Ready to Race?
13 03 10 - 20:30 Shortly after 10:30 tomorrow morning I will line up to start my first motorcycle race - a four hour Hare & Hounds Enduro run by the Trail Bike Enduro Club (TBEC).Going racing is probably a thought which crosses the minds of a significant proportion of people who ever swing a leg over a bike - certainly those who ride sports bikes. For most it remains a thought, and it did for me for quite a while - filed in the indefinite future when I might be able to find the cash for a season of short-circuit racing.
Then I went to the HUMM last year, and got the bug for off-road riding on the miles of trails in the Lot Valley of France and the Spanish Pyrenees. Returning to the UK I found it was a little bit harder to find trails to ride on.
Eventually, the obvious solution presented itself - why not combine the two? Enduro seemed to be a lot more affordable than short-circuit racing, and for your money you get several hours of thrashing round trails without having to navigate, dodge ramblers, or ride dozens of miles of tarmac to stitch together a few miles of green lane.
So over the course of last Autumn, I identified TBEC as a good looking club for me to take the plunge with, then bought a van and a 2001 DR-Z400E - the latter after much deliberation and mental flirting with more exotic European machinery, but in the end I went with cheap(ish) and dependable.
At the start of 2010, I became a member of TBEC, and an ACU licence holder, and started trying to figure out how to get the bike ready to race. In February, I attended the first round of the season as a marshall, and a couple of weekends ago I took the bike down to my parents' place for a quick shakedown run around the fields. Today, I polished off what I hope was the last few tasks...
The only questions which now remain are: What have I forgotten to pack, and am I up to it?
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