My Lands End 2002

Nice to see your report Mike - here is my little story FWIW:

If I say I was 5 yards off a Gold Medal I wouldn't be exaggerating. (Now where have I heard that before?). I was on a bike in Class B starting from Plusha.

Felons Oak was a good confidence builder. Stoney Street was … stoney. Riverton was a challenge though with some unexpected sharp bends that I understand led to many solos running out of track – good challenge to add some warmth in the wee small hours. Sutcombe was nice to do just as dawn broke with the dawn chorus going well. Darracott had a lot of loose stuff but wasn’t anything like I recall – I am sure there used to be huge washed out gullies – maybe it was over prepared - lets see what the results say for this hill. The Bude special test was a hoot – I followed two sidecar outfits and the one just before me really gave it the beans – sidecar high in the air at one point, driver hanging over so far that his shoulder was nearly scraping the ground at another – they finished with a well-deserved round of applause – can’t remember the number but they had a red petrol tank and the outfit in front of them failed the test by going the wrong way around the second set of cones. Crackington was a cracker. Warleggan nearly caught me out with my back wheel skipping around on the slimy rocks – what a lovely hill – primroses and celandines decorating the banks – and very cheery marshalls and observers. We got held up behind a group of horses at Bishops Path Special Test and had to wait quite a while to clear the section but I will let someone else tell that story. Bishopswood - after thinking I had finished the section the marshall encouraged me on toward a very snotty looking bank across a road - the TTR responded to a rapid twist of the throttle and sailed over although I didn't mean the front wheel to paw the air quite so alarmingly!

The weather was perfect and the hills were very kind to me - until Bluehills. After seeing the crowds there, I nearly chickened out but having got that far clean, it had to be done! Bluehills lived up to everything I had heard about them but worse - I arrived to look across the valley at it - the track was just a very long thin brown strip that seemed to run vertically upwards with a very large crowd which I now realise were thickest at the nastiest bits - sensible spectators eh?

Bluehills 1 went fine and it was great to charge up the hill after negotiating a snotty hairpin in the mud at the foot of the hill - fortunately another competitor reminded me that there was a stop otherwise I would have probably charged the whole hill in one go.

The restart toward the top for the second observed section - Bluehills 2 - was pretty daunting with a huge slab of rock to negotiate just feet away - but the stop marshall was encouraging although the sea of faces provided me with more adrenalin than perhaps was needed! I got a clean re-start and was romping up the hill confidently until - at the top the bikes are sent an a left hand loop which was the MCC's last chance of saving having to give out too many Gold Medals and it worked on me - I think they must have dumped a lorry load of loose earth and stone there earlier in the day - I gave it too much throttle on the bend and lost the back on the loose stuff so dabbed to save the bike and the embarrassment of decking it in front of the crowd – b****r!

After nearly 17 hours in the saddle at that point I would like to say it was tiredness that led to the fail but the truth is that it was poor riding and perhaps over-confidence - 5 yards from the top of the very last section though :o(

Well here's to a Silver Medal and well pleased I am with that if I get it - it assumes that the observers on the earlier hills agree that my restarts were clean - Beggars Roost was the only iffy one. At the previous stop some wag said the Beggars Roost was pretty easy as the postman went up it every day - what he didn't say was that said postie has a 4X4 and doesn't do restarts at the nastiest bit of the climb!

My Yamaha TTR250 ran perfectly and I didn't open the tool roll once - what a brilliant bike - it has rewarded my faith in the model! The only attention it got was refilling with petrol and letting some air out of the rear tyre towards the end of the trial when the 2 bikes in front of me failed a particularly slippery Hoskin Hill and returned to the bottom - that was a good hint! The TTR is now pretty much run in after adding about 700k on it over the Friday and Saturday. The perfect tool for the event I reckon. When I have recovered a bit more it will be power washed and well lubed.

Nice to see some photos posted up already – look forward to the rest!

Brilliantly organised event – well done to all the folk that made it happen!

Brian