Freak
03.02.2008, 11:29 AM
Well yesterday we did our first Enduro event with WOR (Wirral Off Road http://www.wirraloffroad.com/) well technically it was a try out day in deepest darkest Wales (Llangynog).
We arrived early to meet up with the other guys from the Throttlemonkey site and with some nervous anticipation we set off.
The format of the day is pretty straight forward, two hours practice a lunch break then an hour race.
The first lap and the course is a mix of firetrail, shale/gravel, mud, ice, snow, forest full of roots and trees (obviously), and deep boggy sections it soon becomes apparent that this is bloody hard work and the climbs and decents are steeper than I have ever had to do on the KTM before plus little grip given the conditions.
We potter round to learn the track but it's 4.5 miles long so it's a long potter, we get to a steep decent off a ledge down on loose gravel, Claire goes first and I can clearly see from the way she's struggling there's no grip, eventually she falls off and the bike ends up facing the wrong way on this steep decent. I decide to go down on the bike and hopefully get to where she's stopped and help her get up, this didn't go quite to plan though.... I soon hit the same loose ground which caused Claire's off and I met the same fate only further up, luckily the bike didn't end up facing the wrong way. So I climb down and get Claire back on her bike then go back to mine to get myself sorted, I pick the bike up and do my back in....Ouch it's either a trapped nerve or slipped disc.
I have a few minutes while I get over the worst of the pain and slowly wheel the bike down to a point where I could get back on and coast down to level ground where Claire is waiting, I explain what's happened but stupidly I insist on completing the lap which was agonising at times, but the final climb was a killer and eventually a marshal had to ride my bike up to the top but to be honest quite a few others did this also.
So I decided today was not a good day to continue one lap and 4.5 miles and I was finished, at lunch time the organisers who were fantastic decided the conditions would not be suitable for a race so the format remained the same as the morning, luckily I'd taken the video camera along so I shot around 30 minutes of riders rattling around in the afternoon, I've edited it down to included just the throttlemonkey peeps and below is the link to the clip some of it is quite entertaining and you'll see the last climb also.
Enjoy
http://media.putfile.com/Monkey-WOR-Experience-2-2-08
We arrived early to meet up with the other guys from the Throttlemonkey site and with some nervous anticipation we set off.
The format of the day is pretty straight forward, two hours practice a lunch break then an hour race.
The first lap and the course is a mix of firetrail, shale/gravel, mud, ice, snow, forest full of roots and trees (obviously), and deep boggy sections it soon becomes apparent that this is bloody hard work and the climbs and decents are steeper than I have ever had to do on the KTM before plus little grip given the conditions.
We potter round to learn the track but it's 4.5 miles long so it's a long potter, we get to a steep decent off a ledge down on loose gravel, Claire goes first and I can clearly see from the way she's struggling there's no grip, eventually she falls off and the bike ends up facing the wrong way on this steep decent. I decide to go down on the bike and hopefully get to where she's stopped and help her get up, this didn't go quite to plan though.... I soon hit the same loose ground which caused Claire's off and I met the same fate only further up, luckily the bike didn't end up facing the wrong way. So I climb down and get Claire back on her bike then go back to mine to get myself sorted, I pick the bike up and do my back in....Ouch it's either a trapped nerve or slipped disc.
I have a few minutes while I get over the worst of the pain and slowly wheel the bike down to a point where I could get back on and coast down to level ground where Claire is waiting, I explain what's happened but stupidly I insist on completing the lap which was agonising at times, but the final climb was a killer and eventually a marshal had to ride my bike up to the top but to be honest quite a few others did this also.
So I decided today was not a good day to continue one lap and 4.5 miles and I was finished, at lunch time the organisers who were fantastic decided the conditions would not be suitable for a race so the format remained the same as the morning, luckily I'd taken the video camera along so I shot around 30 minutes of riders rattling around in the afternoon, I've edited it down to included just the throttlemonkey peeps and below is the link to the clip some of it is quite entertaining and you'll see the last climb also.
Enjoy
http://media.putfile.com/Monkey-WOR-Experience-2-2-08