| Moto GB Challenge 2004 Report |
 |
|
| Page update by LJFC on 28/07/2004 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Just a quick run down as I haven't got my my travel notes with me. I'll put up something more permanent as soon as. On Saturday 10th July we all met up at Santa Pod in Northamptonshire, what better way to prepare your bike for a long trip than starting it, idling it for 10 minutes waiting in a queue and then firing it down a 1/4 mile drag strip! I managed a 13.8s run before my bike (Katie) dumped most of her coolant on the floor ... we did better in the slow speed skills tests where I could run rings around those cruel Huyabusa riders that had so rudely destroyed my confidence on the strip. |
| Sunday saw a pleasant ride out to North Wales which was suitably enhanced by the need to take a route via Bristol. I got lost following the route map after about 150 yards of leaving the campsite, luckily I bumped into the founder members of Team Hap Hazard and we spent the rest of the week riding in circles, smoking damp cigarettes and comparing the inappropriateness of each others vehicles. The day ended in North Wales at the Strata Florida Hillclimb in Pontymontywontypraid (OK, I can't remember the name!) |
| How many tents can you fit on a 100 sqaure metres of rough arsed hay field? Quite a few apparently. The bike park was bigger ... but at least it was raining heavily and the beer was warm ... so we knew we were in Wales. After a bad nights sleep there is nothing like the fun of more slow speed tests, a highway code quiz and the chance to bin your pride and joy on a Welsh hill side. |
| Hill climbing is a great sport and far better suited to Katie's setup ... trouble is that the sheep get so excited watching the action that they tend to "dump" mid-corner making for very interesting and unintentional changes of direction. We managed to get 5th place out of 68 and I still claim it was a lot wetter on my runs than when the later riders went up in glorious sunshine ... hmm. |
| Another short 6 hour jaunt North saw us through the Lake District and to Three Sisters race track ... I can't remember the name of that place either! Wigan in Lancashire, that's it! A proper supermoto track, all turns and a very short straight. Perfect for hooning and annoying those damn sportsbike riders! Excellent and we will be returning. |
 |
| It got kinda serious after this point with three big days in a row. Wigan to Oban including the Hunters Quay ferry was about 400 miles ... Oban to John O'Groats racked up 450+ miles (taking 13 hours!) and JOG to Knockhill was another 320 ... funnily enough we got to Kelso on the last day at 2PM but the organisers had us riding around cones in the BMF Rally arena looking like exhausted idiots and then chuckled as they sent us off to do another 120 miles via a Buddhist Monastery! Monks are great though so I didn't mind at all. |
| You can't beat a good track session after 320 miles of hard miles with not much sleep the night before. Especially when you turn up late (as always) and can't even be bothered to check your tyre pressures ... I did remove my mirrors though as I didn't really fancy getting impaled as that would have made me really annoyed. Knockhill's a great, if surprisingly small circuit ... but the straights are just too bloody long for a 625cc single. It's frustrating to stick with people in the twisty sections and then get left for dead on the main straight ... and they even get the fun of going airborn due to the "bump" halfway along it. |
| Great trip - 12 people out of 68 had accidents over the week (some of them twice ... how we laughed as two of us tried to lift a BMW K75 out of a ditch) - most of them on the Hardknott Pass in the worst weather of the week, none of them serious. But when you're pushing this hard on these roads on a long enough time line "accidents" will happen. The IAM would be proud ;o) Anyway, gotta get back to work ... thanks to anyone who sponsored me ... we got about £350 for Brooklands (about the same as my fuel and oil bill!) which should help them to get one of those Concorde seats upholstered. Cheers, Lee. |