( pic by Rabie)So it was a few days away to visit my family and friends up in Reading, and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a Sunday whilst I was up there, other than do an enduro that was just down the road in Bagshot!
My mate Ade who lives up that way and who I’ve known for years came along for a day out with us and to give us a hand and generally reminisce about the old days when we used to hang about together and get up to all sorts!
An overcast day, but not too chilly and conditions just about right for this timecard event held by Surrey constabulary. For some strange reason and with the event being held on private land, the organizers were checking the lights on the bikes and to make sure that they were in working order. I failed the bike check, my back light wasn’t working so I had a choice, get a 60 second penalty or get it sorted! Luckily for me it was just a loose connection so no problem there.
The event itself would be in stages, reason being that you had to do mutli laps in order to complete 1 stage and so on. All together there would be 6 stages ranging from 2 laps, 3 laps, and an incredible final lap of just 1 lap that given the time we had to do it in, you’d have thought that someone like ‘Knighter’ had set the time for it!
We also had 2 special tests mixed in for good measure as well.
On to the start then and as usual with a timecard, we set in groups of 4. First off a lovely fire road to get your bike warmed up a bit with huge puddles to negotiate to before we entered the woods themselves. The trials were excellent and in great condition, absolutely perfect riding terrain and even the couple of steep hills we went up didn’t cause any problems as there was plenty of grip to be found. Some of the woods were tight in places (as you’d expect) and about half way there was the inevitable ‘bit of a bog’, and even on the 1st lap I came across riders that had got stuck in it with the back wheel firmly planted in the stuff and going nowhere (they later cut this bit of the course out). A few more fire roads linked yet more woods with some tight hilly nadgery bits before we went back through a flat wooded section to complete the lap. I’d say about 7ish miles in length.
An excellent course and right up my street, not a flat field in sight, so not just a case of pinning back the throttle to see how fast you can go across a bit of grass. My only concern was that parts of the track in the woods weren’t marked up very well (later on to be my downfall) as sometimes when you got to the end of a trail and there would be other tracks branching off left or right with no arrows anywhere.
Things were going ok until stage 2 when I did a loop in the woods for about 10 mins and ended up back behind some riders that I’d already overtaken some 10 mins earlier! Because of the lack of arrows I’d mistakenly done the same bit twice and I was bloody well livid to say the least. When I finally got back to the pits, I ended up being 15 mins down on time. I was gutted as I was going really well and had high hopes of a decent finish. I spoke to a few other riders whilst I was waiting to go back out and I wasn’t the only one who’d lost time time because of the lack of marking and in fact, someone else had lost 9 mins because of it too. I did mention it to the marshals at the time check and things seem to improve on that section of the course and indeed others as the race went on, maybe it wasn’t just me that complained.
The next lap I did my 1st special test and promptly came off on the ever so tight little test section due to me being well pissed off about what had happened earlier and trying much too hard to make up for lost time.
With me being 15 mins behind now on time I got my head together and stayed on time on every stage until the last one which was virtually impossible to keep to. I think everyone lost a bit on that stage as well. I had a better 2nd test as I’d calmed down at bit by the time that came round again and I was going so well that at one point I had 20 mins to spare on one of the stages until I went back out again!
A but gutted really as the results show that I would have finished 4th if it were not for the lack of course markings. I mean lets be honest about it, I did the Muntjac a few months back with a 22 mile lap and I didn’t get lost on that did I? Enough said. (or am I going blind in my old age)
Big thanks to Ade for helping us out, he was there waiting to give us a hand in the pits after every lap and also had to listen to me shouting expletives when things went all ‘Pete Tong’.
Finishing position: 14/42 (clubman)
