Today was no exception! Apart from smashing through some great puddles and getting more confident on sand the highlight of the day was 'The Clergyman's Track'. I've no idea how Matt found his way back here, I'm guessing he had it plugged into the GPS but after winding through the forest we found ourselves at a fairly innocent looking right turn into the bush...

Which is where the fun and games began. This tiny winding track was excellent: at some points it was just wide enough to get the bike through, then you were winding through trees, then puddles, then getting around fallen trees... All slow work but so much fun.

And the reason for the track name? Well Matt and Luke bumped into a couple of riders some weeks back who showed them the track and they turned out to be ministers!

The other thing I've stated to use is the excellent Relive app on my phone. Set the app recording at the beginning of the ride and it'll follow your every move. Take some snaps along the way or shoot some video and when you're done, click finish and it'll build you a video along with the media you shot along the way and the stats of your ride (speed, elevation etc).

Pretty impressive stuff! It even allows you to export the data to a KLM file so you can load it into a GPS device or Google Maps and you can also explore the root on Google Earth via the website. Well worth checking out.

It was a bit of a slow start - there were 6 riders today which can sometimes take a bit of getting going but we headed off around 9ish. The moment we transferred from the road to dirt I remembered I'd not aired down my tires so after a quick hop off bike to let some air out we disappeared into the forest.

Which is where things started getting interesting... Wyane's bike (anther DRZ400) started playing up, cutting out and being a pain to start. Then Ian disappeared down a hole and hit the dirt and Wayne, who was following behind, grabbed a handful of brake and also ended up eating the dirt, smashing his phone, left barkbuster and rear left indicator in the process...

So we set off again but it quickly became apparent that things really weren't going well: Wayne's bike eventually died and refused to start and it appeared that something wasn't good with Ian's wrist as it had started to swell and was pretty painful.

Eventually Matt towed Wayne back to the bitchumen and we had a bit of a conflab about what to do. In the end the broken DR was left at a random house we found. Ian rode out on the back of Steph's bike and Wayne drove Ian's Yamaha YZ450 back to the car park with the plan being to hire a trailer and come back to pick up the bike!

It was only 11am and we were down to 3 riders - Luke, Matt and myself. To be honest, I was all for writing it off and heading home but luckily Matt and Luke's resolve was better than mine and off we went again...

...and I'm so glad we did! The next 3 or so hours were fantastic fun, the highlight being Luke's shortcut: an completely overgrown track with fallen logs and other obstacles to get over, loads of fun.

The other thing I'd brought along on the ride was my GoPro. It's been sat in the camera bag since returning to Australia so I figured it was time to dust it off and give it a go. Although I shot about 20gb of footage only 5 minutes or so were usable! There's clearly a learning curve to shooting interesting footage on a dirt bike... I leant some lessons though, namely to wear the camera higher on my chest, point it up and only turn it on when something interesting is happening!

The great thing about the following bits is that it also solved the issue of relocating the ignition as I'd also put some fat bars on the bike.

DRZ400 Ignition key and USB mounting bracket - $58

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2670086546420290

Initially I was considering buying a MOTOdash MD4.1 but it's plastic construction and the fact it had to come from the states kinda put me off... It looks like a neat bit of kit but I wasn't convinced it would stand up to the abuse of offroad riding. With shipping from the USA to Australia it came in at $64 which wasn't bad, but it could end up being a pricey mistake...

Then I found a 3D printable version online which looked good but after some investigation, I found it was going to be $100 to print in tough enough plastic and again, I had no idea how accurate the 3D model was.

Eventually, I found the solution on a random search in Facebook Marketplace. Warren Fincham makes these himself and it looked spot on! Clearly a lot of R&D has gone into the design I really liked the idea of supporting a 'garage enterprize' so after a quick chat with him, I purchased a unit at $58 inc postage.

He's even knocked up a video on how to install it:

USB charging socket - $16

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/12V-24V-QC3-0-USB-Fast-Charger-Socket-Outlet-On-Off-Switch-For-Car-Motorcycle-AU/202814414112

The next challenge was finding a USB charger socket. Nearly all the units I found on eBay either had two USB sockets or no way of turning off the unit other than disconnecting it from the battery. After a lot of searching I eventually found the perfect item: 1 USB socket, an on/off switch and a bonus volt meter (which turns out to be supprizingly acurate!).

The only downer with the unit was that the orientation doesn't match the photographs which means the volt meter is at a 90 degree angle... Not a deal breaker though.

Phone mount - $17

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/360-Motorcycle-MTB-Bike-Bicycle-Handlebar-Mount-Holder-For-Mobile-Phone-GPS-AU/202827532582

This actually turned out to be the trickiest item to source... I'm not a big fan of the X-Grip style of mount as the 4 prongs seem to come into contact with the volume and/or power buttons on most phones. The Quad Lock system is probably the most solid solution which doesn't interfere with the phone buttons but it's expensive and you have to get a case that matches your phone...

Baring in mind that the phone I use on the bike is a Samsung Galaxy S6 I picked up on Gumtree for $40, dropping $100+ on a mount seemed a little excessive...

So I trawled the eBay listings for hours looking for an alternative and after 2 failed attempts (the 1st one had a really long stem so the phone stuck up higher than the bars, the 2nd one a crappy mounting kit that didn't work with the fat bars) I finally got one that was perfect.

The nice thing about the mount is the short stem so the phone sits nicely between the bar risers, it's small and it doesn't mess with the phone buttons. You can also have the phone landscape or portrait. I have mine set up in portrait mode as it means the phone doesn't bash the petrol tank.

RAM Mount Tether $6

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/RAM-mount-compatible-tether-rubber-net-harness-X-grip-motorcycle-phone-GPS-Honda/153751925065

This item wasn't part of the original plan but during my research I'd seen a lot of bikers use this with the X-Grip mounts. It works perfectly with the phone mount and at $6 it's a very cheap bit of insurance against the phone bouncing off into the bush if the phone mount screw loosens off.

Short 90 degree usb cable $1.50

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Short-25cm-Cable-Elbow-90-Degree-Type-C-USB-C-Lightning-Micro-USB-Cable/353003959219

I found that a standard usb cable stuck out to much but this one sits flush to the dash and the base of the phone without loads of cable dangling around.

Putting the whole thing together took a couple of hours as I had to remove the seat, plastics and petrol tank to run the power cable from behind the front headlamp cowl back to the battery. I used an inline fuze that I cannibalised from another USB/Cigarette lighter socket I had kicking around as I figured a little extra protection to stop anything nasty frying the electitrics couldn't halm. With all cables and terminals wrapped in electrical tape and the bike put back together I was good to go - and it works a treat!

The final piece of the puzzle was getting an app that locked the phone in landscape mode. Android seems to support locking in portrait but landscape is triggered by rotating the phone and I found that the screen would sometimes rotate when going round corners... So I downloaded the Rotation Control app from Google Play and that solves the issue. It has the added benefit of rotating the home screen too which makes navigating the apps etc on the phone loads easier.