Rocket Ride - Not

Yesterday was the start of my Red Bull Erzberg Rodeo. The ‘Rocket-Ride’ – a timed hill-climb with 3 beeeeg hills to climb.

I queued up and waited, and waited… eventually had a go at the first monster hill. About half the attempts before me failed. I was waved forward and attacked. Back wheel spinning I lost a lot of traction… but kept it pinned… up, up , up…

 The three hills... from the orange tent to the Red-Bull arch at the top

About 20 feet from the top it’s really loose… I could feel the wheelspinning like mad… losing momentum all the time… I eased off the throttle… got a tiny bit more grip… but started to wheelie at the same time. I eased off eth throttle, the wheel came down and I stopped about 10 feet from the top. Shit!

All the way down and try again. We each had 3 attempts at this first hill. I lined up attempt 2. Gave it gas and as I felt the clutch out full, the bike bogged. I was in third! Shit! I started clutching to try get some more power to the wheel, but the game was lost and I made it about 2 thirds of the way up. Shit!

 The last 15 feet of hill three was a killer

Attempt 3. With only 12 feet or so run up to the hill, I screw it up totally by hitting a big rut and bouncing before I started the ascent. It was a terrible attempt and I limped away. Beaten.

 Practicing on the 'baby' slopes

In the afternoon we get another go at it… so I did some practice climbs on the ‘baby-slopes’ in between. The soil was reallt thick and loose… all the mango sized rocks roll to the base of the hill, making it more difficult… you got to get through these first.

Only about ½ of my attempts were successful… and I binned it on one attempt before I even hit the slope when my front wheel hit a mango-rock and I bit the dirt! Doh!

 We got up a few in the end

With a bit more confidence I attacked the hill again in the afternoon. With so many riders queueing to try (seemed like a biit of free-for-all regardsless of whether you’d entered the event or not), we were only allowed 1 attempt. I hashed it up worse than my last by bouncing off rocks at the base and losing my line and drive. Game over.

Bollocks!

Gassing it up the hill

I’m camped next to 3 other brits… only 1 of them made it up the first hill… so I don’t feel so bad. Anyways… gave me a chance to get back on the bike… the last time I’d ridden it was more than a month ago in Scotland.

Today is the prologue event. 13km time trial with ‘no obstacles’. Fast and flat-out to try qualify in the top 500 and get a place in the Harescramble. It’s been raining all night and is wet... muddy puddles everywhere. It’ll be fun!

Bike’s ready… I’ve just got to get my kit on and go wait…

Flat-out!!!

Pre Rocket Ride

11:18, June 03, 2010. Erzberg, Austria.

Up at 4 to get here for signing on, scrootineering and all that malarkey. Good to get here early as we got a good spot near the main paddock and all the admin only took 20 minutes. Half an hour after we'd finished and there were queues a mile long.

Bikes waiting for riders signing-on, number-boards and scrootineering - which consisted of a check of the number-board and last 4 numbers on the frame!

 Some very interesting bikes being used for teh prologue event... including this R1 on knobblies...

...and this cool bike - I have no idea what it is

And a lot of older classics

 

Now we wait for teh Rocket Ride. It's a timed hill-climb. Apparently you get as many attempts as you can fit into the 2 x 2 hour heats. Fastest 48 go through to the final this evening.

All's quiet at Erzberg early on Thursday morning

Saw the hill... hills. Basically from the harescramble start area at teh bottom of the pit and up, up and up 3 beeeeg hills. They're long and steep. But only about 30% longer than what we did in Scotland. I should be ok. A bit nervous.

It's stopped raining and the forcast is good for the weekend.

 View down from the second hill. They're steep!

In half an hour I ride teh 450 rocket and try get up those hills. If it were just me and my mates down the quarry, they'd just be a laugh... but with hundreds of competitors and spectators it feels so different.

Erzberg Poetry

My brother Nic sent me this brilliant poem of encouragement today:

All the best on the mountain,
and in the pit,
round them burms,
through the dust and spit.
Fight them from the grid to the gravel.
Give them shit.
Have a blast.

Tomorrow We Ride the Rocket

In Austria. Tomorrow is the first day of my 2010 Erzberg campaign - the Rocket Ride!

It's a hill-climb. Never done a hill-climb before. It's been raining since I got here on Monday night (after a 17 hour drive!) and there was snow as I went over the mountains. It's going to be cold and mushy!

ShorttrackUK - Round 3 - Amman Valley

Had a nice lay-in on Sunday morning in the van and was greeted by sunshine. :-)

The Duke was filthy... but spirits were up!  

Base camp at Amman Valley

A lazy morning with only the fuel to top-up and handlebars to change. I chatted to Pete Boast at the BMF show and he commented that he cannot use big-ass bars and that he gets far better leverage with flat MX bars. I tried to go back to MX bars at Amman because I'd bent my big-ass bars. But on Sunday evening, in the first turn I knew I din't like them and I wanted my big-ass bars back... bent or not!

Steve with one of his streettrackers on show

 The Skooterfarm garage

Practice got underway at 11h00 sharp and I immediately felt better on a drier track and the big-ass bars! Entered into both the Shorttrack and Thunderbike classes on the big 1/2 mile circuit was going to be a test of my fitness.

 The Co-Built garage with Ben's CCM... still with the road registration plate and brake-light!

 Ben's CCM - ready to do battle!

I am still waaay too slow but thoroughly enjoyed the track. It's so big you got time to think... time to get it wrong and fix it. But... you go so much faster. It was forking bumpy too as it broke up a bit. Sometimes you'd get bounced out of the seat with feet off teh pegs in a classic 'flying Vee' formation... while sliding sideways! Huuuuge fun! I learned a lot.

I was making good starts in most heats on my little 17" wheels

Half-way through teh day my zipper gave out... all the grit. Lockwire to the rescue! Experienced in this technique as I used it at 2006 Manx GP with great results. 

Geoff had a great day on his new machine... getting into the Thunderbike final!

After 3 rounds of heats I found myself in the Shorttrack 'D' final (the slowest slow-pokes entered into teh Shorttrack class) with Guto, Sideburn Gary, Skooterfarms's Pete Wilky and Anthony Brown. It was a laugh and a half!

I got a great start and into turn 1 first. On turn 3 Guto came flying past and I tried to tag onto his back wheel. Half way through the second lap he shed his chain and I was leading again with the others queueing behind. The track conditions were good... loads of grip everywhere. Good for overtaking and great racing. We battled for another 2 laps before I made a mistake and ran wide. By this time Gary was coasting and out of the race. The last 2 laps was a 3 bike train. Awesome fun! I finished 3rd so didn't progress to the next final... but had a blast!

 My technique is improving...

 Guto on Anthony's Co-Built - he was flying all day, made the final before bike troubles forced him to ride Anthony's bike in the final. On a bike he had never ridden before, he finished 4th - Local Hero!

Some of the Skooterfarm lads enjoying the sunshine and racin' 

'CowTech' Jason was thrilled to win a trophy for his immaculate Triumph streettracker 

Despite not making the Thunderbike final, I still got out again in the 'B' final. I was up the pointy-end before another mistake at turn 3 saw me go right off the course onto the outer track! By the time I was back in the race I was last so fought out the last few places... it was awesome fun!

Steve went down hard right in fornt of me in turn 1, lap 1 of a heat. He was out for a few seconds and hurt his shoulder. He enjoyed the rest of the races from his van - get well soon dood! 

A great day on the clay !

One of the beautiful streettrackers on show

Disappointed with my average performance I still had a great laugh. This track showed up a few big faults with my current bike... faults that I plan to fix by the time we get out for the next round on 10 July.

It was a great day on the clay... exhausted, I drove 3.5 hours home. Unpacked. Had a beer. Repacked and got 4 hours sleep before heading to Dover to catch the ferry... next stop Austria... for Erzberg!

Amman Valley Hero Pics

Just got some hero pics of Saturday evening's racing from Steve Baldock

Squish-squash...

My starts were much improved... lots of clean leathers out there... must have been the first heat!

Steve's also got many pics of riders who can actually ride flattrack on his gallery site:


Thanks Steve!

MEFO European Cup - Amman Valley

Bank Holiday weekend is always shitty on British roads. I gave myself 5 hours to do the 3 hour jurney to Amman Valley in Wales for the first round of the MEFO European Flattrack Cup. It took me 6 hours.

 British Bank Holiday traffic brings a 3 lane motorway to a standstill...

I arrived 15 minutes before practice was due to start. It was still raining and a riders meeting was happening - a delayed start.

Cool tools for the job... 

Guto Llwellan's just finished Husaberg-powered Co-Built 

This weekend was billed as a Flattrack Festival with the first UK Harley XR meet, a streettracker show and a Davida helmet photo-shoot giving some glamour to the soggyness.

 Davida helmet photo-shoot

 Geoff was out with his just finished Aprilia engined Co-Built flattracker - loving the military style!

The delay because of the weather gave me a chance to attack those crap supermoto tyres I was running on with my homemade tyre-cutter: Pump pliers, blow-torch and a rill-fit blade. Tedious work!

The 'Welsh Step' cut - take note AMA boys! 

Shortly after the riders meeting, the rain stopped and we finally got out for 2 laps practice at 18:30. The track was water-logged - it was shit.

My bike still has small 17" wheels and non-flattrack tyres. I was slippin and a slidin everywhere on the 1/2 mile oval. I've got a helmetcam vid of this session that I'll upload to YouTube - you'll see how crap and slow I am.

But far worse than the slippy conditions is that my bike doesn't have a mud-guard and I didn't have any tear-offs for my goggles (I've never used them). The experienced lads all had cable-tied on mudguards and goggle cleaning systems. I had jack-shit. It took about 1 lap to reduce my visibility to zero. Wiping the goggles with my glove helped only a little. I pulled out of my first heat after three laps...

 Fellow riders helping to sort out some minor teething problems with Geoff's new bike

 Geoff's secret visibility weapon: big glasses!

Two riders gave me a tear-off from thier dwindling supplies. Armed with these I headed out for the second heat. 2 tear-offs for a 5.5 lap race (don't ask), so I figure #1 after 2 laps, #2 after 4 laps and a clear visor for the last 1.5 lap fight. No problem.

I do 2 laps and just when my visisbility is at about 1.5%, I tear off #1. Jeez! I can see... I attack! The fornt-end of the bike squirms and slides everywhere. Not fun... but I can see. Lap 4... I reach for tear-off #2. #2... #2?

Shit! Must have ripped them both off on teh second lap. Doh! I smear mud across my goggles for teh remaining 3.5 laps. I finish second last.

 This is about as much as I could see... jack-diddley-squat!

 Guto, Anthony and Geoff - all smiles despite the shitty track conditions

 "Well done mate! You came fourth!", "Huh?"

"Fourth! I came fourth!"

I was hoping the water would drain off the track for the last heat, but it just hung around and then jumped onto my goggles. It was desparate... 2 laps from the end a group of about 5 riders lapped me. I could see little, but as they passed me I could see nothing... I was slithering into the corner blind.

No hand free to wipe... I just followed the sound of thier exhausts around the turn. Racing Ray Charles style!

I tried to wipe as I was exiting the turn... cought a glimpse of the advertising boards I was heading for and ripped the goggles off... sheeesh! That was close. I finished last with mud spraying into my eyes.

The assembly area 

 All you can see are his eyes... a decent visor cleaning system was worth many places

I got another race in the 'B' final, but I had had enough of blindness and was starting to take chances I shouldn't so sat it out and cheered the others on from behind the barrier.

 Guto's new tash

Ben of Sideburn arrived in the evening with his unfinished CCM flattracker and started work on it in the paddock

With a hand here and there, Ben's flattracker was ready to rock 'n roll for his first flattrack outing in the next round of the ShottrackUK Championship in the morning 

 BBQ, beers and race stories in the paddock after... despite the weather, a good time was had by all