Donegal Rally Raid

[Simon]

This trip was a charity run orgainised by the Folye district bike club.

This turned out to be one of the best trips i've been on.

My brother and i headed up to Milford in Donegal on the friday night to meet everyone. It quickly turned into rotten weather and we had to go over the Glenshane pass in a blizzard. Got to the hotel wet and cold but in time for the briefing. We were handed our maps and told all details and then just told that breakfast would be at 8 in the morning and we could set of in out own groups at out own pace.

Morning came and the sound of a mad hail storm but that soon cleared and the sun came out.



I had come with my brother, a guy from work and his cousin and Sami. Eugen1 had also come up with a couple of his mates, one guy Liam who has over 100,000 miles on his @ and spent 4 years going round the world on it. This was a navigation rally. We had the route marked on a map but had to use our own skills to figure out where to go. You ended up turning up what seemed like drive ways and then these turned out to be trails. Most of the trials were rocky which is perfect for the @ but there was some mud which caused a problem for my brother on his ER5! However he did manage to do it all even though a few guys on GS's wouldn't do some as they reakoned it was too rough!





This is the sort of trails we were mostly doing. The sort you can just stand up on the @ in about 3rd gear and tear along!





This is Sami caught with his pants down! We ended up wearing waterproof gear cause of all the puddles but the weather was so good youo just ended up cooking!







This is my brother on his ER5! He did drop it a few times, ending up with bending the gear selector in and the rear brake level right back, and then wrecking the left mirror but he did do it all not like all the GS owners.



Finally this is the kind lamb who decided to try and kill me on the way home. He missed my brother but decided to go for me and ended up cracking the fork plastics! If i had braked he would have gone in front of the wheel and probably thrown me off!




In all this was a great trip and i will definitly go next year. For those who are interested though i have the maps still and can get you copies or even better, we're planning on heading up agian over the summer as Phoneix and a few other friends didn't manage to make it. Anyone interested in joining us is more than welcome.

[Maverick]

Who's is the kalahari green GS? It's not a guy called José by any chance? Nice twisties and the gravel sure has enough stones in it

[Simon]

Who's is the kalahari green GS? It's not a guy called José by any chance? Nice twisties and the gravel sure has enough stones in it

I don't know his name. Think he was from cork or dublin but definitly irish, a nice guy. He ended up dropping it just before the end and did a wee bit of damage.

[Maverick]

I don't know his name. Think he was from cork or dublin but definitly irish, a nice guy. He ended up dropping it just before the end and did a wee bit of damage.

The guy I know called José is irish and he done the South-America route on his kalahari green GS about two years ago. He moved back to Ireland when he returned from his trip, really nice bloke. Could be purely incidental that there is of course another guy with a bike that colour. I have only seen two of them in 6 years living in England though.

[lootch67]

Looks like good fun. Will have to investigate...

[eugen1]

In case you're wondering why you can't see Eugen1 in any of the pictures is becose Simon was to slow!!!!!

[Simon]

In case you're wondering why you can't see Eugen1 in any of the pictures is becose Simon was to slow!!!!!

We that was done to my tires and the fact that my brother was riding with slicks on his ER5!

We did catch up a few times thought as his navigator was much good at navigating!

[samih]

I really enjoyed this trip too. Here are a couple of pictures:



ER-5, the enduro bike in disguise. Would just need some knobblies to make it perfect:


Sidecar would be pushing it a bit:


Line of SUBs (Sports Utility Bikes):


If only the pipes were routed differently (ER-5):


C'mon guys, start you engines and lets go! Miles more to go today.


There we were:


After splashy splashy time (trousers at other end of camera here):