Congregation!

Adventure Rider Issue #26

• It’s What We Do – adventure motorbike magazine
• East Versys West
• Ducati Scrambler Desert Sled – motorbike magazine, adventure motorcycle publication
• Congregation!
• Back for more
• Bead breakers
• Riding reporters
• SWM Superdual
• NZ 2017 Dusty Butt
• Scrapheap
• Kyrgystan – Adventure Motorbike Tour
• Andy Strapz
• BMW GS Safari Enduro: Cape York – motorbike trip, australian motorcycle tour
• Mapped out with Karen Ramsay
• Fit Out
• Checkout these Great Motorcycle Accessories & Gear!

Two down.One to go. Adventure Rider Magazine’s Congregations are in their third year, and even though there’s still one to go, this has already been our best year ever.

The loops were excel-lent at both venues.

Green Valley Farm in Tingha, NSW, not far from Inverell, was the venue for the 2017 northern Congregation. After the raging success of 2016 it would’ve been crazy to go anywhere else.

The weather for this year’s adventure-rider get-together was even better than last year’s. The sun shone, the temperatures were moderate and some-thing like 260 riders made their way to the New England region to enjoy the atmosphere, swap a few yarns and do a bit o’ ridin’.

No shortage of tucker at these turnouts.

Happy birthday

There was plenty going on, starting with the anniversary celebrations for Vince Strang Motorcycles.

The Suzuki dealer clocked up 40 years on the same weekend as the Congregation and shared the good news with everyone by hosting a free sausage sizzle on Friday arvo. It was also 21 years since the release of the DR650SE,and, with Vince himself being The Man where that bike was concerned, an all-out shindig was in order. Having the Congregation just around the corner from Vince’s store made it a dead cert for the massive pack of DR riders to lob in and share the DR love.

And they did. Vince had mapped out a couple of loops and was good enough to share the GPX files with all Congregation attendees.

Miles Davis blew everyone away with his skills demos at both meetings.
Vince Strang himself did a tyre-repair demo.

Family affair

Once again the Vickery family – owners of Green Valley Farm – made sure everyone was registered, fed and kept warm with plenty of food, fun and firewood. The whole event ran as smooth as a Husky 701 Enduro, and it was in no small part thanks to the attention of the Green Valley Farmers. They had 24 members of the extended family working hard all weekend!

Of course Miles Davis’ skills demos were as eye-popping as ever, Vince Strang himself gave a tyre-repair demo, a few prizes were handed out for achievements like oldest and youngest rider, bike with the highest kilometres and so forth, huge amounts of food were consumed, a shandy or two shared around the firepits, and a hugely enjoyable, beautifully managed weekend went off in the best possible way.

It’ll be hard to top this Congregation next year, but we’ll be trying.

It was a DR650 celebration at the northern meeting.
Bumot made the journey to Tingha and had some seriously tough adventure gear on display.
Karen and Mal from Adventure Bike Australia were on site in Tingha with their range of premium adventure-riding equipment.
Vince Strang’s loops around Inverell had something for everyone. There was awesome open scenery on an ‘adventure’ loop and tough terrain on an ‘enduro’ loop.

West of the rest

As the sun set on the third northern Congregation the Adventure Rider Magazine crew packed its bags and headed to Perth for the first-ever western Congregation.

The folks at Motorrad Garage had taken on the running of the event and even set the mag’s editor up with an SW Motech-kitted KLR.

The event itself ran at the hilariously named Loose Goose Chalets at Nannup, about 250km south of the capital on the main road. Fortunately, Motorrad Garage isn’t a ‘main road’ type of business, and a very pleasant run of five hours or so through the Western Australian bush made up most of the Friday before the official start.

They sure do have a lot of pea gravel in West Aussie. It’s like hundreds of kilometres of little ball bearings, and the ed reckoned it made the KLR feel like it had a 100 horsepower…but perhaps he was just making an excuse for when he dumped the Motorrad Garage display bike in the crud.

Anyhoo, Loose Goose Chalets was the destination and the rides down and back were premium.

Miles Davis was in WA for the BMW Safari and dropped in to do his magic.
Fred (left) and Andreas Powell had everyone spellbound with the story of their 1983 run along the Canning Stock Route, complete with old-fashioned slides and movies.

Go figure

It seemed too good to be true, but the weather in West Aussie was every bit as good as the weather had been in NSW.

The days were filled with glorious sun-shine and clear blue skies. Laraine and Grant at Loose Goose started churning out the tucker on Friday night and, along with the blokes from Nannup Men’s Shed, didn’t stop all weekend, keeping 130 or so hungry riders in good shape.

Miles Davis was in town for the BMW Safari and lobbed in to show the West Aussie adventure riders his form. They were left as gobsmacked as everyone else who sees him throw a 1200 around.

In this case it was a 1200GSA, so, if possible, it was even more astounding than when he does it on a GS.

There was a little grasstrack-moto-crossing going on at one stage, just for the camera, and the appreciative onlookers were treated to the rare sight of Miles decking the big bike in the soft sand.

How come no-one showed the same hero worship when the editor stacked the KLR at 10kph on the treacherous, deceptive pea gravel?

It’s a mystery.

Ed Brown’s on a mission to make all three Congregations in 2017. That meant riding his schmick-looking Yammie across the country to Nannup. No problem for Ed. He loved it!

Highlight

While the basic running of the Congregations is fairly set now, each one has it’s own unique offerings, and Andreas and Fred Powell’s presentation of their first-ever unsupported ride down the Canning Stock Route in 1983 was undeniably the standout event of the whole western Congregation.

Those two cheerful blokes went to huge lengths to bring the ride to life, including showing the remains of the two bikes they rode, displaying bits and pieces of the original equipment they carried – like the Super 8 movie camera and the humungous Royal Flying Doctor radio with the 40-foot aerial – and even some of the gear they actually wore on that trip.

Best of all was the Super 8 film and slides.

Yes. Slides.

The two fellas announced they were ‘taking everyone back to 1983’ and set up an old movie projector and an equally old slide projector to show the fascinated Congregation the challenges they faced and conquered.

Everyone was mesmerised. It was brilliant. The film and images were digitised and a large-screen TV was on hand in case the old gear wasn’t up to the task, but the style of presentation transported everyone to a time before GoPro and sat phones and helped give a taste of just how monumental was the achievement.

That’s not ignoring the loops Motorrad Garage had recced and made available, the awesome campground with its soft turf and carpet of dandelions, the amazing wildlife and the incredible, friendly atmosphere of the whole show from start to finish. And of course the prizes to deserving riders.

It was fantastic to be part of it all.

A great turnout for the first western Congregation, and a real credit to Motorrad Garage and Loose Goose Chalets for first-class catering and organisation.
There was fabulous old machinery scattered around as decoration at the Loose Goose Chalets.

One more

As we write this there’s still the southern Congregation at Dargo River Inn to go.

By the time you read this it’ll have run and the 2017 Congregations will be over.

But the burning enquiry on everyone’s mind will be, ‘What about 2018?’Exactly. What about it? Will there be three events again next year? Could they possibly be as good as the 2017 gather-ings?

Time will tell.

Right now we have to get packing and head for the Victorian high country.

We’ll let you know how that one went next issue.

The blokes from Nannup Men’s Shed kept everyone topped up with bacon-and-egg rolls.
A fabulous camping area at Loose Goose Chalets.