Friends

Pikes Peak 2016 was one heck of an adventure. Made possible and so very special by those that did it with me. The team. My friends.

Travis and Ant... for all your help, support, coaching, time, effort, energy, expertise, experience, humour, good spirits, determination and faith. You guys are the meaning of awesomeness... you guys rock! I could never have done this without you.

And, my beautiful wife Alex... for all your understanding, help, support, patience, love, energy and being with me on that mountain. I love you with all my heart.

What a team! Thank you for helping me live my dreams. My gratitude is eternal.

It was so much fun... maybe we can do it again someday ;-)

PPIHC - Sunday - Race to the Clouds 3

I get her stood up out of switchback number three in the second series of the Double-yous and am hard on the gas to set her up for the fast left hander. On the left: a wall of red, hard rock. On the right: just blue sky. The blind turn disappears somewhere left… ahead, just more blue sky. This is 'OhShit' corner. There is a famous YouTube clip of a guy in a four-wheeler that failed to turn left. Apparently he thought it was a different turn. The four-wheel metal box got airborn and flies down the mountainside. It lands and tumbles hundreds of feet below, spewing off shrapnel all the way till it stops - just a ball of mashed metal. A few seconds later, the driver clambers out!

We know where turn goes... “Wait for it… wait for it… wait for it… now!” I turn the bike in, looking for the three foot gravel gully between the vertical rock-face and the course edge. I swoop past it, bike cranked over and start feeding her gas. “Braaaap!”. “Nice one!” I smile to myself... “Braaapaaaaaaaaaap”. As I cross the central line, the back-end steps out…

Oh Shit!

Despite the traction control being on (albeit on a low level), the bike starts sliding sideways. Here is a perfect example of relativity in action. If the bike was doing this on a big MotoGP track, it would feel like it was a few inches out of line and nae bother. But up here, on OhShit corner, it felt like I was fourty-five degrees sideways and I was about to be launched in to outer space! Oh Shit!

I ease the throttle – no point getting out of a slide by high-siding yourself to the moon. The big girl is so well mannered and is back in line before I know it. I get her onto the meat of the tyre and drive to the next switchback. That wasn’t much fun.

Hard on the brakes again for the eighth switchback in the last sixty seconds. The lever is definitely coming back to the bar. Despite the brand-new HH sintered pads and race fluid, my brakes are fading. I guess those mass-produced-to-budget Brembos are just not up to the job. My old 1999 Aprilia RSV has been hammered around the UK short circuits for the last 11 years… older caliper and still on the original discs… never had brakes fading. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to!

After my moment at OhShit and with now with my brakes fading, I decide to just take it back a notch or two… enjoy the ride and make it to the top. “Take it easy… just get her to the top.” I mutter under my hard breathing – the Double-yous on this big bike at this altitude is hard work. I remembered to breathe between the switchbacks, so am still feeling strong. “Just get her to the top.”.

Through the fan-zone at Devils Playground on onto the desolate upper section. There are no trees or bushes… just a bit of whispy grass here and there. A spectacular landscape of rocks and boulders. As you climb to the summit, even the grass thins out. Just red rock and sand… it’s like being on Mars.

The first, fast, blind left-hander… as I’m tipped in, there is a greazy whistle-pig in the middle of the track. My line is through the middle of the right-lane right. That citter is in the left lane. “Just stay where you are you fat bastard.” No sooner had I thought that than he starts ambling toward the outside of the track…

There is only about six feet of track before the nothingness edge on the right. More space on the left… turn harder but at risk of pushing the front and landing up sailing through the nothingness anyway. Besides, that waddling fur-ball may stop, or change his mind and turn around. I’m not cranked too far over and all is stable n steady. It only takes tenths of a second, but I decide to hold my line… he keeps walking. Our trajectories are going to intersect… I grip the bars tighter and hang on.

Flldoup! I feel the brief impact. I hold steady and the big girl takes the poor piggy in her stride. ‘Multi’ ‘Strada’ – many roads… built for keeping you safe on rural roads too! It was quick and humane… marmot stew tonight! We were still headed to the top.

The next rider up with a cam was Masahito Watanabe on his sidecar – 9 mins and 4 seconds into his YouTube vid and you’ll see the effect of a cooling 120/60 profile Pirelli Supercorsa. 

If I had slowed up before the wildlife incident, I’d slowed up more after. The ride up there was fun, but by then I just wanted to get it home and see the summit. On that upper section I was a nearly 20 seconds slower than my fastest practice run. The riding wasn’t that much fun thereafter – probably because I wasn’t pushing. But, it sure was pretty!

Up through Carl’s. Godspeed. Cog-Cut… brake early. Up to Olympic where there is water across the course. I pick her up and pootle up the last 200 yards to the guy theatrically waving two chequered flags. We’re there! 14 110feet above sea level – the summit of Pikes Peak!

I brake early, but I’m going so slow I almost stop before I get onto the muddy, pot-holed gravel of the parking lot. No whoops, no yeeehas. Just quiet relief. We made it. Fuck, yeah. We made it.

I park up against a rock and join the other riders already up there for back-slaps and ‘well done’s. We can only get down again once all the cars are up at the end of the event - which they’r e hoping will be around 14h00 because of the reduced competitor numbers. I check the timing screen in the ‘hospitality’ area – 11 minutes and 21 seconds. My unspoken goal was to do a sub-ten minute run. I’m way off… that’s a bit crap. I get 4th in the Heavyweight class… just don’t mention they only accepted five entries ;-). Overall – we’re placed 45th… that’s out of 33 bikes and 66 cars. Kinda in the middle – that’s ok for a rookie. Looking at it that way I feel a bit better about it.

 

Interviews at the top... Rennie Scaysbrook was on it all week. He was leading by 8 seconds when he overcooked a switch-back. He hit the armo... he flipped over the barrier and his bike railed along it to a standstill with just a few scuffs. He remounted and finished second. Great ride and uUnbelievably lucky!

The rest of our wait at the top starts to really drag on. As competitors, we get a free meal from the café at the top… it’s shit. Far more risky than the ride up! The best part of the wait is having a good chat with and getting to know some of the other of riders. Some spectating at Olympic and watching some of the cool cars coming up. The cars are a different world to the bikes. Some of them probably spend as much on tyres for the week than my whole bikeeffort cost me. Some serious, exotic, expensive stuff up there - no road cars without lights and just an exhaust.

  

Good job!!

 

 One of my favorite, bad ass cars that made it up. Just gotta love some Mopar muscle!

Just after 16h00 and we’re told to get ready for the descent. We all suit up and get on our machines. We wait… and wait. The weather starts to turn nasty… thick cloud forms below us. Soon, we’re enveloped in swirling cloud… then its starts to sleet… then hail. Lovely! After standing in this shit for 15 minutes I have frozen water dribbling down my back and I’m starting to get real cold. I seek refuge in one of the vans with Davey Durelle. We’re crammed in there for about 20 minutes while the storm rages outside. The storm passes and eventually we get the all-clear to head back down the mountain.

 

Thank you Mark Miller for the pic!

 

Thank you Marcel Langer for the pic!

We go down in procession. Slowing to a walking pace wherever there were fans lining the road… drivers and riders have their gloved hands out and it’s one continuous high-five all the way down. Some of the spectators cheering, clapping and so many thanking us as we high-fived. Little toddlers held up by their parents with their palms out and wide-eyed kiddies at knee-level stretching out. This is a PPIHC tradition… it’s awesome. It reminded me of one of the most poignant moments of my racing on the Isle of Man that happened a little over a year ago.

 

PPIHC 2016 - High five all the way down.

Priceless

 

 TT 2015 - High five all the way up the return road.

Priceless.

I’m a bit bewildered by it all. At some places the procession grinds to a halt… and you just keep getting palms. I have enough high-fives to now last me a lifetime! There’s an ear-to-ear grin pasted on my face when I finally get down to the pits/paddock where Ant it waiting for me. Fist-pumps and big hugs.  Awesome job Dood! Awesome job Team!

PPIHC - Sunday - Race to the Clouds 2

The timing loop start is a few hundred yards up the course… so no need to get a Dirttrack-type on-the-milli-second start-line blast-off. Just get her off the line in my own time… firmly. Start as you wish to proceed! I get her going without fuss and give her beans through first gear. Up to second then short-shift as I tip her into the first left-lander – the timing loop is just on the exit of this first turn –I try and get her smoothly in and drive hard out while tripping the clock.

It starts – thousandths of seconds flashing by so quickly they are just a blur. A thousand moments later, digital ‘1’ appears under the ‘sec.’… let’s try to get as few of those as possible. Tick-tock-tick-tock… I try get on the gas hard at the exit as I setup for the first fast right-hander just moments down the course.

Feck! This is hard. From standstill, with no warmup, then trying to push the limits around a fast turn within a few seconds. Imagine this: Arriving at a track you have never been to before. You go out on a road-bike you have hardly ridden before and go around in cold, early morning conditions for just 3 laps. Two days later, you roll up to the start line on the same bike, but now you’re in a race. No warm-up laps. No sighting lap. That first turn you’ve only done 3 times before, in different conditions. You’ve got to do 10 minutes of laps as fast as you can. Then it’s all over. This is what Pikes Peak is like. It’s hard!

I’m tentative on the throttle… trying to feel the traction. Seems okay… I get her upright and pour on the coals down the very short straight for the next right-hander. It should be nearly flat-out… but I throttle off way before and then feel my way to the entry. “What a knob! Go, go, go!” I chastise myself. Next right hander I’m only marginally better.

At the TT you go from zero to flowing, flat-out 150mph turns, downhill, lined with kerb-stones, poles and garden walls. It took me a year or two and many practice starts to get my head into that. Probably at least fifty stand-still starts before I could do the turning jump through St Ninians and Bray Hill flat-out. But once you ‘know’… you ‘know’. Your mind overcomes that feeling that you’re just about to get mashed into the stonework and it’s going to hurt like almighty-fuck. Your mind overcomes this in a fleeting moment and with ease… because you ‘know’.

Despite the hours of study and well over a hundred on-board starts, I still hadn’t got my head into these Colorado turns… or these turns into my head. I didn’t ‘know’ and my body closed the throttle and hit brakes way too early – it was involuntary. My mind was screaming at my self-preserving instinct… “Stop fucking around and GO FAST!”.

You got no second chance here. On circuits you go round in circles… if you screw it up one lap… soon you’ll have another go at it to get it right. I had one chance at those first three turns… and I screwed them up. Fuck.

Into the first of the left-handers. I set it up out to the right and turn in late… I pull the Big Duck over and start carving an arc to the apex. I cross the double-yellow line in the centre of the course. The bike has a little two-wheel slide. Shit! WTF? I don’t remember that in practice! A bit un-nerving. Out to the right again for the next left-hander… carrying bit more speed. Shit! She just slid over those lines again. This sucks.

I’m trying to get on the gas earlier and harder… but she feels as if the rear is just about to let go. I was warned about this all week. Practice is early morning, a lot cooler and surprisingly grippy. Race day is always a bit later, warmer but counter-intuitively slicker. Weird. There are theories of dust and spectator traffic pissing coolant on the course. The best I’ve heard is that as the tar warms, it sweats. It was sweating like a net-vested short-order burger flipper.

I slow things down in my head to try speed things up on the course. Keep focussed… ride to the conditions. “Remember where you are on this squiggly line to the clouds… what’s next? And what’s after that? Where do I need to be? Can I go faster? Give it more throttle? Get off those damn brakes! Don’t turn in too soon!” I just try and relax into it, make no stupid mistakes and keep it flowing. Despite struggling to know how fast I can get into turns, it starts to come together. Right-right-left-right-wide open-brake-down one-in deep-left-right-right… like a ticker-tape rattling through my head.

By the time I’m stretching the cables down the short ‘Halfway Picnic Grounds’ straight-away, lined with spectators, I’m really starting to enjoy it. I’m treating it as a fast blat on my local roads with no traffic to make room for or to think for. I can carve wide lines from white-line to white line. This is fun!

On some turns there are about three feet of tar on the other side of the white line… inviting… tempting. Despite the sliding on the middle-lines, I give it a go, hoping the white lines have a bit more grip than the yellow. Front end slides as I cross the line, I apex, then slip on the way out again. Nah – just as slippy, just not worth it.

Up through the fan-zones at Ski Area and through the beautifully cambered, one-eighty degree uphill sweeping turns. More crowds lining the course through Glen Cove. I take it easy through as I feel my tyres rumbling over the loose gravel on the inside of the turn. I give myself lots of room going into George’s Corner – “Late, late, late!” I get the best line through there all week and can get on the gas hard and fast. The full-race system on the Multi reverbing off the steep rock-face on the outside of the turn sounds awesome!

More crowds up through Cove Creek and I’m just loving the fast triple right-hander leading up to Elk Park. “Right… keep turning… right… keep turning… look through the turn… right…”. I approach Elk Park a lot faster than in Wednesday’s practice - this is the first time I’ve done this section on the Big Red Duck. I brake early – the heavy girl takes some stopping… “Whoooah, girl. Whoah.”. Remembering Carlin’s coaching, I run her deep into the outside lane for the switchback and drive a wide arc in the middle of the course, avoiding the steep incline at the apex. Nice!

Up the steep hill towards Ragged Edge - I’m unsure how fast I can get through this turn where the course just seems to end in an expanse of clear blue sky. I err on the side of caution and have loads of room through there and even more through the next fast Armco-lined left. Hard on the gas for the short squirt before more heavy braking for the first series of Double-yous.

One, two, three Double-yous… fast, blind, blue-sky right hander… just… keep… turning…

The Armco for the start of the next series of Double-yous pops into view. Nice! Switchback number one, number two, number three. The tall, heavy Duke is a bit of a handful through these switch-backs and I’m giving myself plenty of time and room on this very unfamiliar stretch. Careful on two… that’s the turn I screwed up a few times during practice. On the brakes into three I think I feel the brake lever coming back to the bar a bit more than before. “Huh? Are my brakes fading?”