After spending a lovely week in Melbourne, catching up with friends, doing a little work, hanging around, it was time for me to head home. Not directly, of course, but another 3-day adventure ride! Read on “Beating fear”
The plan for this weekend’s ride was to ride some easy roads through the Victorian high country, this time on my small adventure bike (my WR250R). I was going to ride down by myself, then we’d ride together for a day, then I’d spend a week in Melbourne doing some work and seeing some friends. Read on “First (3-day) adventure ride on my WR250R”
After re-discovering how much I like adventure riding, the next step was to get my bike and gear set up much better.
R and I had talked about how I could improve my skills and confidence. The initial plan was to put knobby tyres on the BMW and lighten my load. But then he made a very obvious suggestion – instead of setting up my big, heavy bike, I should start riding my small, light bike. After all, I do own a Yamaha WR250R, and I did buy it to improve my off-road skills. It’s a great bike – it’s Read on “Preparing for the next trip: Bike & gear”
The back story
There’s a bit of a back story to this ride, and it’s kind of important as context.
Last year I fell off my motorbike – I was riding fire trails with friends, went over an erosion mound, landed front tyre first in a puddle, lost the front end and went for a slide. I didn’t break anything, but because I landed heavily on my shoulder, stretched a bunch of stuff out, and couldn’t move my arm easily for a while. Worse than the damage to my arm was the damage to my confidence – I had been Read on “Victoria high country adventure ride”
The back story
I was attending a conference in New Orleans and had booked flights that would give me 3 days free after the conference.
I knew my friend Joe would be there as well, and at some point one of us must have said “let’s go for a ride”.
So we did. Read on “Riding Louisiana & Mississippi”
I just spent most of the last 5 days on my butt, riding my motorbike, along some of south-east Australia’s very best riding roads.
It started with a friend saying ‘I’m riding to Tassie – anyone welcome’. I locked it away in my calendar, and am very glad I did, as I know that otherwise I would have just continued to work.
I had no plan except to follow him to Melbourne, visit my dad in Seymour, and come home over 2-3 days. Somehow.
I wasn’t sure where I’d stay, so I thought it would be handy to take the Read on “Two Snowies ride”
Today’s plan was to head home!
Last December I drove from Canberra to Kandos via Taralga and Oberon. I remembered the road between Taralga and Oberon was particularly nice, and the motorcycle atlas supported my memory. I’ve been wanting to ride this road ever since I bought a bike. Read on “My random country NSW ride: Day 3”
Day 2!!!!
Over a number of beers last night I decided to head towards Bathurst then home on Thursday. Initially I was going to go mostly up the Olympic highway but then read my motorcycle atlas which told me that there was a better piece of road via Boorowa and Wyangala Dam. Ahah! A plan. Read on “My random country NSW ride: Day 2”
I have all of this week off, so thought I’d go for a ride. Head-cold meant I couldn’t leave yesterday and change of plans by the kiddo I have to be back Thursday, but that still leaves me 3 full days to ride.
I had no plans except to go somewhere that I felt comfortable riding to. Given I’ve only been riding 4 months and have only had my BMW 3 weeks, I decided I’m probably not ready for the coast roads. I initially thought Jindabyne but friends reminded me that it’s probably still icy and full of skiers…
I was eating dinner tonight and again reading ‘Personal development for smart people’ and thought…maybe I should see if I can have a healthy conference week (this week is IA Summit, which for me is usually a not particularly healthy week – late nights, alcohol, not mindful food, a bit of gossiping etc etc).
Then I thought…no way am I going to make a public commitment to doing that. I might change my mind, or I might fail.
But what’s the point of trying to be a fantastic person if I shy away from making a commitment just because I Read on “Can I manage a physically and mentally healthy conference week?”