Tasmania on a Tenere

Thanks :)

Tassie is a great place to live and ride... There's around 14,000km of forestry roads down here, plus most the roads in between are good riding... I'm lucky I only have to go 20km to get into the forests, then I can ride dirt/gravel roads all day, do hundreds of K's, and rarely see another vehicle... It's glorious! ...

lol, I hope to never drown a bike again...but... in a way I'm glad it happened, it's removed the fear I had of drowning a bike it's no big deal really ... My main fear now is getting the Tenere bogged in thick mud, I wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting it out on my own... Hopefully it never happens

Yeh, the Tenere is too big and heavy for poking around the rough stuff, which is what I enjoy the most... I dropped it again last week, lol.... Lucky it's a tough beast

I went for the big bike because I have plans of riding around Australia, it seems capable of carrying a decent load, has a good fuel range, and it's reasonable comfortable... Once I get that trip knocked off the bucket list I'll step back to a lighter bike for poking around Tassie... Getting the hang of handling such a tall-heavy beast makes the smaller lighter bikes a lot easier to ride I think...

Thanks for the tip about the copper anti-seize... I never considered it might cause a galvanic corrosion issue... I've always used nickel anti-seize, but ran out, and grabbed the copper because that was all the shop had at the time... There's about a pound of it slapped here there and everywhere around the bike now ... Oh well, I'll keep the rest of the copper for the tractor and get some more nickel for the bike

:)

Nice. Beautifull photos. Thanks for your time, for your many pics.

Great thread FLIKIT, Thanks for sharing.
I love tassie and missed my yearly fix last year but will get it this year. It is so different to the northerly lump.
I also appreciate your attitude to minimal impact, it is so easy to get the red mist when riding and just go regardless of the consequences.
Keep posting your rides.

Awesome ride reports Flickit !!! What a lot of great places to ride, looks like bike heaven to me.
While there is no way in hell I'd try to ride those roads alone, it's great to see you posted this, cause it means you made it back home safe
Please keep them coming!

Keep the great ride reports coming. It's winter now
in Canada so I need this as therapy.

As I was reading through all of this the first thought that came to my mind was, if you get truly bogged then you've got a big problem. One of the small things I like about the Tenere is the tow hook. Have you thought of adding a small hand winch to the bag. I've seen them advertised for use with the 1200 GS but haven't taken a great deal of notice other than that. Travelling into the areas you do on your own, might be an idea?

having a blast of time through your report... did you see any native? if i recall correctly they were sadly terminated but probably you crossed with some of them

At the moment I just carry some rope, not really enough to do anything practical with though...

I've been considering a hand winch of some form.... but the small light ones are damn expensive... Someone in the Tenere thread suggested using a ratchet strap, which is an affordable option...

I "was" considering a decent ratchet strap with with the strap removed, then load it up with that light/strong Spectra rope/cable... The thing that's holding me back is thinking about the logistics of actually using a winch solo... Like, I cant hold the bike upright and operate a winch at the same time... Also the amount of line/rope needed to reach a good anchor point is probably more than what's practical to carry...

I'm sure a winch would be good in some situations, but every time I've been stuck or nearly stuck there's a good chance a winch wouldn't have helped me...

I'll probably procrastinate about it till I get stuck in a situation where a winch would help

We have very few Aboriginals down here in Tasmania, there's none living out in the wild (if that's what you were asking)... The last full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal died in the 1800's I think...

You can read about their demise here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tasmanians

:)

Thanks for the comments

I had another awesome ride yesterday so I better get the last weeks one written up so I don't fall too far behind

Awesome pics and ride reports, keep them coming.

2012-12-06 Plenty-Spurs-Power

Distance: 275km

Route:
<iframe src="http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1042965/embed" height="768px" width="90%" frameborder="0"></iframe>

The general plan was to head out through New Norfolk, through the Mt Lloyd pine forests to check out a couple of the minor tracks (that caught my eye on Google Earth), then poke around a stack of dead-end logging spurs to the west of Plenty Valley Rd (Lanes Link Rd?)...

Most the spur tracks were unmapped so I did up a rough route on RidewithGPS so I didn't have to put too much thought into into it while riding:
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1971737
(I often make a messy route like that so I've got a rough idea of what tracks are worth a look... As usual, I didn't do 1/2 of what I had on the plan, better to have more than not enough)

Heading down the eastern side of the Mt Lloyd forest: (34 to 60km on the route)


Quite a few decent hills!, a lot of it is fairly challenging on a big bike:




























Then out the southern end of Mt Lloyd back onto the fast gravel roads:




A 10 mins video:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XQ1FRtWuKJY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It's a great area to ride.. but it's popular with dirt bike riders on weekends, so I only go through there on weekdays, less chance of running into anyone...

To be continued... .. .

60km to 190km on the route was just poking around logging spur roads.. I only stopped a handful of times on this ride so I don't have many photos:











Most the roads up here were good fast gravel:




There was a surprising number of new roads around the place:



Over to the next hill, much the same:


A lot of the new roads were made from course crushed rock, not bad to ride on, but the front tyre flicked a lot of big chunks up into the bash-plate:






Before this ride I replaced the rear brake pads, the new ones are very grabby, it doesn't take much pressure to lock the rear wheel, it makes emergency braking almost impossible... as I discovered... Coming back down out of this area I went a bit fast into a downhill corner, it was covered in loose gravel, I jumped on the brakes, locked the rear, released it and jumped on it again just as hard stalled the engine, and gave myself a bit of a scare...

1 min video of how NOT to do an emergency stop:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/f48K20ti4C0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
(the other tyre tracks are mine from earlier in the day, I went poking around the side track)

It doesn't look too dramatic on the video, but it was for me at the time It was the first scare I've had since I got back on the road last year, about 15,000km ago...

to be Continued... .. .

Good use of the exit ramp

I made my way back down to the logging haul road, it's like a gravel hwy, hard packed with not much loose gravel:



Amazing how well the D606 tyres hang on:


With a few detours, to explore some other spurs, I made my way around to the power lines behind Moogara... These 220,000 volt power lines carry the power from Gordon Dam (as seen earlier in this thread), to Hobart, about 100km... They basically run in a straight line with just a couple of slight turns.... A lot of the way along there's a service track so the poles and lines can be checked and maintained, where the ground's too mountainous there's at minimum a grotty track to each pole.... I rode along a short part of the lines a while back, and as an excuse to get out riding, I've planned to explore as many of the tracks as I can...

I got onto the power line service track at around 196km on the route, it was good fun, some parts were just dirt, some were fist sized stones, some course crushed rock... I only went a couple of KM and my fun was ruined by a gate (at 198km)... So typical!


Not to be beaten I backtracked and went around some forestry roads to get back onto the lines... (at around 205km on the route)...

The view back towards Hobart: (it doesn't look to special in the screen shots, but it's actually quite stunning)


I started heading along the lines, away from Hobart, but the track was a mess, and soon vanished:


I made my way around on another track which ended up running along the lines for a couple of K's:


The last part of the track was quite steep as it descended down to the last pole on the edge of a steep valley...

9 min video to the end of the lines: (as far as I could go along this section)
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ve0p1-m7rgI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Nice spot


Back up the hill where I came from:


A waratah: ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waratah )


There's no tracks going down into the valley, but there's tracks over the other side: (accessible off Styx Rd) ... At the right you can see the power lines heading over the hills in the distance:


I was a bit worried about the climb back up the hill due to the loose rock, but it turned out to be no issue:


3 min video climbing my way back out:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8f-tYlFhWxs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The camera makes everything look flat, it was fairly steep... (at the time I thought it was very steep, but after what I did yesterday, I'll just call it "fairly" steep)

I headed back the way I came, with a couple of short detours, and a trip down to the other side of the gate that blocked my way earlier... Then started heading the other way along the lines towards home..

I cant be bothered grabbing screenshots so you'll have to watch the video if you're interested... The track goes up and down a few hills, some steep, some not too bad, a good fun ride..

7 min video heading towards Moogara:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/F4QSn4LYxfc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I stopped and turned back when I got to a fairly steep grassy gully, I couldn't really see the bottom, or the track on the other side, and as it was late in the day I didn't want to risk getting stuck down there... Figured I'd do the next section another day, after checking it out on Google Earth...

Not long after I turned around I noticed there was a bit of a grassy strip of cleared land running out either side of the lines, a fire break I guess, trying to make up my mind if I should check it out or not, I paused too long, stalled, and dropped the bike ... Being on grass, I didn't make much effort to stay on my feet, I just went with it


90 sec video of a VERY noobie drop
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YcuaUx3i3qo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So that's it for now... Sorry about the lack of decent photos, I should start carrying my DSLR again, and spend a little more time on pics...

I had a 400ish Km ride yesterday exploring the powerline tracks and others stuff further out towards Lake Pedder.... I'll look at getting some videos edited and uploaded over the next few days, then write it up...

Thanks for reading :)

I have enjoyed all of this thread, thanks for posting. You are most fortunate to live in a part of the world with such great riding areas.

I slacked off and let this thread go for a while, guess I better catch up... Another mod to start with:

I wasn't happy with the Yamaha alloy sump guard, it left too much of the engine exposed and I was getting a few dings in the cases, + it was getting bent from rocks catching on the slots... It seems it was made for looks not function, glad it came on the bike and I didn't pay for it!


I got a B&B one... it covers a LOT more:




$245 well spent IMO...

A couple of BS posts to push this out to a new page for a new ride report

My current Tassie Tracks: