carries a jacket and fire extinguisher, and while the extinguishers weren’ t needed, I was very glad to be wearing my jacket when the temperature dropped. 35 kilometres later( and 75km in total) we pulled into camp after covering a huge variety of terrain. Tired and a little broken, but happy, we agreed it was a truly epic ride with stunning views and great riding, despite the unexpected mud and ruts causing some harder than expected going on the Lion and King section of track. Even better was when I went to
get the van keys out of my pack, which Sutherland senior insisted he’ d put in there at the start of the day, were missing. How we laughed as we walked the first km or two of the track looking for them, only to find them over an hour later in his pocket, just before we were going to break a window.
BUCKET LIST RIDE
If you’ ve never ridden at Tussock Buster, you should.
The numbers on their own are impressive. 1510 riders over the two and half days, with 961 riding on the Friday alone. It’ s a stunning weekend of extremely well-organised trail riding that has something for everyone from beginners on 125s to gnarly old exracers on restored classics and everyone in between. The Army training ground near Waiouru covers some 63,000 hectares( 630 square kilometres) and this is the only time you can ride there. That in itself is a major draw, but it’ s the sheer variety of riding and the level of organisation by passionate volunteers which makes Tussock Buster a mustdo event. I’ ll be back in 2019, will I see you there?
THANKS
A big shout out to the volunteers who make the Tussock Buster possible, and thank you to Warrick, Dave, Sam, Doc and everyone else for welcoming a‘ newb’ into their ranks. See you next year.
KTM 300 EXC TPI
Our long term 300 makes riding easy
While Todd and Ryan were swapping between their own KDX200 and the borrowed CRF250X, I got to play on our long term test 300EXC. Having not ridden dirt bikes in any meaningful way for a number of years I admit to being massively impressed with the new two-stroke. I absolutely love the electric start, which makes it easy to get going again, no matter where I stall. The suspension is set up pretty soft, which helped stop me getting too tired and cosseted me around the training grounds. I can only imagine how beaten up I’ d have been on a bike with stiff suspension. If you’ ve not ridden an up-to-date enduro bike you really should give one a go, this EXC makes me look reasonably competent, which is a minor miracle in itself. And the best bit is this 300 two-stroke used less fuel than Sam’ s KTM 250EXC-F fourstroke – ok, so Sam rides waaaay harder than I do, but to get well over
Mike Pero rode in and sponsored MotoFest
100km out of the tank of a 300 twostroke is nothing short of amazing.
62 KIWI RIDER