my first real off-road trip

[rizhi_fin]

I woke up early today, got ready and started my car at 8:00. That’s right, my white 1998 Niva 21213. I took with me a sandwich, water, compass (?), running shoes and pants (I planned to go for a run afterwards and then have a sandwich). I put on khakis and all-terrain shoesJ and a windbreaker. Weather is great, sonny and warm. Terrain is mostly dry. I added some gas in the tank and went off for country. There is a place called Lisi lake in the western part of Tbilisi. It is a lake surrounded by some hills and light Rockies. There is a lot of off-road you can do there on a relatively small territory, including mud, steep hills, rocky roads, and even little bit of rock climbing (I call rock climbing going over relatively large rocks using lowest gear, de-multiplicator and differential lock all that at a very, very low speed). Before getting into it, I lowered tire pressure and it dramatically changed ride and traction. The car felt like a cat or a horse that knew what to do and how to do it and all I had to do was just to help and guide. It was great. Few times I had to stop, get out and walk around and look at the obstacle to see how to go over it. But that’s what real off-roaders do, or, should I say, what we, real off-roaders doJ. Niva behaved perfectly calm and steady, I tried to be careful and take care of it avoiding jumps, blows to the bottom and scratches. I might have had few scratches from tree branches, two-three blows to the bottom but not too damaging ones. I am going to look at them later. I am happy.