well got through the first full morning's ride today with another bloke from CR who also has an EXC250, but his is an 09 model. Nice to ride .....
We did some easy hillclimbs and fire trail stuff, a couple of other locals (Sherco 300 and Husky 449) joined in for the rest of the morning, it ended up being a great morning with 4 of us belting around.
Did a lot more single-trail hectic rutted bullshit with big drop-offs than I was expecting for the first real ride - aah what the hell just jump in the deep end. I was a bit more conservative in the tight stuff than the others, but the bike worked really well - it is far more bike than I am rider.
Didn't fall off once - on the ride that is - until the very end of the morning. We had just come back down from the hills to the main junction with the Cotter road. About 500m from base......
I had stopped, one of the boys rode out onto the road, one waited for me - I took off and within 2 seconds was thumped onto the deck with a car coming up the hill !! Right as we had slowed and stopped - a length of fencing wire maybe 8m long somehow found itself in my front wheel. I never felt it until it just locked the front end, I slammed onto the tar directly in front of soccer-mum in her SUV with the kids pointing and laughing - and the 250 landed fair on my R ankle and knee.
It is the most bizarre prang I have ever had. We dragged the bike off the road and then saw the fencing wire !!! FMD there was a lot. Pulled it out, finished the ride and had a bourbon. Heaps fun and looking to do it again soon. The bike works really well, has heaps of mumbo and is just a huge buzz to ride. I will bung up some photos soon, it has some nice stickers now