Other World notes
New Zealand Notes
From Simon Thomas who now lives with the Kiwis.
14April2008: Hello to all my fellow West Glos colleagues.(Has Glenn paid my membership yet?) Have just done sixth and final round of Bushriders X Country series, held south of Pahiatua up rock road, aptly named I might add. A bit of a cock up on my part saw the pack disappearing into the distance. Turn the petrol on next time dumbass!!!!!. So away we go, not too much time lost as the dust thrown up by the leaders is still hanging around and manage to pass several riders picking themselves up, a really fast farm track uphill gives way to rolling hills intersected by fences, so you can be bowling along minding your own business and some madman comes hurtling towards you 2 feet away on the other side of the fence, can be rather unnerving you know, then a steep descent onto the valley floor sees us following sheep tracks through native kiwi bush which obviously leads to a really gnarly hill, about halfway up the Gas Gas and I decide to part company, it goes off into the gorse bushes and I take a rest on the local electric fence (yes the bleeping thing was switched on - none of those wimpy 12 volt things over here, these swines are wired to the mains, by god it didn`t half tickle, never mind, harden up and get going. Right, where was I, oh yes, had to get a marshal to help retrieve bike. Bloody ponga bushes like triffids, up over the top get a chance to rest, a really good track but very rough due to lack of rain, ground rock hard, only managed 3 laps unfortunately, put this one down to experience.
A really good series run by www.bushriders.co.nz, very enjoyable, good value and a chance to see the countryside. Gonna get Glenn and Dave over to join my team, should be good for a laugh.
Next up is north island enduro series, so gonna do a few of those.
Final results put me in seventh overall in Vet's class, so quite proud of that, roll on next year. cheers Simon
Thailand Notes
Some notes from another of our ex-pats - Taff (Alan Davies) reports on a 6 Hour Enduro
Having lived in Pattaya 18 months now an annual cycle is beginning to develop, www.a-tecracing.com has the story.
Pattaya 8 hour 2007 was the best organized and physically demanding event in toyland. This year Urs is organizing a set of 3 events, the first being 23/24 February, the next in August.
Being my second year on the circuit, I entered my own A-TecRacing team. With 6 hours to ride in this year's series, only 3 riders per team is required.
With 8 customers over for a trail tour, Wimm and Ron agreed to team up just for some fun, having turned down the chance to ride with Oz Brian and Irish Mat, my Sunday trail riding buddies.
I knew we would be up for some good banter as both teams were in the over 40 VIP class. Brian and Mat had got a French guy up from Singapore for the weekend in their team, I wasn't too concerned about that as I'd seen him ride last year.
Having just ridden 1000Kms the week before on a tour on my trusty ‘03 WR250F with, what must now be well over 50,000kms on the same piston & rings, although Plainer had reshimed the valves over two and a half years ago. In truth it had started burning oil about 10,000kms ago, with not a lot of compression either. I knew another of the WRs was well up for 6 hour use, with no problem. That of course was overlooking the fact we had 2 front wheel punctures. Only using 2 out of 3 Of the WRs meant Yod, my Thai mechanic, could strip down and use bits of old trusty.
We signed on and completed a sighting practice lap of the 7km course to see it was laid out with MX style banked bends, tight and tricky switchbacks, fast straights and 2 rocky loops up and down a hill with plenty of deep loose sand.
In fact we needed the water pump seal as well as the front wheel and radiator header tank because I caught up some wire in the back wheel, with only 2 laps to the finish, I couldn't believe hearing a chatter and grinding noise which I continued to ignore until it quieted down. At last I could open my first Leo beer as Wimm did one more lap to finish the event.
At the presentation we picked up 3rd on 32 laps. Brian and Mat were also on 32 but we were one minute behind them and another 2 minutes behind 1st place. Results to be posted on www.enduroracingthai.com
I was really pleased with the way my team mates got stuck in, especially as they were the ones paying for the Trail Tour. For me, it was just another weekend in Toyland.
Enjoy your riding. Taff.