Coffs - downhill fun at Mt Coramba on Saturday and Monday

Thanks Rob for the write up of the Sunday race. You seem to have most points covered, at least from what you saw. Nice work hacking on Bruce too. But you did well Bruce - a top time given our poor preparation.

After an enjoyable road trip from Sydney to Coffs, many of the group decide that the Mt Coramba downhill trail is a capital idea, given we are racing the next day. New trails!! Preparation? What preparation. To illustrate, Steve and Gazza had turned up earlier in the day and had been hike-a-biking up steep hills (err, mountains?) because they couldn't find the proper tracks. More good work! Oh Gaz, you would come to regret this!

To describe the location of this place, the road turn off for Mt Coramba is about 1km north of the big banana. You drive along a tight and twisty road high up towards the top of a mountain, that ends with a picture perfect and stunning view of the surrounding area. This includes a 180 degree view of the pacific ocean. If we weren't so keen to get riding, you could look at the view for hours. The landscape is steep, with a mix of Eucalypts and rainforest. Very different to what we are used to on the northern beaches.

The Saturday afternoon ride consists of Steve, Gazza, Liam, Bruce, Rob, Caro, Lee, and Julian (Bruce's Qld buddy). I don't think I missed anyone? Anyway, as you can see from the pictures (here: http://nobmob.com/image/tid/158 ) our late start caused us to run out of light towards the end, so we needed to get cracking!!

Let me refresh your memories... to give you an idea of the trail we rode, here it is taken on some guy's helmet cam on YouTube:
http://youtu.be/v5QTKsVgUK0

I'll avoid re-describing what you can see in the video. But you get the idea. (guys, and girls, always nice to reminisce!!)

Some interesting highlights / moments to comment on:

We took over an hour to ride down the trail, even though a good downhill rider could do it in about 5 minutes. But, you have to stop and play!! And surely we did. The trail is close to as good as it gets. I think it is comfortably more fun than Ourimbah's downhill course. But Mt Coramba is has more tight and twisty sections. More shaded too.

There was too many jumps / pallets to describe here, but one stands out for it's spectacular photos. In the video, there is a flat section about 1/2 way through that goes between some felled logs. Currently, all those logs are now cleared, with a 50m open space on flat ground running out towards a 2ft kicker jump. This was spectacular and fun, as there is a steep 300m downhill trail leading towards this "jump area". Great to get very fast speed.

The shot of the day goes to Bruce's mate Julian, who mis-timed his jump and endo-ed his landing. (there is an awesome photo too) The endo rolled about 5m on lading, and I can't for the life of me recall he would be thinking anything else at that moment other than "oh f*ck!!" Look at the face and the eyes.

Gazza had a nice off jumping off a log. This possibly looks easier in the photos, but I can assure you it was not. But you can see the faces in the dark, peering down the trail over the log, and we are all thinking... "gee, that's a long way down!" Myself and Bruce were too chicken, and rolled it. But both Gaz and Steve jumped it, so full credit to them. Heroes of the day. Gaz landed okay, but simply lost traction and space going too fast, and made an entertaining tumble. Not sure if there are photos. But Gaz really has the red mist descending, as the photos will attest.

Having only an hour to sample the trail before it was dark, we decide it was totally awesome and have to do it again. Anyone that has the time available on Monday would definitely want to come back again for shuttle runs. Nice! So on Monday we do it all again.

Driving up the road again on Monday morning, Liam and Lee are listening to Green Day and talking the sh*t. We are thinking... "how fast can a bike can ride down this steep road / fire trail?" "Faster than a car? Surely!!" We immediately make a pact that we will test this theory on the way down the mountain after we are finished with the DH trail. Back to that thought shortly. So the Monday riders are Liam, Bruce, Caro, Lee, Evan, and Shane.

There are some pictures of this, so hopefully we can post a link.

We arrived about 11:00 and were able to fit in a shuttle run this time. Thanks Bruce and Lee for piling the bikes on! The runs were done a little faster this time, so the Coffs rookies like Shane and Ev appreciated the expertise of the "veterans" this time around. Damn we are good. As a show of determination, Ev cracked out the heavy rims for this.

Highlights of the runs:

I could not possibly let Bruce get away with his massive stack at a section with a felled log on a steep section of trail, where he landed with too much front, and bounced and unweighted his front wheel on the rebound. He could not hold his line, and fell off, tumbling end over end, 20m to the bottom. There were plenty of bumps and grazes, and possibly a few less brain cells. I believe there are some photos (maybe in the gore page?) Nice going Bruce. Thank goodness for the full face helmet. Don't worry girls... he still has his pretty looks. To Cupcake's credit, he also got up and carried on after a few minutes like it never happened. Plenty of bragging rights there!

Liam and Bruce set off on one of the faster parts of the downhill trail, that is a series of steep dirt trails, with some jumps thrown in, and rocks and tree roots strewn throughout. It is quite shaded, with that mottled light effect, making viewing more difficult than normal. We barrel ahead at full speed, left and right, jump here, another jump there. Totally awesome funa the risk factor is pretty high. After a minute of this, we stop at the next "waiting point", looking at each other thinking, "man, thats f*cking awesome" and Lee turns up 2 seconds later! Lee, mate, you were hurling down that hill in order to stay with the crew up front. And Bruce was on his new Beast. Once you have your own big hit bike, you will be leading the way on the big stuff for sure.

Some vid's of Liam and Bruce jumping off pallets on Monday:

Liam

http://youtu.be/vSTOqaR84t0

Bruce:

http://youtu.be/2BSiKe06SmA

Finally, after finished at about 2:00 in the afternoon, Liam and Lee set out to prove once and for all, what is faster down a fire trail, a car or a bike. To test, we have made a video, as posted on You Tube:

Driver: Speed Demon Lee
Camerawoman: Chaotic Caro
Rider: Liam XL "Extremo"

http://youtu.be/PsV-wFDqT0U

The verdict? - it would basically be a tie. But to answer the unanswered question, a bike is good for about 80 kph.

When are we going back?