The Desert

Yesterday I finally got to go to 'The Desert'. I had been hearing about this legendary place for a while now. A lot of top British riders frequent this spot and apparently Jeremy Mcgrath rode it when he came over for the Sheffield supercross.

I picked up Ryan Mason from his house at about 5pm and we headed off. The place is in Mansfield some where and its basically an old quarry surrounded by forests. It was quite an adventurous drive getting there but the Citroen van did us proud.

There are two tracks, the main track and a smaller track. I say track, Its a series of turns which can change from day to day. We rode the main track first which is very deep sand. The straights are very bumpy and most of them could probably pass off as whoop sections. With it being deep, you've got to be on the power and lent back all the time so that your front wheel doesn't dig in.
I was quite impressed with myself at how well I coped. I did a few motos on the big circuit and didn't go down once.
We then moved to the smaller track which isn't quite as deep. I started off quite well and started going quicker each lap until I got to about the 5th lap and went down 3 times. The good thing about sand is that you don't really get hurt when you go down, its just very tiring having to pick the bike up each time.



We stayed on the small track for the rest of the time. Mason had go on the 2 stroke and after a few laps of warm-up was looking very quick. I did a few more motos and lost count of the times I came off. It was good though because I was trying different techniques in the corners and just getting more comfortable (and cocky) on the bike.

We rode until sundown and then headed home. Its definitely one of my most enjoyable sessions to date and I shall definitely be going back.