This year I bought a Super Ténéré to ride on dirt roads as well as paved roads. I haven’t had a chance to ride many dirt roads yet but on the few occasions that I did, nothing went wrong. However, Thursday (June 29) I got in over my head on one that had mud and deep ruts. In case you didn’t know, mud and deep ruts are evil, especially if you are riding a heavy bike.
The day started quite nicely for Paul, Dave and I. They were riding their Wee Stroms. We did some paved roads, had lunch in Sussex NB and then decided to revisit a dirt road that Paul and I had started to do earlier this spring but turned away because it was still too early in the year. This time it looked a lot better and we were progressing very well in 2nd and 3rd gear when all of a sudden we started to have to use 1st gear. That went fairly well for a bit until the ruts started to get worst and then the mud got mixed in.
On my 1st get off, I laughed it off, took some pictures and then took off again after getting help from Paul and Dave to right the heavy S10 and making sure there was no damage to the bike.
Down for the 1st time
I am still smilingI had to stop for this turtle that was crossing the road.
Now I am getting a little bit nervous as the road is not getting any better and not too long after that I go down for the 2nd time. Again, after getting up and making sure there was no damage to the bike we took off but all 3 of us are now tired of the workout. Nevertheless, we all agreed that the best way to get out of it was to keep going. We knew that eventually we would hit pavement according to the maps we had but we didn’t really know how far it would be.
Down for the 2nd timeSo, off we go again and it is definitely not getting any better. For the 3rd time I go down but this time I got hurt a bit when my left shin got the worst of it but only above the riding boot. Nothing broken. For the 3rd time we got the bike up and after examining everything, there did not appear to be any damage to it.
Down for the 3rd time
Is this the right poseWhen we finally hit pavement we decided to head to Bouctouche where I grew up and as a reward I had a lobster roll. Yummy!
As I am writing this, I haven’t cleaned the bike yet. Maybe this afternoon.
