Chesire cats don't grin this well. We'll come back to this.

Friday, I was contemplating setting fire to my enduro gear. But please put the petrol cans away for now - that one has passed.

I had a bad feeling about Friday. I learned late Thursday that there were 4 people - and two of them were bringing their own bikes. Something nagged me, I'm not sure what it was.

Anyway, when I was driving up to AJP on Friday morning, I didn't have that same isnt-it-wonderful=to-be-alive feeling I normally have. It wasn't fear, it was just a general sort of unease - the same kind of unease you'd have if you were on an aeroplane when you knew that there was a possibility of running out of fuel. Nothing to be afraid of yet, but you know for sure that something's not right.

I met two of the guys - really decent guys they were. These were the two who were on the AJPs. Then we met the other two - heard them first actually. Out came a KTM 525 and a KTM 450. Complete with race exhausts with the silencers removed. Sounded like amplified Harleys. That was when I realised that perhaps they weren't buying exactly what Martin was selling.

I'll spare you all the details, but suffice it to say that whatever could go wrong went wrong. There were broken bikes - not helped by a general need to go everywhere with the front wheel in the air and broken people.

We got to the bottom of that hill. Yeah, that one. The cliff. I said "We'll go up that later". The guy on the KTM 525 said "Nah, I'll go up it now", and off he set. He got halfway up, put up a brave fight, then gravity won and he somersaulted back down - losing his entire clutch lever assembly in the process.

Tearing up the tank tracks - these monster exhausts behind me - I rode iunto a very deep ditch full of water. The bow wave came up to my neck and drowned the bike. 10 minutes to get her started again, off we set. My front wheel suddenly juped out of the rut I was in and nearly threw me on the deck. Puncture. Joy. Riding several miles on dirt with a punctured front tyre is very unamusing. Martin was miles behind - nursing a broken bike that just finally refused to be wheelied any more.

We got to the pub and I sorted the guys out with lunch. I knew that it was going to be fun when they ordered pints of lager - they're back on the trail in the afternoon remember. Lager? They were ribbing the bikes - "too slow" they said. These guys were hard - as opposed to tough - and full of it. I had had enough by this point, and I just asked them why they were here. Why come and ride 200cc 4-stroke bikes and complain that it's not as quick as race-prepared KTM 525? It's like going into a primary school class when you've got a physics degree and complaining that the mathematics isn't challenging enough.

Now we had two broken bikes - mine included, and Martin was limping behind us with a third. We filled my tyre full of puncture foam and he rode it back to pick up the van. He came back with only 1 bike - I was going back in the van. These guys were dangerous to ride with. In their world, bikes are all about going as fast as you can as noisily as you can and woe betide anybody who gets in your way - it's high-testosterone stuff. The kind of stuff that closes down byway after byway. It's not where you ride, it's how you ride.

In my world, the only place for that kind of full-throttle malarky is the racetrack. That's what races are for. If you ride like an idiot on the middle of Salisbury Plain and have yourself an accident, you're putting everybody in danger - not just yourself. Forgive me for sounding all grown-up all of a sudden but just think about it - even if you only had to travel one mile - how would you do that with a broken ankle? Sometimes, out on the Plain, we're twenty miles from the nearest house, mobile phones don't work and we've got artillery shells shooting over our heads. You don't need to add riding like an idiot into that equation.

Apart from that, I'm recovering from injury. I'm not putting my recovery - and my riding - at risk because I'm in some pissing contest with a bunch of guys who think that hooligan is cool.

That said, the guy on the PR3 came up to me at the end of the day and said "I know that I was taking the piss a bit earlier, but that is an amazing bike". Yes, I know.

What, no names? Yes, and it's deliberate.

Saturday was much much better - the first AJP Action Day. We had Graham, Matt and Ian. All of them had ridden offroad before, but they wanted to test ride the new PR3 - exactly how does a 89kg bike feel to ride?

We had three types of bikes out with us, and they all got a shot on all of them. To a man, they weren't too fussed about the PR4 125cc (which I ended up riding, and I wasn't too fussed with it either - it could do with more power). They liked the PR4 200 - Madge - and found it had enough power and was very light.

But see their faces when they got on the PR3. Same power as the PR4, but 15kg lighter. Every single one of them raved about it, Ian wanted to buy one on the spot - he actually wanted to buy the one he was riding. Words like "nimble", "flicky", "throwable", "you can muscle it dead easy" were being bandied around.

Everybody loved the PR3. I was in quite a strop about this because it meant that they all took shots on the PR3s we had with us, and I didn't get a chance to ride it out on the trail. Hmmph.

Today though, Sunday, was the creme de la creme. Chief and I - driving in convoy - made it to the site of the MidWest enduro. He turned up this morning wearing his Prada beanie hat - vying for the part of Jack Nicholson rather than Chief. The seven-feet-tall-doesnt-say-much is a bit of a giveaway though.

We got kitted up and went to have a look at the track. He bought me a romantic lunch - a greasy burger - and I fell into his arms all Mills & Boon style. He really must stop buying me such romantic food.

As Groucho Marx once said - "Oysters? Aphrodisiac? No way. I had six oysters last night, and two of them didn't work".

Strangely enough, there were an awful lot of muddy bikes in the car park and the race was still on. Why so many DNFs? We found a nice spot on the track - a little hill that was all greasy and polished and we soon found out why.

Think eel. Think well-greased-eel. Think eel-wearing-vaseline-coat. You are starting to get your head round how slippy it was. Even championship riders were coming off. It was carnage. I said to Chief "I never thought I'd say this, but I am so glad I am not in this race". He saw first hand - what all these blogs about mud and roots were all about. He got it. I saw the lights come on.

He saw people slipping off their bikes and then spending 10 minutes trying to get up the hill that chucked them off. He saw knackered, sweaty, swearing people. He saw why you would absolutely hate this. Then he saw something else - he saw how you could fall in love with it.

We saw Martin pass a couple of times on a Husaberg 450 and, at the end of the race, we made our way to the van where Martin was. Chied jumped on a PR4 but, sadly, the PR3 was reserved for Martin's son who is learning to ride a bike with a clutch. Aw, bless. Martin nodded at the 450 Husaberg and he said, you guessed it, "You'll be fine".

Martin gave me that Bond-villain look that he has. He said "You'd have hated it - lots of steep and slippery downhills. With sharp corners at the bottom". He knows my weakness.

We spent some time - a few nanoseconds - showing Chief the controls on the bike, how to corner and how to pick the bike up. Then we set off. "Clutch, brake, this is how you pick it up. Follow me". Here endeth the lesson.

I took off across the slippery and rutty field and came to a lovely smooth bit of grass. I gave it some roosting, and saw Martin running after me waving his arms. Ahh. Apparently, we were allowed to go anywhere - except on that bit of grass, because it was a runway. For aeroplanes. Real ones. My ITM could have flown into this enduro. The guy had just told Martin this a few minutes before - stay off the runway. Oops.

Chief and I set off round the track, and he done really really well - all eight hundred years old of him. He was moving his bodyweight around on the bike - or perhaps it was mincing, I can't be sure. I'm in front of him on this 450cc monster - which I couldn't pick up if I dropped it - exaggerating all my movements to try and show him what to do.

We did some adverse camber stuff - really adverse camber stuff - and he done really well. He was up on his pegs, getting used to the bike sliding. He used to race road bikes - skidding a bike would be new to him. I expected lots of falls, but he stayed on. We pressed on. We came to ruts. I thought that "these will have him on his arse". Nope. Sickening. Mud? Nope - duly upright he remained.

The only time he fell off was when his bike ran out of fuel and locked the back wheel. The ensuing skid, down a steep hill, was too much and physics won out. I rode back to the van and fetched the fuel can which I then, somehow, managed to ride back with balanced on my knees. I clipped the now empty can to my camelbak and off we set.

All in all, he did about 15 tough miles on the PR4 and he loved it - on a championship enduro track. His fall had bent his gear lever so we did the right thing, and straightened it out with a rock from a nearby drystone wall. Welcome to offroad.

We got back to the van and Martin gestured at the PR3. Try it. Take it into the trees. You'll be fine.

This bike, her name is Jane. I named her yesterday when I was washing her down. Plain Jane. Sailsbury Plain Jane.

This is my first time astride the PR3 on proper dirt. Similarly to a young lady who won't let you remove her underwear until you're well on the way to being married, it was worth the wait.

This is something that Chief, Martin and a lot of the rest of you just will not understand. For the first time in my life - ever - my bodyweight was making a difference to the bike. It was like a blind person suddenly being able to see. Really, you have no idea. This bike was made for me. Hand-crafted by the AJP race engineers in Portugal - for me.

I tore off through the trees - all of the roots having been carved up by the race beforehand. The track twisted left and right - Martin would describe it as "flicky" - and the bike just ate it up. I came to a gap in a drystone wall - with a little rise about 8 feet long - and "gave it 'andful" as I went up into the field above.

As I cleared the top of the bump, I worried that there was somebody else on the track with me. There, right there, about two feet off the deck in front of my eyes was a front wheel and it was flying along at the same speed I was. I "gave it andful" again to try and get away from the problem, and this front wheel - still in the air - came with me. It was only then that I realised - this was my own front wheel - I had just wheelied my way out of trouble and was keeping the front wheel in the air for no good reason. Where's the camera when you need it?

I turned around and started making my way back. I realised that, on the straights, I wasn't on full throttle - I am still the limitation, not the bike. Jane, the little Pr3, had more than enough in reserve.

I came to the hill where Chief and I had seen all that carnage only a few hours before. I, like everybody else, got stuck on that hil.. But, here's where the 89kg bike makes a difference. Normally, I'd have gotten off the bike and dragged her out of the rut, then got back on. Lots of energy - and time - would be used up in the process.

On the AJP PR3, I had the back wheel in a rut. I just stamped both feet on the ground and tugged the front of the bike around to square up with the back. No dismount required. One 'andful later, I am on my way. In the words of Irvine Welsh - "custom designed for ma f**kin needs".

Back to the van, finishing off in an eminently posable back wheel broadside skid. Chief kept on telling me to "stop grinning". No, I will not. Cheshire Cats don't grin this well. For the first time in my life, my physique is not a problem. Every sport I have ever done - with the exception of cross country running - my slight build has been a problem. "You need to put weight on" they tell me. You think? Women all over the world hate me - I eat as much as I want of whatever I want and I don't put on an ounce.

And yet here, today, I am astride a bike and my physique is adequate for the task. I can ride this bike the way that Martin rides a 450. I can pick this bike up. I can throw this bike around. Today, Karma looked down on me and smiled. She's seen how much I have tried, how much effort I have put in. She's seen me pretend to be big - and ride a big bike - and she's seen me fail in doing so. She's watched over the design and the production of the AJP PR3, making sure that it was ready for me.

Here's something to consider. AJP decide "we're going to build a 89kg enduro bike". I decide to do the Dakar at about the same time. You see coincidence, I see Fate at work. Me and this bike were made for eachother - nobody else would be insane enough to try getting one of these to Dakar. Yet she pops up at exactly the right time. Funny that.

I am being watched over. I have a guardian angel. Scoff if you must. Then, when you're done, explain to me why AJP decided to produce this bike. Explain to me why I decide to do Dakar at the same time it gets cancelled for the first time ever. There are forces at work that you and I could not even begin to understand.

But the most fundamental thing I've learned since being diagnosed as mentally ill? It was hammered home to me today when I rode the PR3. Accept what you are. Don't pretend to be something you're not. If you weigh 55kg, the Universe will provide a 89kg bike. You are what you are.

I'll leave the last words to Ali:



But hold the matches.

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