I attended 20th Annual Calabogie Boogie was this past weekend. What a blast. I'm stiff, sore, tired and my whole body is now worn out -- but it was a great time. I rode the main orange primary trail route. The dual-sport route looked interesting enough, but I wanted to make sure my skills were challenged... and indeed they were. Plus, I wanted to ride with Dave, Blair and Jeff.
Unloading Dave's KLX400
The rented travel trailer at Ferguson Lake
Jeff & Blair's bikes (they came up from New Hampshire)
Saturday morning pre-ride briefing
Dave pinched off a loaf of bear shit on the trail
Lunch time on the K & P Trail
Patrick Trahan (Honda Canada sponsored rider of the 2010 Paris-Dakar Rally). He rode the Boogie on his Dakar bike and was the guest speaker at the Saturday evening banquet. Got to chat with him for a few minutes. A nice guy and some funny stories.
A very tricked-out Honda CRF450X
In the United Kingdom, Santa Claus is tall and thin, and he rides a KLR650.
He can also out-ride me any day of the week.
Blair's KLX400
Jeff's XR400R
Santa's sleigh
Dave's KLX and an old DT200
See the marks just before I left the road? You can't see it in this photo because the camera is pointing downhill, but it's pretty steep. I was run off the road by some KTM riders who were in a real hurry to pass. I hit a big rock with my front tire, causing me to vere off my line, and I was definintely tired by then and going a little too fast (3rd gear). After hitting the rock, I went into the grass and smashed my skidplate really hard on a giant rock, and a few feet in front of the rock was a 2-foot deep ditch. That's where I came to a very quick stop on impact. The bike did a stoppie and I plowed straight into the dirt.
The 3 riders who witnessed my get off thought they might need to call for an air ambulance, and figured my bike had probably been wrecked, too. However, I was up and walking around within a few seconds. I had the wind knocked out of me and I was seeing stars for a minute or two but that's about it. My hand will be sore for a few days and the bike barely suffered a scar on the skidplate. The DR is one tough bike -- tough as a tank. It was definitely a hard impact.
My skidplate left its mark on this big rock.
The ditch where I came to a very abrupt stop.
My new skidplate was bent and got a few scrapes. It definitely did its job. Would be scared to see how bad the damage might have been if I still had my old road sign skid plate.
By the end of day-1 I was exhausted
Banquet at the golf course
Patrick Trahan, guest speaker at the banquet
Ferguson Lake at 6am on Sunday morning
Too bad I didn't have time for a test ride.
BMW Megamoto. What was BMW's design team thinking?
For day-2, Patrick Trahan was riding the Honda Veradero on the dual sport route
Eagle's Nest Looout, off Hwy 508
On top of the world
Derek, Dave, JEff, Blair
The story behind this is that the music kept playing over and over until the wee hours of the morning. I went to ask the noisy neighbours to turn it off, and after a couple of attempts I discovered the music was turned up loud but no one was there... I let myself in (causing minimal damage) and turned off the offending music. I kept the CD as a souvenir.