Me No 73 entered the 12 hour marathon class (veteran) ktm 450
Me No 73 entered the 12 hour marathon class (veteran) ktm 450
We drove up on Saturday afternoon me and wifey she was excited as you can imagine to be spending her bank holiday weekend at an Enduro in Wales
We stopped on the way to brew up just outside Monmouth in a lay-by where we soon joined by another motor home towing a enduro bike. They were taking their son to compete in his first dawn to dusk at the age of 16. I enquired if Walters arena was located in a particular beautiful part of the Rhonda hoping for some positive news to tell wifey. "Got to be joking mate looks like fecking Mars but with rain that comes in sideward’s" ummm I thought best not update wifey yet on our destination for the weekend.
As it turns out apart from the parking area the view is pretty impressive and the weather was not too bad at all the odd shower and glimpses of Sunshine throughout the weekend.
I unloaded my bike and went last minute panic buying in the paddock, got me a moosse / mousse / mouse you know what i mean for the front tire then we went walking part of the Big Bike rally Route. Looked good in the dry bits but tough under the trees where the sun never reaches.
Got back in time to see a blue and white GS with a TOSSER sticker on the rear which made me smile, head off to the start of the night race. As a spectator on sat night I stood on the embankment looking down to a man made track with twists and turns (bit like when they race cars in wembley stadium) good for a spectator but the track you see here tells you nothing about what awaits in the woods
I watched the big single cylinders go and I don’t know if they were all pros but they looked pretty quick and in control apart from a lovely xt660 ( my favourite bike) which may be needed the suspension beefing up.
Next up was the twin cylinder group No 760 looked impressive a GS of some sort they all seem the same to me
In the Arena area we the spectators could see was a man made mound which a light bike can jump off and sail through the air quite spectacularly, not a twin gs though we were able to see the law of gravity in its full glorious effect when a these loons launched their pride and joys of this mound, thankfully they all landed without incident so at this point all was good 1 corner and 1 hump completed leaving 9 hours 59 minutes to go.
I watched all the bikes leave the arena area to great cheers and wished them well for the night and went back to have my dinner Tagetellie carbonarra good for the energy levels pasta
We parked up right at the back of the campsite working on a the pecking order of life theory, superstars near the pit entrance me near the dustbins, but it gave me a great view of the bikes exiting the forest and heading back towards the start area. As night fell it was possible to judge the quality of the entrants headlights and accessorized lighting systems no need to say they varied from 1 candle power to 10,000 candle power (lux for you younger members) it really was laughable to see an Enduro bike screaming out a pitch dark forest with a headlight not bright enough to walk a dog, some of these guys are truly amazing they were riding faster at night than I could ride in the day. They seemed to be borrowing the light thrown forward from better equipped bikes on their way to glory or hospital :cool
At 20:30 in the marquee the sighting lap for the 12 hour race was shown on a big screen, the video ran for about 40 mins 15 miles and gave the impression that the route was a piece of piss really I went off to bed calmed. Looking back you know how when you to take a photo of a valley/ mountain /gradient but the photo never seems to reflect the scale / steepness etc, well the same is true for video.
About 22.00 I dropped my 40 litres of fuel ( only needed half of that) down with a guy at the front of the pits who was working all day Sunday and was happy to help, so i did not have to ride all the way back to my trailer at the back of the campsite each time to fill up.
I went bed with wifey swearing "how the feck am i meant to sleep with those bastards screaming past my window every thirty seconds, mad feckers don't they know its dark out there, what is it with you men you're all fecking weird one way or another" ........ "Night darling" She was fast a sleep in 15 minutes and reported in the morning it was one of her best night’s sleep of the year
My theory for a good night’s sleep was limited alcohol ( 1pint of cider) this did not work, in hindsight when packing my essential tools for the weekend I should of included a bottle of wine and necked it about 21:00. I could not get to sleep, tried counting sheep tried counting motorbikes going pass the window tried listening out for GS's .................... by 2:00am there was a long gap between GS's. I fell asleep I reckon about 4:00 am couldn’t stop my brain thinking about the morning.
Alarm goes 5:40 am, organiser wants us on the grid at 6:15 for a 7:00 am start I can only presume they want us there so early so we can stand around freezing are arses off for 45 mins just to add to the pleasure. I reach the start at 6.45am and i'm still early things get going about 7:10 expert solo are called to the front (not me then) they go in the first wave, non expert solo who think they have a chance of winning are called to the front (not me then) they go in the second wave then non expert solo dreamer class are called to the front (me then
) we go followed by expert 2 man team,expert 3 man team etc non expert 2 man etc.
I was told to ride the 12 hours on the hare and tortoise theory just keep plugging away lap after lap with as few breaks as possible and you will do all right, the tortoise theory worked well for me as the bikes were flying by me, the trouble is you don’t know if the rider going twice your speed is just riding an hour then swapping or riding twelve hours, either way some of the guys were flying.
I did the first lap bypassing the 3 extreme sections this makes for a easier but longer lap. The ground varied from slippy to untrustworthy and my recent mousse investment did not give me much confidence in front end grip. Normally i ride with 12 psi in the front but with the mousse it felt harder I do not know what pressure a maxis mousse is meant to replicate?
Lap two I went for all three extreme sections
No: 1 easy 3 foot drop off from a log stack down an embankment
No: 2 steep descent down embankment though tight trees on to fire road
No: 2 part two: VERY steep descent down embankment though tight treeswith ditch dug at the bottom prior to crossing fire road
No: 3 sharp left turn no opportunity for run up on to steep climb up gulley with boulders the size of basket ball’s in
Resulting in
No:1 made
No:2 stalled engine on descent , locked back brake gained more & more speed prior to going over handlebars and hitting head hard on fire road (broken googles, broken visor, broken spirit)
No:3 looked at then 1st refusal, bike said no more.
I stopped at No2: for ten minutes while the dizziness subsided the marshals’ were really good and checked i was not really broken before going off to rescue someone else. I watched a couple more guys come down the No: 2 before I left (same outcome)
I looked at the clock 8:40 only 10 hours forty mins to go and i have cracked this. Next lap round I took on No2 again but made my own route down across hillside travesing the embankment to reduce the steepness of it soon i had my own path and that became the main route for the nuttier fraternity who tried it.
No: 3 I waited at the bottom until i was sure there none of the experts were around and then gave it a go. I got up it after a fashion lots of scrabbling but made it to the top only to find a ditch full of big boulders that had to be crossed then sharp right turn out.
Rest of the morning I plodded along not really going fast enough to feel i was achieving anything other than just killing time, I made all the climbs (except 1) all day which was quite rewarding especially when you have to ride over people to achieve it
Don't know what happened about 12:00 o’clock the route was really drying out and I started to get going at a pace I was happy with, I did 2 laps then came in for a chese roll and aspirin ( cracking headache, did not drink enough water) then rejoined and felt flat again for the next couple of hours.
About 3:00 o clock my front brake started to fail and by four o clock it had gone completly Iwhen I came off earlier the rose joint on the brake lever had loosened and air had got in, I came in and attempted to fix it to no avail wifey persuaded me to go see Martin of Tourque Racing who was working for Deasert Rose that weekend and ask his advice, sheers martin he fixed it in two minutes abd i was on my way again plodded on to 18:00 not really getting going, came in a at 6.00 had chat with wife said i will ride one more lap then wait prior to the finish, wait for the chequred flag to go out at 19;00 and roll over the line.
Went back out and found speed again bizare really must be a blood suger level thing so came round to the finish, saw about 50 bikes waiting for the time to expire, many would of been the 24 hour racers so quite deseverdly were waiting, but cause i had found a bit of go in me I went and did the last lap and finished about 19;40 the marshalls clpped us as we completed our last lap and so did the crowd.
Went to prize giving in the marquee to find out where i came but only the top three were mentioned. in each class, the big bike rally boys were cheered by us all but had mostly gone home so not many around to collect their well deserved trophys.
Still dont know where I finished , but have blistered hands , very sore arse loke its been hit with a cricket bat 1000 times, got in the bath last night at home and couldn't get out without help
also struggling to walk up and down stairs at any speed. I think all this is down to the constant pounding and not my crash.
To sum it up i think the wifes right
"you men you're all fecking weird one way or another"
Next year ????
Gone on then put me down
My bike parked up in the paddock area seemed to cause much amusement to everyone who walked past, with some just smiling, some laughing and a few coming over to talk to me and tell me I was mad. I told them I knew that already.
when I made it up the off camber sweeping climb and away from the crowd.
Really made me smile 
