Green-Laning Attempt #1

What do you do on a Sunday afternoon when you’ve got a BMW R1200GS? You go green-laning and enjoy yourself! What do your three friends that have Suzuki Bandits do? They come with you and try their best to keep up!

As Shane put it:

Hindsight is a great thing! Logic is also a great thing! Quite why my logic concluded that riding my road bike off-road would be a good thing is beyond me. With hindsight running at 20:20, I see where the logic broke down.

Rob Warner of downhill mountain biking fame had a rather unique but brilliant outlook on ideas such as this: “If you’re going to do something, do it! Don’t talk about it, worry about it later!”.

View Larger Map

Being the one with the most off-roadish bike I was left to lead the way. We started by meeting up at the water works in Kings Mills. It’s fairly central between our houses and close to the first lane. The first lane of the day also saw the first two accidents of the day. Shane was the first to have a tumble,

Road tyres do not grip in the mud – they fill up in a second and spin taking you nowhere. They also change state very quickly, one moment they are under the bike, the next they are alongside it! My broken indicator proves that these bikes are not made for lying down!

Dave was the last to arrive at the top of the track and, with barely metres left the end of the track, was the second to come a cropper. He too managed to snap an indicator. It just goes to show, don’t get too cocky when you think you’re home and dry.

The next track was another up-hill section running from Route du Coudre to the top of the hill. I had been along it a week or two before and it seemed then like the Bandits should be able to cope with it. However, it had rained in between and, as Leigh so elegantly puts it:

It was dirtier than a Bankok S&M dungeon and just as scary at times.

The GS managed to get to the top under it’s own steam, although I did see a bit of side ways action. The others didn’t fair so well, so I ran back down to give a hand. Shane noted that “road tyres do not grip in the mud – they fill up in a second and spin taking you nowhere” or, as Leigh put it, “they just seem to serve to cover the person behnd you in mud and do little else.” At the time I was the person behind giving a push and yes I did get covered in mud!

Not to be put off by a little hard work getting the bikes to the top, we carried on to the next track. This third track should be a walk in the park for me as I’ve done it several times before. However, ten metres down it my front wheel decides to veer into the grass and mud in the middle of the track, I try to counter but this just throws me up the bank of the left and side but I manage to roll off and just about keep control – and decide to kill the speed a bit!

Leigh on the other hand was behind me and took pretty much the same course as me, only he was unfortunate enough to loose control and have to ditch his bike. I believe his bike came away unscathed from the incident. I guess the layers of mud had build up enough to protect the bike from damage! Of course, following someone elses mistake wasn’t the only lesson Leigh learnt:

Wearing 15 layers of thermals is not a good idea when you have to pick up a bike that weighs nigh on a quarter of a tonne when covered in a thick layer of the aforementioned mud as you tend to get a bit warm after a while.

Just around the corner Dave binned his bike again. Another accident, another broken indicator!

By this time it was heading towards twilight but there was time for just one more lane. This one was probably my favourite of the day. Running from the motor-cross track at Pleinmont to the old watch house. It’s mostly flat with a hard-packed surface but plenty of puddles, one of which was deep enough for the bow-wave to break over the top front fender on the GS It was also the only track of the day that we all managed to get along with incident.

I personally enjoyed the ride and added a couple of new tracks to my list. I wasn’t in any doubt whether I would enjoy it but I did wonder if the others, with their bikes that are most definitely designed for road use, had enjoyed it.

Dave:

I can say that road tyres are for what they state the road. But I truly had a laugh and really can’t wait till June. I just know it is going to be as funny as it will be painful.

Shane:

I can conclude that it is good training for when I use an off-road bike as my reactions will be like lightning! The real question is, would I go again… Absolutely!… It was brilliant and it gives you a good workout too!

Leigh:

All in all a fun day – I now can’t wait to get to Wales to learn how to ride a proper offroad bike. It also has the added benifit that we will not have to clean the mud off them afterwards…..I hope!