SAND COUNTRY RUN
On the second loop after lunch ( again , included in the $ 40 entry price , venison burgers , yum !), I found far more traction and managed to get a nice flow on . I tried the hill climbs I had failed at before lunch and managed to get up them . The Karoo Extreme ’ s large horizontal knobs are really good at finding grip in loose dirt , sand and gravel , but I did find it lacking any lateral grip in the wet grass .
FAN-TASTIC Overall , my first few events on the Beta have been a good opportunity to give her a shakedown and find out what ’ s wrong , what ’ s right and where it can be improved . The night before the Manapari Trail Ride I ’ d found 20 minutes to install the fan kit on the radiator , and it worked very well . There were a few sections on the A loops that were pretty tight and technical . Even in the slow stuff , the Beta kept its cool . These last few months have been absolutely chocka with events , and it seems that a keen rider could ride trails every single weekend if they wanted . This is a nice change from the days of Covid when everything was cancelled , and the year or two following when it seemed event managers were worried about organising things in case they had to cancel . I ’ m loving the Beta RR430 , though I think I ’ ll swap out the Karoo Extreme on the rear for something a bit more aggressive for the rest of the colder months . It ’ s good in the sand and when you have to cover a lot of tarmac to get somewhere , but for the wet grassy hills we often find on farms , I really need a full-on knobbly as I plan to ride the Berm Buster in Taupo at least once this season , and a bunch more local trail rides around the greater Wellington region .
56 KIWI RIDER