After competing in this event last year I had one goal this year and that was to better my time from last year even though this year I was riding a bike 4x smaller than last year I was pretty confident that I could. And although I spent Thurs night "shit talking" at the pub my real goal was to try and stay within 5 seconds of the slowest of Weaver, Quallman or Sully. All 3 riders are experienced and alot faster than me so I thought that was realistic. I must mention here that Sully and Qualman were riding RG150's along with me and Weaver on a 250...
Saturday was perfect for riding so out I went on the sighting lap. I was really concerned as my bike felt awful, everytime i went round a corner it felt like the handlebars wanted to fight back? So I got malcolm to take it out to see if it was in my head or if it was the bike. Turned out to be a bit of both but more likely was that I had just put a brand new tyre on it that was slightly smaller and my last tyre was fucked. Malcolm reckoned it felt fine "at speed" and I would be fine to ride it. He was right and I opened up the throttle and had a blast. Turned out my first run was faster on the RG than my best run on the 750 last year, lol! Anyway we got three runs in and by the end of the day my best time was a 310.003. As it turned out (thanks to the fact that the guy's were having bike issue's) I had gone faster than the other 2 RG 150's that day. So I got pissed in record time (even for me) and began to rub it in there faces a bit too much, I should've seen the big dose of karma I was about to receive the next day...
Sat night I got really trashed, threatened some children and abused some other people then went to bed, had a great sleep...
Sunday, it was hot. I didnt go out in the sighting lap and decided that I would just stick my head down and go hard on the first run. I had one goal and that was to get a 3.10 flat or better. I got a great start opened the throttle and did my best not to close it until the cliffhanger. When I did I heard this weird noise, not the normal, "hey im gonna blow up now" something different, something ugly and I could smell something.... anyway I thought NO, and just opened the throttle and the bike kept going. I stuck my head down but the bike was not happy, I wanted to finish and I did but as I went over the finish line I heard this terrible grinding and when I got to the top my gearbox blew its guts all over the road... Doug Fairbrother took me back to the bottom on the back of his Triumph Bonneville, fuck I would love to ride that thing, it had some wicked grunt!
As we were going down I see poor ol Sullybeing pushed down the hill. Turns out the RG he was riding spat the dummy and the engine went BANG! So that left Kyle to represent and he was flying out there and had now broken the 3 min mark. I think he felt a little left out that his bike was running fine so he chucked his RG away down cliffhanger corner, so stoked you're OK dude! Anyway was still able to represent with his last time and took out 2nd in Streetstock, against 3 other 250's. Congrats also to Weaver for his 1st placing in streetstock. Weaver was doing some mad times on his 250 and at times was faster than the 400's! Congrats dude, some awesome riding!
Congrats also to everyone else that went out there. Also, must mention Number One, good on you for getting out there and riding so well, bring on next year eh, you were not too far off the pace at all!!
Bring on next year, but word of advice, leave your RG150's at home. This years event should have been called "Cliffhanger Presents: The Hillclimb RG150 Graveyard" as it systematically took us out, one at a time.... All that aside, I had a great time and am hoping to have a different bike to try it on next year.
Thanks all.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by DingoZ
... was a huge relief to hear that it was only the bike that went over the edge.
proud of ya!
Bookmarks