Dawn to Dusk- 30th August 2009

My longest report yet!!!!!

It’s fair to say that I was really looking forward to this event, I’m feeling really fit, the bikes good and I was mentally prepared to push myself for 12 hours worth of riding!!!

Three of us were traveling up together to do this, me, Adam Blake and Steve Jose. Steve unbelievably had managed to ‘blag’ a motor home for us to use free of charge for the weekend, a 6 ½ ton truck that was kitted out with all the mod cons as well as storage for 3 bikes in the back, nice one!
So it was a short drive up to Bude to meet the lads and to get loaded up before beginning the trek up to Wales. Things didn’t go too well for me as I arrived late because of the holiday traffic I had to get through on the way, so inevitably that meant we were late leaving. After a few hours of traveling it was a quick stop on the M5 to get some diesel and fuel ourselves up with some Harry Ramsdens fish & chips before we set off again. A game of ’who am I’ (that’s a game where you have to guess the famous person by asking questions) in the lorry turned out to be a game of ’who the f*ck am I’ because the supposedly famous person that Steve Jose had picked, me and Adam had never even heard of! Not once he did that, but twice! So everybody, if your gonna play party games at your bar-b-cue and Steve’s there, just make some sort of excuse and don’t involve him otherwise it’ll all go tits up and people will start to leave!

Anyway, after about 5 hours we finally arrived at the dawn to Dusk site, a damp quarry ‘in the middle of nowhere’ and met up with the other lads that had traveled up from Cornwall. Arthur Johnson and Hannes Tanzer were both doing the 24 hr solo iron man race (nutters or what?) and brothers Rich and Steve Jay were doing the 12 hr two man team. Because I was doing the 12 hr race I had to get signed on and the bike checked today (Saturday), Adam and Steve didn’t need to as they were doing the ‘mickey mouse’ race, the 6 hr one, so they could do all theirs in the morning. So with everything done it was then off to see the start of the 24 hr marathon event. The start itself was further down in the quarry and had a small moto x style track before heading into the forest. It was a great atmosphere as the riders got underway and as darkness fell we went back into the big marquee to listen to the riders briefing and take a look at the video screen which was a full lap of the course done by a helmet cam so everybody could see what we were letting ourselves in for! I was there with Rich and Steve Jay and all we really wanted to see was the 4 or 5 ’extreme’ sections that had been put in in order to save time to see how difficult they were. I’d made my mind that I’d be having a go at all of them on my very 1st lap to see what they were like and then have a quick pit stop to tell Adam & Steve how I got on with them so they could get some idea if the sections were tough or not.

With time now getting on, it was back to the motor home for a bite to eat and some kip. It’s really weird watching the bike lights in the distance going round at night racing, a big round of applause to everybody that did that 24 hr race, must have been tricky in the forest sections. After dinner we got our heads down and all you could hear was the 4 bangers belting out their thunderous exhaust tones in the distance as I drifted off to sleep, couldn’t hear the 2t’s at all. Bloody noisy 4 bangers!

So it was up at 5am in order to have some grub and get hydrated before the 7am start. The weather at this point was overcast, grey, and looking really miserable with the threat of rain in the air. The actual start of the race was a ‘le mans’ type thing where you had to run to your bikes first, albeit only a matter of about 10 yds, I’d have preferred the distance of around 2 or 3 miles myself but you can’t have it all can you!
The vets class was the second group away and I got a flyer and went into the first corner in 3rd and that’s were I stayed around the short moto x style track before we headed out into the forest.

With the race being held in a disused quarry and looking at the footage of last years event before I came, wet or dry, it was going to rocky, and once the top soil had been worn away, all that was left was going to a granite type surface. With that in mind we all decided to use trials tyres, and what a cracking decision that would turn out to be.

The lap was about 15-16 miles and mainly consisted of fire tracks that meandered through the quarry and the forest. A couple of rocky climbs and down hills, a nice little river that we had to go through, but nothing too major and unbelievably I didn’t see one tree root! All the ruts had stones and slate under them as you rode along and basically you couldn’t travel more than about 10 yds without your bike not going over some sort of rock be it big or small. The open sections out of the forest which were in the quarry were fast and gave you a chance to ‘pin’ it or sit down on the saddle if you needed a rest bite.

The ‘extreme’ sections weren’t really ‘extreme’ at all, and I was expecting to come across something out of ’the tough one’, although there was one, where you dropped down and down and down before crossing a river that was littered with boulders before going up a rally steep rocky climb the other side, this one saved you at least 5 mins according to the organiser, so I had a go and made it ok, that trials tyre on the back was working wonders, I had such good grip with it. Another ‘extreme’ had a an easy climb but with a near vertical summit to get over at the top, I did this ok as well, so overall I did all the time savings and get through them all without any mishaps. To be honest there are more difficult sections than this at a Exmoor or Camel Vale event that I’ve come across.

I took the lead about 20 mins into the 1st lap when I cleared the ‘extreme’ bit that saved me 5 mins because the 2 riders in front of me had taken the long way round and didn’t go for it, I knew is was in 1st because they got past me soon after, no panic though, still over 11 hours to go!

So after my first lap I came in to pit to see Adam and Steve and tell them that the hard routes were ok and to go for it later on when it was their turn to start. With the rain now falling I changed my goggles, had a quick top up of fuel and went on my way again. My plan now was to stop every 2 laps to re-fuel but that was soon abandoned as the rain kept on and I had to come again the very next lap for some more goggles. Lap 3 and yet more goggles and a quick re-fuel and I was out again, I think I was still in 3rd at this stage and only 5 mins behind the leader or so I was told.

I think it was on my 5th lap and about 4 ½ hrs into the race when disaster struck. I felt the front get a little out of shape and she wasn’t handling as good because every stone or rock I went over made the bloody bike shake. I stopped and checked for the obvious, and sure enough I’d managed to get a puncture in the front wheel. With still about 7-8 miles of the lap to go I nursed her back round to the pits feeling slightly pissed off that I would be losing time, but that was just the start of it. As I put the bike on the jack stand I realized that the tyre levers weren’t there, Oh bollocks! I rode back to our motor home hoping that Adam and Steve would still be there and sure enough they were just getting changed when I arrived. ‘Steve, where the bloody hell are my tyre levers’ I said, ‘everything of yours is down in the pits’ he said, ‘you sure because they was in that blue box’ I said. Sure enough the blue box was still in the motor home so I quickly grabbed the levers, picked up a tube from Arthur Johnson’s wife and rode back to the pits to change the offending tube.

Things weren’t great, it was pissing down with rain, there was mud everywhere, the wind seemed to be blowing at 90mph and to top it all we didn’t have any shelter what so ever because we didn’t bring a gazebo with us, not the ideal conditions for maintenance on your bike then in the middle of a race. I just concentrated on trying not to lose anything in the mud like the pinch bolts and valve as I was putting the new tube in. I reckon with the tooing and froing and me having to slow up a bit to get back to the pits in the first place, I must have lost a good 25 mins. Just before I went back out I managed to take a peek at the lap scoring TV and I was still in 3rd.
It was now well over 5 hours into the race and I felt really good and I’d worked out in my head that even if I was to do the laps 10 mins slower as the race went on, I’d be on for at least 13 laps, which would put me right up there. The trouble now was that I’d gone through all my goggles (4 sets) and at least 3 pairs of gloves because of the conditions and I was now riding with nothing covering my eyes. I know we’ve all done that and we’ll probably still do it, but today I got caught out, so more of that later.

On my 6th lap and going great guns I thought it would be a good idea to hit a tree as I was overtaking a slower rider, a broken brake lever was the result but I had a couple of inches of it still left so that was enough for me to use, and I certainly wasn’t going to stop again for anymore maintenance, didn’t have time for that!

I started my 7th lap just as the riders for the 6hr race were gathered at the starting area, so with another 5 mins or so to go, I knew they’d be off and all breathing down my neck soon after. I still felt really good, was still doing the ’extreme’ sections, and was going really well and the only thing that was tired was my clutch finger, so I had to use 2 fingers now instead of one to pull the lever in as I didn’t want it to get any worse and start cramping up. What happened next put me out of the race.

As I riding at a decent pace through the forest on one of the fire tracks, the rain had made a few branches bow over, and it was bloody sods law that I got whip lashed by one when a branch smacked me right in my eyes. I knew instantly I was trouble, I couldn’t see a bloody thing and had to stop. My left eye wouldn’t even open and my right eye was only working about 50%, I thought it would get better so I carried on as best I could, but things went from bad to worse. It got really bad when I couldn’t even see which rut to ride in as everything was blurred, and I had a job crawling along in 1st gear at 5 mph, and with still about 10 miles or so still to go before the end of the lap I wondered if I was going to make it back to the pits.

With the 6hr race now started, it seemed like everyone was flying past me and i was standing still, Adam and Steve both went past me and must have thought I’d run out of energy, but far from it, I couldn’t bloody well see. That lap seemed like an eternity, and with me now in quite a bit of discomfort, and with the rain lashing into my eyes as well, the sight of the pits felt like I’d won the lottery. I went through the timing at 6hrs 56mins, that last lap must have took me an hour.

I quickly dumped the bike down and stumbled off to the medical tent, where 2 of the ambulance guys grabbed me and got me into the ambulance and started to clean my eyes. They called a paramedic in who then started to syringe my eyes with fluid whilst someone else was holding them open because I couldn’t open them myself. Some dye was also put in my left eye to see what damage there was, luckily for me I’d only scratched the lens. It made laugh when the guy said ’look, this is what has come out of your eye mate, a bit of tree’. I think the thing that hurt the most was I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish the bloody race, I was gutted, but also relieved to find out that I didn’t need to go to hospital (even though they were going to send me there).

So after spending about 30 mins or so getting treated, it was back to the van to get changed, race over, simple as that. I went back to the pits and helped the guys out a bit re-fueling and stuff and even contemplated getting back into my sodden riding gear and doing one more lap near the end just to get a finish, but my vision was just to blurred, so just too dangerous to do anything. I’ll tell you what though, after about 2 hrs of not doing anything, I was still in 7th place in the vets class so the lap scoring said, unbelievable! Not a good thing to see that really, just goes to show I must have going a fairly decent pace, and looking at that made me feel even more gutted!
All the lads from Cornwall were still going strong, Arthur Johnson was in 4th place, Hannes Tanzer was an unbelievable 2nd , both of which were doing the 24hr race, Adam was winning the 6hr experts, Steve Jose was in 3rd in the 6hr clubman, and the Jay brothers were in 7th in the 12hr 2 man team. Apart from Adam, that’s how they all ended up at the finish. Adam missed out on winning the experts and 1st overall in the 6hr race on his last lap! We think he must have got overtaken when he made his pit stop just before his last lap while he was in the pits, and he missed out on winning by just 40 seconds! Bloody nora, unlucky or what?
Everyone’s bike had gone through brake pads galore as the slate and rain mixed together just turned into grinding paste, and most of the guys finished with no pads at all and that was after putting new ones in halfway through the race.

There was drama in the Boyle’s camp as well, Dad Pete, riding with his two sons Mike and Chris in the 12hr 3 man team were missing a rider. Chris went out at about 5.30pm to do another lap and still wasn’t back at 7.30. No one knew where he was, so they had to go race control and send out the marshals to go and look for him. Still don’t know what happened there as I’ve not got the update on that as yet. Lets hope everything’s ok on that score. Pete told me that last year they did the 12hr team race and got a DNF because something happened on their very last lap, looks like it might have happened again this year, 2 years running, how unlucky is that?

After everybody getting changed and with the rain still pooring down from the dark gloomy skies (hadn‘t stopped since the morning), it was back up to the marquee through the squelchy mud in the car park, for a bite to eat and to see the presentation. I bumped into Arthur Johnson up there, and after finishing the 24hr race, Arthur told us his own words that he felt like he’d been ‘run over by a bus‘! Just finishing that is one hell of an achievement on your own and he deserves a massive round of applause for doing that.

So after a nights kip we headed home, all a bit ‘cream crackered’ but in good spirits, and as usual Mr Jose had a thousand stories to tell us about what had happened the day before.

A disappointing weekend for me then, but that’s why I write this blog, so I can look back on it and reflect on the highs and lows of it all. Back to the goggle scenario, I know we all do it, We’ve all done it on countless numbers of occasions, ride without them on when the going gets shitty because they get clogged up with mud, but I was very lucky when that branch got me, and that’s the worse I’ve been hit by one in 3 years of racing, I’ve learnt my lesson and from now on even if I have to waste a minute stopping in the pits to put a fresh pair on every bloody lap, that’s what I intend to do. I love racing motorbikes, I keep myself fit, I eat well, the bike gets prepped well before every race, I keep my kit in order, and it’s all of these factors that is the reason why I rarely suffer a DNF, ok I know I’m going the odd one or two, but that’s understandable with the amount of racing I’m doing at the moment and something’s are beyond your control, but take note everybody, because if you ain’t got vision, then you ain’t got nothing.

Finishing position: DNF