Vorsprung Durch Pyrotechnik

A small issue with the 260cc engine. Well, depends on your view of 'small' I suppose. Looks like the inlet valve may not have been seated properly, so some of the fuel/air mixture was being blown back into the carburettor, causing fuel to spill everywhere when the engine was running.

Add a little spark to this, you get a lovely little fireworks display that needs a bit of fire extinguishing by a rather sweary Martin who is trying to avoid the whole of AJP UK going up in flames. We'll put that one in the "needs a little work" pile.

Yet, at the same time, we discover that AJP Portugal have been manufacturing and testing 230cc and 250cc engines to fit the PR3. We are hoping to get our hands on one (or more) of these in the coming weeks.

Thing is, TransOrientale have a hard limit on bike size. The bike must have a minimum engine size of 250cc, and must be capable of 250km without refuelling. The second of these is not a problem - the little PR3 will do 100km on 5 litres of fuel - but the larger engine is the main one we need to crack.

My ITM has no constipation worries - I just thought I'd announce that to the world - since he is off to Heroes Legend in just over 1 week. Him and Big Oz, ready to roll. Taking off from Paris, right under the Eiffel Tower next weekend.

It will be tough - it's the original Paris-Dakar route - and will be about 3 weeks of hell. There will be much swearing, much why-oh-why-did-I-ever-sign-up-for-this, and much good humour. They willnever be the same again - it is impossible to travel to the remotest parts of the world where people have nothing and return from that unchanged.

The Missus, with her ususal ruthless efficiency, is all packed for Dawn to Dusk. The bike is ready, she's ready, the van is booked. The only question mark is me. Am I ready? I don't know. Is my shoulder ready? I guess we'll find out soon enough.

I was praying for rain, but now I'm not so sure. My original thinking was that I'd have an advantage on the lightest enduro bike in the world, versus the heavier KTMs, when we're fighting for the same amount of grip. As the start of the race gets closer, I'm less keen on the whole rain thing.

Come Sunday night, we'll know what happened Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoon is an obstacle - a means to an end. Nothing more.

I have a spare bike from Martin, my own bike is fully race-prepped, and this is the closest to a factory ride I'll ever get. There are few people in the world who are insane enough to consider taking a PR3 to Dawn to Dusk - Martin is probably the only other person who would even think about it - when when we get out there and they see how the little lady handles, then I think others may well think differently.

But what I will go through in Wales this weekend is just a pimple compared to what Oz and my ITM will be doing over the next few weeks. I'll finish 6 hours of hard riding and have a nice cup of tea - they'd just be at their first refuelling point and still have nearly 3 weeks to go.

Do I wish I was gong with them? Yes, obviously. Would I be going if I hadn't been injured? Probably. And, if I am honest, I'm a little bit envious of them.

But let me be clear. There's a big difference between envy and jealousy. Jealousy is where you see that somebody has something, and you don't want them to have it - you want to have it instead. Envy is where you see that somebody has something, and you want it too. So I'm envious, but not jealous - it's an important distinction.

Oz and my ITM are fantastic people who deserve much. They deserve to get to Dakar and, if heart and spirit alone are the judges, then they will. The fact that I wish I was with them does not rob them of anything.

Gentlemen, do well. And wherever you go, may your Gods go with you. But Oz, try and go a bit easy on the whoop-ass ...

From The Mouths of Babes

I had to share this with you.

Yesterday, I'm in the shops with the Wee Yin buying a nice bit of lamb. The butcher, a really lovely old guy with all wrinkles and wee half-moon glasses, was all jolly and chatty.

The Wee Yin was pointing to different cuts of meat and asking what they were:

"What's that?".
"That, my dear, is a fillet steak."
"Oh, is that from a cow?"
"Yes, that's from a cow"

You get the idea.

There was a wee piece of lamb - and off-cut - and it had a sticker on it: "This bit - 85p". I said to the butcher that I'd take that little bit there for the dog.

As he reached for the meat, he smiled at the Wee Yin:

"Your dog is going to be your best ever friend now, when you give it this lovely piece of lamb isn't it?"

The Wee Yin, impeccably cute as ever, agreed. "Yes she will".

"And what kind of dog do you have?"

"A crap one".

Aw, bless.

"I Like Jeans"

We've all heard of Steve McQueen. The Great Escape Hilt. "Cooler!". Baseball glove and ball. That one.

We all know that Steve McQueen was a very skilled driver and rider, and that he done all of his own stunts. Well, almost all of them. That jump, the one at the end of the Great Escape, was actually done by Bud Elkin - the guy who got Steve McQueen into enduro riding in the first place. The insurance companies wouldn't allow Steve to do that jump, even though they'd allow him to ride the motorcycle.

Steve McQueen was such an accomplished enduro rider that the film producers couldn't find anybody whoul could keep up with him. This made the chase scene at the end of the film quite difficult - who could ride as fast as Steve McQueen? The answer, obviously, is "another Steve McQueen". So he rode both bikes - the one being chased and the one doing the chasing. Some clever editing makes it look like a single chase, but it's actually Steve himself riding in his t-shirt and also chasing himself whilst wearing a German army uniform.

Life was not always rosy for the young Steve McQueen. He ran with street gangs, committed petty crime, and was eventually sent away to the California Junior Boys Republic - optimistically described as a "boarding school for wayward boys".

He got lucky, he clawed his way out of that. He looked where he wanted the bike to go.

Even towards the end of his life, negotiating film contracts and the like, Steve always had some unusual requirements. In addition to his film pay, he'd demand lots and lots and lots of freebies. Razor blades, soap and - particularly - lots of pairs of jeans before he would agree to do the film. When questioned about this, he'd simply answer - "I like jeans". Several hundred pairs of denim jeans would be delivered - no further questions asked.

It turned out that he never wore a single pair of these jeans. He took them and donated them to the California Junior Boys Republic - where he had been "educated" as a kid. He'd spend time there, playing pool and talking to the boys about his own experiences. He never forgot where he came from.

So, a decision has been made. It's Bejing. It's not 2009 Dakar, it's 2009 Transorientale. No fanfare, no massive headline title of the blog - not yet anyway.

This is a bit of a bitch in a way. I could have coped in Africa - I speak French. Most, if not all, of the countries that the rally passes through were former French colonies. I spent time - albeit a short time - in the service of France. To mis-quote my Dawn to Dusk team name - "Seemed Such a Good Idea At The Time".

But Argentina? I have no business there. Tough as the race may be, it doesn't appeal to me. I never set out on this journey to do a round-trip from Buenos Aires to Buenos Aires.

Transorientale is the largest rally raid in the world - it is the new Dakar. It is 10,000 kilometres over 17 days through 3 countries - Russia, Kazakstan and China. St. Petersburg to Bejing.

I speak a little bit of Russian - probably enough to get my face slapped, but I'm going to have to work on my Chinese.

Apart from the beauty of riding through Russia - I've always had a bit of a thing for Russia - there is also the beauty of always riding East. Always riding into the sunrise, always finishing the day with the sun at your back setting in the West.

I put my race numbers on Goldilocks today. Changed the oil - twice - and tightened up all the nuts and bolts. She's ready.

Chief and squaw came over for dinner - I had spent all day cooking a bit of lamb (inbetween changing oil and tightening bolts) and was ably helped in this by the Wee Yin. She cut up the vegetables - using a real knife. She had respect for the knife, and was a little afraid of it. But, as I explained to her, how will you ever learn to use a knife if nobody ever shows you how? We had a few incidents where she wanted to chop the veg really fast - a la Masterchef - but she done very well.

It's funny how we expect kids - and ourselves - to stay away from things that they're not ready for yet and then - magically - one day to just be able to do it properly and nobody's ever shown them how.

I've noticed, recently, that I am starting to stitch together a lot of the raw skills that I've learned at BMW and AJP in the last year. Things that seemed alien at the time - like changing ruts - I am starting to work into my normal riding practice.

Skill is not a God-given thing. It takes practice. Lots of practice. It takes bumps, bruises and tears. It takes being prepared to make a complete idiot of yourself and carry on regardless. Above all, it takes knowing the right things to do and practicing doing them right - knowing is not enough.

Imagine a balloon. You blow it up in a series of breaths. With every blow, the balloon is stretched beyond anything it has been stretched before. With every blow, you could stop there and the balloon would be quite happy with that. You've got to stretch the balloons comfort zone further than it has ever been - then you'll end up with a nice large balloon. Or a burst one.

So that's it. Finally, I've figured it out. I'm a balloon. My Da has told me this for years.

June 2009 - St. Petersburg to Bejing. Nothing else changes - we still plan on going on the same 260 AJP bike with the same "as light as possible, great fuel efficiency" strategy. Now that Dakar has moved to South America, and become a brand rather than a destination, lots of people will be facing this decision. Simon Pavey already made it - he's doing Transorientale this year after doing Dakar 6 times. Lots of others are doing the same. Maybe it's not as dumb an idea as you'd first think.

In My Sexy Prime

In mathematics, a sexy prime is a prime number which differs by six from another prime number. Bear with me.

For example, 7 and 13 are sexy primes - they are both prime numbers and they differ by 6.

If adding six to the second number also creates a prime number, then you have a sexy prime triplet. 7, 13 and 19 are sexy prime triplets.

If adding six to that third number produces another prime, then you have a sexy prime qaudruplet, and so on.

If your brain hasn't melted by now, then you can read all about sexy primes on Wikipedia.

The reason I mention it is that the Son of Dawn To Dusk entries have been published. I am in a sexy prime - number 269. Which is also a sexy prime triple and a sexy prime quadruplet. Somebody's trying to tell me something.

Perhaps they're trying to tell me that the sexy little AJP PR3 is a prime candidate for getting me round the course. Or perhaps they're trying to tell me that they need to overcompensate the sexiness of my race number to make up for the fact that I am genetically ugly and could easily play Shrek's stunt double. No discussions with Hollywood about this yet - but when "Shrek Does 2009 Dakar" is getting made, I'll audition for the part.

Some familiar names on the entry list. There's Jago (who's not got a sexy number) and there's Gary Taylor (the BMW instructor who got up on his pegs at 95mph on the M4 all those blogs ago). Then, obviously, there's Zippy who we can rely on to be giving it 'andful all the way round.

We can also rely on Zippy to have some comic words of wisdom about the little PR3 - stuff like "want a dummy for the end of your Camelbak hose?" and "why did you bring the Wee Yin's bike - is yours broken?". All delivered with a mischievous grin that an imp would die to have.

Maybe I'll even get to take him on the back of my bike - repay the favour he did me in the dunes in Morocco.

Some of the team names are absolute comic genuis. There's "Slow and Slower", "The Halfwits", "Larf Muppets", "More Speed Grommet!" and "Too Old For This". More like It's a Knockout than enduro, but such is the great atmosphere and the great people who take part.

My own team name - "Seemed Such a Good Idea At The Time" - speaks for itself. Both in terms of the name itself, and in terms of entering the event.

When I see the names on the entry list (some of whom I recognise from the enduro events) and I think of the standard of their riding then I do start to get a little bit scared - and I have no problem admitting this. There is nothing wrong with fear - it's a perfectly normal emotion and it is there to protect you.

Being brave isn't the same thing as not being afraid. Not being afraid is, in some situations, the same as being an idiot. Being brave is all about being afraid, but doing the very thing that you are afraid of.

An Olympic swimmer competing in a 500m swim race is not brave. A person with a horrific fear of water doing a single width of a swimming pool is brave. You get the point.

I've never pretended to be anything other than shit scared by the speed and terrain and bikes flying everywhere on an enduro. All I can do is try to overcome the fear and race the race anyway, the best that I can.

In some ways, I wish I was doing the race on a huge KTM or BMW. Then I'd have a nice convenient excuse for not finishing. The bike was too heavy. It was too big / fast orange / blue / fat / smelly / noisy (delete as appropriate). But I have no such excuse. I have the lightest 4-stroke enduro bike in the world, race prepared by Martin at AJP, and I have an identical spare bike in the van just in case.

There is no excuse, no backtracking. The only thing I can do is turn up at the start line and wait for the flag to drop. When it does, I will shit myself.

And there's only one thing to do when you're shitting yourself - "give it 'andful".

Puffing and Panting

What a brilliant day today.

Up at AJP, we only had one guy with us. Young man by the name of Darren. When he wasn't teaching people to ride bikes (he is a riding instructor), he is out on his bike in the rush hour reporting on the traffic for his local radio station.

That's 11 hours every day spent on a bike. To get some time off he, em, came out on a bike. His Missus had booked the day for him as a christmas present. It reminded me of that fateful text from The Missus about 9 months ago: "Have made a decision. You are at Yamaha Offroad School on Friday".

Even though he had never ridden offroad before, Darren was good. Very good. We set off in the morning about a half hour late and by lunchtime we were 45 minutes ahead - that's how quick the pace was.

I scored today, since I was riding Jane - the little PR3. I made it my mission to find something to complain about - we'll come back to this.

Off we set, me in front, and Darren was right behind immediately followed by Martin. I decided to give it some welly and we took off at a hell of a rate of knots. For about 10 miles on gravel and dirt, Darren was right behind me. Then we came to the ruts and mud. The first off - actually more of a get-clothes-lined-by-an-overhanging-branch belonged to Darren. It didn't help that he was well over six feet tall - I just rode under it and never gave it a thought.

The next off of the day belonged to me, but it was well worth it. I came up a very steep hill - quite short, only about 20 feet in length and the same high - and was losing traction towards the top. You all know what I did at this sign of trouble - gave it 'andful. Next thing I know, I am on my arse and the little PR3 does a backward somersault over the top of the hill. This is known as "looping out". All those months I've been trying to get the front wheel in the air, and I put it so high in the air that I land on my arse. There's a lesson there somewhere.

The PR3 was twitchy - handled more like a KTM. The front end was just s-o-o responsive - the slightest bit of pushing on the bars and the little bike would change direction like an obedient collie. Coming from the bigger and heavier PR4, this caused me a few problems at first and I needed to adapt my riding style a little. Well, a lot actually - there is much more power in this bike.

Because of the quick pace, we managed to get further on to the Plain than we normally do. It had been raining last night, and everything was a bit damp and sticky. Martin was in front, Darren behind and me at the back just flying through the mud. We flew over this jump - about four feet high - and I gassed it a bit much, nearly ending up on my arse again.

Martin was riding quite quickly - quicker than normal - and rode through some harmless looking mud. Ahh, but the eyes can deceive. It wasn't harmless mud at all - it was the evil sticky-sucky-look-at-me-I'm-a-legend mud. Martin's bike stopped dead - from about 40 miles per hour. The laws of Physics being what they are, Martin kept going - even though his bike was at a standstill. Straight over the bars - taking enough time to do a little handstand on them as his feet sailed right over his head. Straight into the evil suction mud. As Missus Beeblebrox would say "10 out of 10 for style, but minus several million for good thinking".

I helped him pick the bike up and it was absolutely caked in slimy slippery mud. It was so slimy that he couldn't grip the throttle properly - it was like trying to grip a banana soaked in WD40. He grabved some tufts of grass and was trying to wipe it clean, and I rode a little way ahead looking for something to wipe the bike down with.

I found what looked like a discarded rag. A bit muddy, but clean enough to wipe the bike with. I picked it up - they were somebody's underpants. Quite why somebody had chosen to discard their underpants in the middle of Salisbury Plain I'm not quite sure. Martin asked if they were clean - apart from being muddy they looked it. I put them over the grip and buffed it up the way you would shine a pair of shoes. Lovely. Pants to the rescue. Whoever you are, and whyever you discarded your pants, thank you.

We came back via a mountain bike course - all up and down and slippy and narrow and roots and horribleness. I was throwing the PR3 around like she was a BMX. There was nothing I could throw at this bike that she couldn't handle. My confidence was improving and, as it did so, my bike skills improved. There's a lesson in that somewhere - whether you think you can, or think you can't, you'll probably be right.

OK, so there was one thing that I could throw at the bike that she couldn't handle. Or perhaps it was me. My one complaint about this bike is that she's not a helicopter. Martin stopped at the top of that hill. Darren was up for it, and started going down. I shouted to Martin - "there is no fucking way I am going down there. I am recovering from injury - if I go over the bars and it doesn't kill me then The Missus will finish the job".

Darren was already rolling down the hill. Martin told me that I'll have to do it sooner or later. I agreed, but it wasn't going to be today.

We stopped off for a rest. To the right of us was a very steep and slippery hill - about 50 feet high. Martin nodded towards it - "bet you can't get up there". I looked at the hill, and I had to agree with him. Then I thought that if there was ever a bike that would get up there then it's the PR3. Off we went. And up. All the way up. Martin applauded - used the word "awesome" at one point. I told him that it was his turn now. He went all Old Bull on me. Explained that there were three possible outcomes:

1. He'd get up it as well I did;
   
2. He'd get up it less well than I did;
   
3. He'd fall halfway up

He decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and he'd take the zero. Kind of made us even - he was up for going down that hill and I wasn't. I joked with Martin about the phantom lap he got at Track and Trail (where he apparently passed me twice and I only saw him once) and told him he's going to need a lot more of those since I'd be whipping his ass on this PR3.

I told Martin - and any passers by within earshot - that I had found my glass slipper. This little PR3 was custom-made for me. I told Darren that if he wanted it then I'd happily fight him for it. Martin decided that he wanted a shot now and gave me the PR4 125. Much heavier, and about half the power. That shut me up. Ass-whipping will have to wait.

Back to AJP and Martin and I started building the new PR3. We had some issue-ettes with getting the trailtech computer on, but sorted those out with some creative drilling and some well-placed cable ties. Martin had a few sweary moments when he was fitting the brake light switch - mainly due to the fact that he had to spend an hour bleeding the brakes. Then I had to siphon some petrol from one of the other bikes since there was none in the cans. Recommendation: Don't drink petrol. It's not pleasant.

After about an hour of screwing, bolting and swearing, the little PR3 roared into life. And did she roar - what a lovely sound. Congratulations - it's a girl. Goldilocks is born. I will post some photos tomorrow.

As I said we'd come back to, the only complaint I have about the PR3 is this. When I am on the stop - full throttle - ploughing through the mud, I have nothing in reserve - there is no 'andful to give. Doh. Obviously, I'm at full throttle - doing 60 or so. On a bigger bike, I'd not be on full throttle - the confidence that this bike inspires is huge. It's easy to feel confident riding at 60mph through stuff that I'd previously only have taken at 30mph.

If there was ever a bike that would get me through Dawn to Dusk, then it's this one. Put the 260cc engine in it, Dakar looks like a distinct possibility.

Lunar Eclipse

Tonight, visible from the UK, is a lunar eclipse. It starts at 0300, and finishes about 0352.

During a lunar eclipse, the moon turns red. This is because it's directly in the shadow cast by the earth as the sun shines on it - the moon is on the opposite side of the eart. Normally, the moon appears white bcause its reflecting sunlight. When it's in the earths shadow, only some of the suns rays get through and it appears blood red.

This will be the last lunar eclipse visible from the UK until 2015. Worth grabbing a cup of tea and going out and watching.

Christopher Columbus, the first guy to make it back from America, was in Jamaica on February 29 1504. Had a spot of bother with the natives - they weren't too impressed with his whole turning up. Back then, everybody knew that the earth was flat, and that it was the centre of the universe.

Christopher Columbus had tables which told him there would be a lunar eclipse on 29 February 1504. He used this information to "predict" the eclipse, and to convince the natives that he was some sort of God. Sure enough, on his command so it seemed, the moon turned blood red. No more problems from the natives.

So, tell me, how do you know what it is you think you know? How is it you know - you just know - that I will not get a 260cc AJP to Dakar? What is this knowledge based on?

Ask questions. Question everything. As Albert Einstein always said - "I am not smarter that anybody else, I just ask the questions for a little longer".

Van booked. AJP Friday. Let the building of the race bike commence.

Buses

That old tale about buses - none for ages then two turn up at once. I don't know if it's true or not, but thinking back it seems to hold good.

In a funny kind of way, I can now say the same thing about bikes. I was speaking with Martin about Son of Dawn To Dusk and the best way to handle it with spares and the like. He suggested that I just take a spare bike - which will save me time on repairs if I mangle the first one - I just go back to the pits and pick up the spare bike. I won't need it though, apparently, since the little PR3 is tough enough to take the best that Walters Enduro Park has to offer - even with me riding.

So I will be turning up at Dawn to Dusk with not one, but two, AJP PR3s. Combined, the two of them will still weigh less than a BMW 650 or a KTM Adventure on its own.

And the In-laws From Del Monte, when asked if they would be so kind as to watch the Wee Yin on that day, said "Yes".

The hurdles are falling and the lights are just green all the way. Which is really nice in a way, but also kind of Fate-pissing-herself-laughing-at-not-giving-me-an-excuse-to-bail-out too.

Up at AJP on Friday, spot of trail riding during the day, and then set to work building the PR3 race bike when we get back. With the taller handlebars, the dimensions are exactly the same as a PR4 (when measured footpeg to handlebar) but the bike is at least 15kg lighter - producing an extra 18% of power or so.

After building it, we'll fine-tune the suspension to suit my bodyweight properly and to reflect the bumpy terrain at Dawn to Dusk. Drop the pressure in the tyres a little - to give some more grip - and we're ready to roll.

The Marzocchi forks on the PR3, they're gold. Not solid gold obviously, but a gold alloy. Hence the name of the bike - "Goldilocks". Should have realised it before. Not too big, not too small, just right.

All of these green lights, happening at the same time, kind of smacks of being watched over. I said a few weeks back that we are going up a gear this year and it seems as though we are.

Discussions with The Missus about the best way to allocate the groats we have - do we do Morocco again, or are we better off spending that money on doing enduros every single weekend and leaving Morocco until later in the year? Not a decision we need to make yet, but indicative of the decisions that lie before us.

And the debate about Dakargentina vs Transorientale rages on. I mean, if I went to Dakargentina (aka 2009 Dakar) in Buenos Aires then perhaps I'll be able to learn to do the Tango - and The Missus does love a good Tango. Then again, Transorientale is in Russia - and I love Russia. I love the Russian mentality. I was once told this story by a Russian:

Adam and Eve were obviously Russian. They lived in the wilderness, in the blistering heat. They had no clothes, and no shoes. They had a single apple to eat. And they called it paradise.

I don't know if my shoulder is ready for such a tough race as Dawn to Dusk - I suppose I'll find out in, oh, about 12 days time. 276 hours or so. Something like 16,500 minutes. Roughly.

In order to fail, you only need to give up one more time than you get up. Or, as I read somewhere which made me laugh, "Winners never quit, quitters never win, and those who never win but never quit are idiots".

What does that make me then?

Goldilocks

We all remember the story of the little girl who went into the woods. Burgled the three bears house, nicked their porridge, done some criminal damage to baby bear's chair and then plonked herself in his bed for a nap. Back then, it was a fairy story. Today, she'd end up with an ASBO.

Several things happened today.

First of all, discussions with Martin about the setup of the AJP PR3 he's building for me. With or without lights? Presumably the race version - with the Marzocchi forks? The larger wheels, for more stability at speed. Taller bars? Mousse tyres. Stuff like that.

This is my Dawn to Dusk bike. If she can't get me round Dawn to Dusk, nothing will.

I got an email from big Oz (the whoop-ass geordie I met in Morocco) asking if I fancied doing Dawn to Dusk. Hold on, I thought, he's doing Heroes Legend with my ITM the following week. He's cutting it a bit fine. Turned out he meant the one in August, so that's OK then.

Email from Patsy Quick about another trip to Morocco. As before, it will be riding with her and Zippy, but this time we'll be supported by the 4x4 from Moto Adventures. Jago is going too, and he's at Son of Dawn To Dusk in a few weeks as well. Patsy is running two trips this year - the Desert Riding (similar to last time) and the Dune Special - experienced riders only. Her advice was to do the desert one again - we'll still have a day in the dunes but I can sort of pick up where I left off and get all that rocky riverbed time in.

I told her that she was an evil Bond villain - since she knew that I'd be healing right about now and would be thinking about getting back on the bike. Her response - "Hello John, Bond here ..." - told me that she had considered this.

The Missus is having trauma getting all involved with this panto that the Wee Yin is doing. She agreed to do the music and sound effects, and is having some tearful times trying to get flaky computer software to work in exactly the way she wants it to. Poor thing.

Chief, a regular gym-goer, is today discovering muscle groups he never knew he had. He told me the latin names for them - "leggus biggus muscleius" or something like that. I just know them as those ones in your legs that hurt a bit after an enduro but I think we're talking about the same ones. He had his first day in his new job today, spending most of it trying to synergise the objectives of the key stakeholders or something.

My own job is working out reasonably well, in as much as it's just a job. This is a novel experience for me - work used to be my life - and now it's just something that pays for enduros and bikes and desert riding. A means to an end. And my life is happier now. I don't know if my life is happier because I treat my work as a means to an end, or if I am able to treat work as a means to an end because my life is happier. Which caused which? And, really, does it matter?

Anyway, I tried the KTM 450 - too fierce. I tried a Honda CRF 230 - not fierce enough. I tried a BMW X-challenge - too heavy. I tried a Honda CRF 100 - not heavy enough. Then I tried the AJP PR3, and it was right in the sweet spot.

It's possible that I will outgrow her in a year or so but, right now, she really is perfect for where I am at with my riding and what I want to do. Whether or not she can take on something like Dakar really depends on how we get on with the 260cc engine but for all the other stuff I want to do - including the desert rallies - she's ideal.

Hold The Matches!

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.

Show Her You Love Her

There's a couple of ways you can show your Missus that you really really love her:

1. Take her to an enduro


2. Buy her a offroad bike


3. Have your Dawn to Dusk entry confirmed by post, on Valentines Day

We'll probably get round to (2) in the future, but I can safely say that we've done (1) and (3).

I mean, roses? Wouldn't last five minutes on an enduro - they don't even have any wheels.

The entry confirmation arrived today. It said "your entry to Dawn to Dusk has been ACCEPTED". The big bold letters jumped out at me from the letter, I could almost hear them laughing. "OK, accepted. Be careful what you ask for - you might just get it". I said that finding my race numbers was an omen.

So now the doubts start. Am I up to it? Am I healed enough? Am I ready? Will I ever be ready? How many bones do I have to break before I just accept that some people were born to ride enduro bikes and some weren't?

Enduros are like olives. Stop laughing please, bear with me - I'm trying to be serious now. I'm not quite sure if I like olives. I ate my first olive about 9 years ago. Wasn't sure if I liked it or not, so I ate another one. Been doing exactly that for the last 9 years, and I'm still trying to make up my mind.

Enduros are sort of the same. You start the race, nipping round this muddy track with bikes flying past you everywhere. You're knackered. You hurt. You're sweating worse than a turkey at a christmas party. You think to yourself "am I enjoying this?". You tell yourself "don't be daft - of course you are". You say "yes, but am I really?". You're not sure.

You get to the end of the race, and there's a vague feeling of achievement. You open a can of Red Bull and you debrief with the guy parked next to you as you both get changed. "How about that rutty section up there with all the roots? Wasn't that just pure evil?". Or, "that bit through the trees was hell wasn't it?".

You pack up the bike and start kaing your way home. You get your breath back. That bruise on your leg - where you got it caught under the bike as you fell - starts to hurt. Your thoughts turn to the next enduro. You get home and, before you've even washed the bike, you're straight onto EnduroNews looking for the next event.

Enduros are olives.

Half of me - the half that has respect for Physics and the fragility of the human body, is terrified at the prospect of doing one of the toughest events on the calendar riding alongside (read "on the same track as") some of the best riders in the country. The other half of me is like "should be a blast, what could possibly go wrong?".

My Dawn to Dusk team name, since I put one on the form, is "Seemed Such a Good Idea At The Time". How appropriate.

That said, I've spoken before about comfort zones. How can you ever expand your comfort zone if you're always inside it? If you don't do things that terrify you, how will you ever conquer fear? I have a great bike for the race - an AJP PR3 - which will be the lightest and most nimble bike on the course. My bike skills are decent - a million miles away from where I was 6 months ago. I can go as fast or as slow as I like.

Out trail riding with Martin tomorrow. Van all secured, sat out in the driveway, and Madge all ready to roll. Maps and compass stowed away, spot of navigation to be getting involved with, and the weather forecast is good.

I will be onthe bike for the next 3 days - I have the AJP Action Day on Saturday, and then another "Try and AJP On a Real Enduro Course" event on Sunday (which Chief is coming along to). Maybe he'll have the same "olive" experience.

Ultimately, I am not racing against anybody except myself. Which is fine, as long as I don't come second. That would be embarassing.

And The Missus was very happy with her 200cc 4-stroke roses. All 89kg of them.

Dakargentina

I recall having a Maths teacher when I was away at school. Taught me how to gamble. How to lay odds, that kind of thing. He realised that I wasn't really interested in whatever-it-was that Pythagoras had to say, so he introduced me to probability - knowing full well that I'd need to get my maths up to scratch in order to do it right.

He brought me in an old dusty book - Lady Luck - and I was fascinated by it. He used to teach me to play poker, instead of that boring old algebra nonsense, during and after classes. If I'm holding a pair of Aces, what's the chances that you've got the other two - or are they still in the pack?

He never let me use a calculator though. He always insisted that I could use one to my hearts content when I left school but he'd only let me use one if I could prove that I didn't need it. I nother words, if I could do all the stuff in my head.

Sort of like a Bank. A Bank will only lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.

I had a similar experience when I started working after leaving college. My Systems Manager, a shaven-headed psychopath from the Gorbals of Glasgow, used to whack me on the head with a ruler if he caught me doing stuff using point-and-click with the mouse. He insisted that I was only allowed to use point-and-click when I knew how to do it by hacking files first. In other words, when I didn't need it - only as a shortcut for doing things I could already do.

I'm off trail riding at AJP on Friday, and I've been poring over the maps to work out the routes and stuff. I started to hunt out my GPS unit - tiny wee thing about the size of a mobile phone - since it can give you an instant fix on where you are. I figured that I'd use this to record the route, so I can pore over the map later and try and stitch it all together in my head.

Fate had other ideas. She decided that she'd hide it somewhere and not let me find it. What she did let me find however, during the search, was a compass. This was Fate's way of smaking me on the head with a book.

"Learn to do it with the map and compass first", she's telling me. "Get proficient at that. Make sure you can get a position fix using only a map and compass. Then, and only then, will I let you find your GPS".

And she's right. It's not too hard to get a position fix usin a map and compass, but it's years since I did it. What you do is take two bearings - i.e. work out the direction to two separate landmarks - and draw these lines on your map. Wherever they cross, that's where you're standing.

I have less than a year (assuming I am doing the "Dakar-gentina". I thought I was quite clever coming up with that one - "Dakar-gentina", but check this out:

   Domain Name: DAKARGENTINA.COM
   Creation Date: 26-jan-2008

Somebody else thought of it first - round about the time that the Dakar moving to Argentina was first being mooted. You've got to be really quick off the mark with these domain names. Some guy in Holland - a dutch squatter. Nice picture on his site though:




Anyway, I've got less than a year for Dakar-gentina or I've got about 15 months until Transorientale. Regardless of which of these I do, I need to be able to navigate. There used to be a foolproof way of navigating in Dakar - follow Peterhansel. Everybody knew this. Stephane Peterhansel - who won Dakar 6 times on a bike and 3 times in a car. Count them.

Peterhansel knew it too. So what he did one time was to take a wrong turning and then stop with some pretend "mechanical problem". The dozens of people following him continued on - in the wrong direction - and he let them pass for a few miles before spinning the bike round and going the right way. That was one of the years he won.

Navigation is the key. It has to be instinctive. Knowing your compass heading at all times, where you are and where you're heading. There's enough to think about already without having to worry about navigating as well.

You can't rely on a GPS because you're not allowed a GPS. You're allowed a map and compass though, so I better get used to it. Worked for MacGellan I suppose.

Still nothing in the post from Dawn to Dusk. But, during the search for the GPS, I found my bag of sticky race numbers. In white - which is the perfect colour for sticking onto a shiny black PR3. This is an omen.

My ITM is in the Canaries this week having a break with the family. All sand and sunshine. Ironically, he'll be sick to the back teeth of both of them by the time he's done Heroes Legend.

Chief (blogs passim) is looking forward to his stint on the bikes on Sunday, up at the Midwest enduro on Sunday. As am I.

The Missus and I were talking about some of the questions I raised in my last blog. She feels quite stringly about it - especially the aid part. We thought it was kind of funny in a way that I am a sort of "test pilot" for the PR3 in one of the toughest enduros in the calendar. It will look pretty amusing on the start line - all these guys on their KTM 525s (which sit nearly a foot heigher than the PR3 mostly due to much larger wheels) and me lost somewhere in the middle. They'll laugh, and chuckle at the start line. Then when they see how nimbly she skips round the course - even with me in the saddle - they'll want to know more.

At least I won't get any of those "Patsy! Your 4x4 is driving away by itself!" jokes that I got in Morocco - I couldn't see over the windscreen and could barely pop my head up over the driver side window - imagine the Wee Yin trying to drive a Ford Mondeo and you'll get the picture. Gave the guys a good laugh, made me chuckle too.

I've always said that "it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog". That's me. A Rottweiler in Chihuahua clothing.

Still, as I sit here with the maps splayed out over the floor it occurs to me. Another metaphor for life - if you don't know where you want to go then how will you know when you get there?

Except When I'm Not

I'm always right. Except when I'm not. This was not one of those exceptions. You might think that it is satisfying to be right, but it's not. In fact, it's actually quite sad - especially when what you are right about is something that you don't particularly like.

King Priam and Queen Hecuba, rulers of Troy, had a daughter called Cassandra. Apollo fell in love with Cassandra and, as a lovers gift, he gave her the gift of foresight. Cassandra was having none of it. So Apollo cursed her. He left her with the gift of foresight, but the curse made sure that nobody would ever believe her.

Cassandra foresaw, and predicted, the fall of Troy - all that wooden horse malarky. She saw it coming, but nobody would listen to her. She ended up going mad, poor thing.

I predicted a few weeks ago that there would be no 2009 Dakar as we currently know it, and kind of foresaw that it would be in South America.

News articles today trumpet the announcement of the 2009 Dakar in, em, Argentina. It gives me absolutely no pleasure at all to be right. You really have to wonder now whether European privateers have any chance at all of entering this race - the costs of travelling and shipping equipment to South America is huge.

So "Dakar", once a race destination, is now a brand. Like Le Mans. It won't be the same. Even though you've got one of the most arid deserts in the world in South America - the Atacama - it won't be the same. It's not Dakar. It's not what Thierry Sabine envisaged.

That said, Thierry Sabine