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Night ride.
Report by Colin - Lano to Wedge in the dark.
If you haven't experienced a night ride then you would probably wondering why we do it. It is hard to work out however I think it is the extra danger with the thought of a roo about to leap across your path any moment or the sheer exhilaration of riding through the dark with only a weak pencil beam to see by. What ever it is, it is something that you have to try to "feel' it. Everything looks different out there. Although I have ridden the Lano tracks heaps of times you are not quite sure where you are until that little halogen lights up just ahead of you a few square metres and you try to distinguish between track and bush and then work out which way the track turns ahead of your vision. Leading the ride, a couple of times I ended up in the scrub after misjudging what lay ahead. Big Col was just behind me the whole ride and told me later that a few times he thought I was heading for disaster just to realize the wall of sand ahead was no more than a small hill and easily climbed under normal riding. It is simply that the eyes play little tricks on you at night which give the brain the wrong signal occasionally. We have all been driving in the country at night and panicked as a bush on the side of the road we thought was a roo didn't jump out at us!!!!!! Funnier still is the other feelings that we can conjured up in our minds. Pete rode sweep for us and was telling us on the beach at Wedge how he was having these strange feelings of something about to loom out of the darkness from behind him and snatch him from the group. He wasn't sure if it was an alien or a vampire but I give you the tip, every time I turned around to check on the group he was not more than a metre behind the second last rider. Daza told me that he had a great ride. He said he was not sure what it was but the night ride has to be experienced to be appreciated. The Grunta was pretty quite staying closer to rear of the pack all ride with Big Col keeping little Col company up the front the whole ride. Big Col asked me later if I heard his very loud nervous laughs as he lifted the front wheel on occasions over mounds just to realize that his light was facing towards the sky and he couldn't see a bloody thing. OK - not a real ride report but I just wanted to share what I feel as we weaved our way through the dark. Why not come along on the next one - It might be a little crazy but it is also something that will sit in your mind for a while. There is even a night enduro at Quinndaning that you can try out. It is a lot slower paced through goat trails similar to a Metro Road ride following arrows that glow in the dark. |
