A forum for owners of Yamaha TTR250 trail and enduro bikes!

Looking back through my tracklogs I discovered that I haven’t been on a trail ride since October 2014. I knew it had been a while but that’s ridiculous!

Anyways up, my mate Steve (KTM250) invited me out on a short morning ride from Exmouth to check out some East Devon lanes prior to the Devon TRF Group’s Axe to Exe Weekend 2015 extravaganza.  Ended up just Steve and I but that was good for me as I am more than a bit rusty as some of Steve’s pics/videos might show in due course – depending on how kind he is feeling.

9.30am start from Tesco filling station in Exmouth. A little bit chilly riding down to Exmouth on the main road (make a note to find out why the heated grips weren’t working!).

Not long until we were on the first lane over Woodbury Common. Lovely old UCR with not a sign of tarmac anywhere and a nice view of the fishermen on the reservoir banks. No time for a photo for a while as we were warming up. 100 yards or so of tarmac and into the next long lane toward East Budleigh. Despite overnight rain the boggy section halfway along was nearly dry and not the usual sloppy challenge.

Had to do a turnaround in the village with the narrow road closed by roadworks. A short detour and we are soon on the short lane leading to the picturesque village of Otterton. Sadly too early for elevenses at the Otterton Mill tearooms coz they do lovely bread made from flour ground on the premises.

Soon into the next lane and a nice climb out of the village and on to the view over ChiselburyBay.

Another 100 yards and back into the lane network which in part runs through the LadramBay caravan park.

A couple of easy lanes soon got us to the much photographed “view point” looking over Tortoiseshell Rocks to Sidmouth with Portland Bill in the far distance.

Grey-haired old bloke that appeared from somewhere and leant on my TTR:

My good mate Steve:

Because we were on a mission to get back shortly after midday we cut out the lane that runs along the Otterton Brook and instead took the lanes that led us back toward Otterton having done a nice loop.

We felt we deserved a coffee and the best is to be found at Woods emporium  in Colaton Raleigh. On the way we road a lane that starts off across an open field, then through a hedged section, with an interesting rut ready to catch you out, and ending in an interesting river section that looks very easy but has caught a lot of riders out. Today, that was me although I managed to stay upright!

Jerry at Woods is a cider enthusiast and brews his own as you can see by the banners and big yellow “cider bus”. As always the coffee was great and nice to be sitting outside in the sunshine drinking it and chin wagging with Steve. Sadly Woods “don’t do pasties on Saturdays” because they are the nicest in the area.

It's a hard life eh?

After leaving Woods, Steve surprised me with a right turn and showed me a useful short cut to Back Lane, one of my East Devon favourites which runs alongside the river and ends in a shallow ford before getting back on the tarmac. We stopped to admire the handiwork of fellow Devon TRFers who had put 16 tons of stone in a huge mud hole making our experience today so much pleasanter. A nicely placed sign tells who did the repair 

I couldn’t resist stopping to take a photo of the primroses which were out all along or route today and looking great alongside daffodils and honesty.

Hardly any water in the ford today!

A little bit of roadwork and soon into the next nest of lanes with another of my favourites – a longish section of single track running between high Devon bank hedges.

Another couple of lanes and we skirted around Newton Poppleford passing a long stone garden wall totally covered in purple aubrietia.

We had to wait for a while behind a lady walking a nervous horse before she turned off the road and allowed us by. We then turned into another lane which I like as you are riding through a tunnel of overgrowth.

We then road the network of lanes around Venn Ottery and Metcombe where we found some muddy water!

We stopped to look at the Devon TRF repair around an oak tree where 4x4 use on a steep bank had torn away the soil exposing and damaging its roots. Looking good!

The DTRFG sign is holding up well!

At this point we swapped bikes and Steve likened my TTR to “sitting in an armchair” whereas the KTM seat and suspension were all too obviously race-biased i.e. hard as heck! Lovely engine though but it need to be kept revving.

Another couple of long lanes and on toward Aylesbeare. The lane there has a long straight rutted section at the east end but soon starts to descend into a rocky section made all the more exciting by loose logs. Steve lay in wait and may have got some compromising photos or video in this section…

Firstly another shot of primroses in the lane with a couple of others just to give an idea as to what our East Devon lanes are like:

The bikes weren’t that muddy but we decided to take them through the Crealy “bike wash” anyways. More compromising pics or video of me in the river I suspect. Well, my excuse is that it was my first time out on the lanes in nearly six months!

We finished off with the nice long lane past PostlakeFarm and the disappointingly “gentrified” lane from Rydon Farm to the Woodbury road. The council must have dressed it with many tons of scalpings to get it almost like a main road!

Back home to mine for a coffee, get confused trying to load photos and video from a mobile to Google+, and generally soak up the sun in the back garden!

Run stats: 2hrs 35mins, 37 miles covered, 37 lanes ridden.

I am much relieved that both the TTR and me came out of hibernation into sunshine and survived. Thanks to Steve for leading and being great company.

Can’t wait to get out again – when the aching and tiredness have subsided…

Brian

PS I later got a bit of help cleaning the TTR from our granddaughter 

Today's tracklog: