The South Reading MCC H&H was my third race. It took place at the Ashdown Farm motocross track. I’d been to Ashdown before to watch and have wanted to ride there ever since – well the MX track, at least.
Christina decided to stay home with Aidan and let me do this one on my own so I got all my stuff ready on Friday night and got out of the house around 8am. The race started at 11 so I should have given myself plenty of time to get there and get set up.
My plan was to stop off at the petrol station on the way, fill up the car and my spare tank for the bike and give the bike a quick spray wash. I also needed to put some air in the tires since I hadn’t done it since the last race. I was able to get the gas no problem, but while I was paying someone parked in the wash spot and started washing their Mercedes. Bastard! Knowing Mercedes owners, I assumed they would be there for a while so I kept my receipt for after the race instead.
I looked around for the air pump but didn’t see it, so I was ‘batting a 1000′ already. As I was leaving the forecourt, I saw the pump behind me. Bonus! So I backed up and got started. Now, while I was checking the pressure in the rear tire, somehow I managed to dislocate my thumb! I’m not too sure how I managed it but there was a terrible crunching sound as my thumb bent completely backwards! I shook my hand hard and it popped back into place but hurt like a bastard.
I briefly considered just going home as the day wasn’t starting out well, but I decided to just get on with it. To add insult to injury, the bloody air pump wasn’t even working! Arrgh! I knew there was a services just before the exit I needed to take so I figured I could stop there and got back on the road.
So I stopped at the services and met a guy who was riding a Yamaha 125 from Reading to his parents’ house somewhere in Buckinghamshire. On the M4. With off-road tires on. I warned him to be careful and told him to stick to A roads.
This air pump was working so I put about 20psi in each tire and I grabbed some water and some Ginsters for after the race and got back on the road. It was about 9:30 by this time and I still had a little way to go.
Anyway, I got to the old roman road that you have to navigate to get to the track and it took ages to make my way down the road. Any of you that may have been there know what I mean. Personally, I think they should make this the special test. Time it from start to finish and make it part of the race scoring. Nil points if you damage your vehicle or bike though!
By the time I had finished messing around on the way there, navigated the old road, and got parked, it was going on 10:15. I knew that I had to have the bike scrutineered and in parc ferme by 10:45 so I had to get my skates on.
Got registered, dressed and scrutineered just in time for the riders’ briefing and then it was 5 minutes to warm up the bikes. As I was sitting there relaxing letting the bike get warm I suddenly realised that I hadn’t lowered my tire pressures. Bollocks! I hopped of the bike and got my stuff out and started messing around with it. Since it was dry, I thought I’d run about 15 in the rear and 13 or so in the front. I got the pressures set just in time for everyone to start and was on my way.
Lap 1
I got started about 11:09 and everything was fine to start off with. There were a few small logs to negotiate and then the first part of the MX track which was good fun. I took it way slower than I should have since I didn’t really know what to expect and it was here that I started to think that I should have more grip.
Shortly after coming off the track there was a large log that a few people were having some trouble with. I sat and watched for a couple of minutes then thought, “Sod it. I have to do it.” and just went for it. I got over with no trouble at all and was on my way again.
Then it was into some nadgery woods bits to the next section of MX track. There was a part where we had to cross part of the track and the far side was an almost vertical wall about 3 feet high. This sort of thing still makes me think before I attack it, even though I haven’t had any trouble with them before. I didn’t have any trouble with it this time either, but I did pause for about 1/2 a second before attacking it.
Anyway, just after that we were back on the MX track and hitting the BIG hills. Again, this sort of thing still freaks me out a bit but I just do it anyway and it’s fine. I even end up having fun on them by the end of the day. This was no exception. On the last long downhill, I missed the turning in the middle of the other side and rode way past where I was supposed to turn. It meant that I had to go back down the hill and get back on the trail. No biggie but I wasted WAY too much time messing around.
Here’s the only pic of me on the day. It’s at the top of the MX track.
More woods then a blast down a chalk gravel fire-road type thing. More hills before getting into the tight woods on the ‘back side’. It was really hard work – especially as I was getting NO GRIP AT ALL. Sometimes it was quite scary and I was having a pretty hard time with it.
WOOHOO! No crashes! That was the first time I’ve made a lap without a fall!
Once I got back to the parc ferme I decided I would let some air out of both the front and rear to see if that helped, so I went through the timer (since my first lap had been long enough already) and then stopped to mess around.
Laps 2 – 5
As I was sitting on the side of the track one of the guys from the forum, Barry, came over to see if everything was alright and he held up my bike while I sorted out the air pressures. I went down to 10 in the rear and 11 in the front and thought I’d try that. If it was too high, I was just going to stop somewhere along the way and let more out. It turned out to be fine however, and the next few laps were great and I managed to speed up a little bit each time as I became more confident in the grip.
Nothing really major to report in the middle. I stopped after lap 3 to refuel and grab some isotonic drink and then it was straight back on the trail.
Last Lap
I came in at 2:07 and checked to see if I had time to get out for another lap and I had 2 minutes to decide if I wanted to go for another one. I suffered from the “one last lap” syndrome and thought, “what the heck, I haven’t crashed all day” – famous last words. As expected I crashed in the trees about 90% of the way through the last lap. DOH! It was a stupid mistake where I lost the front wheel in some loose dirt on a left-hand turn in the last woods section.
I was gutted – but not surprised.
All in all it was a great day and I was really pleased with my riding. Anyone with any experience would probably laugh, but for me it was a good ride. My fastest lap was around 28 minutes which was almost twice as long as the fastest lap overall, but I don’t care. I didn’t finish last in the beginners group.
The bike held up again and I held up with it. Onwards and upwards!
Tags: Ashdown Farm, enduro, race, SRMCC
