Shillingstone forest- 28th June 2009

(pic by Whizzy)

It was an early start as I met up with Adam Blake & Nick Tremlett (who’d come along to watch for the day) for the drive up to near Blandford for SCEC event. With not much rain for the last couple of weeks I was guessing that we’d be having another dry event, and the weather again today was hot and humid, no sunshine to speak of, but still warm.
The conversation in the van on the way up was mostly from Nick and it soon turned out that he’s got his own catchphrase, this being ’What I need is’, that was repeated on countless occasions time and time again due to the subject he was talking about, this being members of the opposite sex which certainly kept me and Adam amused!!

So we arrived at Shillingstone and immediately clapped eyes on Andy Smith and Phil Harris (both of whom had made the trip up from our neck of the woods) and managed to get parked in front of um. This was no mean feat as the parking was bumper to bumper along the narrow forest roads. War was about to break out as the battle of the cc’s reared it’s head, me and Adam on the little 125’s, Andy and Phil both on 300’s, it was gonna be interesting to see how we all got on today.

Upon signing on I finally managed to catch up with Steve Jose who I’d hadn’t seen for a while. I’ve been talking to Steve in the week who’d been round the course helping SCEC to get it ready, so I had a bit of an insight as to what to expect and Steve told me that it suit me a lot more than lasts weeks TnT event as this course was nearly all woods, got to say Steve, you were spot on mate!

So it was off down to start to line up and get ready for the off and today I was in the clubman E1 class and got lined up next to ‘Boycey’ from the adrenaline trip forum.
As the flag dropped and In the words of Victor Meldrew himself ‘I don’t believe it’, I got the holeshot again! that’s 2 weeks running! As I got away from everybody like a bolt of lightning as we went into the woods after the short straight. Now then, this was so different from lasts weeks race as I kept a tight line through the wooded trails and ended up in front of everybody as I got back to the transponders after the 1st lap still in 1st place.

Now for the course itself and what an awesome venue this is and right up my street. Loads of flowing wooded trails, roots, off cambers, 2 massive hills to climb, some steep winding downhills, a couple of fire roads, some rutted grassy straights and a really tight section which meandered up and down that basically just been cut through the brambles which was littered with broken trees and branches and stumps making it really slippery even in the dry. Given you had the choice with some logs to jump over as well along the way, it was a decent track and about 8 or so miles in length.

So onto lap 2 and I was still in front when I came to one of those big logs which I confidently tried to go over instead of taking the easy route and going round it. Oh bollocks I thought as I promptly got stuck on it and with some of the E1 class right up behind me, they took the easy route and went round me as I had to get off the bike and push it in order to get over the damn thing, so I lost a few places in the process and ended up 5th or 6th before I got going again.
That’s the thing I’m starting to notice now, if you’re running near the front there’s not much room for errors coz as soon as you make a mistake and lose even a minute, someone will overtake you and you’ll lose a place or two, still it’s nice to be at the front rather than the back!
Coming back to the lap scoring and where the transponders were, SCEC amazingly had a big TV screen in full view so as you swiped your wristband through the electronic scoring box, your name, class and position would come up instantly on the screen.

After laps 3 and 4 I was holding 5th and I knew riders would pit before me so I’d be able to make up a place or two if I kept pushing as I don’t usually pit until later, and sure enough on the lap I went in to get some fuel, I’d made my way up to 3rd. Now the chase was on for the 2 guys in front of me!
I had a couple of ‘offs’ one straight after the other on the tight slippery bramble section which cost me a bit of time, nothing drastic, but annoying all the same and when that happens it tends to knock you off your rhythm a bit just when everything is going along nicely. With about 30 mins left I passed another rider in my class and had made it up to 2nd, now I really had ’red mist’ in my eyes as I knew I didn’t have much time to try and get the win, probably only a lap, but try as I might and having another ‘off’ due to colliding with a back marker whist overtaking, I didn’t quite manage it.
Caught up with Steve Jose at the end for chat and I’m glad he rode and got his TM out of
retirement for the day, he should do it more often!

Adam had a cracking result 3rd in experts (on his little katoosh) and 6th overall, so we all got back to the van happy including Nick who enjoyed watching, but come on Nick it’s time to get that bike out mate and start up again yourself and get amongst it! You know you want to.
Apart from Nick’s smelly feet and his soon to be famous catchphrase ’what I need is’, a decent laugh was had by us all on the 3hr drive home. In fact Nick, ’what you need is’, some bloody ‘Odor eaters’ to tame your feet!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Odor-Eaters-Insoles-Ultra-Comfort-Pr/dp/B001DZVEQ0

Finishing position: 2/20 (clubman E1)

Two valleys- 21st June 2009

So it was off up to near Dorchester for a Track n Trail event at Two valleys.

(pic by image consortium)

Now then, unfortunately for me I developed ‘caravanitis’ along the way on the A35 as I got stuck behind a load of the things!! As soon as I overtook one, I’d catch another one up 5 mins later, where did they all come from then? Perhaps they were just out this morning knowing that I was on the road and they wanted to see me fume as steam was blowing out of my ears and my temperature had risen to that of a furnace after constantly getting held up, not to mention some very rude words that were being used especially when following them along a straight dry road with good visibility at what seemed like a snails pace unable to overtake because more caravans were coming the other way!
Personally I think anyone over the age of 90 who wears black slip on shoes from Makro, wears a small knotted tie, a knitted jumper from Marks & Spencer, listens to Max Bygraves, tows a big white box on wheels, and is not a fan of ’Little Britain’ or ’Mock the week’ should be banned from driving, That’ll get rid of a few won’t it? Probably 99% of them!
Rant over, lets move on.

Nice weather again as I arrived rather late (you know why), in fact I only had about 15 mins before the sighting lap started, so there was no chance at all of doing that.
I expected to bump into a few people whilst I was there, but with time limited I was in a bit of a rush so didn’t really see anyone apart from a quick chat with Mark and Rich Tucker whilst I went to sign on.

Onto the start then and today was going to be a nice little test for me as I’d entered the Clubman 2st, which has no limitations on bike capacity, so I was against the bigger machines.
When the flag dropped I made an absolute flyer and got the holeshot!!!!! Bloody nora I thought to myself as I lead the clubman through the first couple of moto x style corners and out into the hillside.
I was crying out for the woods so I might be able to get away a bit as everyone might have got held up behind me, but there was no such luck as the course just kept on being a motocross track which meandered up and down the hillsides. After a couple of mins the bigger bikes began to blast past me and I lost several places, in fact more than several as I was nailing the little ‘gasser’ for all it’s worth and hanging onto the bars for dear life trying to keep up!

The track was bone hard, bumpy, and extremely fast with only a small wooded section that only took about 2 mins to ride through right at the end of the lap. There was a couple of hard routes dotted about, but these were very easy to ride through because it was so dry. If you could imagine a motocross track going up and down a couple of hillsides for 6-7 miles with a couple of fast straights on it, and a little bit of woods at the end, then that was it. Bit disappointing really as TnT usually have more woods in there events.
So with nothing technical and fast going, the battle for places would be extremely tight as I found out on my 3rd lap. Just before the end of the lap on that wooded section I give it too much ’welly’ and the back spun out on me, I did a doughnut and ended up on my ass facing the wrong way and even before I could get going again (maybe 30 secs) 4 riders in my class flew past me, that’s how tight it was going to be today, especially with the laps being only 13-14 mins long.
Mind you, you didn’t get held up too much as it was fairly open going and even when things got a bit tight, it wasn’t long before you were out into the open again, but trying to overtake a 250 or 450 on fast open going when you’re on a 125 ain’t easy, especially if they’re pinning it, even the back markers. It’s all down to braking and my front disc must have been glowing red like a F1 car with the amount of pressure I was putting on it!

Had a nasty moment about half way through when the front end twisted on me on a bumpy section and the bars turned round and dug right into my chest, but I managed to hold on and not ‘high side’ off the bike, thank god for the chest plate on my body armour.

I pitted at about 2hrs and was hoping for a quick stop, but sods law reared it’s head as some rider had abandoned his bike and parked it right in front of my re-fueling can. I couldn’t lean over to get it so I quickly asked someone to hand it to me so I didn’t need to get off the bike. Thanks for your help mate whoever you was, saved me a bit of time that.

I kept on pushing until the finish and the last couple of laps were really hard work as the bumpy track had taken it’s toll and I had a job to hold on to the bars, but I didn’t have anymore ‘offs’ and didn’t really waste much time anywhere so I was pleased with that.
Overall not too bad a result against the bigger bikes on a fast motocross style course and most of the riders being a lot younger than me!

Finishing position: 10/29 (clubman 2st)

Looking ahead

If anyones interested in going along to the BEC rnd 2 in Wales on July 11th/12th drop us a line coz i'm riding it and will be travelling up there in the van.
If you want to come along and see the top riders in action and maybe give us a hand as well or your riding and want to share costs, then let us know.

myenduros@aol.com

Norridge woods- 14th June 2009

Bloody hell, the suns out again and another sunny day greeted me as I made the drive up to Wiltshire for the next round of the Midwest series.
I was feeling a lot better this week as my right thigh is almost back to normal and I’ve managed to eat properly as well after that horrible bug, so I was looking forward to it.

The first 2 races of the series have not really been shall we say to my liking due to the fact that there’s been a lot of fields involved, so I was eager to see what this round was gonna be like.
Good news on the parking front anyway as there was plenty of room and it always makes a nice change to park up in field that’s dry!! Got signed on and the bike checked and went and put the fuel in the pits which was a cattle shed! Good idea that, especially if it were to rain.

So, with plenty of water drank beforehand (nearly 3 ltrs of the stuff) to get myself well hydrated, it was off to line up for the start. Things were going to be as tight as ‘the new laws on an MP’s expenditure list’ because just about 30 meters away after the start line, we all had to get through a farmers gate and go down a narrow lane, so a good start was important.

As the flag dropped I made a good one and was about 4th or 5th as we went down that lane and turned a right handed corner across a stoney road, then another right hander along another fast straight stoney track before we entered the woods.
I was still in the top 5 for the first couple of minutes when all of a sudden the bike started to cut out and then die on me. I knew what I’d done straight away, I FORGOT TO TURN MY PETROL ON!!!!!! What a plonker!!! Surely I’m not alone on this one am I? some of you must have that done before?
I ground to a halt and promptly turned the tap back on and started to kick furiously at the little gasser, but by this time and with it being so early after the start, the entire field of vets passed me. I continued to kick but she wouldn’t start, sods law that, and as I was kicking away I could hear the next group of riders coming towards me, and sure enough the whole field of the sportsman 2t passed me as well. What the f*ck is going on I thought as I knew it wouldn’t be long before the sportsman 4t were gonna be coming round the corner!
I quickly pushed the bike and leant it up against a tree, got on and kicked and kicked, but my thoughts had became true as the 4t’s went passed me as well before the gasser finally sparked into life.

So there I was, I’d made a good start and bloody well threw it all away and probably any chance of getting a decent result towards the championship. I was absolutely livid with myself, but me being me there was only one thing to do, and with still about 2hr 55mins left on the clock, I was going to push as hard as I can until the finish even though I’d have pass a bloody load of riders in order to get a decent finish.
I soon caught up with the sportsman 4t’s but with the wooded tails being so narrow, chances had to be taken in order to overtake, but I was on a mission and I gave it everything, I fact I gave it too much and came a cropper whilst getting ‘cross rutted’ trying to make up places, and guess what? I picked the bike up and she started 1st time!!!!!

With such a dry track and fast going it wasn’t until my 2nd lap that I passed a few of the sportsman 2t’s so I knew I was making progress but all I was interested in was trying to pass the vets in my class and I just couldn’t see any of them, they were well and truly gone.
Now then the course itself, this is going to be one of the shortest descriptions of any track I’ve raced! No hills, no bogs, no cambers, hardly any roots, no rocks, no water crossings, in fact it was just about 6-7 miles of wooded trails with a few ditches to cross and a couple of stoney straights thrown in along the side of a farmers field so you can have a blast, that’s it!
So nothing technical and extremely fast and dry.

After about an hour I’d managed to pass a few riders in my class, but seeing as there was a big entry in every group and with the course tight in a lot of places, it was hard at times to make any headway, and I still had to take a lot of risks in order to pass riders, but with last weeks race being difficult and slippery, today seemed a lot easier, and I was absolutely flying and felt really good.
With the weather being hot as well I knew riders would be flagging towards the end so I just kept pushing as hard as I could.

With about 2hrs up on the clock I made a lightning pit stop and went back out definitely ’on it’ and going as well as I’ve ever done. I still wasn’t sure how I was doing as I hadn’t overtaken that many that were in my class, but I just kept pushing and pushing hoping that the next person I caught up in front of me was in the number 300’s!! (that’s the vet’s class numbers)

At the end I just missed out on another lap by just over a minute, so effectively what happened earlier on had cost me, but unbelivabley I’d made my way up to 3rd in my class and only 12 secs behind 2nd place. I might have even snatched the win if I’d have turned the petrol on in the first place!

Given what happened today and the amount of riders I had to pass due to the nature of the course in order to get anywhere, I reckon that’s the best race I’ve done so far, and what’s even more pleasing is the fact that I stayed so strong until the end because after looking at the lap times I’ve noticed that my fastest lap was my penultimate lap.
Nice to catch up with Pete Boyles at the end of it all, so I had a decent chat with him and then headed for home on my ‘tod’ in the glorious weather, just as well as it was a 3hr drive home.

Finishing position: 3/27 (vets)

Nancemellion- 7th June 2009

First away, I got off to a flyer! no 22, white bike

(pic by Sue Pitman)

So with the next few weeks doing a bit of traveling all over the shop it was nice to have a race just 20 or so miles down the road. I have to admit (and so do a lot of other riders I’ve spoken too) that the Nancemellion course is not high on everybody’s ‘wish list’ as an event, but this was the 3rd round of the south west champs, so of course that in itself generates quite a few riders regardless.

The weather today was a bit overcast and slightly on the chilly side (if you’re a tin ribs like me!) but dry, and with the recent sunshine we’ve been having, it wasn’t going to be a wet one.
I got parked up along with the motley crew of Phil Harris, Andy Smith, Francis Banfield, Adam Blake, Steve Jose, Jed Treleaven, so a good bit of chat and banter was had before hand.
After doing all the necessary and taking the bike on what seemed like a mile down the hill to the start, we had to bloody well walk back up again and back to our vans to get changed and sort ourselves out.
The pits were situated on the side of a hill, none too clever that, but passable, unless you overbalanced of course whilst re-fuelling!

Onto the start itself then, a surprisingly small field for the clubman E1 class, only 12 of us, and as the flag dropped I got off to a flyer and was 1st away as we turned right up a loose gravel hill and into the woods.
I lost a place or 2 almost immediately as we entered those woods and was holding 3rd when I got caught out on a steep slippery little climb and lost another couple of places, but still a long way to go so I thought I could claw a place or two back later on.

Now the thing about this course and probably why not many riders actually like it is because it’s as rough and bumpy as hell and extremely tight in places, so tight in fact that if you were a trails rider you’d feel more at home than an enduro rider. Nevertheless it’s the same for everybody so you just had to get on with it and roll your sleeves up.
The woods themselves as mentioned were very very tight in a lot of places this also included some of the slippery rooty climbs, so in fact if a rider in front of you got stuck, basically you were buggered and you had to wait until the way up became free in order to get up it.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the wooded sections were a joy to ride and certainly a test of riding skills as there were some nasty little drop offs to get down which could have easily sent you over the bars or straight into the undergrowth.

After leaving the first 4-5 miles of woods we then went onto the old bumpy moto x track and up through to the hill just the other side of the valley which was covered in wet slippery grass! Yours truly took the wrong line on the very 1st lap on one of these grass covered hills and promptly got stuck half way up, and with the back wheel spinning like a washing machine on acid, I was going nowhere so I had to go back down and try again, this time with more success! I must have wasted a couple of minutes on that bloody grass and promptly lost some more places as well some of the other classes that started behind me passing me in the process.
After going up and down the open hill side a few times and through a couple of small bogs (or round them as it were) it was then back up a steep rooty (but dry) climb which led back up to the lap scoring. I reckon the whole lap being about 6 miles or so.

My 1st lap was awful, and as well as getting stuck on that wet grass I must have come off 5 or 6 times in the woods trying to maintain my decent start that I’d made, and every time I came off the more I kept shouting expletives to myself as the more I lost places, for some reason or another I just couldn’t get going, maybe it was my thigh or due to the fact that the bug earlier in the week that wiped me out had taken it’s toll and I hadn’t fully recovered I don’t know, but I just couldn’t find any sort of rhythm which was a bit disappointing as I’ve been riding quite well lately. Very frustrating!

A few more little annoying ‘offs’on laps 2 and 3 didn’t do me any good either and I was left with half a broken clutch lever to carry on the race with, luckily I could still use it and in any case with me being down in my class I didn’t have the time to replace it any way!

I think it was on lap 5 that a couple of spectators who were standing at the bottom of the climb just before the lap scoring pointed to me to take a different line up the hill to what I’d been taking before, so I followed there advice thinking something was up with my normal route that I’d been using. Oh b*llocks, why did I listen to them was my thoughts as I promptly came to a grinding halt half way up! Thanks to Mike Roose who was standing there and helped me shunt my bike over to the side to what I’ve been using all the race and with no problem got me on my way again with a bit of a push.
After this lap I pitted for fuel and let some air out of the rear so as to get some more grip and from then on things went a lot better even though we were 2 hours into the race!

Apart from the chain coming off (what again, that’s 2 races running now) because of a thick root that stuck up in the air like a sore thumb, I didn’t have too many problems from there on in until the finish, in fact for the last hour I actually was starting to enjoy it and finally starting to ride with a bit of urgency and I actually made up a few places which was pleasing.
One of the bogs claimed a bike as when I was on my final lap, I went past it and it was bolt upright stuck firmly in the middle of the gloopy mess helplessly waiting for someone or something to tow it out!

So after finishing and getting changed and having a chat with the lads we decided to go and get the obligatory burger, only to find that the catering van had p*ssed off home! So it was all down to Macdondalds at Fraddon on the way back to satisfy our empty stomachs. Adam, Steve, Andy, Fran, Phil (another DNF for him) and me all went for the nosh up and had a bit of a laugh at the same time.

Just one thing I’d like to mention, Adam Blake got accused of ‘course cutting’ today. Now anyone that knows Adam will tell you that that is total bullshit, infact at todays race Adam even stopped and helped an injured rider by redirecting the bikes around the injured person, does that sound like someone who would cheat? and this is a rider who is currently of the verge of being upgraded to the champ class next year. Fair play to him for doing that.
And guess what? The riders who accused him for course cutting were the riders who he beat today fair and square, sour grapes or what!!!

Finishing position: 6/12 (clubman E1)

A quick blast- 3rd June 2009

Decided to have a quick blast round the local moto x track tonight seeing as the weather is absoulutely cracking at the moment. I met Adam Blake and Nick Tremlett up there and all of us were on 125's, And believe or not the only other 2 riders there were on 125's as well!!! so it was happy days to hear the little smokers zinging around the track (like wasps in a can my dad used to say).
I didn't do too much and took it easy as i was quite literally 'flat out on my back' earlier in the week due to a horrendous bug that swept through the 'Muso' household late on Sunday night, but me being as keen as mustard i was eager to see if i could get some decent speed up and give myself a boost before sundays race and also test out my thigh thats been giving me trouble since that 'off' at Storridge wood the other week.
Me and Nick had a great race against each other for about 15 mins just before it was time to pack up because the track became a bit on the dangerous side due to the dust everywhere that was flying about and making it difficult to see, and as usual, we couldn't touch 'Blakey' as he was bloody well on a different planet showing us all how it should be done!

My thigh still isn't that good and i got woken up at 3.30am this morning and having to go and take more painkillers because it's still giving me trouble, still Sunday's race is a few more days away yet and another 200 anti inflammatory tablets between now and then should do the trick shouldn't it?

A busy month ahead so let's hope this leg doesn't cause me too many problems in the next few weeks.

June
7th Camborne & Reduth mcc
14th Midwest mcc
21st Track n trail
28th SCEC

It's all change- 31st May 2009

Yes that is my bike!

I felt like a change so i've kitted her out in spanking new white plastics all the way round!

I really don't know if i'm gonna stick any graphics on it yet, depends if i get bored with it or not looking like it's just come out of a box of PERSIL!

The gasser had a new piston in it this week, so it was on with the reg plate and i explored a bit of cornish countryside in the gorgeous weather to help run her in.