Otis243
27th September 2005, 13:07
I am still in the UK but looking forward to arriving in NZ which, fingers crossed, should happen in about 6 months. One of the things I will miss from the UK will undoubtedly be going racing with my mates, although I am looking forward to entering some enduros and cross country events over there
Below is a write up of a typical 4 hour hare & hounds enduro (cross-country) event from last weekend. (We try to do at least one of these a month) :
CHEC - MOOR FARM 18-09-05
We had put entries in for the Hampshire Police 3 stage trial at Slab common for the 18th but received a letter on 13th stating that it had been cancelled. So a quick call to see if there were any spaces left in the CHEC event nr High Wycombe and fired some last minute regs in, to scrape in numbers 223, 224 and 225. Not quite last but starting on the last minute. I leave home at 7am picking up Kevin at 7.30 and Pete at 7.45. Pete isn’t too happy as he was up at 6am changing tyres etc. and We still have to sort out his fuel water & food etc. on route as well as his numbers and loose front wheel before signing on. Bob has come along to watch and keep an eye on Tim & Harry, the younger supporters (both 9), and they will no doubt drive him mad as they had found an air horn to carry around with them today ! :laugh: I say a quick hello to Rich C. & Ian P. before the start and then queued for 20 odd minutes waiting for the other 220 riders to start. The best bit of starting after 220 others is that the course is obvious so making a wrong turn is unlikely but you do tend to get caught up behind allot of slower riders!... and teh first lap is certainly a bit congested!
The start was around a stubble field and into some woods. The woods were wetter than I expected and we were soon upon a little obstacle with some small trees and branches across the track that were catching a few riders out. We continue in and out of the woods and out into a couple more stubble fields. These involved long open and very fast thrashes which saw the front wheel go very light. At one point it clawed the sky at an insane angle and speed (for me) – must have looked impressive but worried the hell out of me! :sweatdrop When I got both wheels back on the ground I shifted forward on the seat a bit more PDQ !!! After short blat around teh edge of the first field it was through the hedge and into a bigger field. At the end there was a 90 degree fast corner, then through another hedge and another 90 degree corner so that the next field over it was back the way we had come. After another small fields it was back into more woods and through the water splash! 20 or 30 yards of 1 foot deep muddy slop! Unfortunately it did splash a bit too much and I spent the rest of the lap with soggy brown gloves :( We carry on through familiar woods (from the Moor Farm event earlier in the year) and then out into the steep but off camber grassy hill. Straight up to the top, quite easy but necessitates a down shift part way up then we are traversing the hill aiming for the bottom of the hill further along. I tell myself to weight the downside peg but still drift below the ideal line. This takes me into some bushy stumps which make the bike buck up and down and push me further off the ideal line. Must have looked very undignified, but who cares? And I carry on, making a mental note to get that right next lap, and then its back up and down the hill and back into more woods.
After a while we come onto a lovely long tree lined track with a couple of sloppy puddles. Determined not to get covered in the slop again I slow a bit for them, only to be slapped across the safety glasses (in preference to goggles today) by some very wet and muddy foliage just above the puddles – now all I can see is brown blur :slap: We carry on though the bomb hole (@ 20 foot vertical drop in and an immediate vertical climb out. It looks intimidating to the novices but is a bit of a non-event… then immediately turn left by the tree so thoughtfully growing directly in line with the exit of the hole. This turn is so close that to jump out of the hole will put you right off course, which means you have to exit the hole slower than in the past. This, in turn, takes a bit of the fun out of the obstacle. Anyway, I note that someone behind me takes the chicken route to the left of the bomb hole and rejoins the track ahead of me, so on later laps I experiment with both routes trying to see which is quicker for me. After yet more woods we come out by the last field then along the sealed farm road to the lap scorers. I have to take care joining this road as it is covered in mud from the field and has the back of the bike sliding all over the place. It would be easy to low side here and on one of my laps the tyre grips giving me a mini high-side moment. Thankfully not spitting me off !
A great course, about 6.5 miles long and @ 20 mins a lap at my pace, but perhaps a little too much flat out open stuff for my liking, but that’s OK…. Well until all the big 4 strokes come past me in the open fields. My Gasser has no answer to this, especially one KTM525 which comes past me as if I am stationary rather than flat out in top!!!
Over the next couple of laps I get frustrated by a couple of the travelling marshals. Two, travelling together, are stopped at the end of the big stubble fields but dart in front of me just as I am headed into the woods and I have to slow down and follow them for a bit. Very frustrating! A marshal on a TM is quite quick and he comes past me on 3 or 4 occasions throughout the day.
My lap times improve throughout the morning and after 2 hours and 6 laps I come in for lunch, quite happy with the performance. I have had a couple of good battles with people and ready for a cup of tea! Pete and Kevin are both happy having completed 5 laps a piece. I managed to lap Kevin just before the end but I didn’t quite catch Pete up as he had stopped for the lunch break about 8 mins before I came in.
We start the afternoon session in reverse and waiting for my time I have a chat with Mel (a journalist from TBM magazine) and wish her luck for the afternoon session. She had been riding a KTM125 in the morning but had swapped to a WR250 for the afternoon. My good wishes prove a kiss of death for her as she is forced to retire during her first lap; stopping to help a fallen rider she fell over and twisted her knee.
Those of us on the back row (22nd row of 10) eventually start as the first few riders are completing their first lap which makes things interesting! I soon catch up with Mel and follow her through the bomb hole before getting past and onwards. I am not sure I like the course as much this way but it has the benefit of feeling like a completely different ride. After a while another Gas Gas 300 comes past me and I think it is Ian P. There is no way I can let that happen !!! :eek5: :laugh: and it spurs me on to not let him get away! I keep up for almost a lap but this guy is overtaking everyone in sight with ease. I make similar moves trying to keep up but am not as good at passing people and after one red mist type manoeuvre am less than proud of (I do apologise !!!!) I ease up a bit. Immediately after that I get stuck behind a sidecar and the other Gas Gas, now 3 bikes and one sidecar ahead gets away, not to be seen again. I tell myself that it couldn’t have been Ian P as we have ridden closely together at previous CHEC events and at the Welsh 2 day and I have always reeled him in and got ahead in the past. Surely, he cannot have found that much extra speed over the last 2 months !?
After 5 laps I stop at the lap counters but still have 19 minutes left so head on out for a 6th. This isn’t so easy as everyone is packing up and spectators are walking back along the road, but I get on my way, trying to ride smoothly I was congratulating myself for not having fallen off all day when jumping out of the bomb hole the back end decided to overtake the front end on landing for an ass meets grass moment ! :slap: Still I hang onto the clutch lever and kept the engine running, spin her around to face the right way again and was on my way. I didn’t see another bike on that last lap which was quite surreal. I came out of the last woods and darted around the field to the lap scorers to see Wayne grinning and pointing at his watch. I called him over and pointed to mine that was showing 2.00, saying "I was the last away" so we had a laugh about that and a general chat about the course and what a great day everyone had had. Well done and thanks to Wayne and all those who make these events happen!!!
I get back to the car to see Kevin already changed. Fortunately he hadn’t retired early but had finished with @ 20 mins left. As he had been doing 24 min laps he chose to finish within time and not pick up any penalties for being over time. Consequently he had had time to change before I got there. He had done 4 in the afternoon and was just a couple of mins short of being able to make that 5. Pete was also back at the car. He had done 5 laps but had had to stop for a couple of minutes rest on his 8th lap suffering with cramp.
We load the bikes and kit up have a cup of tea from the van before setting off for home. After the usual long journey, dropping the others off then sorting out the trailer, bike and kit, I eventually get indoors, knackered at @ 8.30pm having raced for 4 hours and driven for 5. A long and tiring day! So I deserve a beer :apint: with my supper before a shower and bed!
True to form late the following evening the results are posted on the CHEC web site. Excellent! - out of 221 starters we have come in 87th, 62nd and 18th. I am really pleased for Kevin with his first finish in only his 3rd race and in the top 40% too! I am also really pleased with my result, and we are all looking forward to the next event, Surrey Police 3 stage trial on 9th October.
Below is a write up of a typical 4 hour hare & hounds enduro (cross-country) event from last weekend. (We try to do at least one of these a month) :
CHEC - MOOR FARM 18-09-05
We had put entries in for the Hampshire Police 3 stage trial at Slab common for the 18th but received a letter on 13th stating that it had been cancelled. So a quick call to see if there were any spaces left in the CHEC event nr High Wycombe and fired some last minute regs in, to scrape in numbers 223, 224 and 225. Not quite last but starting on the last minute. I leave home at 7am picking up Kevin at 7.30 and Pete at 7.45. Pete isn’t too happy as he was up at 6am changing tyres etc. and We still have to sort out his fuel water & food etc. on route as well as his numbers and loose front wheel before signing on. Bob has come along to watch and keep an eye on Tim & Harry, the younger supporters (both 9), and they will no doubt drive him mad as they had found an air horn to carry around with them today ! :laugh: I say a quick hello to Rich C. & Ian P. before the start and then queued for 20 odd minutes waiting for the other 220 riders to start. The best bit of starting after 220 others is that the course is obvious so making a wrong turn is unlikely but you do tend to get caught up behind allot of slower riders!... and teh first lap is certainly a bit congested!
The start was around a stubble field and into some woods. The woods were wetter than I expected and we were soon upon a little obstacle with some small trees and branches across the track that were catching a few riders out. We continue in and out of the woods and out into a couple more stubble fields. These involved long open and very fast thrashes which saw the front wheel go very light. At one point it clawed the sky at an insane angle and speed (for me) – must have looked impressive but worried the hell out of me! :sweatdrop When I got both wheels back on the ground I shifted forward on the seat a bit more PDQ !!! After short blat around teh edge of the first field it was through the hedge and into a bigger field. At the end there was a 90 degree fast corner, then through another hedge and another 90 degree corner so that the next field over it was back the way we had come. After another small fields it was back into more woods and through the water splash! 20 or 30 yards of 1 foot deep muddy slop! Unfortunately it did splash a bit too much and I spent the rest of the lap with soggy brown gloves :( We carry on through familiar woods (from the Moor Farm event earlier in the year) and then out into the steep but off camber grassy hill. Straight up to the top, quite easy but necessitates a down shift part way up then we are traversing the hill aiming for the bottom of the hill further along. I tell myself to weight the downside peg but still drift below the ideal line. This takes me into some bushy stumps which make the bike buck up and down and push me further off the ideal line. Must have looked very undignified, but who cares? And I carry on, making a mental note to get that right next lap, and then its back up and down the hill and back into more woods.
After a while we come onto a lovely long tree lined track with a couple of sloppy puddles. Determined not to get covered in the slop again I slow a bit for them, only to be slapped across the safety glasses (in preference to goggles today) by some very wet and muddy foliage just above the puddles – now all I can see is brown blur :slap: We carry on though the bomb hole (@ 20 foot vertical drop in and an immediate vertical climb out. It looks intimidating to the novices but is a bit of a non-event… then immediately turn left by the tree so thoughtfully growing directly in line with the exit of the hole. This turn is so close that to jump out of the hole will put you right off course, which means you have to exit the hole slower than in the past. This, in turn, takes a bit of the fun out of the obstacle. Anyway, I note that someone behind me takes the chicken route to the left of the bomb hole and rejoins the track ahead of me, so on later laps I experiment with both routes trying to see which is quicker for me. After yet more woods we come out by the last field then along the sealed farm road to the lap scorers. I have to take care joining this road as it is covered in mud from the field and has the back of the bike sliding all over the place. It would be easy to low side here and on one of my laps the tyre grips giving me a mini high-side moment. Thankfully not spitting me off !
A great course, about 6.5 miles long and @ 20 mins a lap at my pace, but perhaps a little too much flat out open stuff for my liking, but that’s OK…. Well until all the big 4 strokes come past me in the open fields. My Gasser has no answer to this, especially one KTM525 which comes past me as if I am stationary rather than flat out in top!!!
Over the next couple of laps I get frustrated by a couple of the travelling marshals. Two, travelling together, are stopped at the end of the big stubble fields but dart in front of me just as I am headed into the woods and I have to slow down and follow them for a bit. Very frustrating! A marshal on a TM is quite quick and he comes past me on 3 or 4 occasions throughout the day.
My lap times improve throughout the morning and after 2 hours and 6 laps I come in for lunch, quite happy with the performance. I have had a couple of good battles with people and ready for a cup of tea! Pete and Kevin are both happy having completed 5 laps a piece. I managed to lap Kevin just before the end but I didn’t quite catch Pete up as he had stopped for the lunch break about 8 mins before I came in.
We start the afternoon session in reverse and waiting for my time I have a chat with Mel (a journalist from TBM magazine) and wish her luck for the afternoon session. She had been riding a KTM125 in the morning but had swapped to a WR250 for the afternoon. My good wishes prove a kiss of death for her as she is forced to retire during her first lap; stopping to help a fallen rider she fell over and twisted her knee.
Those of us on the back row (22nd row of 10) eventually start as the first few riders are completing their first lap which makes things interesting! I soon catch up with Mel and follow her through the bomb hole before getting past and onwards. I am not sure I like the course as much this way but it has the benefit of feeling like a completely different ride. After a while another Gas Gas 300 comes past me and I think it is Ian P. There is no way I can let that happen !!! :eek5: :laugh: and it spurs me on to not let him get away! I keep up for almost a lap but this guy is overtaking everyone in sight with ease. I make similar moves trying to keep up but am not as good at passing people and after one red mist type manoeuvre am less than proud of (I do apologise !!!!) I ease up a bit. Immediately after that I get stuck behind a sidecar and the other Gas Gas, now 3 bikes and one sidecar ahead gets away, not to be seen again. I tell myself that it couldn’t have been Ian P as we have ridden closely together at previous CHEC events and at the Welsh 2 day and I have always reeled him in and got ahead in the past. Surely, he cannot have found that much extra speed over the last 2 months !?
After 5 laps I stop at the lap counters but still have 19 minutes left so head on out for a 6th. This isn’t so easy as everyone is packing up and spectators are walking back along the road, but I get on my way, trying to ride smoothly I was congratulating myself for not having fallen off all day when jumping out of the bomb hole the back end decided to overtake the front end on landing for an ass meets grass moment ! :slap: Still I hang onto the clutch lever and kept the engine running, spin her around to face the right way again and was on my way. I didn’t see another bike on that last lap which was quite surreal. I came out of the last woods and darted around the field to the lap scorers to see Wayne grinning and pointing at his watch. I called him over and pointed to mine that was showing 2.00, saying "I was the last away" so we had a laugh about that and a general chat about the course and what a great day everyone had had. Well done and thanks to Wayne and all those who make these events happen!!!
I get back to the car to see Kevin already changed. Fortunately he hadn’t retired early but had finished with @ 20 mins left. As he had been doing 24 min laps he chose to finish within time and not pick up any penalties for being over time. Consequently he had had time to change before I got there. He had done 4 in the afternoon and was just a couple of mins short of being able to make that 5. Pete was also back at the car. He had done 5 laps but had had to stop for a couple of minutes rest on his 8th lap suffering with cramp.
We load the bikes and kit up have a cup of tea from the van before setting off for home. After the usual long journey, dropping the others off then sorting out the trailer, bike and kit, I eventually get indoors, knackered at @ 8.30pm having raced for 4 hours and driven for 5. A long and tiring day! So I deserve a beer :apint: with my supper before a shower and bed!
True to form late the following evening the results are posted on the CHEC web site. Excellent! - out of 221 starters we have come in 87th, 62nd and 18th. I am really pleased for Kevin with his first finish in only his 3rd race and in the top 40% too! I am also really pleased with my result, and we are all looking forward to the next event, Surrey Police 3 stage trial on 9th October.