Tony’s first
ride on his 300exc
My good
friend Tony has recently purchased a new, to him, KTM 300exc.
He has
had it for a few weeks now, but has had to do some work on it for the MOT.
Finally
it’s on the road and he is keen to ride, I however am going on holiday in 4
days so I’m a little tentative about going out. All I need is to fall off and break something,
then I can wave goodbye to my hard earned break. Something like this can always play on your
mind and can cause you to have accidents where normally you wouldn’t, because
you’re being over cautious.
For the
time of year the temperature has been very mild. It is overcast and the roads are wet. We met at my house then headed off to fuel up
before the ride. This also gives me an
opportunity to look at a couple of lanes and to check the river height. It’s been a very wet winter so far and our
first lane includes a good river crossing.
As we
enter the first lane Tony takes the lead as I wanted to do some filming. The trees are bare, the branches are shadow
black against a grey sky, only the ivy that climbs up the hawthorn trees is
green.
The lane
has not been used for a while and an orange/brown carpet of leaves line our
route. The river crossing goes well and
is lower than I expect but I do manage to stall climbing the bank at the exit. The last part of the lane is again an autumn
coloured carpet of leaves and there are a few windblown branches to contend
with, but a quick blip of the throttle soon dispenses with them.
The
second lane saw the beginning of me making silly mistakes; the lane is long and
most of it is grass covered but the ground is soft and deceptively slippery. Most of the lane saw me travelling sideways, with
the feeling that I should take up speedway. Then the inevitable happened. I hit a piece of
path edging. I didn’t blip the throttle
and the front wheel railed along the wet slipper wooden edging the bike
deciding to go in a total different direction to the one I was travelling in. Back on the bike I finished the lane, but I
again stalled on a bank that finishes the lane. I had to stop anyway because I had to
straighten the handlebars and hand guards.
The next
byway was a new lane to me. I had never
ridden it before, the grip was good and although straight forward it was
enjoyable. Large oak trees lined the way; there were a couple of unexpected
sharp turns but that just added to the enjoyment.
The
byways and lanes to follow were a good mixture of good solid grip or as slippery
as an eel in baby oil. On one lane,
after negotiating rain washed ruts and dead branches lying across the way, I
hit a deep puddle hard and soaked myself. This was not good as the temperature
had dropped. We decided to stop for a while and I tried to dry my gloves on the
engine.
We’d by
now done a good few lanes but I had made some silly mistakes and was really
feeling that I was pushing my luck. This
combined with the fact that I was now damp from the puddle soaking and the wind
chill factor was making me feel uncomfortably cold. The route we had taken had circled
around and we were quite close to home, so I decided to cut my losses and with
great reluctance finish the ride.
Home was
reached with no more problems, I was happy I went, but even more pleased and relieved
I had gotten home safely.
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