Which the eagle-eyed amongst you will notice is just a play on "AJP".

The two-stroke riders amongst you will scoff, and believe that this is my admission that 4-strokes are actually a bit geriatric in the performance department, when compared to the look-at-me-Im-a-legend explosive power of a 2-stroke.

Not quite. My ageing friend has transformed into my AyJing Pal - he's off to the action day at AJP. That whole let your hair down irresponsibility, riding without a lid, seems to have fired the lad up sufficiently to have a go for real.

Gone will be the Gucci suit. The Rolex, and other accesories, will be dispensed with for the day. The hairdresser and beauty salon will have to wait. On 16 February, ny AyJing Pal will don a pair of muddy boots and will officially become a dirty old man.

In honour of this mighty occasion, The Missus will don the swimsuit and be the dolly for the day. This will be a problem. First, it's February. Swimsuits in February don't work in England. Second, people will be too busy ogling The Missus to keep their eyes on the track, and this means damaged people.

The rally bike solidifies too. Martin discovered a very very useful piece of information about the PR3, to do with the frame. The crossbar is bolted in. This is the same crossbar that would have needed some "assistance" from a hammer in order to shoe-horn the 260cc engine into the frame. Not any more. Remove the bolts, a bit of filing to remove 2mm, in goes the 260cc engine.

That, right there, is a 89kg bike capable of meeting the technical requirements for an FIM-approved rally. Without a hammer.

The swingarm from the original PR4 will be cannibalised - it's about an inch longer and it supports larger wheels - to give more stability at speed. The wheels will come from the original PR4. The electrics, ignition and instrument panel are gone - saving a few kilos. A Yuasa battery. No need to upgrade the generator - the PR3 kicks out a rather impressive 90 watts straight out of the crate. Acerbis tanks to provide nice long legs - 250km+.

We start on this at the beginning of February - once the garage is cleared of PR4s and BMWs (which is still with the insurance company). We have a whole race season to tweak and tune and get it abosolutely right.

By the way, The Nutty Guy from Bolton - your donation has provided a Honda XR engine workshop manual. This is the only printed manual for the XR engine, transmission clutch and the like (the Haynes Manual is useless). Thank You. It is your donation that gives us the technical information we need to do the clever stuff with the bike.

AJP were spot-on to choose the Honda XR engine rather than some chinese clone. The Honda XR was a Dakar favourite for years, there were even a couple entered this year too. It runs forever, has a minimum number of moving parts and is ultra-reliable. BMW made a big mistake when they opted for a fuel-injected, catalytic converted computer-controlled engine in the X450 (blogs passim).

I got a response today from the ACU as well. They were very kind indeed. Basically, the message is "we rely on your GP - get your GP to sign you as fit to race, we'll write the licence". The treacle just got a lot thinner.

Judy Garland, if you will recall, sing that wonderful song in the Wizard of Oz - "Somewhere Over The Rainbow".

It's a most unusal song, in the way it's structured. Musical sequences come in three types: steps, jumps and leaps. A step is moving up or down a half-note (think of the theme tune for "Jaws", these are steps). A jump is moving up or down a whole note (think "I Want To Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles). A leap, very rare indeed, is moving up or down by more than one note (think of the "Some-Where ..." in Somewhere Over The Rainbow).

It was a daring, groundbreaking tune of its time - leaping notes like that. Sort of appropriate that young Judy sang "if pretty little bluebirds fly, then why oh why can't I?". For some reason, it makes me think of the blue Gauloises factory KTMs riding through the dunes. Why oh why can't I?

Fair play to the ACU. GP next stop.

The funny thing is that there will be times in the next 12 months when I wished that I didn't get the licence at all. It would be a nice "not my fault innit?" cop-out. I will only have myself to blame.

Big Oz, riding on Heroes with my ITM, had a great story about a mate of his. The guy was an enduro nut. Which basically means that, ever Sunday morning, he'd be whizzing round a track with his lungs bursting and wondering why on earth he does it.

He had a bad race one day, fell off a few times. Packed his stuff up in the van, didn't say anything to anybody. Went home, unpacked his gear and his bike from the van into a pile in his garden, then set fire to the lot.

That's what it means to be an enduro nut. The ashes would not have been cold before the guy was on the DirtyBiking website looking for the next event.

I'll get the ACU/FIM licence. I'll get accepted into the rallies. Within 15 minutes of starting, I'll wish that I had never done it. Within 15 minutes of finishing, I'll want to do it again.

To paraphrase King Leonidas: "Madness? THIS IS ENDURO!"



Whilst we're there, please tell me who has the time to do stuff like this:



and, in slow motion, that whole Zidane headbutt is much clearer. It wasn't a headbutt. He's French. It was just a kind of leaning=forward kind of shrug.

Please welcome my Ay Jing Pal to the world of the dirty and the (evidently) clinically insane.

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