Well a local event just up the road about 10 miles away, nice one! This was held by a club that have only just started up this year CEB ATV (I think that’s right!) and they hold a quad race in the morning and a solo event in the afternoon. A good local crop of riders were present, hold on, in fact, 99% of the local riders seemed to be present and it was constant ‘alright mate’ to just about everybody I set my eyes on as I got signed on. The weather was warm and by all accounts from what had been said it wasn’t a bad course either with a mixture of woods and fields. Anyway, whilst the quads were finishing their race I got myself off to the scrutineer to get the bike checked. A nightmare ensued as it failed! What the f*ck! And to be honest the guy was right as my back brake decided not to work completely!
So after a little tinker around (Thanks to John Robinson who very kindly lifted my bike up for me in order we could balance the thing on a couple of jerry cans and then lifted the thing in the air so I could get the back wheel out) it was best to bleed the system as a few ideas floating around thought that I might have air in the system. Off up the field I went to Jed Treleaven’s van ( Son of Mr Gasser himself) to see if he could help a bit, but bleeding wasn’t any good and with the sighting lap approaching fast I had to leg it back down to the van as all the other riders were down at the start line. I was still in my civvies and not even changed yet and I still hadn’t past the scrutineer because I hadn’t got my brake working. The guy that checked my bike (scrutineer) came up and suggested that I tried moving the ride height of the pedal? So it was out with the tool box and off with the pedal to adjust to screw to see if that done any good. It had improved but it needed more, so yet again it was off with the pedal and down with the screw, but by this time the riders were on their sighting lap and I still hadn’t got changed! So it was fingers crossed as I tried the brake again, and bingo, she was good! With the riders now back from their lap I literally had a couple of minutes to get changed, dump my stuff in the pits, get the bike checked, and get down to the start line.
Phew! Just made it, was sat there for 5 mins next to Adam Blake on the line, and then we were off. With only 7 of us entered in the experts it wasn’t hard to get a bad start! Anyway, I think I was about 5th as we made our way across a field and into a wooded section which had a nasty little drop in it that was about 10ft high, near vertical, and as you went down it you plunged straight into the muddy water that I presume was some sort of small brook running through the woods. It was then out the other side up the rutted muddy bank along a few more fields, into another little woods, a couple more fields, more woods, more fields then back to the lap scoring. Nothing really tricky but some of the course was very slippery and just one blip of the throttle at the wrong time, and you’d be on your arse! I reckon the length of the track was about 4 miles, so quite a lot of laps in the 2 ½ hour allotted time.
Obviously with a few fields involved I was wringing the strimmers neck for all it’s worth, but nevertheless I was going alright and so was the bike and definitely not losing any ground against the bigger bikes. Everything went smoothly and I pitted at about the hour and half mark and went back out again not really knowing where I was because at this stage there just seemed to be traffic everywhere as you were racing against what seemed to be like every bugger, short course, lots of riders equals traffic! With about 30 mins left and coming round to that drop off that went down into the water, I saw a bike that had up ended itself and there were 2 marshals there trying to pick the thing up and get it back up the right way and push it out of the way. I had to look twice as it Tim Williams who’d gone over the bars and got himself in a right old tiswas.
I was on my last lap when I had one of those stupid little ‘offs’ just before a little climb, bloody annoying as I was just thinking to myself that I’d hadn’t dropped the bike so far today. When I got back on the bike I saw red and went off charging off like a bull in a china shop back to the finish line only to clip a tree and cut my index finger open, ouch! I knew straight away it wasn’t that good as I could feel the warm blood oozing through my glove.
When I got back to the van it was plain to see that I’d have to go and get the cut cleaned up in the ambulance, off I went then, and when I stepped in it, it happened to be the same paramedics that had treated me down at the Nancemellon race, And they remembered me as well! Small world eh?
Not my day at all I’m afraid because when I got the bike back home it sprung to light that one of my bearings in the back wheel had completely disintegrated. The ball bearings had gone inside the hub and had been rolling around for most of the race around the spacer that lies inside. Like a washing machine on fast spin, this had gouged grooves into the spacer (see pic) and it also made the bearing case seize against the hub! Lucky there not more damage was done then. So quite an eventful day then, I’ve certainly had better!
Finishing position: 5/7 (Experts)
