Muntjac enduro- 22nd February 2009

A trip up to my sisters place at Reading for a overnight stay on the Saturday night was the schedule, before heading off early Sunday morning for the drive to Suffolk and the Muntjac enduro.

In the name of ‘brotherly love’, Christine (big sis) decided that she wanted to come along and give us a hand and see what the British champs are all about. I know what your thinking, what a ’tart’ I am having to bring along my sister along to hold my hand, but hold your horses, this is no ordinary ’run of the mill’ family member. This lady owns a brand new CBR Honda 500 RR! She’s a biker, even it is one of the ‘knee down tarmac huggers’, which means that we’re always at each others throats about dirt biking versus road riding. And I suspect she’s gone faster on a motorbike than 99% of you who read this blog, how does 140mph sound? Apparently she told me that she shut off when she reached that speed because the wind got a bit ’blustery’.

Anyway, moving on, left at 4.30 am on Sunday morning, had a good journey up and arrived at Thetford forest where the champs were being held. Well, that’s not exactly the case really, you see, on my way up I stopped at Morrisons to get fuel and bought 5 bars of snickers for a quid (£1 to you and me), full size bars they were too as they were on special offer, so I couldn’t resist it. So I put them in my racksack and put that on the floor of the transit on the passenger side. Without me knowing, my dozy sister put the heater in the van on full blast and set the controls to fan the hot air downwards to warm up her feet. Of course my rucksack was on the floor of the van as well wasn’t it? Yes, with 5 bars of Snickers in there. So, when we arrived at the Muntjac, I fancied a bar of chocolate and went to pick up my bag which was red hot. The chocolate bars had completely gone to ‘mush’ after being stuck under the heater for about 2 hours. When I opened one of them, It looked like something that had come out of your rear after having a curry the night before. Although fair play to her, she did offer me some of her Dairy milk bar, but I told her to stick it!
Moving on, the weather was on our side, a nice day, no wind, overcast and quite mild, ideal conditions. There was ample parking and we were only parked yards away from the whole ’shebang’, not much walking to do at all, makes change does that. I got signed on and collected my time card eager to see what kind of time schedule us clubman were to stick too.
Bloody nora entered my head (or words to that effect)

1st lap, 22 miles, 73 mins
2nd lap, 22 miles, 71 mins
3rd lap, 19 miles, 51 mins
4th lap, 19 miles, 45 mins

How on earth am I going to do that lot and stay on time? Still I thought, this is the British championships and it ain’t for the faint hearted, so why should they make things easy? just get out there and stop sniffling about it. So I did!

Onto the start then, everybody was there, it was like a ’who’s who’ in the enduro world as the champ and expert riders went away first. I believe it or not was to be the 1st clubman away, so that meant that I had all the rest of the clubman (E1,E2,E3) and all of the vets behind me starting at 1 minute intervals, so I expected half on them to catch me up and pass me every lap, after all, there’s some bloody good riders in amongst that lot with a lot more experience than me.

So there I was, dosed up on painkillers from the ‘doc’ for my shoulder (which seem to work only when they want too) and full of anticipation sitting patiently for the clock to tick over to 9.23am, so I could fire the bike up and ride my 1st BEC. My time arrived and I kicked her over, nothing, again I kicked her, nothing, kept kicking her over, nothing, nothing, nothing! Oh b*llocks, flooded it! I quickly wheeled her off the line in embarrassment and took a look down at the engine (doesn’t everyone?). I kept on kicking and thought about changing the plug when, brrring-a-ding-ding, you beauty, and I was on my way, albeit 2 mins late.

Now then, I can’t possibly describe 22 miles of track because I haven’t got a photographic memory, but I will say that there was no rest bite, and it seemed ‘endless’.
Lots and lots of tight, twisting, single track forest trails, sometimes the trees were inches from either side of the handlebars. Nothing too technical at all which surprised me, but you were always on the go and even the fire roads were bumpy, so you couldn’t even relax at all on those and take a rest. With the times being extremely tough and ultra tight to ‘clean’, you really were pushing and pushing on every single mile that you rode along trying to make it back and not lose time. One section was very demanding, it was about 3-4 miles from the end of the lap and consisted of whoop after whoop after whoop after whoop, at least a mile in length, right parallel to a railway line. In this particular section you really had to judge your pace just right and try and float over them, otherwise you’d be bucking and rearing and fighting the bike and either ending up on your arse or over the bars. Basically I just hung on for dear life!

The special test on my 1st lap didn’t go well at all. I was trying much too hard with all the adrenaline pumping around inside me and made a right ‘hash’ of it in some places as I was slipping and sliding all over the place trying to go quick. The test itself was basically a motocross track with trees around it, simple as that. I reckon it was about 2 ½ - 3 miles long.

I came in on my 1st lap with 1 min to spare and was pleased to see Trevor Pengelly there to help me. He’d travelled up with Jack Twenty man (3rd in vets) who was also riding (we all live near each other down in Cornwall), so he decided to come over and get me out back on the course ASAP as he knew I tight on time.

Lap 2 went ok, apart from that special test again, I did go faster this time, but I just felt it wasn’t the best I could have rode it. The rest of the lap went good, no offs and I just kept trying to keep my pace up because I knew this lap I had to be faster by 2 mins to keep on time. I arrived back at the pits to re-fuel with 1 min to go, so far so good and I was on time!

Now then, the 3rd lap, and this one was 3 miles shorter but was supposed to be 20 mins faster! I knew this lap would sort a lot of people out due to the length of the lap and the time given to us to complete it. It was on this lap along that mile long ‘whoopy’ section that the champ riders passed me (they had to do 120 miles of riding!), Knight, Bolter, Edmonson, Wakely, to name but a few, and my god I’ve never seen anything like it. They were just following each other in Indian file at such a terrific speed that it made me look like I was standing still. It was absolutely awesome watching them pass me on such a tricky section of the course with such speed and bike control, I’ll remember that for a long time to come. They were going so fast I had a job to see their numbers on the side of their bikes!
I came at the end of this lap about 8-10 mins down on time.

So onto the last lap I went and only another 19 miles to go! This lap was supposed to be faster still and we only had 45 mins in which to do it in. I tried, I really did try, but by now a bit of fatigue had started to creep in and I started to make a few small mistakes. At about halfway I smacked into a tree and bloody well crushed my 1st finger, ouch! 5 mins later and as I was accelerating out of a corner another tree jumped straight out in front of me and I hit it full on, which in turn snapped my front mudguard clean off (that mudguards fairly new as well!). So now I had to ride a bike that resembled an American ‘flat tracker’, not the first time I’ve done it, and probably won’t be the last.
I went on to finish about 22-24 mins overtime.

Interesting to see that not one clubman in the whole of E1,E2,E3, actually stayed on time, so that just goes to show how tight the times were.

Was it worth all the expense and the 760 mile round trip? You bet it was, and I can’t wait to do another one!

A nice gesture too from Thor motorcycles who supplied me with a huge box of spares for the event just in case i needed anything. Next time i'll ask them to throw a front mudguard in as well!

Finishing position: 27/37 (clubman E1)

Bike status: new mudgaurd

Old injuries never die- 18th February 2009

And even if they do, they come back to haunt you!

I injured my right shoulder about a year and half ago when i had a tasty 'off'' when racing. It took a while to mend, but it did get better, and up until now it's been fine.
A couple of weeks ago while out practising, i fell on the same shoulder and jarred it, and thought nothing of it. It did give me a bit of pain before last weeks race, but nothing to worry about, so i again, i thought nothing of it.

After racing on sunday i felt the shoulder had got worse, and sunday evening was a 'bit of job' trying to get some kip. This week hasn't been good and at times it's been really painful and theres no way in the world that i'd be able to race with it. I can't even go running to keep up the fitness, because if i swing the shoulder at all, it kills me. In fact, several times this week i haven't even been able to lift a saucepan out of the cupboard. Mind you, thats not a bad thing because that means the girlfriend has to do all the cooking!

With the BEC round coming up this sunday and with 80-90 miles of riding to do, i had to go and see the doctor and basically do a 'cry for help'.
I explained about the British champs race coming up and could you please give me the strongest pain killers you've got to get me through it!
Luckily the doctor was as good as gold (must have been an off road fan) and prescribed me 2 different lots of tablets to take. With the paracetamol as well i'm taking, i'm on 9 to 10 tablets a day at the moment. Lets hope i don't addicted to them all!

The worrying thing is that with so much racing coming up for me, it's not going to get any rest and the 'doc' has advised me that i might have to have a steroid (cortisone) injection into the shoulder joint to heal it properly.

Looks like i'm going to have to take 'one race at a time' at the moment and hope for the best.

Hethfelton forest- 15th February 2009

With the Midwest series race being cancelled, I managed to get a late entry into the Dorset police mcc enduro.

(pic by brewbs)

Adam Blake was also riding there in the expert class, so I picked him up about 7ish, and traveled up to Dorset.
The day was overcast, dry and quite mild, perfect conditions for a race. Got signed on, done all the usual and made our way to the start and waited for the off.

A nice big wide open field was the start area, so plenty of room for everyone to sort themselves out before entering the woods.
The flag dropped and off we went, I was about mid pack as we went into the woods. What was about to happen was my 1st ‘schoolboy error’ and I was left cursing myself with a vast amount of expletives under my breath! After only a couple of minutes riding through the tight, single track wooded trails, my front brake began to ‘die’ on me. I kept pumping the lever hoping the pressure would come back but it didn’t, so I had to stop and check what the hell was going on. I’d just fitted some new handgaurds and silly me, I forgot to tighten the bracket back up on the brake lever/master cylinder, so the thing was hanging off and flapping about! So, I made my merry way albeit with just a back brake back to the pits, got a spanner and tightened it up again. Safe to say, most of my class had passed me now as it was only the 1st lap.

What happened next was a Victor Meldrew ‘I don’t believe it’ moment. Fired up after that little escapade and eager to make up lost ground, I darted out of the pits and went to swipe my transponder on the electronic lap scoring box only to find out that I wasn’t even wearing it. At first I thought that it had come off my wrist, but after doing a quick think, I realized that I’d left it back in the van! If I swore a lot at myself after the brake lever incident, then times that by ten, I was fuming! (can’t write on here what I called myself).
I asked the lap scorers to just take my number as I came through every lap, but obviously they couldn’t as everyone’s data lap by lap had to be done electronically, fair enough I didn’t argue, so I parked the bike up and went back to van to get it. I finally managed to start my 2nd lap already 13-14 mins down on the clubman class, plum bloody last.

The course itself was very tight in places with virtually no overtaking room at all. A lot of single track forest trails, a small sandy section, a couple of small climbs, a nice little bog, a few fire roads to have a blast, and several logs to clamber over in different places, which made for a bit of variety. Quite a fast course I thought, with nothing too technical to slow you down, apart from getting stuck behind someone!
One of the log sections that was on the course resembled a sort of small equestrian obstacle, I think it was 2 or 3 logs stacked on top of each other, which for me provided great fun trying to get over it! With a small crowd awaiting for riders like me to have a go and fail dismally, I didn’t disappoint and finally managed to clamber over it at the 3rd attempt (oh I wish I was an expert rider), needless to say I took the easy option after that and went round it every lap!

With what had happened earlier on, I really didn’t have a clue where I was but I kept on plugging away, but I knew with it being easy going and fast, I’d have my job cut out to make up for the lost time.
Things were going well though and I felt that I went at a good pace and with no ‘offs’ to report I felt I was doing ok.
I pitted just after the 2 hour mark and picked up the pace (my fastest laps were the 2 out of the last 3) and finished the race strong, but a pit ‘peed’ off with myself after the earlier shenanigans.

Me and Adam (he finished 7th in the experts) went back to at the end to see the results and met up with Mark and Richard Tucker and had a quick chat before heading home.
Well, that was the plan, but Jack Twentyman who rode in the champ class today and was from our neck of the woods, rung me and we decided to meet up for a pint on the way back at some pub off the A30. It was nice to hear some stories from Jack about past events that he’d done. He’s been riding at the top level for quite a while and even now being the other side of 40, he’s still out there giving it some! Great stuff.

Today they had me down as finishing 5th on 9 laps, but I’d actually only done 8. I think the confusion happened because they scanned my transponder twice to make sure it was working when I got back from picking it up from the van after I told the lap scorers what had happened!

Finishing position: 14/26 (clubman 2st)

Next week, the 1st round of the BEC in Norfolk!

Stolen bike

Someone i know had their bike nicked recently by some theiving scumbags.
Here's the details, keep your eyes open everybody because there can't be that many Husky 125's about.


Husky WR125 Frame No ZCG2H00AA5V003447 engine No 2HA501305 Stolen from Bradley Stoke Bristol On night of 11/12th Feb 2005 WR in Yellow/blue with a 2C pipe. Missing upper RH rad cover and bits on rad to bolt it to and has a weld repaired lh crankcase where the chain snapped. Bastards cut through the brake pipes on my car to move it from the garage door and must have cut through the rh side of the subframe as the lock is still in place.This follows an attempted break in on Saturday where they broke the garage window - I'm told (now) that it's a way to see if alarms are working - wish I new that before.Any info please tel Pete Boyles on 07803 147603 or Avon and Somerset Police. Cheers.

Out in the snow!- 8th February 2009

I was due to ride the Track n trail event today and travel up there with Adam Blake, who was also going to ride, but as everyone knows with the country in a state of ‘lets see who can build the best snowman’, they were forced to cancel, bloody weather again!

So, Adam suggested that with got off our arses and got the bikes out and went to do some green laning on the roads, tracks and trails around Bodmin moor.
After a short 20 minute drive I met up with Adam, then I followed him in for about another 10 minutes through some icy, snow covered lanes ending up in what seemed to be ’the middle of nowhere’ before we stopped and unloaded the vans and got ready for some riding.
A couple of riders on trials bikes were there as we turned up, nice to know we’re not the only ones that were mad enough to ride in the conditions!

The snow covered peaks of the moor and surrounding area looked like a image from a catalogue advertising skiing holidays, but nevertheless I was looking forward to the challenge of riding in the white stuff.
Off we set then, and it wasn’t long before we came across an icy covered silty bog on one of the trails which I managed to plant myself in! I over balanced and put my right arm right through the ice and up to the elbow to stop myself falling in and then promptly stood on my right leg to stand up which also went through the ice and past my knee, sh*t it was cold! After only 10 mins my right side was plastered in freezing cold silt and instantly my right hand started to go numb, great start!

Next it was onto some seriously steep hills and climbs that were both rutted and slippery. Adam being the expert class rider that he is, showed me how it’s done, easy I thought, not a chance in hell as I came off time and time again. Once I finally mastered one, it was onto another where I done exactly the same thing, came off, got back on, and had another go until I made it to the top, then moved on to another, great fun and good training!
Sometimes I’d just ‘throw’ the bike up to the top if I knew I wasn’t going to make the last few yards, then go back down and have another go, that way at least the bike was there waiting for you so you could just kick her over and be on your way again without dragging the thing all the way back down the hill!

Adam did a classic (I was I had my camera on me), right near the top of a really steep climb he ‘flipped it’ and went on his arse with the bike landing upside down and coming to rest on it’s handlebars and saddle with both wheels pointing towards the sky. Just goes to show, even the experts have fun as well!

After a couple of hours of ‘throwing’ myself around on the snow covered ground, and getting freezing cold and wet, we both decided to make our way back to the vans on yet more slippery roads and trails and call it a day.

Warren heath- 1st February 2009

I’ve now got the luxury of a good old transit van to cart my bike around in. I can now actually stand up inside the van to get changed and don’t have to tow my bike in freezing conditions and pouring rain, beats the smaller van I use for gigging hands down, nice!

So, new transit (even though it’s actually years old so to speak), the bike and all the gear in the back, and of course not forgetting that all important plank of wood that everyone else seems to use to wheel the bike into the back of the van, and I set off for my journey on the Saturday for an overnight stay at my Sisters place in Newbury. Reason being, it’s only about a 45 minute drive to the event from there, much better than getting up at an hour when the bats are still flying about and then driving for 3 ½ hours!

Sunday dawned and it was off to Warren heath to enter a timecard event run by Whitley mcc. I was just looking on the net a couple of weeks ago and I fancied doing this one, and with nothing down my way, I was up for going further a field, something which I’m going to do a bit more of this year.

Freezing conditions greeted us with a cold Siberian type wind rattling itself across the large parking area, ‘tin ribs’ me got froze just signing on and pushing my bike to the start, whets new?
6 laps was the order of the day with 2 special tests thrown in for good measure. Laps 1,3 5 were big loops of about 8-9 miles and laps 2,4,6 were smaller loops of about 5 miles, good idea that I thought and it certainly utilized most of the forest that we rode on.

Onto the start itself and at 10.21 and in a group of 4, we set off on the 1st lap. Well, not exactly, because I kicked my bike over about 20 times and nothing happened! What the f*ck is going on here then as I was left on the start line with everyone looking (rather embarrassing when you got a family member watching). I quickly wheeled the bike out of the time check and onto the side of the track. After checking a few things and about 10 kicks later, she fired no up problem, and off I went. (god knows what happened there).

Out into the forest we went and it wasn’t long before we hit the 1st of a few bogs, no problem there, the little ‘gasser’ sailed straight through it. More forest trails followed, but with the cold conditions we were riding in, not for the first time, my hands started to go numb and before I knew it, I had to stop for 5 minutes to get warmed up. I didn’t know the course at all and after stupidly getting stuck on a small hill, I was wondering weather I would make the 1st lap on time.
Some of the forest trails were tight, in fact they were so tight that all you had in front of you was a 6 inch wide tyre track to follow while your hands were brushing against the small pine/fur trees that were either side of you! The track continued to meander up and down through the woods with a few nice little bogs thrown in, some of which just got deeper and deeper as the race went on and getting through them became quite a challenge. If you picked the wrong line, you got stuck in a load of black ’snot’, simple as that.

A few nice deep muddy puddles and ruts (that seem to go forever), a couple of fire roads and that was basically the big loop. Too long to describe bit by bit!

I made it back to the check with plenty of time in hand.
On the start of my 2nd lap I did my 1st special test and I really went well, I was well pleased. I was riding with full of confidence and the bike was going like a ‘good un’.
The smaller loop that I was now on only had a 30 minute time allocation, but with only really a couple of rutted gloopy sections, there wasn’t anything to worry about and I made it back easily with time to spare.

I stuck a bit of fuel in and went out on my third lap, the big loop again. This time the bogs had got churned up some more and I got stuck in a seemingly bottomless boggy rut. Didn’t waste much time there, I quickly hauled the back wheel out, then the front, and I was on my way within a minute or two. I made it back by the end of that lap with time to spare as well. Things were looking good!

Onto my 4th lap and another special test. I rode even better round the test this time (7 secs better than the first one) even though I did scare myself a few times whilst doing it, and then went on to complete another lap well inside the time.

I was well pleased as I started my 5th lap on how things were going, I felt good and I hadn’t lost any time on the checks and both the special tests had gone well. With about 10-15 mins to go whilst riding through a 100 yard long boggy bit, my back wheel suddenly sunk and I ground to a halt. No problem I thought, so I just hauled the back wheel out, picked up the front and kicked her over. I let out the clutch and she stalled. I fired her up again and give her loads more revs, let out the clutch, and she stalled instantly. Strange I thought, why ain’t I moving? I took a look down thinking something had got caught up in my back wheel. I couldn’t believe it as I saw that my chain had ‘thrown’ itself and was jammed between my front sprocket and my gear lever, 3 links stacked on top of each other and all ‘munched up‘, stuck solid! (see pic).

I tried in vain to pull it and free it, but after about 10 mins of huff and puff I knew that my race had been run, it just wouldn’t budge, gutted!
So there I was, in the middle of some forest and going nowhere. I heaved the bike up to a tree and parked it there, took off my helmet and walked back through the bog and waited on a fire road for some marshals to hopefully come along. Luckily for me and 5 mins later, two traveling marshals came to my rescue. They couldn’t free the chain either, so we hitched up a rope, and I got towed back to the van (thanks guys). I handed in my card, got packed up and headed home.

This was my first DNF since September 2006. Not a bad record eh?
Looking back at the results I would have came 2nd in E1 today.

Never mind, that’s racing!

Finishing position: DNF
Bike status: new chain, new sprockets.