, it was only accessible by off-road vehicle, and Jimmy Buffett would have loved it.
And just in case you bastards think I Google-imaged that parking space:
And this is just in our backyard- we haven’t even left for our first tour yet.
Speaking of which, I’m heading out tomorrow for a month in the Cape York jungle. Better charge my camera…
DR-Z Build x5
The Suzuki DR-Z 400 isn’t the fastest enduro bike out there, but it is one of the most reliable and easiest to fix… which is exactly why OAT has picked up a fleet of them for the 2011 tour season.
Looking mean in black-on-black, I have the charge of helping kit them out for endurance riding and then “breaking them in” by running up the first 200 kilometers or so. Not a bad way to kill the weekend.
All five bikes are being modified the same way: radiator guards and a bash plate (bottom-end armor) from Force Performance, a 17 liter tank from Safari Fuel Tanks to extend range, handlebar risers to improve riding position and a set of Barkbuster lever guards so you can ride through brush and branches without inadvertently hitting your brake or clutch.
At the time of this writing three of the five bikes have been completed. Working with brand new equipment is what I always imagine any project will be like; bolts twist easily, nothing cracked or stripped. Everything just snaps right together. Not having ever owned a vehicle younger than 10 years, this was a real treat for me.
The OAT workshop is well stocked for tools, but not so much for lighting. The whole place is powered by a petrol generator, and that shit’s expensive son. Hence the headlight and pitch-dark shelves…
While there’s few things more satisfying than bike parts going on smoothly, you can’t beat an easy ride in the tropics. It was pretty cool rolling out of the driveway with 0 Km lifetime kilometers on the odometer. I was creeping down the road with my left blinker on, coddling the new clutch and piston. Is this what it’s like to bring a baby home from the hospital?
Even with the modifications complete the bikes don’t look too wild, but the Whitsundays aren’t short on oceanside photo shoot venues.
Here’s the first one we finished:
Condo 750 Days 3 & 4 (Race Time)
Race Day One
Day one of the actual “race” a fellow adventure rider named Martin rides shotgun and navigates while another riding enthusiast we picked up named Big Joe sits in the back and adds color to the conversation.
Racing atmosphere is full-on. This ain’t no Friday Night Thunder at the New England Dragway… there are straight-pipe exhausts cracking, million-dollar support trucks stumbling around and helicopters blazing overhead.
It’s loud, crazy, and awesome.
The support trucks are allowed to meet the racers a few times per race. We get to the first station and lay out tools, put a pot of coffee on and tune up the CB to get word of any crashes.
Most riders make it to the first stop. A quad gets a round of applause for limping in on three wheels.
Our boy makes it in one piece needing just a splash of tea and a cup of fuel. Or was it the other way around?
Either way Team OAT finished the first day in good nick, so Big Joe convinced me to join him in a bit of a celebration.
After cleaning out the truck’s cache of beers we headed into town, and after picking up a few bridge-playing ladies from the RSL (Australian American Legion) we stole some street signs and lit fires all the way home.
Race Day Two
I fought my way out of my swag late in the morning, shoving myself into my boots hoping desperately that my truck hadn’t left without me.
“There he is. Thought you had a sheep in there, mate,”
Looks like the team was yet to mobilize, but only just- there was no time for coffee and since my BAC was still a few clicks above racing standard, Martin took the help of the Isuzu for the day.
The bikes seemed a lot louder today… and the road bumpier. But after putting on a kettle of coffee at the first service stop, things were coming back into focus.
Because we had a lot less ground to cover between service stops than the racers, the second day of the Condo involved a lot of waiting around. Luckily we had a good view of the helicopter landing area, where an R24 Raven was busily going to and from with photographers and injured racers.
At the end of the day, our racer had earned himself a medal for completing the event without breaking of self or steed.
We hit the pub and were serenaded by a drunk local… who refused to play Jimmy Buffett despite our repeated requests.
Baaack to the camp.
Condo 750 Desert Race Day 1
• April 19-28
• Airlie Beach to Condobolin, a 750 K race, and back
• About 4,800 Km Covered
At 3:30 AM we broke camp and finished the last leg of highway to Condobolin. When we rolled up to the deserted show grounds we thought we might have taken a wrong turn- but a small contingent of bikers parked in a livestock paddock told us otherwise.
We set up some tools and began resuscitating the KTM. The bike went together smoothly, and aside from some ancient fuel clogging the carburetor and a leaky fork seal, it had taken four years of neglect pretty well.
Carbs off, cleaned out, back on, and the bike barked to life after a few kick starts.
I thought of my Suzuki at home and hoped it would show the same gratitude when I tried to power it up the next time I saw it.
“Such mad hope, but there it is.”
As the hours passed more teams started showing up and the race atmosphere began to percolate.
Amateurs towing 250’s with sedans were parking next to corporate teams sponsored by Honda, Husaberg and others… but there was an undeniable feeling of camaraderie across the board. The diversity of funding, skill levels and vehicles gave the paddock a great environment.
I could hardly believe my good fortune to what I was participating in.
