I rode the River Murray 6hr, the final round of the SART series on Saturday 4th Sept. Although it is not a Vinduro as such, Class M is for pre-1990 bike and there were 4 of us entered to do battle for class honours. Paul on a late 80's Kawasaki KDX200, John on a Kawasaki KLX250, Kevin on a 1980? model TT500 Yamaha and myself. Instead of my usual mount, a modified 1976 XT500, I upgraded to a more modern, light weight two stroke. Yes, I rode my 1979 Yammie AG175 . This is a bike that was given to me last year and has sat in the shed doing nothing since I got it. To prepare for the event I replaced the std rubber covered footpegs with some serrated steel ones that I got off of a wrecked late 80’s Aggie that lives out the back of the shed, pumped up the tyres, fitted new wheel bearings in the front wheel and just to be sure I also put a new sparkplug in it.
The machine impound before the start. One of the bikes in the picture is the original/ultimate orange enduro weapon; the other orange bikes are some thing called a KTM's!
Those who have kept an eye on the weather latterly will know that it has been a bit wet here in SA of late, and about 40mm or rain fell in the area where the event was held the night before, ontop of a fair bit that had fallen in the previous weeks. In fact it was raining for most of the 2hr drive down to Palmer and it only stopped just before the event got under way. At the riders briefing we were warned that a lot of the dirt roads that were to be used or transport sections were flooded and that we should exercise a bit of caution when riding them.
The course was about 113km in length and had 7 competitive sections with two laps being completed. Section 1, Lofflers, was a 3km run down a sand creek with the course zigzagging up and down the banks. Section 2, Swamp, was exactly what it name implies and was 5km of single wheel track twisting and turning across a section of Murray river flood plain, and due to the overnight rain there were some major bog holes. Section 3, Rocky Point was 6km in length and started out with some great single tracks overs some hills and through some gullies before dropping down on the river bank/flood plain where it was again quite muddy. Section 4, Punthari was 4km of pure 500 Yamaha heaven (pity I was on a 175 Aggie) and was basically a Grass track course of long sweeping turns on a gently slopping paddock that ended in a few 100M of twist turns in some trees. Section 5, The Creek is one of the best paddock sections used in the whole series. 8.5km in length, it starts with a bit of single track riding through some trees before getting into a broad normally dry creek bed (that would be classed as a river in some parts of the world) that has a fair bit of water in placed. The course zigzagged back and forth across the creek, up and down some fairly steep banks , and is just a blast to ride, even on a gutless aggie. Section 6, Froggies, was 8km of riding thru some mallee style scrub, this paddock is mainly good loamy soil but there were a few sections where it got a little bit muddy, there were also two places where you were required to ride along a narrow creek with water (mud) flowing down it. Section 7, Milendella was 1.3km in length but was taken out of the event long before I got there as the water flowing down the creek was so deep the officials go tired of pulling stuck riders out.
Being a daytime event the first rider was away at 10am; I had dawn No.80 and started at 11:20am. I made a good start at the first paddock only to have my handlebars slip down onto the top of the fuel tank when landing from the first jump down into the creek. I was able to pull them back up to a “normal” position and ended up riding through to the end of section 5 with “easily adjustable handlebars” before I actually got a change to get the tools out and tighten them up.
The 1st lap was good riding and fairly uneventful with only a minor fall in the Swamp. Despite the growing mud holes, I didn't get bogged once, for the simple reason that I rode around them, not being stupid enough to try and ride through them. The biggest problem I had was actually on the transport sections as some of the flooded areas were quite deep, with water being axle deep in some places and some of the flooded sections extending for up to 50m with many metres more of chopped up muddy road after the water.
The second lap also went well until about half way thru the lap when the wind picked up and rain started falling again. In a few places when having to ride in to the wind (I have since check the BOM’s website and the winds were blowing 80 – 100kph at that time) I was barely able to maintain 60kph. The problem with the AG175, apart from an extreme lack of actual horsepower, is the gearbox, as the jump from 4th to 5th gears is quite a wide gap and you end up having to rev the tits out of it in 4th as it just will not pull 5th gear.
But, I soldiered on through the wind and rain and got quite lonely as I ended up at the rear of the field with all the riders that started behind me having long since gone past. By time I left the controls at the final competitive section it was starting to get dark, a sure sign of how late I was running. On that final transport section to the finish, I opened the aggie up on one slight downhill section where I wasn’t pushing into the wind and actually seen the speedo tough just over the magic 100kph mark.
By time I got to the finish it was dark and just about everyone had left, except for the few officials who were still there waiting for me to arrive. I passed through final machine examination without any problems and was told the best possible news. Paul, John and Kevin (The 3 other riders in Class M) had all retired, leaving me as the only finisher in class and therefore the WINNER of Class M. The other bit of good news was that as Paul and Kevin had not gained any points from this event, I had also won the series!!
While talking with the officials I also found out that Shane Deiner (a legend in SART circles, and outright winner of ten 24hr trials) riding a 2010 KTM EXC450 had not finished, I had seen him stopped beside the road near the start of the 2nd section on lap one and advised/yelled at him him to buy a real orange enduro bike. This meant I also had bragging right and could honestly claim to have beaten him riding a 32 year Yamaha AG175 along with having won a State Championship series on an AG175!
CJ
