Balance

Took the Wee Yin out today for more bike riding practice. She did s-o-o-o much better than yesterday, telling me to let her go since she wants to do it herself. And she did do it herself - one end of the park to the other on her little two wheels.

You can't teach somebody to ride a bike, they can only learn. The toughest part is to get them over the confidence hurdle - the faster you go, the harder it is to fall over. Once they get over that, they realise for themselves that they can make small adjustments in their weight to steer the bike.

Next thing to work on, and we do this tomorrow, is stopping. Using the brakes. None of this put-your-feet-on-the-floor-and-squeal-whilst-you-smash-into-a-fence stopping technique which we've been using so far. I mean it works, in a fashion, but its not the most effective stopping technique in the world.

The AJP UK event calendar has been published. There's a cluster of track days planed around February, March and April - a chance to fly round a closed track (no licence needed) and try out the bikes. Speaking of which, I managed to get hold of a picture of a sleek and sexy PR3:


Taken in Portugal, hence the sunshine. You have to wonder if somebody rode it up on to that wall, or if it was lifted up there.

No word from my ITM and how he got on at Tinehealy today. Which either means he id very well and he's still celebrating, or he did very badly and is commiserating. Or he did somewhere inbetween and is still washing his bike down.

He had a bike nicked earlier in the year too - an Aprilia Capanord 998cc - stolen back in August. The Garda found it just after christmas in an underground car park. Ignition damage, and needs a couple of new indicators, but otherwise intact. That will nicely offset the cost of the KTM 525 EXC he's just bought from Phil Noone for doing Heroes Legend on.

I'm at a bit of a loss today, just where I am in the cycle I suppose. You've got to have night in order for there to be day - neither can exist without the other. It's just a bit shit when it happens is all.

The Tuareg Looms

For thousands of years, carvans of camels trekked across the Sahara desert - mostly transporting and trading goods, spices and the like.

This tradition - trading and bargaining - is entrenched deep in Moroccan culture, and is one of the main culture shocks you get when you go to Morocco. Prices are never marked or written down. A fair price is, well, whatever the two of you agree is fair. Haggling is as much a part of life as breathing.

Of the two main tribes in Morocco - the Berber and the Tuareg - the Tuareg were the most fearsome. It is the Tuareg (or Touraeg) who form the image of the Dakar logo:


The Tuareg had a reputation for ferocity and plain old not giving up. When you're haggling with a Moroccan, and driving a hard bargain, he'll call you "un Touareg". I'm still trying to figure out whether it's an insult or a compliment.

After many years of ferocious fighting against French colonisation, the Tuareg swords were no match for french artillery and Saharan Africa eventually came under French rule. When we were in Morocco, we saw forts and keeps at the top of the mountains - built by the French to guard the passes where the Tuareg crossed the mountains. Impressive things, built hundreds of years ago without cranes or machinery - today we build houses that don't stand up for more than 50 years.

Here's another logo you may recognise as being similar to the Dakar one. It too is based on the image of a Tuareg:


It's the official logo of the Tuareg Rally - it runs from 30 March to 7 April through Southern Morocco. Two of the guys we were in Morocco with - Paul and Mike - are taking it on in 2008. Paul, a lawyer when he's not riding bikes, also smashed his collarbone after a "disagreement" with a vertical cliff at the side of the road in Morocco. He broke his other one a few years ago and got it all pinned up. Collarbones are a common injury for us lot - perhaps a new style of armour is needed which protects against this, I'll get my drawing board out.

The Tuareg is just under half a Dakar in length, and less than 10% of the cost. The regulations and stuff are pretty much the same - desert rallies tend to have the same format - and it's great training for the Dakar. There would also be the cost of getting the bike to southern Spain, but perhaps Billy at BikeTruck can help out here. What BikeTruck do is shift bikes from one place to another so that they can be ridden where you like without having to ride them there and back. Crucially, Billy is a biker and knows how to take care of people's pride and joy - he's not just a guy with a van. When you consider how expensive a rally bike is, and all of the parts on it which need to be in perfect working order during a race, it becomes very important to be able to trust getting the bike to the start line unscathed.

There's enough time to get a bike ready and prepared for it, and it would be an excellent proving ground for both the bike and for me. It would allow us to fine-tune the AJP to cope with 7 days of non-stop riding through pretty tough terrain. It would also fine-tune me for the same.

Come the end of March, it will be 4 months since my operation so I'd hope that things were healed up nicely by that time.

I've been looking an awful lot at navigation equipment and roadbook holders. This has involved some pretty complicated mathematics, which I never figured on. The calculations are around voltages, current and the power output of the generator in the AJP. I think that we may need to be looking at adding a second generator. Not only will this give more power to play with, it also provides a backup if the first one fails.

Reminds me of an interesting discussion I had a long time ago about parachute jumping - something I never actually did. The way I figured it, there is no surer sign of insanity than throwing yourself out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft - gravity always wins.

So anyway, I was asking about what if the chute failed. The conversation, as I recall it, went sort of along these lines:

"What if the chute fails to open?"

"It won't"

"But surely there's an outside chance that something can go wrong?"

"Well, yes, there's a very very small chance that something might go wrong"

"So then what?"

"Well, that's why you have a reserve chute"

"In case the first one fails to open properly?"

"Yes"

"What if the reserve chute fails?"

"It won't"

"But that's what you said about the main chute"

"Yes, and the main chutewon't fail"

"Then why do you need a reserve then?"

or something like that. I think the logic is that the chances of both chutes failing are so astronomical that it just won't happen. That's what they said about the Titanic and it's honeycombed hull design - the chances of more than two of these compartments flooding are zero, and four compartments need to flood before the ship will sink. Yes, but they never figured on what would happen if the water rose above the top of the compartments and we all know what happened there.

Anyway, a second generator seems like a sensible option. When you consider the job of the generator - turn engine movement into electricity - and what you then do with that electricity (power your crucial navigation equipment) then it seems like a good idea to have two of them. Exactly how to achieve this is an engineering problem.

John at XRStuff is sending me a fuel tank to see if it fits. If it does, then we will then know what the options are. If it doesn't, and I can properly measure things up and say why it doesn't, then - again - we will know what the options are.

Been working on the website for my ITM and Oz, who are doing the Heroes Legend rally in March. My ITM is doing it on a KTM 525 that he got from Phil Noone - all rally prepared. I'm not sure yet what Oz is doing it on but, knowing Oz, it will be a work of genius. If there was ever somebody you wanted with you in the middle of nowhere, it'd be Oz. The guy can engineer new exhaust pipes out of sticks and stones and stuff like that. You'd never be stuck. Mind you, his tendency to "open the can of whoopass" is probably what would end up damaging the bike in the first place, but at least he can fix it when it does.

I took the Wee Yin out today on her bicycle, with no stabilisers. She done very very well. Funnily enough, she did much better when she didn't know if I was holding her or not. As soon as she realised I wasn't holding her, and she was doing it totally on her own, she'd wobble and fall off. Perfect example of unstructions - if you don't think that it's possible to fall then you won't fall. As soon as the possibility of falling enters your head, you're on the deck.

My ITM is at the Tinahealy enduro tomorrow. From what I can gather, it's a fast enduro - MX-style - rather than the really technical stuff you get at MidWest. Here's some footage from the 2006 event, taken by some guy on a Yamaha (which is what my ITM will be riding) and it looks quite fun. Couple of very nasty hills though ...



So, looking ahead to next year, it seems that the Tuareg in March followed by the La Maroc rally in September are the best bets.

Discussions with The Missus are also throwing up the possibility that we may be 2010 rather than 2009 for a Dakar start. This is various things - finances, fitness (losing 4 months of riding time hasn't helped) and rally experience. Getting a couple of rallies in is a smart thing to do. I only have 1 shot at this, and I want to get it right. Doing it half-arsed and learning along the way is a pretty expensive option and, possibly, recipe for disaster.

One school of thought says I am obviously going soft on the idea. I mean, if I was serious then it would be "Dakar as soon as possible, now now now ...". Another school of thought is that I would have that attitude only if I wasn't serious. If I wasn't serious about completing the race, if I didn't have sufficient respect for how tough it is or what was involved in a gruelling desert rally. I know what school of thought I am in, your mileage may vary.

Time will tell.

Whilst searching around this Internet thing for pictures of Kiwis (trying to explain to the Wee Yin what a kiwi looks like), I came across this little gem:



You have to bear in mind that the kiwi is a flightless bird. It's all about dedicating yourself to achieving something and achieving it. Whatever it takes.

That's a Waste of Money

I was sat with the Wee Yin watching the YouTube video I posted in my last blog - the one with the guys on various different bikes negotiating an obstacle in the Cambrian Rally:



I explained the different things to the Wee Yin as they flashed up:

• borrowed bike - cost a few beers
• BMW - 100 quid on Ebay
• Fully sorted Paris-Dakar weapon - £35,000

we watched the Dakar bike rider fall flat on his face where everybody else just coasted through. The Wee Yin considered this and innocently chimed - "that's a waste of money then". Such flawless logic, delivered with the timing of a comic genius.

I was reading an article in TBM about Christini all-wheel-drive (aka "AWD"). This is the motorcycle equivalent of 4-wheel drive - where both the front wheel and rear wheel are being powered.

There's a couple of advantages to this system:

• You'll never get stuck in mud - the front wheel pulls you out, instead of the nightmare my ITM had in Morocco
  
  
• You speed round flat corners like you're on rails - the front wheel doesn't wash out because it's not being pushed by the back wheel
  
  
• You can climb hills - even that hill - because you're being pulled as well as pushed
  
  
• You coast through soft sand - none of this head-first-over-the-handlebars stuff
  

Hold on. Did somebody say "coast through soft sand?". You now officially have my attention.

The disadvantage is that the front wheel is harder to get into the air (and sometimes you need to get your front wheel up to clear obstacles) but, apparently, this can be overcome by technique.

Martin has mentioned AWD a couple of times. Apparently Dakar bikes didn't use it because it was to expensive, too heavy and too prone to failure.

But what Christini have done is actually fairly clever. They add a new chain onto the front sprocket, with little gears going down the front forks and into the front wheel. It adds 6 kilos in all. Clutches and ratchets make sure that the wheel will freewheel when you need it to and - crucially - will turn in the other direction if you need it to.

They provide kits for various Honda and KTM bikes - so I've got in touch with them to ask if such a kit is available for a PR3/4 and, if not, would they be interested in working with us to develop one.

Looking ahead, the bike that we build will be the subject of much scrutiny. Because it's such a novel thing - take the smallest and lightest 4-stroke you can with excellent fuel consumption, add fuel tanks and a slightly bigger engine. Add a light rider. We've been through all this before (blogs passim).

When we get to the finish line - probably even when we get to the start line - there will be much interest. Much headlines along the lines of "Small, but Perfectly Formed", "Can this be done?", "Pioneering AJP" and "Is This The Way Of The Future?". Stuff like that. Such a small bike entering such a big race will cause a lot of heads to turn, and a lot of assumptions to be questioned.

So, if we can get Christini on board then there's a lot of kudos in it for them - and a lot of free advertising. What we'd get out of it is a AWD motorcycle, which still weighs in at less than 95 kilos. That would be one of the most competitive enduro bikes in the world.

Let's hope that Christini can look that far ahead, and are willing to help out with some of the engineering challenges we'll face in doing this.

That's the difference between science and engineering. Science is all about performing experiments and stuff to turn the theoretical into the possible - splitting the atom for instance. Once it's proven to be possible, actually making it happen is - as the scientists say - "an engineering problem".

Surprisingly, most scientific discoveries didn't happen by somebody shouting "EUREKA!" or similar. They started off by somebody saying something like "Hold on, that's a bit odd ...".

You might not always get what you expect, but you'll always get something.

Which, given that it's Christmas tomorrow, somehow seems appropriate.

Have a great Christmas. And I hope that it works out for you in the New Year - whatever "it" happens to be for you.

Thanks for tuning in. Next year is when we move up a gear. Stay tuned.

What's In a Bike?

Lots of talk with The Missus about bikes, what kind of bikes, and getting bikes that are right for what I need to be doing. There was even some petulent "gonna get me a 2-stroke and do Erzberg" at one point as I recall.

Now The Missus, having lived with me for long enough, knows that this thought will live to the grand old age of about 3 seconds. However, she also knows that responses of things like "don't be silly" will tend to make the idea hover and stay there until, next thing we know, I'm doing Erberg on a 2-stroke just because somebody told me I couldn't.

So I got my copy of Trail Bike Magazine through the post. Page 14, bottom left hand corner, is a little sidebar. In that little sidebar it says that:

"AJP's new alloy framed trailie will shortly get a boost in the power stakes with the arrival of a big bore kit in Spring '08. Built by a company in California, the new powerplant is available complete or as a kit and will give the current 198cc air-cooled SOHC lump an extra 62cc to play with."

Now there's only two people in the world right now who are considering such an option - and the aforementioned engine is currently en route from the USA - being fitted into a PR3 by about mid-January. Either there's more than two of us looking at this, or one of the TBM hacks has been talking to Martin.

Either way, it's nice to read something in the industry press which is a scoop - a titbit of knowledge - about something that you are part of.

I was also watching a guy called Chris Pfeiffer on YouTube (just search for his name). The guy was doing trials - climbing over cars and stuff - on a HP2 Enduro. That's a 220kg HP2 enduro, for the record. There is nothing this guy cannot wheelie.

The point here being that it's not the bike, it's the rider.

One of the events I'll be looking to enter this year is the Cambrian Rally, round about October. Here's some footage which somebody posted on the Trail Bike Magazine forums - you will piss yourself:



As I say, it's not the bike.

Talking with my ageing friend this morning (or, more accurately, "bleating at" my ageing friend this morning) about Rosie and insurance and stuff.

It made me think of a book I once read, back in the day when I had aspirations of getting qualified as a lawyer, called "How To Do Things With Rules". It explains how lawyers, and the law, take rules apart and make them mean completely different things.

So, for instance, there's a rule in enduro that says "you must wear a ACU-approved helmet". Very sensible rule. What a lawyer would do is strip it apart in a way similar to the following:

• "you must"
  No arguments with this one really. Not a lot can be done.
  
  
• "wear"
  Bingo. We can have some fun with this one.
  
  
• "a ACU-approved helmet"
  Again, not a lot can be done with this one. A helmet is either approved by the ACU (it has a gold or silver sticker) or it's not.

Looks like we can get up to mischief with the part of the rule that says "wear". A lawyer would look up the word in a dictionary (e.g. the definition of 'wear' at dictionary.com):

• wear: to carry or have on the body or about the person as a covering, equipment, ornament, or the like: to wear a coat; to wear a saber; to wear a disguise.

Hmm. It doesn't say anything at all about the helmet having to be on your head. So, for instance, I could ride around with it on my arm and still be "wearing" it. The marshals would disagree, but according to the letter of the law ...

Anyway, the Santa Clause:

"Underwriters shall not be liable for loss or damage caused by theft unless: between 10:00pm and 6:00am when parked at your place of residence the motorcycle is kept in a locked building."

My fight with the insurance company hinges on which interpretation is chosen:

1. if you have the bike out of the garage between 10pm and 6am - ever - then you can never make a claim or theft - ever;
   
   
2. you cannot make a claim for theft if the theft was between 10pm and 6am.

The first of these is a very literal interpretation - i.e. the letter of the law - it is exactly what it says. Read it again. A very deliberate wording whereby the insurance company, if they ever find out that your bike was ungaraged overnight, refuse to pay out for theft.

Notice, also, that it doesn't just restrict it to theft of the motorcycle from the house. If it's interpreted literally, then it covers any theft anywhere in the world at any time - all that's needed is that the bike was ungaraged between 10pm and 6am at any time in the past.

The second interpretation is a little bit more "common sense" - and its probably how you and I would read it - but it's not what the wording says. In fact, you have to work hard to come away with this interpretation, even though it's the most common-sense and logical one. The insurance company are saying "we won't pay out for theft if it happened between 10pm and 6am outside your house, and the bike wasn't garaged".

Which, in a way, makes sense. But, read it again, that's not what it says.

The insurance company, obviously, would like interpretation 1. I, obviously, would like interpretation 2.

Even if we do manage to get the interpretation I want, then we get on to when the bike was actually nicked. It was sometime between 8pm Saturday and 11am Sunday. This includes the 10pm-6am time window they mention. But we don't know exactly when.

This is going to rely on some pretty good karma, and having somebody senior in the insurance company who looks at it and decides to give me a break. What with all the shit of the last 3 months, I reckon we're pretty deserving of one.

I'd have made a good lawyer. I can argue well, can rip sentences to shreds, and can understand complex wording of stuff. Most of all, I get a real buzz out of going into bat for people who cannot go into bat for themselves. I don't like to see bug guys picking on little guys - whether that's in bizz-ness or in life. It's not right.

If I could find a way to do it, and still keep bills paid, I'd love to go get me a law degree and earn a living advocating for people who can't advocate for themselves. Standing up for little people against big people. Dakar first though.

In the meantime, we fight on for interpretation 2. And we hope that karma is watching - helping me to stand up to the big people.

Santa Clause

Going to be hard to get over this one. Not impossible, but hard.

We just dug out all the paperwork to send to the insurance for Rosie. On the insurance certificate, there's this lively little bit that says:

"Underwriters shall not be liable under Section 1 for loss or damage caused directly by theft unless between 2200 and 0600 your motorcycle is kept in a locked building".

I'm going to call this the "Santa Clause" - since I found it at christmas.

I've had so many bikes over the years, I lose track of the different policies. All of them, except this one, had a garaging excess - you'd have to pay the first £1,000 of any claim if the bike wasn't garaged and it got nicked. This one though, had the clause up there.

So now I need to pay to get my bike - my bike with god-knows-what wrong with her - back again.

On top of that, I got the renewal for the insurance. It's went up by 300%, and the claim is right on the bottom.

So, being uninsured, I would have been better to just shut up about it and not tell anybody - least of all the insurance company. I not only have to pay for the bike, I now have to pay an extra £300 a year for the privelege of claiming on a policy that doesn't have to pay out.

In what way, even stretching the definition to its extreme, is this fair?

Sometimes you have to wonder if being all law-abiding and stuff isn't what it's cracked up to be. The Police haven't been able to charge anybody with nicking the bike, so there's no chance of recovering any of the cost there. Sometimes you have to think that life would be much less uncomplicated if you wheeled and dealed and nicked things and got up to mischief for a living. You'd certainly pay less tax, that's for sure.

The plan was to collect the insurance, or get Rosie repaired and then sell her. That money was a new PR3. There'll still be a new PR3, but the money will have to come from somewhere else.

There's all kind of words floating round in my head right now. Probably best thing to do is go and calm down and worry about the stuff that I can do something about. Like Christmas, just round the corner.

We did the right thing here. We were honest. I could have said, for instance, that the bike got nicked from Swindon or somewhere. But I didn't. I could have broke into my own garage and said that she was in there. But I didn't.

Honesty, they tell me, is the best policy. Given what happened to Madge, and now Rosie, and the fact that I have ended up being stung on both of them, I am starting to wonder.

Submarine Puppy

The postie came to the door yesterday, had to ring the bell because he had a package.

When we opened the door, he saw the crap dog. She looks like Lassie but, believe me, she is completely useless. The postman was amazed at her. How pretty she looked, how placid and gentle and loving and friendly she was.

He went on to tell us that she is the most vicious dog on his round. Apparently, if fingers go through the letterbox then she attacks them the way Jaws took chunks out of swimmers.

He explained that the worst part of it was that she was so quiet - a stealth puppy. He said that she sits behind the door all silent and lurking, like a German submarine. Soon as the fingers go through, it's "Fire One!" and dive at the fingers.

We were absolutely rolling about the floor. Anybody who has ever met this dog would do the same. My ageing friend used to give me a hard time for referring to her as the "crap dog". Now, when he comes over, he tickles her ears and coos gently to her about how crap and useless she is.

So, we're going to get her a periscope for christmas, and one of those submarine sonar things that goes PING!.

The Missus and I were looking at the Tuareg Rally last night. It's basically half a Dakar - 7 days in Morocco. We were wondering if it might be a good shakeout for a rally-prepared PR3. Doesn't leave a lot of time to get the bike organised - road book, GPS, fuel tanks, toolkit etc but it's still a few months away yet.

Maybe we could get this guy to help out with the mechanics - he seems to have a knack at doing clever things with engines:



There's a lot of off-the-shelf bits that can be used for the cockpit (roadbook, GPS etc) from Touratech. The mandatory toolkit, first aid kit and 4 litres of water - we'll probably have to make a custom box for those but, again, not difficult.

It's only two weeks to the day until the start line of the 2008 Dakar. I sent an email to all of the guys we were in Morocco with and I wished the Dakar guys luck:

• Gary Ennis (number 233)
  
• Phil Noone (number 232)
  
• Duncan Tweedy (number 203)
  
• Ewan Buchan (number 224)
  
• Neil Buchan (number 225)
  
• Iain Shankie (number 168)
  
• John Whiteford (number 198)
  
• Calum McKenzie (number 170)
  

I got a reply from Duncan in the small hors of the morning, assuring me that he'll be out there "doing it for Britain". and then it struck me. That's most of the British entrants for 2008 we were out playing with in Morocco. My claim to fame is that I borrowed John Whiteford's helmet to go on the back of Zippy's bike to play in the dunes with a smashed collarbone. Five Scotsmen, an Englishman and two Irishmen - there's a joke in there somewhere.

The Scottish guys are going to be the first Scottish guys to make it to Dakar. Looks like I'll have to be content with being second then.

But now is the time to be looking at next years calendar and planning the events that are meaningful waypoints on the road to Dakar. There's no point in (say) competing in 15-minute Motocross events - it's longer rallies I need to be doing - such as the Tuareg.

Speaking of calendars, here's something you probably didn't know. We use a calendar called the Gregorian Calendar - 12 months in a year and all that - introduced to the world in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.

Why did we need a calendar? Why was it not acceptable for people to just kind of work things out using the moon and the seasons? Why did the Catholic Church go to all the trouble of enforcing the use of a particular way of knowing what day it is?

It's the biggest dogma in the world - what date it is. Nobody can prove it, or disprove it, but everybody accepts it without question.

So, the simple reason why we needed a calendar was so that everybody knew when to pay their taxes. Everybody knew when bills fell due. Nothing more complicated than that.

And speaking of bills falling due, I got my renewal notice for my bike insurance, which falls due on 14 January. I read the small print. I always read the small print. There's a slight change in the policy. Whereas before I had a "garaging excess" (an amount of money I'd have to forfeit if the bike got nicked when she wasn't in a garage) I now have an "exclusion of liability clause".

This basically means that if the bike gets nicked and she's not in the garage, then the insurance company don't pay out a penny. Given my tendency to not garage the bike, perhaps I should either change this tendency or, possibly, look for a different insurer.

No word from the engineer yet either - I'm still waiting on the formal examination of Rosie and what needs done there.

Perhaps it was posted through the door and the stealth puppy submarine ate it. Or, possibly, the posties aren't delivering mail to the house because of our secret weapon.

What's a Trials Bike?

I've spoken about how the AJP PR3 feels and handles like a trials bike, but I didn't explain what a trials bike is.

Well, here's what a trials bike does:



I say "does" rather than "is" because these guys aren't on trials bikes - they're on enduro bikes. Trials bikes have a very distinctive shape - basically they have no seat and the whole lot looks like a boomerang on wheels - a distinctive 'V' shape.

The guys in this clip were training for the Erzberg Rodeo - the toughest offroad event in the calendar. Hold on, isn't that Dakar? Well yes, but it's a different kind of tough.

Erzberg is designed to test your toughness and your bike skills - it's the most technically challenging event in the world. You need to ride up hills that you could barely climb up, and you need to ride down cliffs that are more suitable for base-jumping. It's high-adrenaline stuff which looks particularly good on TV.

Dakar is more about endurance. More about toughness. Much less about showing off your bike skills, more about what you've got inside of you. More about where your physical and mental endurance limits are. Enzberg is more about can you climb a cliff - on a bike - then ride over a hundred fallen trees before flying off a ramp and putting the bike into a backflip?

Strangely enough, some people can do both - and do them well. Cyril Despres - factory rider for Gauloises - rides in the Dakar. He started his life as a trials rider - hill climbs, tree trunks and barrels - and he's good at both. Giovanni Sala, factory rider for Repsol. He also rides at Erzberg and Dakar.

So you watch these guys and you think "there is no way I could ever be that good". Definitely not, if that's what you think. If you think you'll never be that good, then it's an absolute guarantee that you'll never be that good.

But if you think "I will be that good". Maybe, just maybe. If you want it enough. If you train enough. If you take enough knocks and shrug them off. Just maybe. Ali was the world champion long before he stepped into the ring. Caesar had conquered Britain long before he set foot on English soil.

Scoff if you must, please feel free. But why not? Suppose, for instance, I had an infinite amount of money. I could get up in the morning and train, train train all day - right outside my house. Every day. Did nothing but train. Didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't do anything except train. I couldn't be that good? Of course I could, so could you.

You can do anything you put your mind to, so we're told. Not quite. You can do anything you work hard enough at learning, and want badly enough, is probably more accurate.

Ever heard of a guy called Lance Armstrong? Won the gruelling Tour de France 7 times. Count them - seven.

In the course of doing so, he beat off cancer - including an extended course of chemotherapy - and a germ cell tumour which threatened to destroy his brain and lungs. He had brain surgery, and other surgery, but still didn't give up. This guy won the Tour de France long before he got on a bike at the start line.

Most of us would have said "uh-oh, cancer. I'm completely fucked now". So, whilst you're scoffing (assuming you were, apologies if you weren't), exactly why can't I aspire to be the best that I can be?

OK, so I'm not a natural rider. I have to work bloody hard at it. Funny, old Winston Churchill wasn't a natural speaker. He had the most almighty stammer, used to get the piss taken out of him something chronic he did. He used to sit in front of a mirror and practice speaking - day after day and night after night - until he turned into one of the best (if not the best) orators the world has ever seen.

That's what dedication and commitment will do for you, provided you want something badly enough.

I don't want to win Dakar, in the "finish first" sense of the word. Getting there in one piece will be a win.

Guy called Akira, on YouTube, also noticed the similarity between Dakar and Ezberg. He ripped off a few bits of Polar's video (the Popcorn one) and mixed it in with some of the footage from the 2006 Enzberg Rodeo:




He's got Cyril Despres and Giovanni Sala in there twice - once at Dakar and once at Enzberg. He's also got Andy Caldecott - who didn't do Erzberg.

By the way, Martin may well be thinking differently nowadays. I was joking him about the stripped down PR4 he had in the workshop - "that's your Dakar bike". Martin thought about this and told me "Nah, I'll use a PR5" (the new 250cc from AJP). That's moved on a little from where we were a few months back - putting his hands over his ears and repeating "I'm not listening, I'm not listening ...".

If anybody was ever going to get to Dakar, it'd be Martin. Balls the size of barrage balloons, and tough. He'd love to go - I'm sure of it - but there's the Missus Martin dimension (she's much less keen).

And then there's Jago as well. That could be 3 bikes to Dakar for AJP.

But could a small bike do it? Well, the recent changes in the course layout would help - as would the additional fuel stops. Nobody's though tof doing it that way.

In 1968, there was only one way to do the high jump. The rules were clear - take off on one foot. Everybody was using a technique called the 'scissor jump' - get the legs over the bar one at a time and, crucially, stay upright.

A young man by the name of Richard Fosbury looked at the problem differently. He ran at the bar diagonallly, then went over it backwards - head first. Madman.

He won the gold medal, and broke the world record, at the 1968 Olympics. Every high jump athlete in the world now uses the "Fosbury Flop".

Maybe, just maybe, our perspective of "could a small bike do this" will one day become the normal way of looking at the problem. Maybe it won't. But a tough-as-boots bike and a tough-as-boots rider. Hmm...

What if Cyril Despres and Gauloises decided that they were entering a 260cc bike to the next Dakar? Would everybody fall about laughing? Or would everybody start to wonder if a small bike might actually be a wise thing to do?

As Dick Fosbury proved. Just because nobody is doing it, that's not because it can't be done.

Just Looking!

Long day today.

Started with being interviewed for a job by a guy I can only describe as an Indian Mystic. All aged and wise and misty-eyed, talking about how if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil then that can cause a tornado in China.

Funny job interview that one was.

Then off to Swindon to have lunch with my ex-boss. Finding out what's going on, what's not, what the opportunities might be.

Then off to the ultimate objective for today - "look at" an AJP PR3. Unfortunately, my camera didnt work on my mobile phone so I have no pictures of the young lady - beautiful as she is.

I "looked" quite hard at the AJP, all round the industrial estate where they're based. Helpfully, there were builders there, and they had left this huge pile of sand - for cement I think - and that helped me to "look at" how the PR3 copes with such obstacles.

Oh, by the way, whilst I'm "looking", I am still wearing the sharp suit I wore to my job interview. And a tie. I must've looked quite odd.

One of the builders was directing a reversing steamroller onto the back of a low-loader lorry with its ramps down. He was kind enough to let me "look at" how the PR3 would handle jumping over such a ramp.

I wasn't able to "look" very well at how you'd get the front wheel in the air on a PR3. Martin came and "had a look". Ah, so that's how it's done. Hypothetically, obviously, since we were just "looking". If I had been riding, it would have felt s-o-o-o-o-o-o good to be back on a bike. It would have been such a great feeling to have been riding again, even just in the industrial estate and on and off the odd lorry or two. If I had been riding, obviously, not just "looking".

Then we had a closer look - a proper look this time. One thing that immediately struck me was how well-engineered the bike was. What AJP did was to look hard at the PR4, and identify where the air gaps were - where is there space? They then worked hard to engineer all the space out of the way - everything is much more compact - and it is this that produces a shorter, lighter bike.

The short wheelbase, and low weight, means that she handles like a trials bike - one of those bikes that jump barrels and stuff. Very very nimble, she'd have eaten up the tight corners of the Chicken Run before just spitting them out.

And quick? Same engine as her 105kg big sister, same power, but a 17% reduction in weight. Slightly different gearing, produces a 17% increase in power and a slightly larger increase in top speed.

We looked harder. Where would the fuel tanks go? Where would the mandatory 3 litres of water go? Toolkit? Cockpit? Roadbook holder? There's a place for all of them. I thought that there may be a problem fitting in the 260cc engine - it needs another 4mm of clearance. Martin had a look. "You'll be fine", he tells me. "4mm is no problem, you just need a hammer".

I took her out into the industrial estate to "look" some more - still wearing the suit - I wanted to check out the brakes. The most enormous floating caliper front disc you've ever seen, she'll stop on a sixpence.

We like. Letter to Santa in the post.

Spoke to Martin about the event calendar. He's split his riding days into Level 1 (novices) and Level 2 (experienced) which will make for a much more fun day out for those concerned. Closed-track days - where even people without a licence can ride a PR3 - and a end-to-end Wales rally. Book one.

We spoke about the enduro calendar. 17 February is the first MidWest racing enduro of the year. I didn't know when the fracture clinic was, but it was roundabout the same time. When I got home, there's a letter telling me that it's on 11 February. We're going to put that one in the "this is a sign" pile. 17 February will be my next enduro. Get out for a bit of trail riding first - including that hill - and (in the words of Martin) "I'll be fine".

I was thinking about green bottles on the way home - you know the song, "ten green bottles". I was thinking that if one or two should "accidentally fall", then that's probably a coincidence. But all ten? Either somebody didn't hang them up right, or there's some kind of bottle-dropping conspiracy afoot and further investigation is needed.

So The Missus was asking about the AJP. I pointed her at Martin's phone number, and the credit card. I skipped school the day that they were teaching "subtle".

No ding-dongs with my ageing friend today - I feel cheated in a strange sort of way. He, when his geriatric knee is better, will end up on a PR3. Even if it's a Company PR3 (blogs passim).

Thing about the PR3 is that she felt an awful lot like a tailor made suit. She is custom designed for my size and build. Martin looked a bit strange - all 6'2" of him on such a seemingly small bike - but he loved it, and he handled it like a bicycle. Normally, I see him on the Yamaha or a PR4, hence the strangeness.

I defy anybody to ride a PR3 and not love it. Obviously, I just "looked". But I'd imagine that anybody riding it would love it. I certainly did. Or would have, if I had ridden. Because obviously I didn't. Oh no. The doctor told me I mustn't. I always do what I am told by doctors.

Muckspreader did her Christmas show the other night, with the amateur dramatics crowd. The Wee Yin was in it too - singing, dancing, and she even had a duet. All 6 years old of her. Brilliant, she was.

Anyway, Muckspreader got all dressed up i a short skirt and Santa hat and sung "Santa Baby". I have it on video (as well as the Wee Yin). Any disagreements, it's straight on YouTube. It's all about force multipliers.

So, anyway, "Santa baby ... slip an AJP under the tree, for me ...". I'll sing if I absolutely have to.

Closest I'm Gonna Get

I've made rather a big deal about 2-strokes and the way they hooligan their way round the enduros, but I've never actually explained what they sound like.

Given my inability to ride a bike, this is the closest I'm going to get to motorbike noises for a while:



The Missus bumped into a tiny wee new baby the other day, and she's getting all broody now about how lovely it would be to have another baby.

I was trying to explain to her that this is pretty much the same thing as me going up to AJP and seeing the new shiny tiny wee petite 89kg PR3 - I want another bike. Or when I get with my geeky mates and one of them has a shiny new laptop - I want another one too. Or when one of my friends gets a new girlfriend - I, em, don't want one and am very happy with The Missus thank you very much.

But imagine. A 89kg PR3 - mother and baby doing fine - just crying away in its pram wanting to be taken home and nurtured and ridden at the enduros on a Sunday. Having it's oil filter and nappy changed after the race, being fed warm milk and unleaded petrol before being tucked up safe and sound under a cosy blanket in the garage. Aw, bless.

And when it takes its first little steps on the enduro course - before falling over in a heap - isn't that sweet? And the way it gurgles and chuckles at low-revs ... And when it cries for milk, sorry petrol, and says it's first words - BRRRRRM!

Fact. AJPs are cheaper, more reliable, less stroppy and less likely to wake you up at 2 in the morning than an infant.

But it would be nice ...

Six

First off, thank you to the kind gentleman in Bolton who sent my a donation. I will,with your permission, put this towards the new 89kg AJP PR3 that I am off to, em, "look at" tomorrow. Thank You.

So today I got the results back of a Very Important Experiment I did.

There's this website which runs a poetry competition. Some time back, I wrote one and entered it. Ever since, I have had about two emails a week from the site saying that I have won this Editors Choice Award and this-or-that accolade.

Me, I was cynical. The Missus, she thought it was for real. My cynicism was based on the fact that even though I had won the award, I still needed to send away a cheque for $dollars to get the certificate.

So I thought about this bizz-ness model. People are publishing poetry on your website right? So you figure that they are vain and want published. So what you do is make up a couple of hundred certificates at, say, a dollar each. Then you 'award' people the certificates and charge them, say, twenty dollars. You play to their vanity.

In order to prove this, I entered another poem using a different email address. My thinking was that I would get identical emails to this account saying that I had won such and such an award. In order to prove my point, I wrote a complete piece of nonsense that was in the style of Dr Seuss (the Cat in the Hat guy). It was about being six (which is how old the Wee Yin is), something stupid like:

I am six.
I like sticks.
Sticks and chicks and bricks.
Chicks with tricks and bricks on sticks...

that sort of thing. That'll show them. That'll prove the point.

So I got two emails today - one in each account. The first one said "you won the blurby bloop award" (or whatever it was).

The second one said:

"Unfortunately, after careful review of your contest entry, I am sorry to inform you that your poem "Six" was not chosen for publication and is no longer eligible for contest prizes. We understand that poetry is a form of artistic expression and that it is not always understood by those who read it."

It was the "not always understood by those who read it" that cracked me up. The Diplomatic Corps lost out when the guy who wrote that email didn't apply to them for a job.

Speaking of Internet stuff, my ITM bagged himself a nice little domain - mission2dakar.com. Him and Oz (the 2-stroke madman with the real talent for fixing KTM exhausts using old shock absorbers) are taking on Heroes and Legends in March.

This is the route of the original Paris-Dakar, except the stages aren't as long and the timings aren't quite as severe. Missus ITM wanted his team to be called "I like spending lots of money on motorbikes" or something like that, but it was Mission2Dakar that carried the day.

I was down having lunch with Mr Dragon's Den today, rinsing him for free advice. Not often you get something for free out of these guys. That said, I paid for lunch. Hmm.

My ageing friend and I had our now obligatory ding-dong this morning. It was about wallpaper funnily enough. I and my gangly friend had decided in our wisdom that it was very very important to make sure that every possible vertical surface in our offices (when we get them) is a whiteboard. OK, maybe getting ahead of ourselves but that's not the point.

My ageing friend held the very reasonable (his view) but dissenting opinion that oak panelling or something a little less outrageous than just encouraging people to graffiti the walls was in order.

Just wait until I tell him about our decision that nobody is getting a company car, and that everybody will be travelling around on AJP PR3s. Or the annual Company holiday to Dakar. It didn't stop Enron - they took their board of directors on the Baja 1000 rally.

I spent another couple of hours down at the University today trying to blag stuff for free. So far, I've managed to blag a bunch of time for Very Expensive and Clever Consultants from Price Waterhouse Coopers - they'll audit and assess our next proposal to the outsourcer. I've also managed to blag free sales and marketing help. And, possibly, a spot on Dragon's Den.

Force multipliers. It's all about force multipliers.

But that whole "Six" thing has got me annoyed now.

Speaking of writing, I've been following a thread on the freelance newsgroups about a guy called Ed Mitchell. Ed was a former ITN newsreader - all silk suits and £100,000 per year salaries, who fell prey to mental illness and a drink problem. He now lives on a bench on Brighton seafront.

The press went hot for it - this is one of their own after all. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth, "my how the mighty have fallen".

Thing is, this has resulted in the most massive flame war on the newsgroups. There's the people who are saying "this guy needs help" and the equally passionate people saying "this guy deserves everything he gets - its all his own fault blah blah blah".

There, but for the grace of God, go you and I. Nobody is immune. Nobody is incapable of developing mental illness, and it destroying their lives. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and, last time I looked, we're all in glass houses.

All of this asking for things for free today - trying to blag stuff - reminds me of a tale I once heard about a rabbit. Yes, a rabbit.

So this rabbit goes into a butchers shop. Walks up to the butcher, grins, and says:

"Got any cabbage?"

The butcher is perplexed. He explains to the rabbit that he only sells meat - nothing green. No cabbage. The rabbit hops off.

A few minutes later, he comes back in. Hops straight to the front of the queue and asks:

"Got any cabbage?"

The butcher realises he may not be dealing with the smartest rabbit that ever lived. He explains, again, more s-l-o-w-l-y this time, that he doesn't sell cabbage. The rabbit hops off.

A few minutes later, he hops back in. Straight to the front of the queue. Asks the butcher:

"Got any cabbage?"

The butcher gets angry, and starts shouting at the rabbit.

"IF YOU COME IN HERE ASKING FOR CABBAGE ONE MORE TIME, I WILL NAIL YOUR EARS TO THE FLOOR! NOW GET OUT!"

The rabbit hops off.

A few minutes later, the rabbit comes back. Hops straight to the front of the queue and asks:

"Got any nails?"

The butcher says that he doesn't.

The rabbit grins.

"Got any cabbage then?"

Thanks again to the Nutty Guy from Bolton.

I'm Not Smart

I am rather fond of referring to Jeff Skilling - the CEO of Enron (who went disastrously tits up in 2002 - blogs passim).

I am fond of quoting his interview for Harvard:

"Are you smart?"

"No. I'm fucking smart."

Why? Is it the brilliance of the guy - "incandescently brilliant" as he was once described? Is it the arrogance of the guy - in the same way that Ali was arrogant? Or is it the raw agression of the guy?

Let me explain what I mean.

When you sit down with a university professor, you do it on a certain territory. You obey certain rules. Those rules are around academic stuff - intelligence and qualifications - not about how mean your right hook is.

When he asks you if you're smart - you reply in the same terms. When you reply "I'm fucking smart", you're bringing something else into the equation. You're bringing in hardness - as opposed to toughness (blogs passim).

So I had a difficult conversation today with a friend of mine, about bizz-ness. I asked what I thought was a reasonable question - why is it that I have reached these conclusions myself, and asked myself these questions, when I would have expected this to come from you?

The answer was as stark as it was unexpected.

The problem, he tells me, is that I am smart. I am not just smart, I am fucking smart.

In other words, it's not the fact that I am smart that is the problem. It's the venom and the passion I have about being smart. Not only am I smart, I also have an ability to argue my case that most barristers dream that they have.

So, even if I am wrong (which happens on very very rare occasions), my friend can't tell me I'm wrong. Even if I'd listen - which I wouldn't - he knows that I would forensically destroy his argument brick by brick with the insightful intellect of a barrister on steroids. Not because I'm right, but because I'm fucking right.

It's the posture that's the problem. It's the drawing back of the shoulders. The puffing out of the chest. The clenching of the fists. The stare. That stare. That "not only am I right, but I'll take your teeth out if you don't stop telling me I'm wrong". As Martin would say, "yeah, that one". All of those force multipliers I learned all those years ago.

They may well have been appropriate for dealing with Glaswegian hard men, but are less appropriate when dealing with bizz-ness people.

A lesson needs learning here. What worked for me, and kept me alive all those years, is probably no longer the most appropriate strategy. It's all about context, as I said all those blogs ago.

King Xerces, commanding a million men, spoke to King Leonidus - who only had 300 men - at the Battle of Thermopylae. He told Leonidus that he faced annihalation, and that his life and lands would be spared. All he ad to do was kneel.

Leonidus said that the kneeling was a problem. All the thousands of Persians he had slaugtered that morning, this has given some cramp. No, there could be no kneeling right now I'm afraid. Sorry about that.

What I need to learn, is the art of giving up. The art of surrender.

Spoke to Martin at AJP this evening. He went out with a guy the other day who was test riding the new PR3. He liked it so much, he bought 3 of them.

Martin was telling me how it feels and handles like a trials bike. Want the front wheel in the air? No problem - give it some gas. And this is a four-stroke. Tight corner? No problem - short wheelbase zips you round it like a unicycle.

Apparently he was talking to one of the guys at AJP in Portugal about having some complete nutter in the UK who wants to take one of these to Dakar (I'm paraphrasing). The guy considers this and concludes that the fuel tanks would be a problem - there's not enough fuel on board - but everything else would hold firm and get there.

So Martin and I talk about the fuel tanks. Aliminium is better than fibreglass, he tells me, because aliminium will dent and not crack if you drop the bike. Given my previous, I will drop the bike - so better listen to this.

I am up on Thursday to, em "look at" a PR3. I won't take my riding gear. Martin has got plenty of riding gear up there in case I, em, want to "look more closely". This whole front-wheel-in-the-air-piece-of-piss has got me intrigued.

Thank you to my friend for telling me that I smell.