Hi!
Yesterday I was outside, celebrating the Big Outdoors Church gods.
My old time friend, Lucio, got himself a XLR125, a small four stroke dirt bike. Since way before he
got the bike, he was asking me to go for a trail, but he made me promise that I was going to ride
slow. I had promised my gf to take her on another ride, because the first one was too easy. She
wanted to get covered in mud (they say it's good for the skin, right?), so I was along with her.
Half day after we agreed that the mud riding day was yesterday, I found it was a bad decision, as
two buddies called me for riding and I was going to miss real fun on the mud puddles...
Anyway, by 8am we were five. Me and gf <sigh> on my XR Tornado, Eduardo and his XL250R with a XR350
piston (what a rocket that bike became!), Lucio and his XLR125 and Chico and his ooooold DT180
ratbike.
Trail began really fun. Eduardo bike missing
We spent half an hour to find a bad connection on
the coil wire, the one that goes to the CDI. Fixed that easily, but spent way too much time and it
was already 9:00am and we were not yet really on the trail!
And the Jar Trail began. Man, that trail was *nasty*!! The rain of the previous week made a
nigthmare ride for dual sport tires (the ones on Lucio's bike...). It was slippery, sticky, deep,
amazingly muddy. It was a real classic day (as says the surfers) and I was not able to slosh that
mud around! No problem, quality time is always good (I'm really considering convincing her on off
road'ing my NX200) but I'd rather be alone there. Even Lucio, a real begginer (learn to ride bikes a
month ago) was faster than me, until he crashed. His bike refused to re-start. We did every tests:
it had spark and compression and it seemed to have fuel. 20 minutes later, we found that carb bowl
was full of water instead of gasoline... Again on the trail!
We arrived at The Jar (the mineral water fountain) and I decided to climb a step about a meter and
half height. When I turned the bike on, nothing happened. My bike has e-start, but no sign of it
having power. I removed the ignition switch plugs (two wires - a fancy kill switch...) and nothing.
I was faster than my buddies to find out what the problem was: A shorted fuse... No problem, I had a
spare, replaced the blown fuse and played the hill climb game. I climbed it a couple times and got a
nice picture of the stunt. Well, not *that* nice, it's that sort of thing that you only see it
difficult if you see it being done live... More or less like SX...
Up to that, only the ratty Yamaha was going without trouble. Good for us. So we went to the
abandoned cars trail (lotsa burnt to the ground stolen cars). We met some friends there, old guys
50+, being lead by a 60yo rider on a white WR200 two stroke. My heroes! We decided taking the easy
way instead of the hard way, the hard way involved going through vines and recently cut trail, too
bad to ride, requires a lot of clutch and dodging of the tree and going through the bushes. Let that
for another ride... Old Guys took the hard way! Well, we stopped at cane sugar juice booth to have
cold cane sugar juice and the owner of the booth gave us some native weird black fruits that I never
had tasted before, I always tought that those fruits were poisonous...
Lucio had crashed somewhere before and had broken the clutch lever. There's a gas station near where
there's a parts shop, a car parts shop, but the owner, in a clever move, noticed the huge herds of
dirt bike riders, who often need new plugs, levers, tubes, that stuff. And he opens sundays! New
lever, there we go to the Zombie Woods Trail!
Even in summer, there is mud on the ZW trail, because the vegetation is thick and the soil is clay.
Now, after all that rain, it was a muddy single track (that is getting wider these days... Not good)
with mud puddles that could cover the bike... Everybody (but me) crashed on this trail. Was nice.
The hill climb that makes that trail so interesting was a crash fest for them newbies. I climbed
with ease. I love that! Then it was Lucio. Man, he was scared. He kept asking me to climb his bike,
but I did not. Instead, I convinced him to ride it himself. Surely. I had to push and pull his bike,
moving the front wheel (poor man's 2WD) to help it go uphill with those inadequate dual sport tires.
Chico had even more problems. The 2WD method did not work, because his gearbox lost first and second
gears (awful grinding noise) while trying to climb on the first attempt. It took me, Eduardo and
Lucio and a *lot* of sweat to climb the hill by foot pushing the ratbike. Now we were even: four
bikes, every one of them broke something (glad it was just a fuse on mine, gotta check the electrics
later...)
So, we decided to skip Grass Hill trail and Mangue trail behind Blue Tree Park Hotel. My gf was in a
serious need of water (nobody has camalbaks) and I split from the guys, as they were going to try to
see if they could fix Chico's gearbox. They were going to open the clutch cover and stuff, all that
in the middle of the Zombie Woods...
I rode with my gf through Manga Woods trail, where there's another mineral water fountain. I was
thinking about spending maybe half an hour sitting on the rock, looking to the water coming out of
the ground and chat with gf, but there was two guys smoking a big - huge - marijuana cigar on that
rock, so we just cleaned the boots, washed hands and face on the crystal clear water and got out of
there. No, I don't think that smoking guys would harm us, but, ya know, it would be nothing romantic
being there with two guys and a not-so-nice-smelling cloud of smoke...
I arrived at Sarico's bar, and ordered a cold beer. That's when buddies arrived. We had a big fried
fish, gf had a large salad (for USD0.30! 30 cents for a great salad, man, I live on the wrong
neighborhood) and some beers, all for USD10. Everybody happy, time to the Gaibu Beach rock hill,
that we are supposed to go down. It's not that hard, requires some balance and follow the old
saying: "don't look where you don't want to go". It's high, not recomended to guys who are afraid of
heights, like Lucio... I was the first (riding alone, no way someone could ride with a passenger on
those rocks), Eduardo was next and Lucio... Well, I have to use all my convincing power and he did
it! The crowd on the beach even cheered him! I love this people! Then Lucio started doing brake
slides, crashing twice and making me laugh so hard that I could barely breathe! You should see how
happy Lucio was! Chico did great on the rock. And we started the return.
Lucio was not going to ride the Jar Trail: too much mud for him. He got license plates on his bike
and returned by the four lane highway. Chico went with him, with a bike withouth first and second
gears, no way he would get through the mud puddles of jar trail. And was getting dark fast... Of
course, I, without a license plate, decided to ride the trail. Single Track trail. Of course, if I
had a license plate, I was riding the single track instead of the four lane highway, full of train
sized trucks with often way more than the usual 18 wheels (not rare seeing cane sugar trucks with 30
- or more - wheels...)
Me, gf and Eduardo hit Jar Trail when it was almost completely dark. The headlights on my XR is a
piece of s#it, and with more 65kg on the rear, the beam was aiming the top of the trees insted of
the single track.
Was an easy return. I lead, so Eduardo could go on my pace instead of dissapearing in front of me. I
was riding on a fair good pace.
When I was almost on the train track - the official start and finish of the ride - a guy,
helmetless and with a *loud* old bike passed through a mud puddle and gave me *the* shower. Later,
when I was over the tracks, he asked if I was afraid of him and took Eduardo and gf to avoid me
punching the idiot and throwing him and his bike on the river... Moron. All he wanted was our
lights, because he lost his friends and could not see the path with his light-less bike (no moon
yesterday and it was a cloudy night)
We went to Miriam bar, on my neighborhood. We had some more beers... By 8pm I was at home...
--
Tiago Rocha
Recife - Brasil
www.diariodastrilhas.cjb.net
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