Thanks to everyone who came out to play on Saturday....Especially Madmountainman and Charlie Batty who rode backmarker.
A good day out, with some good wet-offs
It started on Friday when Steve (Riverking ) and I nipped out to recce some places we didn't do last year......We intended to find the Horseshoe ford up on Dartmoor (OKehampton ranges) and Castle Drogo (tidal ford),but things didn't exactly go to plan
We rode up onto the ranges and after examining the OS map thoroughly, found a new ford for the following day's ride, then tried to find a way to a new area but discovered there was no way of getting there as some git had left a rather large tor in the way.
So we rode over it
There was no track up there, so we found our way over and after a rather nasty drop down into a rocky hole which stove in my pannier (it pulled out nicely though) we dropped down to the river again and found our target.
(Quite chuffed we were too......Wetroads.co.uk doesn't have a pic of it on the site so this is being submitted now )
It's a very pretty place and we decided that if the weather was fine for Saturday ( ) we'd suggst that we all takew picnics up there rather than finding a cafe.
Unfortunately, it was at this stage that Steve discovered that the plinger for his Datatool alarm/immob wasn't hanging from his keys.......
Realisation sunk in and as we realised that we were off road, a couple of miles from anywhere, with rain coming in and an immobilised 650 and no plinger
Off I went to try and find the plinger by re-tracing our route, and Steve started dis-assembling the bike , not holding out much hope that I'd find the plinger in the long grass, boggy bits and several miles of track we'd ridden since he'd last used it.
Remarkably though, a mile or so away, I did find the remote and started hurrying back to the ford (nope, we didn't have any 'phone signal ) but by the time I got back, the immobiliser was already off the bike.
As soon as it had come off of course, it started going off and outside the bike, they're bloody loud, so the unit itself was under a foot of water in the river
We fished it out (still making that bloody deafening noise) and looked at it with a view to re-connecting it, but it had 13 wires, all neatly colour coded.........in black
With no way of re-connecting the alarm, it went back in the river to give us a moment's peace while we decided what to do.
Rather than leaving the 650 up on the moors, we decided to tow it out, so webbing straps were dug out of the panniers and with a bit of umming and arring about the best way of doing it, my Adv became a tow truck.
It was remarkably successful, and after only three webbng breakages, we made it back to a track and then down off the moor, where we parked the little GS outside a nice couple's house, jumped on the Adv and headed back to Princetown to let the piss-taking of Riverking commence
(good job it wasn't the 650 having to tow the Adv though.....it probably wouldn't have made it )
On Saturday we set off from Princetown in the rain and drizzle in an exact re-run of the previous year's ride start, with 16 odd bikes, several pillions and all in good spirits.
The foirst ford, Meavy, is a lovely little one and the water was 4 or five inches lower than last year, so we had some fun there in the rain.....a couple of binnings (not caught by my camera but I'm sure someone will have got a few of them).
A few shots from Meavy;
You can see the rocks under the water, but it wasn't too hard to power across
Speggo on the airhead doing it with applomb;
Reverend Chuck giving it some;
Adv's love water
Tim and Tina
Noddy making waves
John Smith (yeah, but what's his real name ) proving you don't have to stand up to look cool;
A bit of a rear wheel moment on the way out;
And back-marker Richie on the gas
Next stop was Lopwell Tidal run, a 300 metre river crossing that at low tide is an extremely slippery concrete base with an inch of water, but an hour after high tide (when we arrived) was a four foot deep river.
We wimped out of that one and didn't even bother looking at Bere Ferrers as it would have been the same.
From there, we went to Coryton and found a small and slightly dissapointing concrete bottomed ford which was depatched easily, then off to Lewtrenchard for a nice one that caused some fun last year.
It was dark, wet and mank down there but it was a nice ford to play in;
Charlie guarding the entrance slope to the ford to make sure no one nicked it
It's fairly deep but has a fair bottom with some loose rocks- nothing to slow people down too much though
Shame about the raindrop but Mrs Speggo WAS grinning
Erm....aren't you supposed to use BOTH hands while doing this sort of thing??
Guess who was showing off again
But Tim managed to beat MMM's bow wave in style
Dahoum keeping the 1200 owners proud
There's a bike in there somewhere!!
Me on the way back
After a bit of nosh up at the cafe at Okehampton station, we set off again with a few riders departed for the HP2 launch and other things, and headed up onto the ranges.
The water this year was at least four inches shallower- this is Charlie last year in the first ford on the ranges, followed by Charlie this year at the same place from the same angle(ish).....
Speggo and Mrs Speggo made it through...take a look at the grins inside the helmet
Ken wasn't so lucky and took on an engine full of water;
But after a push out, pulling the plugs and firing out the water, no damage was done and he was back in action straight away.
The scenic shot
This ford is quite deep over on one side;
John had a bit of a moment but made it;
But then it was Noddy's turn........
OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!
As always when we drown a bike, ther plugs came out before attempting a start, but the pots were dry and apart from being rather soggy, no damage was caused
While all this was going on, Speggo tried to sneak across the bridge rather than do the ford a second time, but was caught out
Unfortunatly, the park rangers were out in force and when we tried to go down the track towards the new ford and then towards the tor crossing and horsehoe ford, we were told in no uncertain terms that we weren't allowed, so we did the ring road and headed off to North Bovey ford to finish the day off.....
Noth Bovey is one of my favourite fords in the country- a few small rocks but a largely sandy botton, and a very pretty location witha mile long byway to get back to the roads.
Timolgra and Mrs Timolgra doing it with style
Ken concentrating hard
Some bits deeper than others
Sadly, Ken's concentraion levels lapsed
And we rounded it off with the obligatory team piccy
When we got back to Princetown we checked the final drives of the 11xx's and it proved to be a worthwhile exercise, as five of the bikes had decidedly milky shyte in them
Many thanks to all who came out to play- I thoroughly enjoyed the day in your company and look forwards to doing it again
A good day out, with some good wet-offs
It started on Friday when Steve (Riverking ) and I nipped out to recce some places we didn't do last year......We intended to find the Horseshoe ford up on Dartmoor (OKehampton ranges) and Castle Drogo (tidal ford),but things didn't exactly go to plan
We rode up onto the ranges and after examining the OS map thoroughly, found a new ford for the following day's ride, then tried to find a way to a new area but discovered there was no way of getting there as some git had left a rather large tor in the way.
So we rode over it
There was no track up there, so we found our way over and after a rather nasty drop down into a rocky hole which stove in my pannier (it pulled out nicely though) we dropped down to the river again and found our target.
(Quite chuffed we were too......Wetroads.co.uk doesn't have a pic of it on the site so this is being submitted now )
It's a very pretty place and we decided that if the weather was fine for Saturday ( ) we'd suggst that we all takew picnics up there rather than finding a cafe.
Unfortunately, it was at this stage that Steve discovered that the plinger for his Datatool alarm/immob wasn't hanging from his keys.......
Realisation sunk in and as we realised that we were off road, a couple of miles from anywhere, with rain coming in and an immobilised 650 and no plinger
Off I went to try and find the plinger by re-tracing our route, and Steve started dis-assembling the bike , not holding out much hope that I'd find the plinger in the long grass, boggy bits and several miles of track we'd ridden since he'd last used it.
Remarkably though, a mile or so away, I did find the remote and started hurrying back to the ford (nope, we didn't have any 'phone signal ) but by the time I got back, the immobiliser was already off the bike.
As soon as it had come off of course, it started going off and outside the bike, they're bloody loud, so the unit itself was under a foot of water in the river
We fished it out (still making that bloody deafening noise) and looked at it with a view to re-connecting it, but it had 13 wires, all neatly colour coded.........in black
With no way of re-connecting the alarm, it went back in the river to give us a moment's peace while we decided what to do.
Rather than leaving the 650 up on the moors, we decided to tow it out, so webbing straps were dug out of the panniers and with a bit of umming and arring about the best way of doing it, my Adv became a tow truck.
It was remarkably successful, and after only three webbng breakages, we made it back to a track and then down off the moor, where we parked the little GS outside a nice couple's house, jumped on the Adv and headed back to Princetown to let the piss-taking of Riverking commence
(good job it wasn't the 650 having to tow the Adv though.....it probably wouldn't have made it )
On Saturday we set off from Princetown in the rain and drizzle in an exact re-run of the previous year's ride start, with 16 odd bikes, several pillions and all in good spirits.
The foirst ford, Meavy, is a lovely little one and the water was 4 or five inches lower than last year, so we had some fun there in the rain.....a couple of binnings (not caught by my camera but I'm sure someone will have got a few of them).
A few shots from Meavy;
You can see the rocks under the water, but it wasn't too hard to power across
Speggo on the airhead doing it with applomb;
Reverend Chuck giving it some;
Adv's love water
Tim and Tina
Noddy making waves
John Smith (yeah, but what's his real name ) proving you don't have to stand up to look cool;
A bit of a rear wheel moment on the way out;
And back-marker Richie on the gas
Next stop was Lopwell Tidal run, a 300 metre river crossing that at low tide is an extremely slippery concrete base with an inch of water, but an hour after high tide (when we arrived) was a four foot deep river.
We wimped out of that one and didn't even bother looking at Bere Ferrers as it would have been the same.
From there, we went to Coryton and found a small and slightly dissapointing concrete bottomed ford which was depatched easily, then off to Lewtrenchard for a nice one that caused some fun last year.
It was dark, wet and mank down there but it was a nice ford to play in;
Charlie guarding the entrance slope to the ford to make sure no one nicked it
It's fairly deep but has a fair bottom with some loose rocks- nothing to slow people down too much though
Shame about the raindrop but Mrs Speggo WAS grinning
Erm....aren't you supposed to use BOTH hands while doing this sort of thing??
Guess who was showing off again
But Tim managed to beat MMM's bow wave in style
Dahoum keeping the 1200 owners proud
There's a bike in there somewhere!!
Me on the way back
After a bit of nosh up at the cafe at Okehampton station, we set off again with a few riders departed for the HP2 launch and other things, and headed up onto the ranges.
The water this year was at least four inches shallower- this is Charlie last year in the first ford on the ranges, followed by Charlie this year at the same place from the same angle(ish).....
Speggo and Mrs Speggo made it through...take a look at the grins inside the helmet
Ken wasn't so lucky and took on an engine full of water;
But after a push out, pulling the plugs and firing out the water, no damage was done and he was back in action straight away.
The scenic shot
This ford is quite deep over on one side;
John had a bit of a moment but made it;
But then it was Noddy's turn........
OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!
As always when we drown a bike, ther plugs came out before attempting a start, but the pots were dry and apart from being rather soggy, no damage was caused
While all this was going on, Speggo tried to sneak across the bridge rather than do the ford a second time, but was caught out
Unfortunatly, the park rangers were out in force and when we tried to go down the track towards the new ford and then towards the tor crossing and horsehoe ford, we were told in no uncertain terms that we weren't allowed, so we did the ring road and headed off to North Bovey ford to finish the day off.....
Noth Bovey is one of my favourite fords in the country- a few small rocks but a largely sandy botton, and a very pretty location witha mile long byway to get back to the roads.
Timolgra and Mrs Timolgra doing it with style
Ken concentrating hard
Some bits deeper than others
Sadly, Ken's concentraion levels lapsed
And we rounded it off with the obligatory team piccy
When we got back to Princetown we checked the final drives of the 11xx's and it proved to be a worthwhile exercise, as five of the bikes had decidedly milky shyte in them
Many thanks to all who came out to play- I thoroughly enjoyed the day in your company and look forwards to doing it again