If you closely at the photo you can just see me in the distance to the right of 147's camelbak in the red kit/white helmet still on the bloody start line! What happened? Read on.(pic by brewbs)
So fresh from finishing the BEC last week it was out again on the bike and a trip up to Dorset for an SCEC event. I had no doubt in my mind that it wasn’t going to be a 22 mile lap at this event!
Up before the crack of dawn for an early meet near Liskeard with Andrew Smith and Phil. We all traveled up together in my van and got to Inside Park with plenty of time to spare, in fact, well over 2 hours, could have had an extra hour in bed!
The good thing was, there was a strong group of riders all from Cornwall who made the trip up there and 3 of our vans were all parked next to each other, so we all had a good chat. Jack Twenty man, Tim Lewis, Dave ‘Butch’, as well as my motley crew, and also Steve Jose who was marshaling for the day.
Upon signing on I got to met ‘Brookster’ one of the guys off of the adrenaline trip forum. Nice chap, good rider as well! Also Had a quick chat with Jed and Arthur who’d also traveled up from my neck of the woods. Bloody hell, the place was crawling with us, there was also a couple of champ riders from Cornwall entered, perhaps we should have hired a coach, put the bikes in the back and had a party on the way on the way home!
Onto the start then, very very cramped indeed on the clubman start, hardly not enough room to line up and I was sort of behind the 2 bikes either side of me, so no chance of making a good one. In fact, I couldn’t even see the flag where I was because the starter was slightly out of view round the corner! So I was sat there looking at my watch on my bars thinking I’ve got another 20 secs or so to go before the flags drops, when all of a sudden, everyone kicks their bikes into action. And we’re off! Oh b*llocks, I ain’t even put my goggles on yet. I just instantly kicked her over and off I went. The first couple of hundred metres or so was a bit of a moto x track before we entered a single track wooded section that would have been tight enough to ride a pushbike through, let alone a motorbike. This instantly caused the inevitable hold ups and with the start I had, I could do nothing but queue up and wait in order to carry on. So frustrating that when everyone’s pumped full of adrenaline on their 1st lap and you get a part of the track within a minute of the race starting that causes traffic jams.
When you got through that first tight section the course then went into the forest proper and with track conditions being extremely dry, it made for a very fast race today. Nothing really worth noting about the track, just miles of forest trails, the usual really, nothing technical at all, and not many roots either. I reckon about 7 miles in length, very easy to ride and enjoyable. Just before the end of the lap you did get the chance to try your luck by going over a huge fallen tree or taking the easy root and going round it. It didn’t cause me any problems, so over it I went.
Due to getting held up a bit on my start ,I came round at the end of lap one in about 15th (looking at the lap times), so about mid pack, but with no adverse track or weather conditions to hold anybody up, it was going to be a bit of a job catching riders up and passing them.
After last weeks race and with my confidence up, I was going really well, I felt really good and the ‘gasser’ was singing all the way round the course, happy days!
About 1 ½ hours into the race my clutch started to play up and the lever wouldn’t release itself properly from the master cylinder, so when I used it, I had to wait a minute or two in order for the pressure to came back and the lever to right itself before I could use it again! Not good, and everytime I came round to the lap scoring to stop and swipe my transponder, the bike just stalled and i had to put it in neutral, fire her up again and wait for my clutch to come back before I could set off again! Right pain in the arse that was, so I tried not use the clutch too much before I reached lap scoring!
I pitted just after the 2 hour mark still going well (albeit with a dodgy clutch) and kept the pace up hoping to catch some riders in my class.
By the time my last lap came I was on a roll and I felt I was really going for it (my last lap was my fastest) and I managed to catch and pass a few riders in my class which just goes to show, ’it ain’t over till the fat lady sings’. I felt really good about that, after all, I’d been chasing them for 3 hours or more! Finished up 7th in the end.
A good day, no ’offs’, mishaps or damage, that makes a bloody change, and for the first time I beat Andy Smith who came up with me. He’s not gonna be happy about that I can tell you.
Turns out now that when I hit a tree at the Muntjac last week I’d damaged the clutch master cylinder somehow, so time to get that fixed me thinks.
Finishing position: 7/27 (clubman E1)
