Aiden's party was great fun. To begin with it was something novel, miles out in rural Hong Kong, not far from the Chinese border - and it was an absolute dream of a day. From all the rain (you know what that is like) it was verdant and lush, and very much felt like the start of summer. We took a bus which dropped us off at some distant dead-end, and then the guys who ran the place came and picked us up in an assortment of battered vehicles - including a bakkie - very novel for these guys. Before getting kitted up, I said they all needed to take a pee - where - in the bushes man - great mirth - and then hopped on a big earth moving tyre and (of course) started peeing on one another. The pic below me doing my shouting teacher best - 10 year old boys are fundamentally feral.
They had an assortment of rides - perhaps could have been a bit more organized in their sequencing - but at least had a good idea that this lot needed to learn first. I was thinking that with the video game generation, people just learn by doing - which is fine if you are going to get another life after a spectacular crash - but this of course is different in that participants literally do have skin in the game. So they started off by kitting them out properly and then they had turns with an instructor on a quad bike, learning motorbike controls.
- then went on these electric pee-wees below, on which they had great fun - lots of lifting one another; Aiden in the foreground - appalling driving - the odd crash - Evan in the far background wrestling with his helmet. Thereafter they had turns by themselves on the quad bikes, and then little scramblers. Evan managed to knock over one of the instructors with his motor-bike (perils of the job - it was not something you wanted to watch).
Pete and Lettie (Seb's sister, who was at dinner) came along for the jol. Pete is a seriously good motorcyclist (as in very fast superbikes on a track) owns a number of them including a Ducati Hypermotard (look it up - the devils own motorcycle) which looks like the thing below here, honestly must be the wildest thing on
earth to ride - perhaps apart from his 1970 something Kawasaki 750 H2 (above) - which is certifiably the baddest bike ever built - a 750 two stroke that looks like this on the left - do not be fooled by that 80's delivery bike appearance. He also has some trail bikes at home in the UK, so he's pretty accomplished at this too. We had quite a jol - I've not really ridden on trails before - more dirt roads - these were tracks with a boulder strewn river crossing, jumps etc. Only problem was that I'm not sure the bikes were really built for 90kg south african ass - and we had managed to hammer their suspensions pretty badly. It would - I think - be the best ever fun on something light with lots of hard long travel like a KTM250 or some such nastiness. It is definitely something that I intend to be doing again. I was the only one who managed to fall off properly - what a tusk - but hey, with all this kit it was a doddle. The guy who owns the place says that he has a new one opening right next to the Chinese border in Yuen Long - which has a 45km enduro track - I think maybe that would be well worthwhile when next you are in Honkies?
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