The Devon TRF Group held a new event at the weekend, the Axe to Exe (A2E), which was 2-day of guided trail riding in the East Devon area offered to TRF members nationwide.
My brother Trev and I did some bike fettling on the previous Friday and then did a short trail ride.
We stopped for occasional refreshment
I volunteered as a run leader for both days of the A2E and had Trev as my Tail End Charlie (TEC). We were joined on Saturday by my son Matt who rode a WR250R I happened to have lurking in the garage.
All looking good at the start of the day before we set off from my place. Two TTRs and the WRR. Bob Lewis (far right) also joined us on his much modified OE.
My Saturday group included Graham Prosser on his blue TTR. For some odd reason it wouldn't start and after about an hour of bump starting etc we had to leave him behind and get moving. Here is the group pic about an hour into the ride - quite a mix of bikes - mostly Yamaha. Dave Stone, 2nd from left, is a couple of weeks off his 80th birthday and rode his Serow expertly:
It was at this point that Graham rang to say that he had got his TTR going and we arranged to meet him at an early lunch stop.
Matt took some pics of us crossing the River Coly which was very low as we are now in drought conditions (not!):
First Trev:
and then me
I had some problems with the power feed to my GPS so swapped bikes with Trev and rode his Open Enduro for the day. It isn't set up as well as my TTR325 which explains why it needed a rest later in the day. Caught on camera by my son Matt
The day went went well even though some of the lanes were very washed out. This one had a large tree down which we had to struggle under:
All went well and I got the group back within seconds of the 6pm target return time
Sunday came around very quickly and I had a new group.
A comfort stop near Membury:
Trev crossing an old pack horse bridge:
99 miles - 64 lanes - 8 hrs in the saddle on the Saturday
73 miles - 65 lanes - 7hrs in the saddle on the Sunday
We were lucky with the weather and we had a great time.
I hope our paying guests enjoyed it as much
It is likely that the evet will be repeated in 2014 and it would be nice to see a few more TTRs there.