The Night Before The Assault

Off to foreign climes, Wales to be exact for a new event Llangollen Classic Enduro. The organiser tells me on the phone it will be more of a proper enduro, longer than our Hare & Hounds type events.After a 2 hour drive me and Mark (faithful pitman) pull in to the campsite the night before.Behind us is a great big cliff and in front a similarly imposing hill except this has a track marked out on it.Ummm.. We pitch tents and get chatting to a top fella in his 60s with a 250 twin engined Greeves.He's walked the course already and we inform we're about to do likewise,with a beer. "I'll think you'll need about three,lads!". He's right. We get trekking and it goes up;and up, a tight awkward corner,up some more a slippery climbing corner and yes, up some more.We're outta breath and have to stop for a sit and a smoke.We've done about a tenth of the track,Jesus.Hereafter it gets slightly easier til we get round to new terrain,open moorland.Nice and flat but boggy in places.Then it's on to shale strewn farm tracks which lead round to what became termed "The Escalator". Imagine standing at the top of one in the Tube only incorporating bumps and mud.Then just as you're plummetting to your doom more slippery shale and BIG trees to pile into at the bottom. I crack another beer. Mark finds his ultimate ornament,a horse skull which he duly stuffs in his pack, it probably slid down that descent and broke it's neck! From there on it's through the woods,this course doesn't lack in variation I'll say that.A short blast across a field and then it 45 degree off camber along the side of the hill,very tricky. We've had some beers and stopped a bit but it's took us TWO HOURS to walk it.
Return to the tents and guzzle more beer,plenty of others doing the same except we keep going later and later. The conversation turns to dogs in space, at which point I decide it's really time to call it a night.It's a quarter to One,and I'm racing tomorrow,bugger.Still, I cannot sleep, the rain and my doubts are keeping me awake.Will the bike have the power even for the first hill,more to the point,will I?