422 miles, take away, say 40 back after the finish to PZ via Blue Hills, leaves 380 for the Trial. Should have been 340, it certainly felt like more than 500 what with the fog on Exmoor.
The start at Plusha was very civilised, a surprise for Tom Beckerleg when his bike would not start at scruteneering, the chain drive to the mag had jumped off. Set mag on points opening and piston on top dead centre, fully retarded, (should not be done like this!) , hook chain on one tooth and turn over engine, chain goes back on without too much strain, tighten mag chain (was a bit slack!) and it worked perfectly from then on. ( it had to be as before or at least 40 degrees out so we reckoned that a rough method would get it back to as before).
Good run up to the start at North Petherton, onto Felons Oak , followed a car and we all got lost! How I still don't know as it is straight forward, Section OK.
Onto Stoney Street which was slippery before the section for a bike but OK for the section itself. Richard Harvey took his machine into the hedge and was overtaken by several cars whilst having a nap.
The bit between Stoney and Culbone was a bit of a blur, sometimes I could see the side of the road in the fog butmost of the time I could not, bit of a relief when the main road and its cats eyes turned up, I could have been heading South to Exford for all I knew.
Early at Culbone,so waited a bit longer to recover from the eye strain. No better to Beggars where us heavy weights had to do the restart, away into the fog and down off the moor, terrible, do not want to this again! So dangerous.
Riverton was kind to me this year, very careful up the left hand side, cut across to the right at the first corner, take a wide sweep and up to the 'Ends' with a slight wobble.
Nearly got overtaken by a car at Torrinton holding control!
Sutcombe was not too much trouble, did not stop at the top as being 'pushed on by the cars who seem to carry their food with them.
Darracott, with its restart, no trouble, nice section, much scrutinised on the restart? I am sure I did not run back.
Leddon Test OK and on to Widemouth, wait for 20 minutes and off- no petrol, hoped I could make it to the next.
Crackington , very tricky at the top for a bike, especially 500lbs of it!
Treworld next, ease through the river, don't slip on the stones, up to the restart, stop half way into the box, pull away OK very closely watched again, should I have entered class D instead?
Breakfast next and put 짙10 worth of fuel in , the most he had put in so far he said! I had done 158 miles sonot too bad as I lot was in low gear in the fog.
Warleggan next and getting rougher at the top each year, clear again .
Hosken had a restart for us old usually heavey bikes!!!! (as well as the tiddlers).Don't mind it here as the centre of the track has good grip, but what about running back a fraction, who knows?
Bishops Path OK but tricky for a heavy bike on the advers cambers.
Bishops Wood good fun with a jump half way.
Run down to Blue Hills past Newquay to Blue Hills 1. Oh dear the whole Trial ruined by a restart in such an unfair place, now I know how Class 8 feel. I did pull away after a moment or two but nothing happened when I first eased the clutch out, the back wheel moved sideways a bit and found grip, feet up before the end of the box, with room to spare, but how was I judged? By someone who has years of experience as a competitor, one would wish, it certainly would appear to be the case from the list of Marshals. I really cannot say wether in the current climate I pulled away as was demanded.
Blue Hills 2 was delightful, the start marshal said it was a bit greasy at the top and they had been forbidden from altering it, to which I replied,' it is usually difficult enough'.
Of to the finish to claim a Gold but what about the restarts?
Back down to Blue Hills ( third time along this road, ugh), to see a few cars and meet friends. Back down to PZ squeeze the bike in past the Morgan, will have to clean it later, no oil streaks at all and ran perfectly, has it got any oil in? Sit down and drift into occasional sleep.
I enjoyed my Lands End . The two biggest challenges were the mist on top of the moors and Hoskins. The first I won the second I lost but there's always next year! We were running near the front of the cars so we got to see some of the bikes. I only saw John at The Culborne Inn but we saw a lort of Tom including following him through the mist on the way to Riverton and later we saw him coming out of the top of Hoskins, all in a very relaxed style. We managed to clean Felons Oak and Begars and Sutcombe, all of which have defeated us in recent years. In our mind Hoskins was our only failure but lets wait till we get the results before discussing silverware! I could see why Class 0 were allowed to attempt Darracott. It looked to have been resurfaced. Mike saw Barrie Parker spectating here, sorry Barrie but I didn't realise you were there until it was to late to wave. Our highlights were Crackington which we got just right and powered our way through on the lowest permitted tyre pressure, although at the expense of a pucture but it was worth it. Also both BH 1 & 2 because we got up both of them despite being very confused about the start of BH2. We thought that "Stop Here" was some sort of safety measure not the start of the section, otherwise we would have taken care to finf a better place to stop. Lots of "political chat" on the way round, ranging from the letter Dennis has published here through to the restarts on Bishops Wood and BH1 and why the MCC doesn't send out a committee nomination forms. No I don't know how members know which positions fall vacant and I to think you shouldn't have to ask a member of the committee. It's certainly different to any other club or trade association I have ever belonged to, maybe thats part of its charm We hadn't booked any accomodation until a few days before the event but Simon Robson fond a nice guesthouse a few miles away from Newquay and invited us to the Leige dinner at The Smugglers where we found the cream of Cornish trialling on the next table, nice way to finish off what for us was a great trial. How was your Lands End? Michael Leete
ReplyDeleteAll in all an excellent event. The fog and delays on Beggars and Darracott meant we were running over 2 hours late but the early start meant that didn't matter too much. I thought the standard of the sections was absolutely right although I'm not quite sure that a restart on Bluehills 1 was absolutely necessary. However those who got it right were rewarded by the applause they deserved. We didn't. Likewise Hoskin and Bishops path but both were do-able, unlike BP last year. The low point for us was Treworld where we got off the restart no problem but stopped about 2 foot from the section ends when the engine decided for reasons best known to itself to stop. The high point was Blue hills 2. This is an enormous improvement, perhaps a bit easier but still challenging and without the likelihood of cars damaging themselves on the top corner. Many congratulations to the organisers. The results will make interesting reading. I hope that there are not any awards unexpectedly lost to the dreaded RB. Tony
ReplyDeleteWe ended up having a good event despite getting a puncture on the way to the start within 5 miles of home all the more annoying since the tyre had been fitted with a new tube! Luckily we parked next to Dave Foreshew and on seeing us struggle to break the bead on the tyre he produced a bead breaker which did the job easily anyone know where they can be obtained? Needless to say having fixed the tyre we didn’t get another flat all day. We got a bit more wheelspin on the beggars restart then I expected but got away OK. On Crackington I was surprised to see so many spectators waving at us as we stormed up until I realised they were trying to stop us as the previous car was still stuck in the mire. We stopped near the red restart and the marshal ensured us we would get a baulk. Once clear we completed the section with a restart. At the finish it transpired that fellow team members Mal Allen and Murray Montgomery-Smith also got baulks on Crackington how’s that for a coincidence! Hoskins got the better of us yet again, we got of the restart but only managed to get a cars length or 2 beyond the red box with near terminal valve bounce all the way, Mal tells me the trick is to trickle but that’s a skill my right foot is yet to develop. I was pleased to see the Bishops Wood restart a little lower this year and we romped skyward with no problems. Blue Hills 1 was a different story and a real sting in the tail, we made it but only after some serious bouncing. The new restart on BH 2 went OK but I think it would be a different story in the wet. It did mean that the original site was not so dug up, did you non re-starters see an improvement? We are hoping for a silver RB’s permitting. Another great Lands End well done to Roger and the MCC. Perhaps class 0 should be given a time slot on joint sections in the future to eliminate the delays seen at Darracott. Pete & Carlie Hart
ReplyDeleteI think a vote of thanks to the organisors of the Land's end trial is in order. But might i remind people of the unsung hero's who burnt some midnight oil getting the paper work to you all. Without them no trial.
ReplyDeleteThe Troll, Chris and I running at 245 had a rather good Lands End. For the first time we tried the Plusha start and enjoyed the run up to N Petherton on some, new to us, roads. Only problem was a front wheel bearing started to break up and made some terrible noises, then the noises stopped and we made it all the way to Newquay without further problems but with perhaps a little 'slop' in the bearing! The fog across Exmoor was very challenging but as I can adjust my seat so I can look over the windscreen it was not too bad. Good dipped lights also helped, certainly I felt sorry for the motorcyclists riding old British machines with questionable lights. We seemed to run into delays at just about every hill and eventually signed off two and a half hours late according to my travelling marshal card. We climbed all the hills as far as I am concerned but the 'Roll Back Men' may not agree with me. I messed up the Bishops Path special test by over running the stop line so can only claim a Silver. Some hills stick in my memory. Warleggan, very rough and slippery but the Troll has 'grunt' so I can ease off over the rough bits and then get the power down again, in fact at the end of Warleggan I really felt that I had 'driven' the hill, good fun. Hoskin, fabulous. Got out of the polished ruts well over to the right in the red restart box, got away well but then had to get back into the ruts so it was engine on the rev limiter and a great deal of bouncing/side to side woggling by Chris and I and we crawled to the top and out of the section for a clean, great feeling. The 2 restarts at Blue Hills were good, BH 1 might have been more difficult if it had been wet but caused us only a bit of wheel spin. So then off to Newquay, sign off, a quick pint then off for a bath and change. Our hoasts took us to a country pub, the Smugglers somewher south of Newquay where surprise, our friendly webmaster and driver of Beatle and Dellow was eating. A good Lands End, congratulations to all the organising team. Stuart Harrold
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to see how many motorcycles stopped at the Felons Oak restart. Was there an ambiguity in the route book? We didn't fail anyone who got away.
ReplyDeleteHello - What was different about Blue Hills 2 this year apart from the position of the restart? I guess the MCC had made some changes but I couldn't work out what they were. Michael
ReplyDeletePete - In LE your post you ask where a bead breaker can be obtained. I use a Stenner (which is the horseshoe type) which I got a few years ago at The autojumble at The Enfield Pageant of Motoring. There is also the Dunlop scissor style. Both of these can be found at autojumbes or sometimes on E-Bay. Neil Bray uses a copy of the Scissor type which he got from one of the Birmingham guys who made it for him. I can't for the life of me which one of the guys it was, either Keith Vipond/John Looker/Ian Bates or one of their passengers. Michael
ReplyDeleteMichael, Sorry not to speak at Culbone, I did not think you recognised me in my clobber. Regarding Blue Hills, I do not think that the hill had been touched at all. It did have 150 motorcycles up it a fortnight before, it certainly had not been dug up at all. The main and significant difference as you pointed out was therefore the restarts which made such an impact. There was, I noted, as I waited at the start of Blue Hills 2 some work done at the bottom of the concrete patch. There had been a sump- breaking tongue protruding which appeared to have been removed. (had heard via grapevine that this may be done by popular request). I can say that a lot of the british bikes like myself run 12v electrics and use the 'normal' halogen bulbs, however, I still could not see through the fog! John
ReplyDeleteResults summary is now available on MCC News of the Week May I be the first to congratulate Emma on firmly staking her place in history.
ReplyDelete