Afraid Not with Karen Ramsay

Adventure Rider Issue #4

• Checkout
• Reader’s Bike: Robert Holness’ KLR650 and Ural Tourist
• Ol’ Mate
• 10 Minutes With: Allan Roberts
• 20 Things You Should Know About: BMW’s 650 Singles
• No Comment
• How To Ride with Miles Davis
• Navigation Techniques with John Hudson
• Packing For Adventure with Robin Box
• Afraid Not with Karen Ramsay
• Wish You Were Here
• Reader’s Ride: Borneo
• BMW Airheads
• Yamaha 2014 Super Ténéré
• Triumph XC800 Tiger Across Australia
• The Adventure Challenge
• Set Up to Stand Up with Craig Hartley
• Reader’s Pic
• Adventure Travel Film Festival
• The Cold War
• Horizons Unlimited
• Safari ADVT
• Industry Players: Robin Box
• Ténéré Tragics
• Contributors
• It’s What We Do

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but there are some things about riding that scare me witless. These include, but aren’t limited to: sand, clay, mud, bulldust, steep downhills, steep downhills with sharp bends and steep downhills with rocks, sand and sharp bends. And highways.

So inclined

The latest thing to send me into palpitations is Sugarloaf Road – the one between Paddys Flat and Drake in NSW. It wasn’t because the sign said ‘No Through Road’, or even that I’d held the clutch all the way in – while standing on the back brake around washouts, trees and rocks – to the bottom of a steep hill. It was the climb up the other side over a stretch of malicious rocks that constantly threw my bike from one side of the track to the other. When we eventually reached the top, my little Terra promptly took out an AVO against me for choking it all the way up the hill.