2020 Ride ADV WOAR Singleton to Tamworth run
Ride ADV are celebrating another highly successful Women’s Only Adventure Ride event, with the final 2020 WOAR adventure heading from Singleton to Tamworth, sampling some amazing scenery, great roads and offering plenty of fun along the way.
For 20-year-old university student Annika Mountstephens having never ridden off-road and having just secured her L-plates on a road bike, the challenge was how to get started adventure riding. Her mum Katrin van der Spiegel recommended joining Ride ADV’s Women Only Adventure Ride, but a 500km two-day ride from Singleton to Tamworth might prove daunting for a complete novice, despite being a keen mountain biker. Annika needed to know if adventure riding was for her…
Eager to tackle a few dirt kilometres, Annika borrowed an XT250 from Ride ADV head honcho Greg Yager and headed north from his Dural HQ to the Hawkesbury and along the Wheelbarrow Ridge Trail, keen for off-road experience. Despite some of the coldest and wettest October weather on record, the first outing was a success, with Annika showing confidence on her first ride in slippery conditions.
Two weeks later Annika and Kat joined 13 other women on Ride ADV’s fifth WOAR. Glorious sunshine greeted the women for a weekend festival of adventure. Starting in Singleton, the ride negotiated some treacherous moss-covered causeways before winding over Crawney Gap and into Nundle for lunch. Annika wasn’t even the youngest on the ride. That award was given to 17-year-old student Abi Chadwick. Abi’s family is heavily involved in organising the Sunny Corner Trail Bike Rally and she started riding a PW50 aged four.
From there the women – riding a mixture of bikes but mostly Yamaha’s tried and trusted WR250R – headed to Tamworth’s Golden Guitar, where participants formed a Tik Tok-friendly flash mob.
Annika Mountstephens
“It was really cruisey and super fun, I didn’t know what to expect but now I have a taste for this and maybe venturing even further off road. I got heaps of riding tips from a great bunch of people and I’ll definitely be signing up for some dirt bike training. There were so many fun people on the ride and the Ride ADV crew made me feel welcome, I highly recommend other girls joining even if, like me, you have little to no experience!”
Ride ADV plans five WOAR events for 2021, check out www.rideadv.com.au for more information on the calendar of events.
