Anticipation
It's been a couple of months in the planning. A friend of mine from work races in Formula 400 with Bemsee, and this year they have an away round at Croix-en-Ternois, in Northern France. What more excuse is needed for a weekend roadtrip? A few tea-break conversations later and it feels like half the office is going (although really it's about four of us, plus half a dozen former colleagues and friends of friends). Over the weeks, the banter flies around, plans are made, and the anticipation builds to a level where you can almost feel it in the air.
Anticipation brings with it a degree of concern. Although I've done thousands of miles on the continent on four wheels, this will be the first time out of the UK on the bike, and I'm flying solo - everyone else is travelling down on four wheels. I've only done a few hundred miles since swapping the engine in the ZXR400. I've got a new rucksack that I haven't tested over any significant distance, and it's stuffed full to bursting. My map is a collection of screenshots from Google Maps.
It's too late to worry about that now though, it's time to go.
Get me out of this country
I'm the first away, rolling out of the office car park at about 1130, my hopes of a quiet getaway dashed by the arrival of the sandwich van, which draws half the office outside. While the others have gone with the cheapest option (the NorfolkLine ferry from Dover to Dunkirk) I've opted for the convenience of the tunnel, with a wildly optimistic check-in time to minimise the extra cost. I hit the M1 and get my head down.
I'm never really a fan of motorway riding - the ZXR is out of its element travelling in a straight line at constant speed, and it rewards me with discomfort, vibration and boredom. On the way back it will be a grind, but for now at least, buoyed up by the anticipation of the weekend, it's a purposeful ordeal. Two fuel stops and a brief pause to get through the barriers at the Dartford Crossing should see me to the Eurotunnel terminal.
On the way out of the office, I had a conversation with a colleague who observed that the map taped to the fuel tank of the ZXR only covered France. "I'd like to think I can find Folkestone" I retorted. These words come back to haunt me just south of Dartford as the motorway begins to curve to the right and I realise that I've missed the M20. I call myself all sorts of names inside my helmet as I wind the throttle open in search of the next junction where I can turn round. It feels like the longest 20 miles I've ridden until I get back to the same point, this time pointing east. I feel slightly less stupid later in the evening when, after a few beers with the others, I discover that neither of the groups of cars made the turning either. I still make the terminal with time to spare, and even get pushed forward onto an earlier crossing.
The train itself is only half full of cars, plus two bikes. I'm joined by a couple on a Harley-Davidson, fully luggaged, intercommed and satnav'd up and at the start of a three week trip to Corsica. They have until Wednesday to reach the Mediterranean coast, and plan to visit the Millau Bridge on the way, but aside from that they are going wherever the road takes them. At first glance we couldn't be more different - I'm stood there in full leathers, with just a rucksack leaning against the bike. Stand at the far end of the carriage and my bike disappears completely behind the Harley. Strip away such trivialities though and we are all chasing the same highs, just in different ways and within different constraints. As the train emerges into daylight I can't help feel slightly jealous of the time they have to play with.
The fun begins
Where the British leg of the trip was all about the destination and the deadline, once I roll off the train on the French side it's all about the journey. I know it will be at least a couple of hours before the others hit French soil, and they have the keys to the farmhouse we are borrowing for the weekend. No point in rushing then.
I follow the only road out of the terminal that isn't signed for the Autoroute, and end up on a slow tour of the Cite Europe shopping complex before escaping towards Coquelles. I pull over to get my bearings (and put my earplugs in). Within a minute, a rider on a French plated, fightered Gixxer is slowing as he rolls towards me. We exchange thumbs-up and he continues, satisfied that le motard anglais is not in distress. Having satisfied myself that I'm pointing in vaguely the right direction I get back on the bike and take aim for Croix-en-Ternois, one village at a time. Guines, Rety, Alincthun, Desvres, Hucqueliers, Fruges, Anvin. All the map is good for is giving me names to look for on the road signs, and there aren't quite enough of either. In Desvres in particular I do a couple of laps before escaping again into the countryside. I complete the last few miles down a narrow, twisty road that barely even shows up on the map, before bursting out onto the main road that runs past the circuit.
Circuit de Croix
My first glance at the Circuit de Croix is across four lanes of dual carriageway. A compact circuit with no fewer than four hairpins (and only two other corners) making the most of the available land. I'm told it was built and run by the local government as a way of letting the boy-racers blow off steam somewhere other than on the roads. After a slightly counter-intuitive loop to get across the dual-carriageway I roll into the paddock in search of Dave Scott Racing base camp. I find Dave having a beer with a couple of other F400 riders.
He leads me over what appears to be a footbridge, but which he later informs me they brought their van over, and I park the ZXR up next to his awning. We chat for a while, before I venture off to take a proper look at the track. In many ways, it's a step back in time - armco barriers, tyre walls and chain link fencing push right up to the track. You won't find Rossi venturing out onto a circuit like this.
Over the course of the weekend I will spend a considerable amount of time standing on fences, earth banks, and assorted other trackside furniture, desperately trying to gain the altitude required for an unhindered shot of the track over the 10ft catch fencing that runs almost unbroken around the track. Tonight however, I have no such difficulties, and I take the opportunity to walk part of the track as the sun drops towards the horizon, before heading off in search of the house, my friends, beer and bed.
Lets go racing
Rising late on Saturday morning, we shake off our collective hangovers and head for the circuit. All is not well. Dave has crashed his recently acquired FZR400 in practice, grinding through an engine cover and writing off a helmet, and has had to resort to using his old (and crucially less powerful) RVF400 for the morning race. He will eventually use the RVF again for the second race, going with what he knows to make up for the curtailed practice. We wish him luck and set up camp on the outside of the start-finish straight, sitting high up on the banking to give us a view over the catch-fencing as we watch MZ's and Yamaha RD's smoke their way around the circuit, and try to catch some photos of the Alto Performance Vyrus and the other unusual machinery racing in Thunderbikes. The second F400 race turns out to be eventful, with several riders failing to take the first hairpin on two wheels. I balance on top of a fence with the long lens on, working on my panning technique and attempting to break my annoying habit of taking my finger off the shutter release every time I hear the crunch of fairing on tarmac, thus missing the moment. More practise needed. Eventually racing winds up for the day and we return to the house to break out the barbeque.
Smokin'...This sidecar driver was lighting up the rear on every lap onto the start-finish straight
The highs and the lows
We arrive at the circuit on Sunday morning to find a more optimistic mood. A borrowed timing cover and a gaffa taped screen mean the FZR is raceworthy again, and I stay around the paddock chatting to Dave as he waits for his first race. I step out of the way to snap a few pictures as they roll the FZR out to bump start it. It doesn't fire on the first run, and they turn round in the distance. Half way back it's obvious that something is wrong, and the little thought that's been screaming in the back of my mind finally breaks through into consciousness - "put the camera down and help you idiot". I'm lifting the camera strap over my head as a similar phrase enters my ears. We try again, and again, but there's no life. The transponder is hastily pulled off the FZR and taped to the tank of the RVF, Dave thumbs the starter and races off to the holding area as the recalcitrant FZR is wheeled back into the marquee. I pick up my camera kit again and run up to the viewing terrace on top of the pit building to catch the start. My hands are shaking and my heart pounding as I try to swap lenses.
The lights go out and Dave launches the bike. I lose sight of him in the melee of the first corner, but as I pick him out again in the run down to the second hairpin it's obvious he's going backwards - the tyre warmers have been on the Yamaha, and the cold tyres on the Honda mean he's braking way before anyone else. After a lap or two his position stabilises and then starts to improve, but then the red flags go out.
I cross to the pit wall as Dave parks the RVF back on his grid spot and switches the engine off. I'm still breathing heavily, so I can only imagine how he must be feeling having done a few racing laps on top of the paddock exertions. The stoppage at least gives him a chance to catch his breath and stop sweating. Finally the riders are told to start their engines for the restart. As the cacophony of high-revving inline fours assaults my ears, my heart sinks again as I see Dave beckoning a marshall over. As the rest of the field departs for the sighting lap I'm finally able to hear the little Honda. It's running, but only at a fast tickover, failing to acknowledge any change in throttle position. I'm later told it's a recurring, but uncurable hot-starting problem. It's wheeled through the gate in the pit wall as the field returns to the grid, and Dave sits working the twistgrip, hoping it will clear in time for him to at least start from the pit lane.
I'm looking through the lens at the pole position rider, with the D40 cranking in 'Drive' mode as the field power off the line, when out of my right ear I hear the sound of a Honda V4 spinning up to the limiter. Dave will start this one, but it feels like an age before the marshall's hand lifts off his shoulder and he launches it towards the pit exit and the rapidly disappearing pack. By the end of the race he'll have easily dispatched the bottom half of the field, but the leaders are too far gone.
Here comes the rain...F400 #9 Gerhard Quinn in the Sunday morning race.
As the racers break for lunch, so does the weather. The forboding storm clouds which have formed a dramatic backdrop to my photos this morning finally reach us and within minutes there are small rivers running across the paddock.
I leave Dave pondering this latest complication of his weekend and venture out into the weather to watch sidecars drifting through the puddles and supersport racers hanging off the bike, searching for the reassuring feel of slider on tarmac while trying to keep the bike as upright as possible. The bikes are dropping like flies around the bottom hairpin as they try and get a good drive into the only fast flowing section of the track.
By the time the final F400 race comes round, the sky has cleared again, but the track is still damp in places. The field is split between those playing it safe and the few gambling on dry tyres on the drying tarmac. Dave is in the former camp, presumably seeing no point in rounding off the weekend with another crash. As the race goes on, it becomes obvious that the gamblers have won, and the rest on wet tyres are left frustrated. While the professional racer on wet tyres and a drying track only has to worry about making the tyres last to the end of the race, the club racer is left cursing as he takes the edge off tyres that someday he will need to reuse in properly wet conditions. It's the final insult for Dave and his team, left reflecting on what could have been as they pack up for the return to the UK.
The return journey
I say goodbye to the others, and I'm left alone on the driveway of the house. A quick glimpse at a friend's map tells me that turning right - the opposite direction to the way we've been going in and out all weekend - will take me across to an interesting looking northbound road. I click the ZXR into gear and pull away into the unknown.
To stretch the rollercoaster analogy to breaking point, this 20 minutes of my life is Nemesis at Alton Towers. Claustrophobic, tight, twisty and intense. Before leaving I was reading a Performance Bikes article about the Dark Dog Rally - a Belgian bike event where flat-barred ZX-10Rs race supermotos on special stages ranging from dirt roads to kart tracks, and as I dodge patches of gravel on a six foot wide strip of crumbling tarmac threading its way through the long grass I am there in my mind. ZXR400 Adventure Tourer? Why not?
Eventually, reality prevails, and I reach something more conventionally described as a road and head North, retracing my steps from 48 hours earlier. Town to town, village to village. I roll into Hucqueliers to find a parade in full swing. Tractors haul decorated trailers at a crawl up the main street as people mill around between the market stalls. I feel like an alien disrupting proceedings. A particularly loud, buzzing alien. The bike and I are both getting hot and bothered as I pick my way through the wandering crowds and back out into open countryside. The plastic wallet taped to the tank that has been holding my map since Nottingham detonates as I sit up at 110 to brake for a corner - apparently high speed windblast isn't a major factor in testing office stationery. Fortunately the map is still held down by the strips of electrical tape and strips of shredded plastic. I get lost in Desvres again.
Arriving at the tunnel, I attempt to retrace my steps to get into the terminal without resorting to the Autoroute, but I am eventually forced to admit defeat - although not before indulging my childish side with the novelty of a few knee down laps of a left hand roundabout. Fortunately 500 yards of Autoroute is all it takes before peeling off towards the check-in kiosk. I get told off (again) for riding from check-in to the car park without my lid on.
The return train journey is, once again, an impromptu bike meet - a trio of riders on a SuperDuke, R1200GS and a Triumph Thruxton on their way back from the Vosges, a cluster of Pan Europeans, and a couple who, like me, are on the way home from Croix. We share stories until we hit British soil, then I say my goodbyes and chase the fast cars returning from Le Mans out of the terminal and up the M20 into the setting sun.
The end game
The first hiccup comes as I pull off the M25 into South Mimms services. The engine cuts out at the lights on the roundabout and takes a while to restart. I shrug it off, and once I've filled myself with fast food and the bike with fuel I hit the road again.
Within 20 miles I know I'm in trouble. The bike's losing power to the extent that I'm at full throttle in top and just about holding 60mph. To make matters worse I've just got onto the M1 and deep into the widening roadworks. I coast the last 100 yards to a gap in the concrete barriers and thread my way through the cones. I give the bike an annoyed look, look in the tank, play with the fuel tap and choke. There's not a lot else I can do, this is a 90's sports bike, not a 70's UJM, and I don't have the tools to get at anything more meaningful. Eventually it fires up and I make it a few more miles. Then a couple more. Finally I try to restart it and get nothing but a clicking solenoid. That's the end of that then.
I'm about half a mile from junction 10, so I push the bike as far as the exit sliproad, where the roadwork cones end and a recovery van would have a chance of stopping. I sit down under a bridge and call for help.
I eventually complete the journey to Nottingham with the bike in the back of a van, but not before a jobsworth from the 'official' (ie on commission) recovery company for the roadworks turns up and insists on taking me a junction in the opposite direction. On another day I might have stood my ground and told him to go hang, but I'm tired and he keeps trotting out the same 'only doing what the control room tells me' until I'm ground down into submission.
Once I am finally heading in the right direction, the drive gives me time to reflect on the highs of my weekend, and look for mitigation for the current low - it could have happened on the way out, preventing me from ever getting to Croix; it could have happened in France, from where the recovery process would have delayed me considerably more than the three hours late I eventually get home; it's better to find out about a problem now than in a months time when I am heading off for a 2500 mile European trip. It could have been worse. I roll into bed dead with exhaustion, but I'm already thinking about the next high.