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.
