The day started well, not much travelling, I had a good nights kip because I wasn’t gigging last night, the weather was lovely and warm, and when I went to sign on I picked up a trophy for last years 2 man team that me and my mate Pete Jago had rode in together.
Had a chat with a few people before racing started, in fact I almost had to put my sunglasses on when I talked to Mark Tucker because of the glare that was nearly blinding me coming from his new white alpinestars that he’d just bought!
Now then to the start., What a shambles! It looked to me (and others I spoke to) that no one had a bloody clue where they were supposed to be, obviously apart from the champ and expert boys, who of course always are the first ones away. All the classes seem to be mixed in together , why? Call me a blind old sod but I didn’t see any signs or markings stating where we all meant to be and with such a small area where we were all cramped in, it seemed to be a total mix up!
Just after 10am the champ boys got away and we could see that about 50 yds from where we lined up, there was a bottle neck which even these guys were going a lot slower than that what they normally would due to a slippery rooty climb up. Why oh why the club put that part of the course so close to the start god knows (last years start was a lot better, don’t know why they changed it) and even some of the experts got stuck in a traffic jam so I think we all knew that a good get away would be the only way not to get caught up in any mayhem.
While I was waiting for my time to go, about 4 different classes all started at the same time leaving me standing, what the f*ck is going on here then? Even the sportsman behind me were flying past, so i quickly fired her up and got going albeit near the back and guess what? Yeah, traffic bloody jam! After queuing like it was rush hour on the M25, I finally made it to the foot of that rooty climb some 7 mins after the start! And I’ve only gone 100 meters, and there was still riders behind me, complete shambles, but you must give those poor bloody marshals a big hand for helping everybody up to the top with the never ending onslaught of bikes.
After I made it up to the top (or should I say dragged up there by some helpers), the course dropped back down again and went round a tree that was covered in slimy roots, I had a stupid little ‘off’ here, nothing out of the ordinary, but when I picked the bike up and got back on, I went to pull the clutch in and oops! Oh crumbs (or words to that effect) my clutch levers broke! (see pic). I finally made it back to the pits after 35 mins really struggling to coax the bike round with the little bit of lever that I had left. Gear changing was difficult and I just kept stalling the thing in the tight wooded sections.
I parked the bike up and walked back to the van in the hope that I had a spare lever in my toolbox, I did! But that was broken as well. What I’m I doing keeping a broken clutch lever in my toolbox god only knows!
Things were now serious as I didn’t want to get a DNF as I wanted to keep up my record of finishing! But as it stood at the moment I really couldn’t see myself riding round with hardly any clutch. Might be easy to do on a flat field, but not in the woods.
I then went back down to the pits and had a general chit chat with anybody that I could find to cry my eyes out too! Jed and Steve from Thor ( who both took a short break at one time because of the heat) Debbie Tucker, Dean canfield, as well as helping out a few riders re-fuel.
As time went on i thought to myself, surely I must have some sort of lever back in the van that I could ‘bodge’ to get me round? So off I went again back up to the van to try and find something. After digging through the depths of my toolbox I finally came across something that resembled a clutch lever, and it wasn’t broken either, bingo!
I quickly fitted it on and with 1hr and 55 mins gone on the clock I set off on my 2nd lap.
Within a couple of minutes I knew that things weren’t quite right and the ’dodgy’ lever that I’d put on was really no better than the broken one, it just didn’t work properly, So yet again I huffed and puffed my way round another lap and pitted on the 2hr 30min mark and waited for the flag. To be honest another lap wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference to my result, so in the end I did the right thing and at least I got a finish. Who knows, I might even get some championship points!
Finishing position: 13/15 (clubman 225)
Bike status: new clutch lever
Injuries: none
