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Chris wanted to scout out some tracks for an LIRC dirt ride. more details later.

single track loop with the dirt bikes – more detail later, GPX is in /maps/

My cousin Richard booked a July 1st wedding. I had expected to be riding in the northern part of the island on that long weekend, and as often happens, expectation led to reality.

Continue reading “2019/06/28 -> 07/02 Victoria to Woss, and back to Courtenay wedding (solo)”

This was supposed to be a big ride. There were 4 dual sports going, and a big dirt bike ride led by Andy.

Continue reading “2019/06/23 – Tansky with Dylan”

Continue reading “2019/06/15 – A couple hours at Tansky – with Dean, Gerry, James, Luke”

Camped out Saturday night with James at the end of W 30, then helped Andy with trail work. We did get a good downhill run in, which I might get to editing.

The trail work was hard. Started off carrying scaffolding into candy-cane lane. Then we did some work in a creek bed, which promptly got nick-named comealong creek. That was still hard, but felt better, crowbar work shaping the bank, and then some heavy duty work shifting some big rocks:

… I could/should have done a _much_ better job of the time-lapse, but I started the video too late (and it wasn’t even my idea to start it), and turned it off too soon (missed the infill). By the time we finished it was “ridable on a good day” with a DRZ.

While I’m here, I might as well drop this little GPX track. This is a chunk of Tansky that isn’t too hard as a downhill (north to south) on a DRZ-400. There’s one little chunk of rock garden (if you find yourself going up a long ugly rock garden, you missed a turn). The upper left is marked as “West Loop” on the site map, and is also useful as a by-pass for the N500 gate (not that it is really needed). You _can_ head west on the JDF ridge route from the N500 gate, that’s certainly do-able on big bikes, but having a buddy for any of this is a good idea.

This didn’t really come off the way it was billed, which makes some sense, the goal was two very long days of dirt riding, covering some significant distance. It was also billed as big bike friendly, and “no one will get left behind”. A small group of good riders might have been able to do the original planned course in the given time, but when you start throwing novice riders into the mix, the situation changes. As it was, the weather crossed Harrison East off the “rideable” list, and there was a crash which soaked up a few more hours. We ended up arriving late and covering a fraction of the planned terrain. Which isn’t to say it wasn’t fun, it was.

James said Johny wanted to take a 450L demo bike out for a dual-sport ride. I wasn’t keen on the Sooke to Shawnigan ride, as much of it is fairly boring mainline… but I agreed to go to the rendezvous and decide from there whether to go solo or with the group at that point.

It ended up being a fine ride. A little warm up detour through the edge of the Clark Rd area. Entrance at the far end of Muir, up Muir, East main, Butler to Williams Creek main. A spirited run up that to Kapoor. East on Kapoor to some of Devin’s single track and some messing about to cross Hank’s highway and exit on Kapoor hill / Kapoor.

Andy White on his Aprilla, Ross ? on a DR 650, Ed on a 690, Gareth on a DRZ, Johny on the 450L, plus James and myself.

This was supposed to be a camping trip, but tube trouble forced me to turn back.

Continue reading “2019/05/11 – “Camping/Tube trouble” with James and Devin”