Grampians - a noob meets sand

Fuzzy Dunlop

Unleash the inner wombat
It just depends how much of your riding day you want to spend inflating/ deflating tyres...I tend to run road pressures regardless of what the surface is and just deal with it/ go accordingly.
If it's a long, dedicated sand section... sure, then it's worth the effort.
If you don't know, what's coming up after the next bend...why bother?

Took me about 15 mins and a concerned stranger to re-inflate. I found I was having much more fun with the pressure lowered so it was definitely worth it. In a group its probably impractical unless everyone does it, and I would probably wait to re-inflate at a servo unless I wanted to do some corner carving on the tarmac.
 

MGS12_8V

Getting the hang of it
Hi Mark,

Great shots of a fantastic part of our great land. I'm a complete newb on the adv biking and as such am learning the ropes on bike tyres and pressures. When 4wding the sand, mud, rocks etc which I've done consideraly more of, there are loads of variables re pressures, speeds etc but there are some rules of thumb that might apply.

Assuming that lateral stress on an under inflated bike tyre is unlikely to break a bead unless you've already gone beyond anything remotely saveable, rim damage would be main concern. In the absence of many inches of side wall protecting your rim I'd imagine 24-26 psi is fine for those of us carrying the odd kg above BMI recommendations. :wink: in my limited experience the Stelvio seems happiest at around 24 on the dirt but I run OE Pirelli Scorpions at the mo with 7k on them and go very slowly for fear of having to pick the bloody thing ip! :bs When getting back on the black stuff, if you can, re inflate. If not, stay comfortably below 80 to avoid issues and don't go too far before air.

On pumps and travelling in groups. Again, in the 4bys it is etiquette to get the troop ready for each stage of the drive and I'm sure your group would be just as happy to take a break for water, smokes, jibber jabber etc whilst airing up. I carry an eBay sourced mini pump under the seat and it was ok for inflating my tyres inside 15 mins from 24 out back of Lorne. Not sure I'd rely on it in the Simpson or to do,ore than a couple of tyres in a session as it got fairly warm.


Anyhow, Still happy with the Anakees? They have been voted most likely by me as my next hoops at this stage. Will reshoe before Taswegia. Report on your tyres would be of interest.
 

Fuzzy Dunlop

Unleash the inner wombat
Anyhow, Still happy with the Anakees? They have been voted most likely by me as my next hoops at this stage. Will reshoe before Taswegia. Report on your tyres would be of interest.

Can't fault the Anakees so far. Great grip on and off road and they turn in just fine. Little bit noisy but not noticable when using ear plugs, and no where near as noisy as the K60 / TKC 80 combo. The only remaining question is how they wear and perform on wet tarmac.
 

Pato

Just through the door
Hi all,

I'll throw in my 2c worth (that's probably all it's worth:)).
I also am a complete noob on adv bikes, I bought a Strom with plans to get into the touring thing and the 1st trip was 3 weeks to central Aus and back.
Our plan was to do the Oodnadatta track on the way home and since I hadn't done any sand at all before I asked lots of questions of lots of people W-)
I got lots of different advice.
So I took the opportunity to ride as many little dirt bits as I could find as a way of testing things out. I found that road pressure was ok on dirt roads but struggled when I got to the sand. We had a quick squirt down the West Aust rd that runs from the back of Ayers Rock, very corrugated and deep sand. At full road pressure but with the bike unloaded I struggled big time and ended up parked in a sand bank :eek: That's ok no damage done. Why I ended up there was because I was fiddling around to try and see what worked and what didn't, people now tell me that wasn't a very good idea.:lol:
We decided to go along the Larapinta way (200km corrugated dirt/sand) from Kings canyon to Hermannsberg. We let the tires down to 26psi before leaving and rode slowly (80kmh max) until we hit the dirt. The road surface ranged from hard dirt/stones and corrugations in hard dirt/rocks to soft sand and corrugations in soft sand. The sand was generally in patches of varying length, what seemed to work for me was to slow as I saw a patch of sand coming up then stand on the pegs, pick a point past the sand to focus on and accelerate through the sandy patch. This worked well for about 180kms and I was really starting to think I had the idea until I came to the sandy patch that had no far side :oops:
Turns out I made it most of the way through before the bike decided it wanted to have a little lie down.

So as I said I'm not sure what my experience counts for but the tire pressure really did seem to make a big difference to the stability of the bike in the sandy bits and even though I hit some mighty big rocks and holes the rims were about the only part of the bike that wasn't dented:clap:

Have fun, Pato
 

BB63

SV, DRZ & now DL Rider
Hi all,

I'll throw in my 2c worth (that's probably all it's worth:)).
I also am a complete noob on adv bikes, I bought a Strom with plans to get into the touring thing and the 1st trip was 3 weeks to central Aus and back.
Our plan was to do the Oodnadatta track on the way home and since I hadn't done any sand at all before I asked lots of questions of lots of people W-)
I got lots of different advice.
So I took the opportunity to ride as many little dirt bits as I could find as a way of testing things out. I found that road pressure was ok on dirt roads but struggled when I got to the sand. We had a quick squirt down the West Aust rd that runs from the back of Ayers Rock, very corrugated and deep sand. At full road pressure but with the bike unloaded I struggled big time and ended up parked in a sand bank :eek: That's ok no damage done. Why I ended up there was because I was fiddling around to try and see what worked and what didn't, people now tell me that wasn't a very good idea.:lol:
We decided to go along the Larapinta way (200km corrugated dirt/sand) from Kings canyon to Hermannsberg. We let the tires down to 26psi before leaving and rode slowly (80kmh max) until we hit the dirt. The road surface ranged from hard dirt/stones and corrugations in hard dirt/rocks to soft sand and corrugations in soft sand. The sand was generally in patches of varying length, what seemed to work for me was to slow as I saw a patch of sand coming up then stand on the pegs, pick a point past the sand to focus on and accelerate through the sandy patch. This worked well for about 180kms and I was really starting to think I had the idea until I came to the sandy patch that had no far side :oops:
Turns out I made it most of the way through before the bike decided it wanted to have a little lie down.

So as I said I'm not sure what my experience counts for but the tire pressure really did seem to make a big difference to the stability of the bike in the sandy bits and even though I hit some mighty big rocks and holes the rims were about the only part of the bike that wasn't dented:clap:

Have fun, Pato

I tried that road recently on my trip, but from the Hermannsberg end, went maybe 2 ks before I turned around deciding that 200ks of probably the most crappest road that I have ever seen was far too much for me to handle, specially with the heat at the time too. Ended up going to Glen Helen resort instead.
But yeah, weight back and power on for sand works for me.
Cheers brian
 

Pato

Just through the door
Hi Brian,

I saw that in your ride report, I recon that if I'd come onto it from that end I probably wouldn't have kept going either. From the other end it sort of sucks you in cause it starts out easy as and then gradually gets trickier:)

I loved the ride report that was a fantastic trip.

I pick up my new bike in the morning so I can start getting out and about again:clap:

Have fun, Pato
 

Dalemation

Getting the hang of it
Great..just great! I need to go to sleep but I cant shake that feeling of riding the tracks in the grampians.
It must be time for a camping trip!
thanks for the ride report :-D
 
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