It is mid 2014 and Cindy and I had only recently returned to motorcycling after nearly 20 years hiatus. Cindy was riding a F650GS so at least looked the part for adventure touring, while I had a Triumph Street Triple, a model generally considered sub-optimal for powering through deep gravel. My previous off-road jaunt on Rainbow Beach in 2012 had resulted in four fractured ribs and a trip home from Gympie hospital assisted by the pharmaceutical industry’s finest work, while Cindy had almost no off-road experience.
Those circumstances did not cause any hesitation for Cindy organising a Southern Lakes Explorer tour with Compass Expeditions in Chile for January 2015. Although the tour only had a 3 rating, meaning mainly on the bitumen and only short off-road segments, there were still some nerves about riding F700GS bikes given the total lack of adventure touring experience. To help paper over the holes in the skills base, Compass also offered a weekend off-road skills training course in Mansfield Victoria in November last year. We reviewed the trainer’s (Simon Pavey) resume beforehand to ensure that we would pick up a few pointers, nine times through Dakar (now ten, he also completed the 2015 event) and training Charlie Boorman and Ewan MacGregor before their big world adventures seemed acceptable.
We flew down to Melbourne with no problems taking the helmets on as check-in luggage, advice had been to suggest to the check-in attendants that as they were hats we would wear them onto the plane if required. Luckily no need for that swot team inducing choice, and the attendant actually seemed relieved that they weren’t bowling balls.
We had organised to hire a F700GS for me and a F650GS for Cindy from Grant at Off-Track Motorcycle Rental in Tullamarine, the convenience of being picked up and taken straight around to Off-Track can’t be overstated. The other convenience is that the bikes are for off-road use as the business name suggests, so there was no need to pretend that we were only going to ride on recently completed racing standard road surfaces as one tends to do with hire cars. Grant had even put suitable tyres on.
After thorough bike inductions, we strapped on our gear and headed up to Mansfield into a howling north wind, sweltering in 35⁰C temperatures. After the obligatory “how’s the serenity?” photo stop at Bonnie Doon, we met up with the trainers led by Simon Pavey and the rest of the course participants in Mansfield.
The course was very challenging and far surpassed our expectations, and importantly gave us both skills and confidence riding off-road. We especially appreciated lesson one; you’ve dropped the bike and you need to pick it up. Cindy proved she could pick up a F1200GS, assisted only by the boxer engine cylinders which helpfully give a good head start. We were to use lesson one about a million times over the training weekend and even a few times in Chile.
The course content was mainly about setting the bike up for off-road, clutch and throttle control, balance, slow speed manoeuvring, front and rear wheel braking, and recovery of the bike when you only make it half way up a steep hill climb.
In keeping with Victoria’s highly consistent weather patterns, the trip back to Melbourne on the Monday morning started at 0⁰, if not for the heated hand-grips then frostbite would have been almost certain.
travellingbennetts 