Storridge wood- 25th May 2009

After missing the 1st round of the Xmoor series due to that little mishap with my radiator, I was so looking forward to riding this as you can guarantee that the club always puts on a good event.

After a short drive up to Bude to meet up with Steve Jose and Adam Blake, it was off to Storridge woods. With no map between us and no directions, we needn’t have worried because Adam was better than Google itself as he seem to know the way like the back of his hand as he took us through all sorts of lanes and back roads (which had me and Steve saying to each other, ‘where the f*ck are we?) to deliver us at the course with plenty of time to spare.

After signing on and taking a look at one of the Expert routes, we then had a bit of breakfast and sat on our backsides around the van chatting to riders that passed by waiting for the time to tick by to get changed for the 12’o’clock start.
The weather although overcast, was warm, and as the start time got nearer, we knew it was gonna be a hot one.

After warming our engines on the rather tight start line, it was time for the off, and as the flag dropped I didn’t particularly make a good one, and as we all bunched up around a tight right hander, the inevitable traffic jam occurred. Thankfully it didn’t last too long, but even so by the time I got going I was well down in the field and not happy!
We entered the woods immediately and were faced with some rooted tight tracks which made overtaken difficult especially as everyone was fired up with the adrenaline that goes with the early stages of a race. Some guy on KTM came hurtling passed me over to go over the bars seconds later as he hit a tree stump, I slowed to make sure he was alright as It looked nasty, but thankfully he was, so I carried on.

As we progressed through the woods I could see in the distance most of my riders in my class it what seemed like a procession following each other, and I could see I was well down the field so I instantly tried to make up some places, but it all went ’Pete Tong’ and that decision effectively put me out of the race.
As I tried to overtake a rider in front of me, my front wheel ‘washed’ out on a root and as I went down to the floor my handlebars twisted and stuck straight into my left thigh, OUCH!
At first I’d really thought I’d broken something, it was bloody agony, but after I got up, I managed to pick the bike up and lean it against a lovely friendly tree, which I also leant against to get my breath back. After a bit of rest and now with every other bugger passing me, clubman 4st, over 40’s, sportsman, I decided to try and ride around the rest of the course and make it back to the pits where I could check my leg over.
Saying that, with such a testing course, it wasn’t going to be a piece of cake, but I took it easy and got myself back and parked up.

I had to make some sort of decision now, pull out, carry on, or go and see the medics, but after 10 mins of rest and with a bit of stretching as well as taking a good look at it, I thought to myself that’s it’s gonna take a hell of a lot for me to DNF and today ain’t the day for that! As long as I could stand on the pegs I was willing to give it a go, so I bloody well did. Good job it wasn’t my right leg as I wouldn’t have been able to kick the bike over and start it.

Onto my 2nd lap I went then, albeit a bit slower than the norm, but I was determined to enjoy the event and take it easy and just get a finish, and with no pressure on I’d thought it would be a good idea to try all the expert routes out as well as I wasn’t worried about the time anymore after losing so much of it.
You know when it’s not going to be your day when about half way round your 2nd lap something else happens, and bugger me if it didn’t. I was going along nicely when all of a sudden the bike went ‘clunk’ and stopped dead in it’s tracks. I looked down only to find that the chain had come off and had wrapped itself around the front sprocket (been there done that before), so pushed it up to another one of those friendly trees, leant the bike against it and tried to unravel the thing. After about 5 mins I managed to free it just as a marshal came along so I flagged him down for a push to get the chain back on the sprocket and hey presto, away I went again.

The course itself was a classic, plenty of roots, a couple of rocky and rooty water crossings, off camber trails, some steep expert hills to try out, fire roads, logs to go over and more important, no flat fields! To be honest there wasn’t really anywhere you could take a breather as it was pretty much constant woods where you had to concentrate on riding most of the time, although at some points the trails only had one line and if you caught someone up and they didn’t move over for you, then it was hard work getting by, even at the pace I was going! Overall a superb lap and a long one, 10 miles or thereabouts and not for whimps!

With now more than half the race gone and me only on 2 laps I went into the pits and topped her up and went back out again. The previous laps I’d been doing the expert routes ok but this lap turned out to be a little different as I came off on one and promptly got my bike ridden over by a following rider which put a large dent in the exhaust (this definitely isn’t my day is it?).
On another one of the hard routes I got stuck near the top only to find Rob Ellick (snapped chain) and Paul Ford (tyre came off his rim) standing there, both of them had retired, so I had a quick chat with them and went back down, turned around and made it up next time. That hill was great fun pinning the little gasser all the way up it!

With about 30 mins left on the clock I pitted to rest my leg a bit and had a quick chat with Francis Banfield before setting off on what I knew would be my last lap. All I wanted was to take it easy and get to the finish and with thinking that I made a small mistake on an off camber part of the track and ended up trying to get the bike up a steep bank and back out onto the course. Try as I might I was stuck, so with looking round I realized that the only way to go was down. I rode the bike through the undergrowth downwards towards the fire road that I could see at the bottom, but when I got there I was faced a sheer drop back onto the fire road. No way could I get down that without going over the bars, so I got off the bike and let her drop over the edge! I clambered down, picked the bike back up and luckily for me nothing was broken so i kicked her into life, and off I went again to re-join the course, nice one!

So in the end and after an eventful race I made back to record a finish at the checkerd flag.
The riders I spoke to afterwards all thought it was an excellent event, Jason Duggan, Steve Jay, Andy Smith, Phil Harris, to name but a few. All I told them was my hard luck story, so they all got the violins out for me!
Was hoping to catch up with Pete Boyles afterwards but he’d retired as his TM splayed oil all over the rear disc, he’s not having much luck at the moment is Pete so let’s hope that changes for him.
I’ve mentioned this lad before, Richard Tucker, 18 yrs old and today 3rd in champ class! That lads getting bloody well faster every time I see him. Mind you apparently he learnt everything off his dad Mark (is that right Rich or not?).

A good bit of banter was had by us all in the van on the way home, which included being entertained by Steve ‘the man of a thousand stories’ Jose. I’m telling you now, if ever you’re bored after a race just listen to Steve as he’ll tell you all about what happened and at what particular time it happened, on what part of the course it happened, who it happened with and why it happened! Great stuff and well worth the diesel money on it’s own.
Well I suppose with things going so well lately I was due to have a crap race, let’s hope I don’t have too many of the buggers in the future.

Finishing position: 19/30 (clubman 2st)