2010 Resolutions

Ah, 2009 an excellent vintage .Great racing, fun times,some riding improvement and two ace holidays both involving bikes. Stagnation is the roadblock on the road to happy times, therefore we must always keep moving and learning. At the start of '09 I wanted to be able to totally rebuild engines, rewind stator coils and install my lathe to start turning small items. All 3 achieved although it must be said not without major setbacks, mistakes are nothing to be ashamed of, I learnt a helluva lot.
This year's plan(and here it is in print....!) is to move into some Twinshock MX racing (been coming awhile) on the RM, modify the van to carry 2 bikes, make a start on the TM125 (1974) and get the XL125 ready for some adventures on the road/green lanes. Hopefully will sell the Fantic 200 as I don't need 2 trials bikes I didn't ride ONE trial last year,now that must change. The usual workshop stuff too, waterproof the roof and get some more lighting in.
Oh the XL125 well yes,er,another Newark autojumble purchase (see previous impulses..) OK I know it doesn't have an engine,or tank,or panels - merely details. It has a no. plate and on the white paper on seat the magic numbers 2 , 5 and a £ sign. It now has a tank,panels and a running CG engine in it. The mountings had to be fabricated dans la shed but it's a viable project. Just say it:I want to BELIEVE... The amazing device on the right with revolutionary new steering system (and only one tyre to buy) is the RM100. I'm aiming to race it this year; Yes really.

Ibiza: Never Mind The Balearics

Why Ibiza? To be honest £50 flight, £20 p.n accommodation. I hear it's £8-12 a beer in clubbing hotspot San Antonio so base myself on the opposite side of the island..A quick walk round the old fort in Eivissa, a trip to Spar for food/beer and yes 73p a litre: much more like it. Bus to little bay named Cala Llonga where my Self catering apartment is brilliant, make sandwich and straight out for a beer and exploration. There's around 10-15 bars on the streets behind the idyllic bay, and £3ish a pint but £8 and up for a meal (Spar food diet beckons) . I pick a bar with pictures of the owner and his CRF450, "Bike es bueno,Senor" and this sets me up. Magazines are produced ( luckily I read a little Spanish) the TV goes onto World Superbikes and he tells me a good bike is coming,soon. 3 pints later as he TV surfs to all available bike racing channels, a beast of a KTM690 roars up, a magnificent thing indeed.Get invited to ride the upcoming Ibiza Rally course with him, haven't got the heart to tell him I can only get a scooter....
Get myself a Honda 100cc 4stroke scoot for £20 and for a first ride (on the "wrong side of the road") a wise man starts gently. I am not known for my wisdom. Coast-to-coast Ibiza it is. It's hairy riding that little scoot on the highways with lorries tonking past,and trying to get the correct lane for San Antonio. I pull up at the marina,heart-rate a little higher, enter a cafe and spy the clock. 15 bloody minutes! That's all it took.I zoom off into the lush hinterland and soak up the warm rays and verdant hills riding almost alone on the roads. I hit the coast and go to every beach on the North of the island to East,parking up on the sand in some places.By the time I return the bike (getting dark) I've done 160km but at a cost: fuel has set me back FIVE POUNDS.
More good memories, choosing the swankiest seafront hotel bar in Santa Eulalia (reputedly Spain's richest town..) smoking Camels while white-shirted staff bring me endless cerveza. Those 2 hrs in scorching heat to find the Secret Cove, accessible only through the forest and via a tunnel; then spending an afternoon there in splendid isolation.There's more to Ibiza than nightlife and burning money (why d'ya think the Hippies came here originally?). I never was much into dance/house music anyway,because as we all know, Ace of Spades beats King Of Clubs every time.

Great Expectations

The objectives are always modest: Don't Finish Last. However,this year my long term aim was to get out the bottom quarter to somewhere in the middle. The Ts185 had been modified for longer suspension,TS125X forks and a 75 TM125 swingarm.The lock-up in Wales proved to be no more than the kickstart idler gear, but still required a full engine stripdown and rebuild to sort out.
Me and Mark return to Middle Hills and by some El Nino phenomenon England has been dry for 2 weeks. Grrrip -that's what we want.
I have faith in the bike -power although perhaps at least half of the other bikes (17/18 gee gees) was proved adequate in Wales, and suspension improved over last visit here. We get going and as my watching mates told me after -caution was indeed flung to the winds.Was it the whiskey the night before?!... It was grand, battles soon developed for a lap or so and I had a ball with a Maico, a Ts250 and Glen's XT250. A reversal of normality developed as I began hunting the next guy each lap, prey became predator. I discover what that right hand lever is for -yes the front brake is pretty useful as you bomb downhill into each corner! Keep ripping and only one fall,one stall. It felt so good it's like you're concentrating but not too hard -let it flow (maan!). Dinner break and the chain gets adjusted -a bung put in the (absent) revcounter drive,airfilter re-attached and 'Oh yeah the front feels loose' too right, the headset lock nut has been spinning like a breakdancer. The fool is fuelled up and the afnoon sesh goes even better than the first.
Results are posted, ooh eck..Out of 25 in the 250 MX class I come 8th, that's like a podium to me! From around 60 riders (490 Maico's and 500 Tribsa's et al) I'm 18th overall and fastest trailbike. Ok not exactly trophy time but top 1/3 on an un-tuned TS185, I'm chuffed.Over the season, within Midland Classic club riders I was placed 4th in 250 Motocross :-)
As a kid when I used to go and watch the Golden Boy of school on the latest YZ, I would go home to my £10 Puch moped fieldbike and think,well I'd love to do something like that. 30 years later, I kinda have....

Vid here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G5ohUkdxdc

Welsh Racebit

Wake up,banging head, but Lord Be Praised the tea wagon has turned up. It's been raining all night but kit and bike are in the van it's just everything else that's wet. I climb out the tent, that hill don't look any smaller in the morning light. More folk turn up and great to see some familiar faces from Midland Classic events.We look down the list of riders and notice maybe a third from our area (Notts/Derbys).
I wait on the startline, man, I am nervous.Next to me though, is a rider looking absolutely petrified and with good reason,it's hid first time and he's on an old Brit 2 stroke (Cotton possibly) which ain't lightweight, though he is. He is 14 years old. So being whacked with some perspective I shoot off the line. Hey, first corner first hill in 3rd the bike wants to play! Tricky uphill bit, Ok then GUN IT, aahhh up she goes,blast along the peaty mashed up ferns foot poised then straight into a traffic jam. It's a tight swampy uphill right turn and they are wheel spinning stuck, 4 or 5 of them, I wait.Then I get bored. GO! Rev,rev,rev through the slime,through the embedded bikes and out. I've made it worst part done. Take it steady up Rabbit Hill (holes),across the moor, round the farm tracks and... oh yeah, The Escalator.They're holding them up ,one at a time please Gentlemen. First gear,DON'T touch the back brake or the clutch but I remember some trials training -use the front on-off-on-off, sorted.I cruise down to the tight right and just miss the tree. Everything else now is OK just the off camber ride along the hill a few slips but fine, even overtake a couple.
It all carried on in the same vein only they cut out some of the hairier parts, and I'm going a bit faster. I whack it open on the field -full bore in third and then CLUNK! Gearbox and Back wheel instantaneously locks and I get thrown off. Get to me feet -this bike is locked up. I'm out.
A figure appears on a quad "Roll it down the hill, and I'll tow you back" LifeSaver! When we drop me bike off we get chatting, he ain't some local farmer but a Welsh fella (called Jock) who goes to loads of Classic events helping the stricken. Top man, he offers me a lift back up the hill on his quad. Just one thing -I have to go in the wooden box over the front wheels ("As Ballast. I flipped it on Hawkstone hill the other week!"). It was fun being a frontal sidecar passenger, can't beat new experiences can ya?!
It got worse second half and they really struggled getting up the swampy hill, me and Mark acted as marshalls.The best one being when a Honda sliding so much headed straight at me. I jumped left,he went left,I jumped right he slew right, so I ran for me life and promptly fell over. He missed me and span round on the hill and came back down nearly taking out 3 more! Him,Us we're all in hysterics.
So, 200 mile drive £50 in expenses bike locked up and didn't finish,So What? I had a ball, and more importantly I learnt something. My little bike can do it, whatever it faces. If I can ride that course I can ride pretty much anything, and if in doubt Gun It, no faintheart ever got anywhere.
That 14 yr old kid? He did just fine...
Vid here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyPldUmOVvw&feature=channel

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?

The Grassy Knoll

Midland Classic Hillclimb, no not a widowmaker climb til you flip off the back but a twisty grass track up to the top against the clock. For a change I drag out my spare red TS185 which is on trials tyres so in a slightly less competitive class.On the day I find I have been possessed by Homer Simpson, I fill the petrol can and leave in the garage and forget my plug spanner,Doh! The bike has a sulk at having an idiot on board and plays up all day.I just keep it going.
I never do any good racing against clocks and on one run I throw caution to the wind and go hell for leather til I hit the one rough part at the top which chucks me off.Oh well no harm in trying. I post the usual pathetic time (34.12 secs) but it's a cracking Sunday amongst fellow old bike nuts, EastEnders omnibus is no competition.
The final part consists of Handicap run-off races between pairs of riders. You have your best time written on your race plate and the difference in times noted. The slower bike gets that difference as a head start over the other.So in theory you should get to the top roughly together, actually it's much harder to overtake the slower guy (something I use to full advantage at the top corner !). I get the start on a Honda 250,KX400,Triumph 500 etc and do the necessary. I line up with a Yamaha 600, oh eck, well at least I'll get a big start. No! It has 37 secs displayed , 3 seconds on my little TS, whaaaaat?! It leaves the start like the Enterprise hitting warp speed, and me like Granville on a delivery bike. As I return to the checkpoint feverish official activity is observed.Seems that the lad on the bike used the mega slow times of his Dt trail bike on his mate's 600 rocket ship.His "win" is declared null and void so I win. That was actually the final, so albeit in controversial circumstances, I am the champ.Wahoo! I'm a bit shell-shocked but chuffed all the same. I've done 6 of these handicap run-offs now,been in 3 finals and won it twice.All on old 185 trail bikes which makes it even better!
Video (not by me) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3_Rst-vAf8

Riders On The Storm

All week the weather was bad,I was thinking of quitting the bike scene and go make an Ark. However I really like the course at Ashover,called "The Butts" it's part of an old quarry.It has been in use for decades for Youth Motocross and latterly modern Enduro.There's a particular hairpin bend I get a huge buzz out of if I get it right and to my delight they've removed the hill straight after due to the recent rain.
As I go to sign in a few people make positive comments re the Youtube video I made -makes the time spent worthwhile.I really think you should photo/video every day out in your life - your memory ain't enough it gets clouded ,full of grey spam work,conflicts,chores. Those pics and vids can bring happy times right back to you just when you need it. So with Mark on camera and tools, Dave with food and as somewhat unappealing brolly-dolly ( no MotoGP pitlane girls here!) we join the other 54 resilient if damp riders.
Straight from the off I feel its too wet to really push it.I try wailing it down a long straight and find myself sliding towards the fence, hitting a fence on a corner is Ok but just too damn comical here.No days of glory mister, its stay on your wheels time and fight to keep those goggles clear, at some points I'm riding one handed holding them off my face to de-fog.The best part is every time I hit that favourite corner I get it right -small victories but finally satisfied after competing three times here.
Dinner break and I just lie on back step of my small van, in my wet jersey & muddy boots,exhausted,incapable of movement. Someone asks "Are you a bit tired?" noooo, I just do good impressions.... The whole hour it rains non-stop and some go home -those of us mad enough return to a quagmire of a track. It's really bad and bizarrely the sun emerges which with my wet weather coat causes excessive fog in my goggles,so off they come.Its like riding on brown oily ice but I manage 3 laps til I get a lock up and bike slews to a halt. Seizure? The fins are covered in mud after all. No, she fires up right away drop the clutch -no motion , chain off? No, the brake plate has exploded, as they do. Park the bike and walk down to the van. No mechanic and no keys to get the tools out myself.Mutter something about plans and wander down the deserted pitlane looking for tools to borrow, no luck. 15 mins later Mark runs over and we get to the bike -he removes the torque arm,rod and what remains of the rear brake. I remount and manage to finish the lap and just in time for another.Horrendous as it is,for the first time EVER I ain't come off. I'm the last man home, the lapcount girls cheer and the day is done. Bike and rider are covered in mud, I've done 16 laps (2 miles each) come a mighty 33rd of 55, lost 1/2 hrs racing and need a new brake. You know what? I still bloody enjoyed it :-)

Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=F2zg2wrR-d4
Music by The Undertones/Ash/Charlatans/Lily Allen~The Clash