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.
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!
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)
Finishing position: 27/37 (clubman E1)
Bike status: new mudgaurd
