Red Rocks walkway
Today I had to learn the hard way that I am a looooong way from being a good off-road rider. Since our first short ventures on unsealed roads, I was keen to try to tackle the red rocks. On our first time there, we had full paniers and were 2 up, and it was a huge pain. This time, I was eager to do it, all alone and with no luggage. The track there has everything you might encounter and hate on an off-road path: Deep sand, dry sand, wet sand, loose gravel, packed gravel, large boulders, river crossings (well, streams), huge potholes and your run-of-the-mill landslide across the road. On the other hand, it is really nice and flat, all the inclines are just 2-10 m and you are never in real danger of dropping to your inevitable death. All in all, it sounds like a good training opportunity. As I said, the first time round, the two of us ventured in and dropped the bike twice in deep sand. It is just too darn heavy. Without even proper tires, we were forced to turn around when the track was diverted down to the beach due to a landslide. This time I thought, without all the weight and highly motivated, I was eager to go all the way to the red rocks. Unfortunately, it did not come to that … up until the diversion, it all seemed fine. The sand was stressful, but doable. It helped to know that even at a reasonable speed, the drops in full gear on sand don’t really hurt that much. Anything apart from my ego, that is. But then came the stupid diversion, and all went meh … I thoroughly underestimated the challenge of riding on loose round pebbles. To make things worse, a 4×4 came from the other side and had to wait for me. Oh, isn’t it wonderful to have an audience for your first try at something hard? Long story short, I almost fried my clutch as I dug my back wheel in on the incline back onto the track … and then dropped my bike. The other guy was nice enough, not mentioning my ineptitude or giving voice to my own thoughts of “what are you doing here, noobie?” and helped me push the bike up. After sitting down and letting the bike cool down, I forgot to put my glasses back on and drove off without them. That got me another 30 minutes of searching my glasses on the windy beach. I drove a bit further on, but by that point was too demoralised to go on safely, so I headed back home. A nemesis is born …
Lessons Learned
- My bike is too heavy for me to feel comfortable off-road. Or my legs too short, pick one
- 80% street tyres means … really bad on deep sand and round pebbles
- I need a lot more training on non-sealed surfaces to feel comfortable tackling this one again
Conclusion
A well … nothing hurt, nothing broken, nothing lost. Only a severely dented ego. I guess that counts as a good outcome.
