A bit of practice- June 28th 2007

Went down the practice track today near summercourt just to give the bike some fresh air really.
I thought was going to be wet, but it stayed dry all day and the track only had a couple of small puddles on it, so not much cleaning needed for the bike!
Got down there about one'o'clock and left about 5ish.
There was probably about 6-7 bikes down there, so not too busy to have a decent ride.
To be honest, i didn't do a lot of riding! 30 mins, then a couple of 20's and then had a little go at trials riding on the inside of the track where all the heaped piles of deep and rock litterd rutted earth was. Not easy! Came a cropper doing that a few times. (Apparently, it's good for improving your balance).
I spent half my time chatting to other riders, about er.............................bikes!

Enjoyable afternoon, makes a change to just going out on the bike and having to race everytime.

Clapton- June 17th 2007

‘Prevention is better than cure’ so they say, so I had a new piston put in the TM during the week, better to be safe than sorry! As I felt with the amount of events I’ve done, it was due a new one.

It had rained all week, but the weather held up for us today, overcast but very warm and muggy. After a 3-hour drive we got there early, too bloody early! The race was due to start at 2pm, but the quad race earlier had been running late so we weren’t due to start until nearly 3.30.
So with a bit of time to kill I wandered off and had a look at the course while the quads were at it.

With all the usual done it was finally off to warm up our engines and wait for the sighting lap to begin. The bike wouldn’t fire up, I’d fouled up the plug (should have put a new one in anyway) so I tried to bump her as the start was on a hill, no joy there, I was now at the bottom of the hill at the pits, some guy give me a push, still no joy, so I quickly got back to the pits to get a new plug.
All the bikes now had started there sighting lap so I was getting a bit anxious .
I opened up the toolbox only to find that the only plug I had was an old one, which didn’t look too good. I put that in, still didn’t fire up, I quickly cleaned the one that I’d already taken out and tried that, still wouldn’t start!
By now I was f*cking cursing myself, surely I can’t miss this race (another round of the 2 stroke champs) just because of a poxy plug! sweat was dripping off me, I was now panicking as all the bikes had now returned from the sighting lap. I always carry new plugs, but just didn’t pick any up this week (twat).
Then a voice said ‘need a plug mate, my mates got some’ I asked if his mate raced a 2 stroke, ‘yes’ he said, nice one!, I put it in and she fired up straight away! Off I rushed up the hill just in time for the start.

Flag dropped and off we went, I made a decent get away in about 3rd, pleased with this as I think there must have been about 25 in the 2 stroke class.
As this was another ORE event, there were a lot of motocross sections across the fields, short laps too, about 8 mins a lap, so you did a lot of laps in 2 and half hours!
One bit of the course had a long flat straight on it about a quarter of a mile long, so you could ‘nail’ it a bit.
There was also a nice little slippery wooded section after a stream crossing, nothing major, but it did get a bit tricky as it got more cut up as the race went on.

I pitted ok after 1hr and 40 mins feeling quite good (especially after earlier).
A couple of laps later I managed to part company with the bike by doing a ‘doughnut’ on the small stretch of concrete farm road that we had to cross, apart from that little ‘off’ everything went ok and i ended up finishing 4th in the 2 strokes.


Finishing position: 15/46
Bike status: new piston
Injuries: none

Idless woods- 10th June 2007

Bloody hell, can’t believe it, 2 races in a row in the same county where I live.
Just as well, didn’t go to bed till 2am due to gigging!

Absolutely gorgeous weather (if you like sunbathing) but flaming well hot if you’re gonna ride round an enduro course for 3 hours.
Hydration was going to be especially important on this one and due to my days of being a runner I made sure I drank plenty before hand. A litre and half of water and another litre of energy drink, and I had another litre and half in the camelback, I got through the lot, 4 litres in total, never felt thirsty once and didn’t ‘cramp’ up at all.

As usual, all the bikes were gleaming spotlessly in the bright sunshine just before the start. For once, we had a big pit area that wasn’t on a slope, nice!

Done all the necessary, lined up, and waited for the flag to drop.
Off we went then, I made a good start going into the first corner in 2nd but got passed by a couple of riders on the 1st lap, I took a mental note of their numbers, i didn’t see them again, so that meant for the first time I actually didn’t get lapped by another sportsman (that pleased me).

Quite a long course this one, maybe 7 or so miles in length. I reckon maybe 90% of it was woods with only 1 small fire road where you could open it up a bit.
There were a couple of nice climbs that were well ‘rooted’ (interesting if wet), some logs to clamber over, a very tight narrow downhill ‘whoop’ section that shook your shoulders like a jack hammer, and generally lots of flowing trials up and down through the woods. Particularly enjoyable with the sun streaming through.
Due to the dry hot weather didn’t have many problems today with grip and only had a couple of little offs (not like last week), one was which on a ‘rooty’ hill, there were no marshals on this one, so I shouted to some bloke spectating to come down and hold the bike while I kicked her to get going again (cheers for that mate).

Pitted after about 1 hour and 40mins, only to find that the jelly babies Marie was shoving down my gullet while I refuelled, had turned into a lovely gooey substance similar to that of the remains of a Chinese curry that had been left on the side overnight! They’d melted in my toolbox because of the heat.

As the race wore on I felt stronger and managed to get another lap in with 7 mins to go and went on to finish. I think the temperature was about 22-23 degrees when I got back to the van.
I thought it was a good course and a well run event.

Just one last thing, I think I was on my penultimate lap when all the bikes were redirected round an injured rider, it looked pretty bad as I went passed, the guy was lying on the floor with a medical team there with what looked like a drip attached to him, no one likes to see that and it just goes to show how dangerous racing can be, no matter what class of rider you are (I think it was an expert). Best wishes to him.

Finishing position: 5/26
Bike status: new chain+sprocket
Injuries: none

Nancemellion- 3rd June 2007

Just got back to the van........................Knackerd!

I rode Nancemellion when I first started out last year, I think it must have been my 3rd or 4th event, from what I remember last time, it was a bit of a bumpy old track.
The weather was overcast but dry, not bad seeing as the forecast was rain.

Took the bike to get scruntineerd and got chatting to a guy who said that the course had changed from last time and that there were some tight, slippery wooded sections that had been added. Great I thought, a nice challenge, and it certainly turned out to be that!

Unusually for a south west round we had a sighting lap, although I didn’t do all of it because the marshals told us halfway round to go and line up for the start as we were running a bit late. Unbeknown to me I didn’t get the chance to taste the ‘hill of hell’, although a couple of lads from Thor motorcycles (also sportsman) I was talking to on the start line told me about it.

Right then, the flag dropped and off we went.
I made quite a good start, about 4th or 5th along the first moto x section until we started to hit the woods, and then we stopped, the first queue of the day was in front of us as a slippery uphill section was catching riders out. Once up this, back down we went and it was at this point that I promptly had my first ‘off’ (one of many and the shape of things to come!).
Up and down through the woods we went, it seemed like all the uphill sections were slippery, and indeed they were, as queues were forming to get up them. A lot of the track through these areas was extremely tight.
After the woods came another moto x style bit then back into yet more woods before coming to another abrupt halt as more bikes were queuing. I couldn’t see what the hold up was until I got round the corner and then saw in front of me the ‘hill of hell’.
I went for it, got halfway and done half a doughnut and slid off onto my arse. Oh b*llocks, I was stuck in the middle, so I picked myself up, got the bike and pushed it to the side amongst the ‘green’ stuff. Now facing the wrong way I had to turn around, not easy when it’s so slippery and being off camber.
My mate Lester who came with me today trundled down to help, I started her up and we both heaved and pushed until blue in the face trying to get the bloody thing to the top. We were going nowhere fast, knackered, we waited to get our breath back before we pushed some more, finally reaching the summit (respect must go to the guys who were ‘cleaning’ it with no problem).

Off I went, through the lap scoring and onto the other hillside, which was more open going.
Back round again I came to the ‘hill of hell’ and done exactly the same, not good because now I was getting cream crackered keeping on hauling the bike to the top.
After another lap you might think 3rd time lucky on that hill? Not a chance! When the bike finally got to the top I was exhausted and went into the pits to refuel.

Facing the hill on the next lap I decided to choose another gear, yippee, I only got stuck on the last foot or so from the top, Stephen Jose who was watching quickly grabbed the bike and I was up and over in a flash, nice one. Next lap I ’cleaned’ it no problem, my confidence had been restored!
I did have to make another pit stop after this as I could hear a horrible ‘clicking’ sound coming from the wheels. I thought something was jammed in one of the disks or the pads. Stephen (Jose) came over with a couple of guys and helped prop the bike up, turned out to be a broken spoke, which one of the guys took out for me (cheers lads).

I had a big ‘off’ on one of the bumpy moto x sections while ‘nailing’ it in 3rd gear, the front went from under me and I hit the deck like a sack of sh*t. A couple of riders behind me saw it and asked if I was alright, thanks for that guys, I was, so I got up and carried on. I thought to myself “I was lucky there”, it could’ve been worse that one.

On the last lap I must have come off maybe 6-7 times, I was so tired I had a job standing up on the bike as my energy level had been zapped. Struggling on the slippery up hills I slid off the bike and buried the thing in a gorse bush, that was bloody awful dragging it out of that.
I also hit the deck on the wooden bridge that crossed the brook, I was lucky there because the bike was lying there balancing over the edge, another foot and it would have fallen into it.
I was so tired I even stalled it twice within about 10 yards of the lap scorers when I finished, just when the rain started coming down.

Tough race today (over a quarter of the field that started didn’t finish!) but, well worth the entry fee.
Glad i ain't got far to drive home today!

Finishing position: 5/23
Bike status: ok
Injuries: none