South Reading Enduro
Venue:- Ashdown Farm, Blewbury, Oxon. Signposted from the A417 Between Streatly and Blewbury.

Class:- Clubman

Results here after the event
Click on an image for a larger version

This has to be one of the most bone shaking, arm wrenching enduros of the year. If I never see another whoop in my life it'll be too soon.

After a delayed start we set off for 3 laps of the 'old' track which has a large section of the motor cross track in it. On my first lap a well off camber, slippery, slope caught me out a little and it wasn't long before the back wheel had caught the front and I was facing 90 degrees to the correct flow. During the second lap, whilst climbing a huge hill as part of the MX track, the throttle jammed open. As I got to the top of the hill, with a hairpin right-hander to contend with, there was no easy way to slow down with the engine refusing to drop from full RPM. In with the clutch, on the brakes, over the burm, through the tape, across the fire road and eventually I come to rest a few inches from a farmers fence. A couple of throttle blips and a change of underwear later and all seems well so turn around and re join the track with a little more caution on the climbs in future. By the third lap I'd gotten into the course, shame this was the last lap on this part of the track for some time.

The next session involved 6 laps of a new course just released to the South Reading club and Ashdown farm. I guess they used the limited land to the best of their abilities but, sadly, it still wasn't the sort of riding I enjoy. There were three main distinct parts. It starts with a zigzag course through some woods followed by a long section along a slope that fell away to the right and finishing with some very long full throttle straight sections connected with little corners.

I found the wooded section at the beginning 'interesting' but rather short. The 'along a slope' section started off very slippery and became well cut in and covered in whoops making for a very tiring ride whilst the fast sections were just boring.

After our six laps of this we were back to the old track for one lap then back to the new course for 6 laps finishing with another 3 laps of the new course.

My only real incidents over the day involved minor collisions with the undergrowth. There was one branch that over hung the track at just the wrong height that gave me a good crack on top of the head a couple of times. At one point on the cross slope section there was a very tight small clump of trees to navigate. Some branches had obviously been trimmed to allow our passage but the resulting 2 inch stubs of branches caused me some discomfort as they tried to tear my upper arm open. Thankfully they got through my top but not through my body armour. Towards the end of the lap there was a branch overhanging the track with no logical way around it. If you got it right it would give you a good whack on the arm or leg, get it wrong and it would have your arm, leg and head (I really pity anyone who didn't wear goggles). Get it really wrong and the branch would grab your bars on the left and force a sharp left turn just where the track went to the right. I know, I tried all these options!

The check times were very tight for me and with so many riders on such a short track (we were meant to do it in under 10 minutes a lap at one point) I found it very tiring and was forever getting roosted. I did finish but was within about 2 minutes of houring out which is about as close as you can get to having a DNF.