I was really looking forward to this, it’s just 10 mins up the road, we had cracking weather, it was a timecard event and I seem to be riding quite well at the moment.
Funnily enough all of us that had been traveling to the SCEC and TnT events lately managed to arrive at the same time and park up next to each other. Adam Blake, Steve Jose, Jack twenty man, Andy (daddy) Smith, and Phil Harris, so a good bit of banter was had by all of us. I think Steve took the brunt of it as he can’t seem to find a way to plant the front end of his bike properly into the corners, funny that, I’d thought he’d be good at planting things seeing as he’s a landscape gardener! (poor joke that I know).
Being over 2 early hours early before the race started, I had plenty of time to chat to everyone I laid my eyes on. Debbie tucker (armed with her new camera), Arthur Jonhson, Jed Treleaven, Ben Tyrell, Francis Banfield, Ritchie Tucker, Trevor Pengelley, Paddy, Tim Williams, plus numerous others at different times for which there was so many I just can’t remember everybodys name!
Done all the necessary and just about as the sun was about to shine it’s way through the trees, we set off as per usual for a timecard event in groups of 4.
The course this year was a different layout to that of previous years and I thought a little shorter, maybe 8 miles in length?
As usual being a Camel Vale event, an excellent enduro course was on offering. Wooded trails, plenty of roots, off cambers, hills, water crossings, etc, etc.The special test was a long one, excellent as well with a flat out fire road, a slippery climb, some real tight stuff, loads of roots, wooded trails, in fact compared to last weeks test is was really hard work to keep ‘on it’ for the duration as this one took me just over 8 mins to complete compared with that one at Bagshot which was 1min 45 seconds!!!
With the times being a bit slacker this year most riders stayed on time so we all knew that the results were going to be all about the special test times. I kept reminding myself to stay on the bike when on the test and try to ride smoothly and not get carried away. The 1st one went well, the second one was faster even though I caught up one of the riders in front of me and came off trying to overtake him. My 3rd and final test was faster still, I felt I’d rode well in all 3 tests, so was happy with that.
With quite a bit of time to spare on each lap there was no need to take any risks, so I concentrated on just getting round and trying not to brake anything! There was an extremely long fire road on a part of the course of about a mile or so long where you could have literally nailed it in top gear (as a few riders did), but I didn’t bother as there was no need too.
I stayed on time for all 6 laps and felt really fresh at the end of it all. I suppose in a way that I would have liked it to pee down with rain for a whole week before so the going would have been a bit tougher! But hey, lets not moan about the sunshine eh?
Phil had to retire (the softie) because he’d come off and hurt his leg, or that’s what he told us anyway, and Christmas came early for me and Steve because ‘Blakey’ bought us a cheeseburger at the end as well.
So a good day was had by all and I had my best result since coming up into the ranks of the clubman.
Finishing position: 2/16 (clubman E1)
