End of the year thoughts 2010

This is where I normally look back on what’s gone on in the year regarding my racing, but as you know it’s been almost a complete washout due to the injury. With the 2 races I did do towards the end of year, I was of course pleased to get back on the bike after being out for so long.

Without the racing I still kept myself busy going along to a lot of events and helping out a lot, not only in the pits with the refueling and taking the gear backwards and forwards, but also on the course helping stranded riders and of course putting out the ‘pit board’ to let the boys know what position their in etc etc. Must say I have had a good laugh doing that as when it gets towards the end of the race some of the messages I’ve written on the board has had everybody laughing! Even the riders who’ve read it! I do remember writing on the pit board at Nancemellon ‘’Twist the throttle more’’ and showing it to Francis Banfield as he went by only for him to shout ‘’F*ck off’’ and stick his 2 fingers up at me!! (all taken in good jest of course) I did the same thing at Woolborough Barton to Andy Smith, he laughed so much as he rode by that he nearly ended up planting himself head first into a tree!

There has been plenty of memories that stick in my mind this year, here’s a few:

Jack Twentyman getting out of the van and walking along a dual carriageway while we were stuck in a jam on the way to the Muntjac enduro in Suffolk. Jack thought he could get to the end of the queue of traffic and cadge a lift to the Muntjac and get there quicker by walking. 1 hour later when I finally got going driving Jack’s van, I got to the end of it all and saw Jack, he’d been trying to ‘thumb’ a lift with someone for the last hour and got nowhere! He wasn’t happy I can tell ya.

Adam Blake (who was driving) on the way to the Twin Oaks event, following an ambulance through all the traffic that pulled over to the side of the road to let it pass. This left some very irate drivers fuming as we passed them whilst tucking in right behind it with it’s blue lights flashing. One car driver in particular was ‘obsessed’ with getting us back and getting in front of us again which he did. Not to be outdone Adam then overtook him back! This just fuelled the fire that was raging inside this blokes car and he tried to get us back again for about the next 10 miles! ‘Blakey’ wasn’t having none of it and managed to hold him off until we both went our separate ways at a roundabout.

Christian Soanes at Hustyns eating a home cooked pre race pasta dish that resembled a bowl of ‘mashed up cold corrugated cardboard’, it looked and smelt so bad I took a picture of it and stuck it on the blog!

Jack Twentyman again, this time not content with walking the special test once at the Muntjac just before dusk, he went out and did it again in the dark and the pissing rain, he didn’t even have a torch with him!

After having a cortisone injection I decided to do a bit of marshaling at the ‘Brass monkeys’ enduro. After helping a beginner get back to the pits by following him to make sure he was alright because he was struggling a lot, about a mile from the end of the lap he came off right in front of me which in turn caused me to tear my tendon in my elbow again to stop myself hitting the deck. Nightmare!

A few Camel Vale members looking like death whilst doing the 24 hr race at the ’Dawn to Dusk’ in Wales. Arthur Johnson could hardly put his leg over the bike towards the end but still went on to complete it. I did here him mutter the words in true Steve Redgrave fashion ’’I never want to go near this place again’’, yeah is that right? We’ll see what happens next year Arthur!

The look on Steve Jose’s face when Steve Jay (who was in the same 2 man team) was miles behind and late getting back to the pits in order to make the ‘change over’. Not surprising really as Mr Jay had suffered a puncture in the front and the back tyre on the same 12 mile lap and literally had to crawl back to the pits. Inside Steve Jose’s helmet was a raging inferno as minute by minute went by with no sign of the other Steve, it got to the stage where I nearly called the fire brigade in readiness to help put out the volcano that was about to explode inside his helmet. He wasn’t happy!!

Dawn to Dusk again, Steve Jay, Richard Jay and Scott Johnson suffering an incredible 12 punctures between them, or was it 13? Amazing that was, just watching the guys coming back lap after lap with yet another flat.

The burger van at I think it was at the Idless woods race packing up and leaving just as the race had finished. Excuse me, hello, are you from this planet? There’s about a 100 hungry riders here that may just want something to eat.

‘Mad’ Jack again. Went up to an ORE event with Adam Blake and Jack. ‘Mad’ Jack was walking around like a 90 yr old with a bad case of piles (well that’s what I imagine they look like) after over exerting himself into a near state of total exhaustion after he finished the race. Not only being able to hardly put one foot in front of the other, we had to stop on the hard shoulder of the motorway on the way home in order for him to test his gagging reflex and throw up!

The huge ’thud’ on the ground measuring 6.2 on the richtor scale when Steve Jose had a huge ’off’ right in front of me at the ‘Grogley Christmas cracker‘ event.
The earth moved and this made my bike go into an uncontrollable wobble until I managed to correct it and come to a stop. Not only that, the tremor from Steve’s weight hitting the ground was felt by the HMS Nautical submarine that was conducting it’s sea trials way out in the Atlantic ocean.

And so to next year……………………….

The situation as it stands is that the elbow is not completely cured and to be honest I don’t know either if it will be without the operation that it needs. I have explained earlier this year about the pitfalls of going under the knife, and if I want to continue racing then that simply isn’t an option. It is a lot better than it was, but I never know what’s going to happen when I wake up in the morning, sometimes I still get pain in it and it hurts to move it, sometimes I don’t. The couple of races I have done have been ok and it’s only afterwards that the bloody thing kills me! The problem I have is it if I were to overstretch the tendon again I think it could be curtains, unless I can find a miracle cure, and believe me, I’ve tried almost everything to try and heal the bloody thing.

It’s been really hard just watching all the racing this year, and although I’ve seen some great action and had a good laugh as well as making many new friends, it’s simply not the same as riding a motorbike. In 2009 I done a hell of a lot of riding and reached a reasonable standard, so I know it’s going to be a hard road back to move on and do better than that, but I’m no quitter and I’ve had some injuries in other sports along the way which have kept me out for long periods and I’ve always managed to get back to where I was and be better. So on that note, I’ll see you all in 2011 where I’ll be hoping to do a full season.

Happy new year to you all………………………………............

TMX news Xmas edition

The christmas edition of the TMX news came as a bit of a suprise to me as in the Enduro section (page 53) there's a pic of yours truly from the recent 'Grogley' race.

Grogley christmas cracker- 12th December 2010

(pic Sue Pitman)

Photo's of this event can be found here:

www.photoboxgallery.com/suesbikesnaps

A nice local event and just 10 mins up the road from me which is always handy, especially in the winter months! Today’s race was an entirely different kettle of fish for me as I was riding in fancy dress and hoping to raise a bit of money for the Cornwall Air ambulance. Even in my short space of time racing motorbikes I’ve seen the air ambulance being called into action a few times to help injured riders, so I thought that would be a worthy cause to ride for.

Well what a cracking sight it was as I drove up the hill in the van to arrive at the parking area in the darkened sky at around 7am. The Camel Vale club had Christmas lights hanging from the trees, a stereo sounding out festive corals and a decorated Christmas tree thrown in for good measure! Just as the sun came up, then one by one everyone started to arrive and with me holding my bucket, I went off and visited every riders van or trailer and asked for a donation for the charity. Everybody I visited was only too pleased to throw in some loose change and with me having a chat with every bugger as well, it took me bloody ages and I didn’t have much time in the end in order to get changed and get to the start. Even the bloke from the burger van who was serving stopped me as I walked past and threw in some money! Tony Dinham almost pulled my arm off and couldn’t wait to throw some money in the bucket as he told me he’d used the air ambulance 3 times when he was riding at the top level of racing after crashing and getting injured a few years back!

It really was a great atmosphere with just about every local rider in attendance and far too many to mention. Hannes Tanzer came by the van with box of Stella’s and gave us a couple of bottles (didn’t drink um before racing I might add!), and those riders who didn’t have any change for the bucket when I saw them came back after a visit to the burger van and lopped some money in. So, with a quick change into the outfit, it was off to the start where Mike Roose was waiting there to give a riders briefing. As always with this event something a little different was in store as we all had to line up (without our bikes) wait for the hooter to sound, run and jump over a couple of fallen trees, then go under some trees and run round a corner before we could fire up our bikes and go!

By the time I started I was probably about mid pack (not easy running to the bike with a father xmas outfit on I must say) and even though I was supposed to be riding for a bit of fun, I got into the mode of racing which didn’t do me favours as I soon found out. After about 10 mins I came off on a tree root and dumped the bike on the floor, I thought to myself ‘what the bloody hell you doing? You’re supposed to be doing this for charity and having a bit of fun and not trying to prove anything’, so I got back on and took my own advice and slowed down a bit without risking anything. Shame Steve Jose didn’t listen to my advice because shortly after he came flying by me (literally) only to catapult into the air after hitting a tree stump and landing about 30 ft away from where he took off with an almighty THUD. This happened right in front of and to be honest I thought something serious had happened, it didn’t look too good. I quickly got off and for once Steve was speechless! (that makes a pleasant change) The only thing that could be heard was a slight groan with the words ‘f*ucking hell that hurt! I directed all the riders past so no bugger ran into him while Steve crawled to one side of the track and propped himself up against a tree. Luckily after about 10 mins or so he was able to make his way back to the pits albeit a little sore and take a breather. He later re joined the race and managed to finish.

The course itself was a cracker, quite rooty and soft in places with some lovely flowing woodland tracks and lovely hills, one of which tested you a bit as it was as slimy as hell and very steep which we had to ride down. On the first couple of laps there was a bit of traffic jam on this one as nearly all the riders were tip toeing their way down there very cautiously. A few long fire roads to open the bikes up a bit were included as well as the famous ‘whoop’ section which was like riding a rocking horse over a road of ten pin bowling balls, extremely bumpy and an ideal part of the course to give yourself a 'tank slapper' if you were unfortunate enough to cop one!

Every lap I did I was cheered on by a few spectators as I was making my way round the course in the Father Christmas outfit, I even stopped a few times and had a chat with some of them and had a good laugh. Unfortunately at about half way through the race my fancy dress began to show signs of doing an enduro, especially the trousers, and soon after the material on one of the legs got caught in the chain and within a flash my trousers were ripped off of me and proceeded to tangle round the back wheel. Oh well, never mind the whole costume was only a tenner from eBay! As for the beard I was wearing, what a nightmare to wear that is, bloody hell that thing seriously makes you hot No wonder you don’t see many enduro riders with massive amounts of ‘moss’ growing on their faces!!

For the last couple of laps I rode round with Phil ‘smiler’ Harris until the flag came out for the finish. Today I set out to do a race and raise some money for a worthy cause and in fancy dress. Glad to say that everything turned out exactly the way I planned it, a cracking day!

Many thanks to all who donated on Sunday, a total of £100.77 was raised. Further details of the monies collected today and also with sponsorship forms that have been completed, will be on the blog within the next couple of weeks when I shall be visiting the Cornwall Air ambulance in person and presenting them with the funds that have been raised.

All set for Grogley!

This coming weekend (12th Dec) i've entered the 'Grogley xmas cracker, always a top pre christmas event with a great festive atmosphere to it coupled with a decent course. Just for a change i've decided to ride for charity in aid of the Cornwall Air Ambulance, a very worthwhile cause indeed and over my years of racing i've seen a few riders that have needed the services of it so it'll be great to try and help them out in some way.

With the race being a non championship event and only one class in the ironman (champ,expert,clubman, o 40's, etc, mixed in together) there's not much pressure to do well so i'm just gonna take my 'strimmer' out for a blast and have a good time and a bit of fun as i'm doing the thing in fancy dress!

Bovington- 28th November 2010

The current freezing weather conditions all across the UK didn’t deter the most hardened of riders traveling up the SCEC event in Dorset. Although I wanted to do an event this month, it hasn’t turned out to be, but with a very good champ class lined up for this race, I decided to go up and give Adam (Blake) a helping hand and watch a top class hare & hounds at the same time.

Remnance to that of a Siberian winter (that’s what it felt like) greeted us as we arrived and got parked up. I thought I recognized the race hardened big green wagon we pulled up next to and sure enough it was Michaels Brooks. Hadn’t seen him for a while so had a good old natter before checking out a bit of the course with Adam to see which bits were frozen! To be honest the track looked excellent and half the course was basically in a huge sand bowl with undulating terrain, not too dissimilar to an old school scrambling track and with a water crossing for good measure. The rest of the course that went through the woods I couldn’t get too as it was riders only due to security reasons and it being off limits to anyone on foot. With this being MOD land I didn’t want to get ‘court marshaled’ so I stayed round the sand bowl area, good enough anyway because it had some great vantage points.

Gary ‘nothing gets in my way’ Mcoy came over for a chat and told us all about his Erzberg entry for next year and how he got in ‘through the back door‘, Phil Studley also made the trip up and I also bumped into Rob Thorn , Pete Lawry and the Scott’s. So with me wearing a thick jacket, 3 jumpers, 2 pairs of trousers, 2 pairs of socks, gloves, scarf and a hat, feeling like the ‘Michelin man’ I went off to watch all the action.

One rider left on the line because his 4 banger wouldn’t fire up decided to push it and try and bump it down the 1st hill just after the start, he still didn’t have any luck and after kicking the thing until exhaustion I decided to help him push it back up the hill and back on the flat so he could go back to the pits and get it sorted. Tell you what……. humping a KX450f up a sandy hill certainly warms you up!

So with the racing thick and fast due to a full entry and about 12/13 mins a lap for the top riders, it was a good race to watch. Just over the half way mark I went and help Adam to pit and even at this stage I had to do his fuel cap up because he just couldn’t feel his hands due to the cold! I had the same bloody problem with my feet! While I was I there I had a good chat with the guy from ‘In Chains’ who are a TM main dealer, um………………still tempted by the sky blue bikes I am!

For the last hour the field noticeably began to thin out with a few retirements being the order of the day because of the cold. Adam began to struggle and lost a bit of time on every lap and with about 10 mins of the race left, and after having a crash due to not being able to grip properly with frozen hands, decided enough was enough and called it a day.
A good day out with some top racing and well worth the frost bite on my toes!

Camel Vale mcc presentation evening.

No pictures, aaaaaargh! i forgot my camera!

A good night was had by all and i even managed to pick up something on the night in the only race i did this year!

Adam Blake arrived wearing shorts!

Steve Jose (after only just fitting his head through the door) revealed after a few drinks that he buys 10 pairs of underpants for 2 quid! Don't really know how that conversation came about but it's a good job we didn't ask to see him wearing them!

Mike Roose was the compare for the evening and did a credible job whilst 'breaking his new teeth in' over the microphone.

Mark and Rich Tucker couldn't get out of the village where they live because of being snowed in so never made it.

Francis Banfield wore a t-shirt that fitted!

And i did a gig at the end and done something useful for a change and showed everyone just how easy it is to play the guitar!