wildchildBLOG http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/index.php random ramblings en dave at wildchild dot org dot uk Copyright 2011 Pivot Pivot - 1.40.6: 'Dreadwind' Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:41:04 +0000 60 Rallymania http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=67 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=67#comm
Firstly, I've managed to do the fork swap on the Tenere, getting rid of the OE items in favour of a pair of WP 48mm items formerly attached to a KTM motocrosser. In the process I've gained about 35-40mm of ground clearance at both ends, and about 90mm of travel at the front. The forks want a rebuild with new bushes, oil and seals, and there's a few other teething problems to sort out, but I'm pretty pleased so far.

new forks

The guys at the Big Bike Rally Challenge have also been busy. As well as building up their own race bikes for next year, they've also managed to release a provisional calendar of events, and also a whole series of training dates for 2012.

They've also launched a new forum at http://www.rallymoto.co.uk.

Away from the BBRC, Craig and Tamsin at Black Desert Training have also got their training course dates up for next year, covering everything from trail-riding novices through to desert rally navigation.

Finally, while there's not much UK racing action, New Year's Day will of course see the start of the Dakar Rally in South America. I'll be glued to the Eurosport highlights programme every evening for the first two weeks of 2012.

Dakar Rally


See you in the New Year! ]]> 67@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ default Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:40:00 -0000 Hafren Rally Report http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=66 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=66#comm
Race Numbers Fitted

My weekend began by riding the Tenere home from work on Friday, as usual, before a few bits of last minute preparation - mainly fitting a brand new Mitas C-02 in place of the Trelleborg Swedish Army which had already done three full days of off-road work, and over a thousand miles of road riding. I then took the top box and mirrors off, strapped the trail toolkit onto the back, and that was it for the transformation from commuter to racer.

Ready for the off
Ready for the off

On Saturday afternoon, I loaded the bike onto the back of the truck for the drive to mid-Wales (with a brief stop in Walsall to pick up a set of KTM/WP forks, which will eventually find their way onto the Tenere). At about 6pm I arrived at the Sweet Lamb Rally Complex, taking the access road slightly slower in the lowered, low-profile-tyred truck than I had when arriving on two wheels to the Rally Training last month. Rolling into the paddock I quickly spotted Mark Molineux's van, around which the 'BBRC Bivouac' was already growing.

BBRC Bivouac
The BBRC Bivouac

rally location
The rally location in North Wales

Having unloaded the bike, and replaced it on the pickup bed with my pop-up tent and air mattress, I was offered (and accepted) a lift into Llanidloes with the other guys to attend the pre-event social evening and buffet. It also gave the opportunity to get the event signup out of the way and obtain my race numbers:

Sign up complete
Registration complete

I was roused on Sunday morning by the combination of the lightening sky and my slowly deflating air mattress, but it was the knowledge that a mere half a dozen portaloos would be serving over three hundred competitors which stirred me into rising and getting that essential part of the 'pre-race preparation' out of the way before they could become too unsavoury.

Scrutineering began at 7:30am, and being an eager novice, I made sure I rode the bike over there at about 7:35. I wheeled the Tenere into the rally shed and handed it over to one of the scrutineers, then watched as he almost fell over under the weight of it. I don't know if he was just trying to get rid of it before he was crushed, but after a cursory check that it did indeed have two wheels, and that my helmet had a gold ACU sticker, he handed the bike back and stuck the crucial sticker on the screen to say I was able to start.

Back in the paddock I was faced with the realisation that, with my relatively high start number, it would actually be another couple of hours until I started. Probably didn't need to be so eager then.

Still, it gave me plenty of time to finish getting dressed, get some food inside me, and watch the fast guys go off, including a few of the BBRC front-runners.

Moly and Patsy
BBRC organiser Mark Molineux, apparently showing (first British female Dakar finisher) Patsy Quick the way to the burger van.

Craig setting off
Craig Bounds setting off.

Eventually it was my turn to queue up and be waved away onto my first lap. The course took us around the edge of the paddock, over the bridge and into the start of the first special - although for the first lap none of the specials would be timed. Aside from a couple of tricky off-piste sections this was the reverse of one of the loops we'd used in the training, so I was able to start building up some speed along the fire roads.

waiting to start
Waiting my turn. Stage times are on the inside of the screen.

Crossing back through the ford by the paddock, we set off onto the second, much longer loop. I had a brief moment of confusion as I came over a crest and saw dozens of bikes in front of me heading in all different directions on what appeared to be a motocross course. There didn't seem to be much clue as to where I was supposed to go, but after a brief pause I figured out that the correct route was away from the chaos, around the back of a barn, and off down another valley, which lead to a short stretch of tarmac and the start of the second special. This began with a series of steep rocky climbs, topping out onto a fire road, then dropping back into the MX section I'd seen earlier. I took this section with the appropriate caution (200kg bikes aren't meant for motocross table-tops) before returning to fire roads which lead out of the rally complex onto the adjoining forestry land.

The liaison between the second and third specials was a significant chunk of the total lap distance and incorporated everything from fire roads to single-track muddy forest trails - sometimes quite suddenly, I had at least one full-on emergency stop to avoid sailing straight past the point where the course made a ninety degree turn off the fire road and into the woods.

The start of the third special was heralded by a crowd of bikes, as although it was still not timed, the organisers were holding people until their correct stage time to get everyone spaced back out again for the second lap. The wait gave a valuable opportunity to "water the bushes", eat a Mars bar, and chat to some of my fellow competitors before my number was called.

Third stage start
Start of the third stage

This special was by far the toughest for the big bikes, being more of an enduro test with steep rocky climbs and narrow, rutted descents. All perfectly doable, but a real physical challenge, and I ended up letting a few smaller bikes past where possible. Finally, it was over, and there was just a short dash along fire roads to complete the lap.

Back at the start, I wasn't quite sure how much time I had in hand, but the start marshall looked at my times and told me there was half an hour until I needed to start the first timed special on lap two. There was nothing I needed to do to the bike, so my pit-stop was simply a matter of eating more food and chatting to the Jersey contingent while I waited.

At the appointed time, I set off, first through the "false" start of the lap, then along to the start of the first special. When I reached the front of the queue, the marshall held up a stopwatch in front of me and counted down "5...4...3...2...1...Go!". I set off, and soon reached the first tricky off piste section of the special, a pair of short steep climbs, the first grass and mud, the second rocky. Remembering Craig and Tamsin's advice from the training I made sure I gained enough momentum on the flat to carry me up the first slope successfully.

On the short terrace before the second climb I found the competitor immediately before me had stopped at the foot of the slope (I later found out that he'd forgotten to turn his fuel tap on). Aware that the clock was ticking, I tried to go round him. Unfortunately, having paused to assess my options, I didn't have the all-important momentum, and I was also tackling a part of the slope which hadn't been cleared of rocks by passing bikes. With a painful inevitability I ground to a halt two-thirds of the way up and broadside to the slope. Unable to get my weight over to the uphill side the bike toppled over downhill, while I made a leap for safety and ended up running down the slope.

On picking up the bike, I discovered that, although the left handguard had done it's job of protecting the clutch lever, the impact had bent the aluminium spine enough to prevent the lever from moving through its full travel, so before I could carry on I had to get my tools out and undo the handguard from the bar end. I completed the climb easily at the second attempt, but the delay almost doubled my stage time.

crash
GPS trace reveals that not everything went to plan here on the first (yellow) lap.

Setting off into the second special I had the bit between my teeth, and caught and passed #256 as we came out onto the fire road at the top. The third special was still hard, but I made a better go of it than the first lap, before returning to the pits to completely remove and discard the offending handguard.


Broken handguard

For the third lap, we would only be doing the first two tests. I passed through the two specials fairly uneventfully, again managing to catch and pass the rider in front on the second, before heading out into the forestry section for the final, shortened liaison section which would complete the event.

Although the event had been described as "two and a half laps", I didn't know exactly where we were going to be diverted, and there came a point where I was starting to get a bit concerned that I'd missed a turning, having not seen another bike for about ten minutes. Fortunately, I eventually encountered a marshall who reassured me I was still on course, and moments later reached another group of marshalls at the diversion point.

diversion
Final lap short-cut

course map
The rally route. The final lap omitted the yellow loop at the top right. Slightly more than "two and a half" laps then.

The end of the event was something of an anti-climax, there being no timing/checkpoint at the return to the pits. Instead it was simply a matter of getting the bike loaded onto the back of the truck before the adrenaline wore off, then changing out of my (stinking) riding gear and setting off for a long drive home fuelled by Relentless, Wine Gums and System of a Down at high volume.

The next morning, I refitted the top box to the Tenere and rode it to work.

race your commuter
Race on Sunday, commute on Monday.

When the results came out a week or so later, I was placed 43/45 in the 'trail' bike class - my handguard bending incident costing me about six minutes and ten places. This put me 19th in the BBRC singles class, meaning I didn't quite score a point in the 2011 championship.

Other commitments and a rare outbreak of common sense prevented me signing up for the Cambrian Rally a couple of weeks later, so I'll have to wait until 2012 to correct that situation. ]]> 66@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ default Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:27:00 -0000 CNC Pornography http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=65 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=65#comm Big Bike Rally Challenge is, I think it's safe to say, venturing beyond the boundaries of what Yamaha expected people to do when they designed their cheap, middleweight "adventure tourer" - but it manages pretty well, all things considered. The biggest weak point (as ever, when accountants are involved in bike specification) is the suspension - adequate for road and trail use, but not capable of controlling over 250kg of bike and rider when travelling at even my modest racing speed. Earlier in the year I replaced the tired OE rear shock with a lovely Nitron Race Shock, which firmed up the Ten's saggy rear end quite nicely, but also served to make the stock forks look bad - too soft for taking big hits, and insufficiently damped when bouncing over loose rocks.

Since the rally season is over until the spring, I've got a bit of time to spend resolving this issue. To that end, last week I had a rather expensive package arrive from Germany...

Yokes and Dogbones

The package was from German XT specialists Off The Road, and contained two things. Firstly (and the expensive part), a pair of yokes to mount WP48 upside-down forks - standard fitment to KTM and Husaberg off-road machines - in place of the cheap, non-adjustable, right-way-up items which Yamaha fitted at the factory. Secondly, a pair of shorter rear suspension 'dogbones', to raise the rear of the bike +35mm to keep things vaguely level with the longer forks.

I actually already have a set of forks to go with them (second-hand KTM 450SX items, picked up on the way to the Hafren Rally), but I still need to source a KTM front wheel, axle/spacers, brake disc and master cylinder before I can put it all together. Bring on next pay-day! ]]> 65@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ default Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:37:00 -0000 Riding Everest http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=63 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=63#comm
http://ridingeverest.blogspot.com/ ]]> 63@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ linkdump Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:53:00 -0000 Tickets please! http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=62 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=62#comm
Rollerburn tickets

The orange wristbands are for Rollerburn, "a festival of motorised death traps and roller derby vixens", organised by the chaps at Sideburn Magazine and taking place on the 19th of November. The three light green tickets are for next years Dragon Rally.

Rollerburn tickets

I'm quite excited. ]]> 62@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ default Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:20:00 -0000 Back to school http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=61 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=61#comm Lot Valley Enduro) in the South of France. Somehow I managed to make it through a couple of hours on the trails upright, despite Dave leading me down a few that he'd 'forgotten' were a bit steep for a novice. The next day, we set off for the 2009 HUMM, two full days in the Spanish Pyrenees which also saw my first crash - parking one of Dave's DR-Z400S' in a tree, which seemed better than the alternative of throwing it off a 20ft drop. Since then, I've ridden in two more editions of the HUMM on the Ténéré, had a go at racing Hare & Hounds on a DR-Z400E and latterly a GasGas EC300, and done quite a lot of mileage on the byways of the UK.

After all that, I've come to consider myself a fairly competent trail rider. I don't often fall off or get stuck, and if there's no particular hurry, then there's not much that I can't pick my way through. What I've never been particularly good at is 'pressing on' over rough ground, even while racing on a small bike. This is compounded when I'm on a big bike by the sheer weight of the thing.

Having never really gelled with the GasGas, but still thoroughly enjoying the Ténéré, my thoughts have naturally drifted to running the Yamaha as my sole dirt bike (and as of last Saturday, that is the reality, as the diminutive Spanish stroker was dispatched to its new home with a friend in rural Gloucestershire). Not a problem for general trail riding, where I'll always gravitate towards the Ten' anyway, but it begs a couple of questions: "How do I scratch the racing itch?", and "Will I be able to keep up on rides with the East Mids TRF group, who all ride small trail/enduro bikes?".

Actually, the first question isn't phrased quite correctly, as I already knew what I would need to do. For a while now I've been glancing inquisitively towards the Big Bike Rally Challenge, a racing series designed for big bikes, and assembled by piggybacking on to the various long-distance rallies run by different clubs around the UK. The question is really "Can I manage to finish these rallies aboard the Ten'?".

I have no doubt that the bike itself is up to both these tasks (with a few choice mods paid for by selling the GasGas, more of which at a later date), but the 'nut between the handlebars' could definitely do with a bit of improvement. So when I heard that the BBRC organisers were teaming up with Black Desert Training (Dakar Rally finishers Craig Bounds and Tamsin Jones) to put on a weekend of training at the start of September focused on racing big bikes in rallies, it wasn't long before my deposit cheque was in the post.

Friday night came around and the Tenere went on the back of the truck, riding and camping gear was piled up inside, and Sarah and I set off for Aberystwyth where we'd booked onto a campsite. This put me about 20 miles from the Sweet Lamb Rally Complex, where the training was being held, but meant Sarah wasn't stuck in the middle of nowhere while I was out having fun. Besides, aren't you supposed to expect an early start and a bit of 'liaison mileage' when rallying?

On Saturday morning, I geared up and rode back inland to the Sweet Lamb venue, which we'd passed in the dark the night before.

Entrance to the Rally Complex
The turning off the main road. The Rally Complex itself is a mile or two up a gravel road, providing a nice 'warm up' to get back into the swing of loose surfaces.

After a cup of tea, introductions and the obligatory disclaimer-signing to acknowledge the inherent danger of motorsport, we moved out to the training area adjoining the 'Rally Shed' (a fairly accurate description of the main building) where, led by Craig, we would work on the basic elements of bike control before moving out onto the rally course itself to put them into practice. Beginning with how to get on and off the bike, and our riding position once aboard, we moved on to riding round one-handed and steering with our feet, then riding a slow, tight slalom course - requiring full lock while stood on the pegs, and emphasising the effect that where you look has on where the bike goes.

Slalom course
Dakar legend Craig Bounds does a good job of hiding a look of despair as some muppet on a Ténéré manages to stall and nearly fall over in the middle of the slow slalom course.

The final area for focus was braking, and getting us used to feeling for the limits of grip on both ends of the bike - firstly by locking up the rear completely from high speed to a standstill, and then by riding along in first gear (with some throttle on) and trying to keep the front wheel on the verge of locking up.

Tamsin brake testing
I think the 'take home message' here was that if you just put the back brake on, you will take a really, really long time to stop.

After a break for lunch, we split into two groups. One group would go off with (BBRC series organiser) Robert 'Burt' Hughes and (HP2 riding, ex-BMW-school-instructor) Mark 'Moly' Molineux to work on high speed riding, my group was with Tamsin and Craig to work on more technical sections. They led us a mere couple of hundred yards before stopping on a fire road within sight of the Rally Shed. I'd have to admit the words "this doesn't look very technical" passed through my head before Craig pointed out the five foot deep drainage gully full of loose rocks alongside the road.

Craig gully riding Craig demonstrating the ride up the gully for the other group on the (sunnier) Sunday.

We were to drop in from the side at the downhill end, and ride uphill for a hundred yards or so before climbing out again (although the precise exit route was modified slightly when Tamsin couldn't get out at the planned point even on her lightweight two-stroke KTM). In hindsight, this was probably the hardest exercise for me to get to grips with. I'd thought beforehand that my biggest issue was being scared of the high speed stuff, but it later turned out (see further down) that I took to that fairly quickly once I knew what I had to do. Although I was more successful at this exercise with each run up the gully, it was still a bit of a messy scramble rather than precise riding. Something to practice more I think.

(Of course my concentration at this point wasn't exactly helped by a screw-up while packing for the weekend which meant I was wearing glasses rather than contact lenses. With all the stopping and starting I inevitably ended up with the fine, misty Welsh rain coating both sides of my goggles and my glasses. On balance though, it was probably best that I was doing the slow speed stuff, rather than the fast riding on the day I couldn't really see where I was going!)

The next technical section was a mixture of slippery surfaces (wet rutted grass, piles of loose slate chunks, and wet rock) and awkward corners, with a short climb up a steep rock slab to finish. The emphasis here was on building up the right amount of momentum to carry the big bikes through or up a given obstacle, but again, the importance of both looking in the right direction and the judicious application of the correct amount of weight to the correct footpeg was reinforced.

Loose slate mound
Opening the throttle here simply fires bits of slate back down the slope. Need to have enough momentum beforehand.

Slab Climb
Tamsin making the slab climb look easy.

We then moved on to another area to work on climbing and descending progressively steeper slopes, and perhaps as importantly, how to safely recover your bike if you grind to a halt half way up.

Out of shape
Serious 'body english' to try and thread the bike into the rut at the top of the climb.

Bike Recovery
Recovering safely from a failed attempt

Here's a video of Jase (in the other group) making it up the slope (just) when we swapped over the next day.

One of our group didn't quite manage to remember (or at least make his body comply with) Craig's instructions for what to do if you get stuck. A mere bike length from the top of the climb he ground to a halt and instinctively pulled the clutch in and tried to hold the bike on the front brake. This doesn't work on a 40 degree gravel incline, and we were treated to the alarming sight of a KTM 950SE accelerating down the slope backwards before slipping sideways and finally flipping itself upside down into the long grass at the bottom. Fortunately the rider was thrown clear and largely unhurt, and the only damage to the bike was bent handlebars which were swapped overnight. I was next up to attempt the climb, and needless to say I was muttering "don't touch the clutch" inside my helmet like some sort of religious incantation. I made it to the top - just! In the words of Craig "You were about three foot off-course at one point, but because you had your eyes on where you were going, it all came back into line".

We finished with a "gentle trail ride" around the rest of the rally loop back to the 'Rally Shed', and while the others (staying locally) were making plans for a pub dinner, I bolted down a cup of tea to warm me up for the ride back to the coast. By now the rain was driving down, and it had gone far beyond the 'water resistance' of my Klim Dakar trousers. A few miles into the journey I stopped under some trees to put my earplugs in to quieten down the wind, pulled my Buff up over my face to stop the rain stinging, and turned the heated grips on full.

Sunday dawned, considerably more pleasantly than Saturday, but it was still quite cold as I gritted my teeth and pulled on my sopping wet riding gear for the ride over to the rally complex. We stayed in the groups we were in the previous day, and swapped instructors - meaning my group was with Burt and Moly for some high speed work.

Our first 'exercise' was a section where the track dropped downhill while curving continuously to the left, tightening slightly for the corner itself, then began to climb back up the hill. As Moly talked us through the ideal line I couldn't help noting that both the turn-in point and the apex were only a couple of feet from places where the edges of the track had collapsed, hitting the apex required hooking both wheels into a rut a mere foot from the edge of the track and a deep ditch, and running wide on the exit would see you disappearing over the edge and down into a valley. In other words, pretty fearsome when you contemplated approaching it at high speed.

Moly in full drift
Moly in full drift mode.

The location of this corner was such that we were able to ride a short, quarter mile loop and keep trying it again and again without having to turn around, so with Burt and Moly watching from the verge, we all set off to give it a try. We'd been told to "start at about 50% and work up", and my first few runs were quite tentative, concentrating on putting the bike in the right place on the track without going too fast, and convincing myself to look up the road to where I wanted to be, rather than target fixating on the (many) opportunities for having a horrible crash.

Pretty soon it all clicked, and I found myself able to attack the corner faster and faster - and in fact the whole loop, in an attempt to apply what I had learnt elsewhere, to get back round and have another go, and frankly because I was getting hooked on the feeling of going fast. One of my last attempts saw me winding the throttle to the stop before the apex, drifting across the exit, and just kissing the 6" berm on the outside with the back wheel to stop me going over the edge before powering up the hill and (surprisingly) thinking I could do with a few more than 46bhp. Success.

We worked on a couple more tricky corners, including one which was a bit tighter, wet and very rutted, allowing several lines, including running straight across the corner then bouncing off the gravel bank on the outside before accelerating away. Moly: "My preferred line here would be the rut on the inside, but you've got to be able to take every corner at least a couple of different ways to allow you to get past people.". Finally we moved on to handling high-speed jumps - the aim in a long distance rally context being to make them as unexciting as possible.

We put everything together with a couple of laps of a larger loop before returning to base to join the other group for lunch. After all the high speed, lairy sliding antics of the morning, I managed to crash in the one 500m technical section as I failed to mentally 'change gear' to deal with the slower pace and trickier going. Later on I mentioned this to Burt, who replied (I paraphrase) "You make up time by being quick on the open bits, you lose it by falling off in the technical sections" . So, erm, don't.

The afternoon was spent lapping both loops of the rally course behind Moly, steadily increasing the pace. We were travelling much faster than I ever would have considered riding before this weekend, but the most surprising thing was that I still felt like I was riding within my comfort zone - I was able to consciously think about whether or not I was applying the instructors' advice, and feeling like I would be able to go a bit faster if I was up against the clock on a rally special stage. A huge difference over the course of two days, and testament to the value of Craig, Tamsin, Burt and Moly's collective experience and their ability to pass some of it on to their students (They're planning on running more training weekends in the future, see here for details). I didn't want to stop lapping the course at the end of the day, but it was finally time to head off and meet Sarah and the truck for the drive back to Derby.

On Monday night, before I had washed the Ténéré, or my stinking riding gear, I signed up to the Hafren Rally at the start of October. There's a time when you've got to stop saying "some day".

[Editorial note: Although I had my camera with me, I was somewhat remiss with actually using it over the weekend - too busy having fun and attempting to extract the maximum amount of knowledge from the instructors! With the exception of the first photo of the Ténéré at the entrance to the rally complex, all the photos and videos used were taken by Jason Markos. Jason was in the other group on his BMW HP2, which is why, aside from the first few shots before we split up, the weather in the photos doesn't match my comments in the text. His story of the weekend can be found here] ]]> 61@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ default Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:19:00 -0000 I'll ride into the sunset, my horse waits on the plain http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=60 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=60#comm East Midlands Group of the Trail Riders Fellowship, but having turned up to the appointed place at the appointed hour there was noone to be seen. Fortunately, I had my own maps with me, so I went for a ride on my own, covering ground from Barbury Castle in the north of the county to Shaftesbury in the south.



Barbury Castle car park
Not the best start to the day, no sign of the people I was supposed to be meeting, and during a quick exploratory blast along the Ridgeway my number plate fell off, necessitating a hasty repair with zip-ties

Byway near Avebury
Quiet byway somewhere north of Avebury

Steep hill
Easier than it looked, but I imagine it might get interesting in the wet

Avebury
Back onto the tarmac and into Avebury itself

Rolling Hills
Somewhere between Avebury and Pewsey

Maps
Where am I?

Stonehenge
Stonehenge. Wiltshire County Council is carrying out a consultation into closing this byway and another further down - at the prompting of English Heritage, who consider the occasional trail bike passing by to "spoil the ambience of this ancient monument", or words to that effect. Apparently the car park full of tourist motorhomes in the middle distance, and the two main roads which pass even closer to the stones are OK though.

Stonehenge
The other threatened byway. Cynical minds might suggest this is under threat because it offers a way to see the stones without passing through the proposed UberGiftShop. I couldn't possibly comment.

Salisbury Racecourse
Alongside Salisbury Racecourse (with the city itself in the background) on the Old Shaftesbury Drove.

Escape Map
Tucking the map behind the screen on the Ténéré was great for quick access, but this wasn't the first time I had to go back and pick it up off the trail.

Van
The Shaftesbury end isn't all that technical.

Quiet Trail
The road less travelled (an offshoot of the Ox Drove)

Ox Drove
The Ox Drove itself

Ox Drove
Water splash at the eastern end of the Ox Drove

Ford
Continuing the watery theme with a nice ford.

At this point, I was on a high, having had a great day out and about seven hours of (mostly off-tarmac) riding, so I set off northwards to pick up a few more trails across the military training areas and hit the road back towards Derby. I turned off the B390 between Shrewton and Chitterne, and rode straight into this:

Drowned
Also of a watery nature, but not in a good way.

Not the best photo, but it was taken one handed while stood up to my waist in muddy water and holding the bike upright with the other. The bottom was full of gloopy clay which dragged the bike to a halt. Infuriatingly, a bit of probing established that the other side (left of shot) was only about 18" deep. It took me the best part of an hour to lift the bike onto the shallow shelf and drag it out onto dry land. Unfortunately, although I hit the killswitch before water could get into the engine, it had seeped into the airbox and cylinder while it was sat there and without a plug spanner there was no way the bike was starting again - probably just as well, as the water in the airbox had also run down the breather hose into the crankcases and mixed with the oil, leaving it with debateable lubricating properties.

Fortunately, I was only about 50m away from the tarmac road, so I pushed the bike back round the water and made the phone call which set off an epic multi-stage rescue mission whereby my dad came down from Cheltenham and picked me up with the trailer, while Sarah was driving the pickup down from Derby to Cheltenham to take me home - where we eventually arrived at about midnight.

Having spent the next week washing about a gallon of paraffin and two gallons of oil through the engine, the bike appears to now be running fine. I'll be doing another oil and filter change next week just to be sure, but hopefully there's no lasting damage. I've got a couple of mods in mind to prevent a recurrence, but needless to say, I'll also be a bit wary of riding into puddles I can't see the bottom of for a while. ]]> 60@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ default Wed, 24 Aug 2011 22:27:00 -0000 Ride to Finland http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=59 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=59#comm http://ridetofinland.selincite.com/ ]]> 59@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ linkdump Sun, 29 May 2011 22:34:00 -0000 Great Lakes http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=58 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=58#comm Dragon Rally (hence the lack of updates on here). Last weekend I set things back on track with a run up north to join members of the XT660.com forums in their annual Lakeland Weekend.

Derbyshire Sunshine

With the luxury of a whole Friday off work to get myself from Derby to the shores of Ullswater, I was determined to have a bit of fun on the way, staying away from the major roads as much as possible and taking in a few trails where possible.

Luggaged up
Luggaged up and ready to go.


Gravel Trail
Is this the way to Cumbria? Certainly not the quickest, but possibly the most fun.

Derbyshire Trails
Last time I came up here was in December on the GasGas with the East Mids TRF, and those puddles were eighteen inch deep with icebergs floating in them. Fortunately this time the going was a bit more suited to a big, heavily loaded bike!


Ladybower Reservoir
Ladybower Reservoir, and the start of the run across Snake Pass to Manchester

21000 miles
21,000 miles under the wheels of the Ten' on the run down into Glossop.

A leisurely two and a half hours after leaving home, I found myself fighting through the traffic in Glossop and beginning the dull-but-unavoidable motorway middle section of the journey, around the M60 and onto the M6 northwards.


Rocket
One of the few entertaining sights on the motorway section of the journey.

With the motorway came the rain, always fun at 70mph in an off-road lid and goggles, but fortunately it didn't last that long, and by the time I reached junction 35 at Carnforth - the first viable 'gateway' into the lakes, the sun had come back out. Back to the original plan then.

A few weeks beforehand, I'd been made aware that Cumbria County Council publishes marked up PDF maps of all the byways and unsurfaced roads under its jurisdiction on their website, to help trail users stay on the right (legal) track. I'd taken advantage of this to highlight my own OS Landranger sheets with these trails, so after skirting the eastern extremity of Morecambe Bay, I spent the afternoon weaving my way up to Windermere almost entirely by single-track tarmac and a variety of trails before the final run up and over the Kirkstone Pass to Ullswater.


Morecambe Bay
Passing Morecambe Bay

Wooded Seclusion
Wooded seclusion

Sheep
Baaaa! Fields of sheep means going through gates. I think I opened, pushed the bike through and closed half a dozen on this mile-long trail. After a day of riding without incident, I dropped the bike while trying to get the last one open. Oops.

Kirkstone Pass
Kirkstone Pass. Luggaged up Tenere ahead. I wonder where he might be going?

I reached the campsite at about 5pm to find over thirty bikes and riders in attendance, and after pitching my tent it was time to crack open a beer and while away the evening with friends old and new.

For the Saturday this year, rather than a guided ride-out, the organisers had excelled themselves by putting on a HUMM-style scatter rally, entitled the 'NavXT'. There were a couple of significant differences from the HUMM - we starting from a campsite in the Lake District rather than a hotel in the Pyrenees, and the use of GPS/Satnav was allowed.

Now I've never really found a compelling reason to buy a Satnav unit, so while almost everyone else was typing coordinates into their little boxes of navigational wizardry before firing up their bikes and heading, I was battling to keep hold of several sheets of paper and an outspread map against the wind which was howling across the lake. My planning was further limited by the fact the markers sprawled across Landranger sheets 89 and 90, and I'd only been able to find the latter in a quick visit to Derby city centre the weekend before. Fortunately, the campsite and the nearest checkpoints were on that sheet, so I made a hasty plan which would pick up some points and take me into Keswick to refuel and acquire the missing map.

Old Coach Road
GPS? I don't need no stinkin' GPS! The Tenere in Nav-Rally mode - hand-written directions on the screen and map-holder on the tank. Underneath the map is a Kriega US-5 containing my trail toolkit. Tow-rope on the bars was acquired from an outdoor shop in Hathersage to tow me and the recalcitrant GasGas back to civilisation last December.

Old Coach Road
The Old Coach Road. The tarmac ended somewhere on the horizon at the left hand side of the frame, and when I stopped to take this photo I was only about two-thirds of the way along. I could have happily ridden back and forth along here for the rest of the day.

Having acquired petrol, a map, and a sausage roll, the mad-dash around the lanes and trails continued, for the rest of the day, occasionally encountering other XT-mounted riders, and frequently encountering an apparently endless stream of cyclists coming the other way, the result of some sort of race taking place that day.

At about 2pm I ran out of plan. I'd taken Darren, local resident and event organiser at his word when he said we wouldn't be able to get all the checkpoints within the allotted time, and only marked out just over half of them. I retired to a tea-room in Buttermere to take another look at the map and see what else might be possible. I was divided between encouragement and annoyance as I realised that I might be able to reach them all, but that by having failed to plan from the start I would now have to cover some of the same ground twice. Worth a try anyway, so collecting up my maps I set off again.

Sellafield
The campsite at Ullswater was at the North-Eastern extremity of the route I took. This was close to the South-Western limit. That's Sellafield in the distance, with the Irish Sea beyond.

Wastwater
On the shore of Wastwater. I wish I'd taken a better photo, because on a grey day like this it's a really spooky place that calls to mind Tolkien's Mordor - but by this point it was raining on and off, so the DSLR stayed in it's waterproof bag and I just took a quick snap with the Kodak Playsport ZX3 hanging around my neck.

As the afternoon went on, the weather got worse and worse, hammering me with rain as I raced back over the narrow, rippled tarmac thread of the Hardknott and Wrynose passes, cursing the occupants of the Volvo estate who remained utterly oblivious to my presence behind themfor a couple of miles as they admired the view (What view? It's misty and pelting it down with rain!) at 15mph. Further checkpoints became an exercise in attempting to write the answers down without getting the roadbook any more sodden than it had already become.

The ticking clock finally forced me to race for home, just two checkpoints short of the full set. With no time to plan I was reduced to following road-signs for 'Ullswater', which brought me out half way down the western shore - almost directly opposite the campsite - with five minutes to go before the 6pm deadline. Fortunately the traffic lights in Pooley Bridge were green and I rode onto the campsite and up to the organisers' tent with mere seconds to go.

One of the organisers retired to his tent with the pile of soggy roadbooks while the rest of us attempted to huddle into the 8ft square gazebo, half of which was already taken up by smoking, sausage-laden barbeques, giving a choice between suffocation inside, and drowning outside. With everyone's hunger sated, the results were announced, and to my great surprise I'd actually won - by a handful of points, and gaining from the penalty points given to another rider for coming in late. Score one for the Luddites!

The barbeque was quickly extinguished and we all trooped (squelchily) into Pooley Bridge to attempt to dry out in the pub, before returning for another wild and windy night under canvas. Although some were staying on until Monday, I had to get home, so I set off on Sunday morning to battle the storms all the way down the M6, before rediscovering the sun as I re-crossed the Peak District to home.

Thanks to Darren, Dave, Keith, and Steve for organisation, and to all at XT660.com for entertainment. ]]> 58@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ default Sun, 29 May 2011 20:40:00 -0000 Dragon Rally: The machinery http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=56 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=56#comm
Sunken Ural
Very new Ural outfit. Riding into the site until you got stuck then getting off and pitching your tent seemed to be a fairly popular tactic.

Nitrous V-Max
Nitrous. Because a standard V-Max is just too easy to ride across a muddy field.

Rally veteran
This sidecar outfit has seen quite a few Dragon rallies.

Arctic Tenere
Previous generation Tenere with a cool paintjob.

Tiger Cub
No apologies for posting this again. Definite favourite of the weekend.

CX500 Turbo
Basking shark meets Turbot.

C90 Kill List
Note the ''Kill list' on the leg guard. Love it.

ZXR plus Toolbox
Late reg ZXR400L, Toolbox topbox.

Ducati SS
Nice Ducati SS.

No Camping
No bikes, but funny nevertheless. "Please don't camp under the power lines" said the instructions. "Danger! No camping." said the sign. Don't think anyone paid any attention. ]]> 56@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ default Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:49:00 -0000 Dragon Rally 2011 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=55 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=55#comm
Dragon veteran outfit

My weekend began on Thursday night, with a post-work motorway dash down to Tom's through the rain and wind - having first checked that I had my ticket, and had filled the fuel bottle for my MSR petrol stove, my twin embarrassments of last year's rally. Despite the weather, the predominant theme of this leg was boredom, although the last mile of single track through Glascoed livened things up a bit, thick fog meaning that 20mph was too fast and saw hedges looming up from nowhere - no bridge jumping today then. Eventually however the lights of New Inn appeared through the mist, and I was able to relax into Tom's ever-excellent hospitality (and a big plateful of cottage pie).

Friday dawned, and Tom and I were packing the Tenere's when a single-cylinder exhaust note announced the arrival of Alan, aboard a very familiar looking DR-Z400E - formerly resident in the garage of wildchildHQ. Banter exchanged, tea drunk, and Tom's spare sheepskin seat pad hastily affixed to the DR-Z with gaffa tape, we set off for the run up through Wales to the bunkhouse in Dolgellau where we would spend Friday night. As ever, Tom had contrived an excellent route, this time taking us through the Army training areas in the Brecon Beacons, then up the Elan Valley. As we rode through the latter I was struck by the recollection that all the water I drank and washed in growing up in Birmingham passed through this series of reservoirs. Wierd.

Army training area
Sign reads "Danger. Do not pick up any military debris. It may explode and kill you"

Elan Valley
One of the Elan Valley dams

A brief stop at Devil's Bridge, and a chance liaison with the Welsh MZ club in Machynlleth (including Robin and Ade, fellow attendees of the inaugural Adventure Commuter camp last year) broke up the remainder of our trip to Dolgellau, where we spent the evening around the barbeque in the company of the MZ boys.

Saturday morning, and it was time for the short and relatively straightforward trip from Dolgellau to the Dragon checkpoint on the A498 near Beddgelert. On the way, we stopped for breakfast in Blaenau Ffestiniog, where I managed to headbutt a low beam while carrying a large cup of tea, which wasn't a particularly bright start to the day. Having recovered my composure with the aid of a fried breakfast (and a fresh cup of tea) we took a walk along the high street to obtain meat for the evening meal and milk for on-site tea provision, before heading on towards the checkpoint, via a lovely single-track road, another chance encounter with Robin, and some stunning scenery.

River valley

Having arrived at the checkpoint from the opposite direction to most, final directions to the site were somewhat unnecessary, having already passed it a few hundred yards back up the road. Tickets validated, we entered the site and set about finding somewhere to camp. Having made our way down to the bottom end of the site, alongside the river, it became apparent that the main criteria for where to pitch up would be "not underwater". The word 'quagmire' springs to mind as one which there is seldom a good opportunity to use, but which perfectly described large areas of the site. I decided to make for the high ground - up a steep grassy bank, which the Tenere took fairly easily in its stride, carrying me to a much drier plateau, with a promising looking space for a few tents. I waved to the others to join me, and Tom gunned his Tenere up the incline - probably regretting, about half way up, that his recently purchased new TKC80 rear tyre was still sat in his hallway, not fitted to his bike. Nothing a bit of a push couldn't sort out, and he was soon up to the top. Alan meanwhile, who was already slithering around on the flat with the supermoto'd DR-Z, had a rare (and disappointing, given I had the camera ready) outbreak of common sense and rode the long way round to join us at the top.

As we pitched the tents, we were joined by Greg and Louis, who had travelled across from North Wales. With their assistance we managed to annexe an area at the top of the slope (which with hindsight the people next to us were probably trying to save for their friends who turned up later on. Oh well) and construct a tarp roof over a convenient group of large rocks to make ourselves a 'living room'.

Camping spot
Our hilltop vantage point/tarp shanty town. The track entering the bottom left was Tom's attempt on the slope

Carnage
The carnage we left behind at the bottom.

As we sorted our living arrangements out, we were kept entertained by the continual stream of arriving bikes, who appeared to be afraid of just riding through the puddle in the picture above, which although about ten yard long was only a few inches deep, with a hardcore track underneath it. Instead, they rode through the mud on either side, and got stuck. Our position at the top of the hill gave us a prime view of the chaos. Of particular note were the group from the C90 club, who sailed past all the bigger bikes with no regard for the slippery ground, then once they had set up camp, they returned for a victory lap, and to splash past the assortment of stranded 'Adventure Bikes'.

Camp pitched, and goody bags obtained, we set off for a walk around the site, checking out the eclectic machinery that the Dragon attracts, and bumping into various acquaintances. There were a lot of interesting bikes there, but my favourite was probably this rather lovely old trials bike (which Tom informs me is a Triumph Tiger Cub with a BSA C15 engine in it).

Classic trials

It really was quite wet down near the river, although it did give Greg an opportunity to demonstrate why wellies are eminently suitable winter rally footwear:

Greg

As the night closed in, we returned to the shelter of the tarp (via the bar), eschewing the dodgy rock covers band murdering a succession of tunes in the marquee in favour of stoking up the fire, preparing a very tasty lamb curry, and entertaining various visitors before retiring to bed, to spend the night listening to the rain-filled gale which blew up the valley in the small hours. ]]> 55@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ default Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:29:00 -0000 One year on... http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=54 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=54#comm a Tenere owning friend who resides in that part of the world.

Two Teneres

I spent today doing a 120 mile lap of Nottingham, exploring and testing out some new trails, bringing the bike up to 17,425 miles - 14,559 in my ownership.

(Note: there should be some photos here, but it's late and I have no idea where the camera cable is. Check back)

Looking back, that's actually quite surprising. For context, I've put about 18,000 miles on the ZXR400, but that was between January 2005 and November 2009, when I last rode it. Nearly five years. Of course I've done more miles in that time, but it's been spread across at least four other bikes, as well as the cars. In the last year however, I've not done more than a hundred miles on the road on any other bike. And aside from a slight twinge of regret at not managing to get any trackdays in last year, I've been perfectly happy with that state of affairs.

Over the course of the last year it's taken me to the Dragon Rally, carried me down through France to the Pyrenees (bagging a third place finish at the HUMM in the process), been trail-riding in Wales, Wiltshire, Nottinghamshire, and the Lake District, carried me around the country from Devon to Lincolnshire on various trips and of course taken me to work every day in sunshine or snow. I've loved every minute, and in the event it was stolen or otherwise disappeared tomorrow, I would, seriously, go straight out and buy another - there's no other big trailie that appeals to me.

En-route to the HUMM

Stuck at the HUMM

Snowy commute

Stuff I've done to it:


I wore out the original fitment Metzeler Tourances at 6,144 miles. Since then I've worn out two pairs of Mitas E-09 Dakars, and am about 500 miles into the third. The fact I've not bothered trying anything else says I'm pretty happy with them. They've cost me about £125 a set by the time I've had them posted (from Trellesport and fitted (by Rob at Racing Lines in Derby), and I can get over 5,500 out of them, which is close enough to the Tourances. I don't find the road manners noticeably worse than the more road-oriented Tourances, and while they do still get clogged up by Nottinghamshire clay, they've swallowed everything else I've thrown at them.

Mitas E-09 Dakar

In terms of other consumables, it had a chain and sprockets at just under 10,000 miles (still had a bit of life but it was just before the HUMM), and a set of rear pads about 3,000 miles later. I did an extra oil and filter change at the same time as the chain and sprockets, because I knew the HUMM trip was going to make the 12,000 mile service late. It's also been serviced by Yamaha dealers at 6000 and about 13,300 miles, which cost about £180 and £240 respectively - the valve clearances are done at the 12k. I'll get the 18,000 mile service done some time in February, just in case anything else crops up which might need fixing before the warranty runs out, but after that it will probably get serviced at home.

It has had a few bits done under warranty. I know the loom and rectifier were replaced before I bought it - a fairly well known problem, which appears to be due to not assembling the rectifier plug correctly at the factory, causing corrosion/shorting/melting in the plug, and a dead bike. It's been fine since. In addition, since I've had it it's had a new ignition barrel (original wore and got notchy), a set of cush rubbers (another known fault) and a sprocket carrier bearing (probably caused by the cush rubbers). All at about 13-14,000 miles.

Those first couple of trails a year ago showed that the original rubber footpeg covers needed to go - a two minute job with an Allen key to expose the grippy metal pegs below. These are still a bit small, and I have plans for some bigger ones (or some PivotPegz) for more grip and comfort on the trails. The original bars were replaced with taller Renthals (613 bend) so that I could stand up straight, and the Yamaha handguards with, initially, an old set of Acerbis guards, then latterly with a pair of Barkbuster Storms. A high front mudguard, intended for a Suzuki RMZ-400 replaced the original low-mounted one, to avoid clogging it up with the aforementioned Nottinghamshire clay. Just a few little tweaks that, with the change of tyres, add up to make it much better than the stock bike on the trails.

For practicality, I've added a Touareg bar-mounted bag from Hein Gericke, which usually contains my keys, earplugs, a stand puck, and a couple of pens/pencils. I've also fitted a Kriega tank-harness, initially so I could attach a map-case for the HUMM, but it also allows me to fit any of the US-5/10/20 waterproof bags (albeit I don't have a US-5, and I think the US-20 would get in the way). Then just for a bit of a change I rattle-canned the grey plastic panels in a rather tasty yellow:

Navigation setup

Yellow!

Bring on the next year! ]]> 54@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ default Sun, 23 Jan 2011 21:55:00 -0000 driverchris http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=26 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=26#comm http://driverchris.blogspot.com/2009/07/strip-for-strat.html ]]> 26@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ linkdump Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:56:00 -0000 Lois on the loose http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=10 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=10#comm http://loisontheloose.com/ ]]> 10@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ linkdump Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:15:00 -0000 sideburn magazine blog http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=8 http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=8#comm
http://sideburnmag.blogspot.com/ ]]> 8@http://wildchild.org.uk/blog/pivot/ linkdump Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:31:00 -0000