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Reivers Raid

Well that was good for the learning curve. John Monger had described the Reivers Raid as 'Elefant friendly', 'ah yes, I did it last year on my 250 and the only tricky bit was a grassy downhill, with a sharp left on to a fire road at the bottom'. Entries were duly sent off, as I'm always keen to use my 'Fant if I can find a suitable event. It's a bit of a trek as the Raid takes place in Kielder forest, just north of Hadrian's wall.

Well the organisers didn't toughen up the course but the 5 weeks of non stop rain in Northumbria did. Up till now I had always thought to avoid using a big trailie in any sort of competition where the ground was likely to be wet, however this time I seemed to completely lose any sort of sense.

Fortunately the Sunday dawned nice and dry and pretty well stayed that way. The final instructions which had arrived a couple of days before had included an entry list and surprisingly over half the entry where quads. So when we arrived the paddock was filled with pantechnicons and big vans spewing out four wheeled things. We were the only twins competing but there
were a couple of XR650's with big tanks, who had been at the Dyfi, and a CCM644, and the obligatory clutch of 250/400's.

After the usual milling about signing on and sorting out a rucksack full of levers and spare tubes, we were off. The start looked reasonably innocuous, with a gravel track taking you over a ridge, but this was were the fun started, it spat you on to about two miles of moor with a series of soft patches and bogs. Immediatly, I'm thinking Oh My God, I hope it's all not like this. However I found if you kept the speed up the 'Fant would punch through the soft stuff, but you had to keep the throotle wound on to keep
the whole thing ploughing on. After the first half mile the joker in the pack appeared, which was a mini valley with tiny water course draining along the bottom from right to left. Where the course crossed the ditch at the bottom the trail bikes and quads had created a muddy patch with a clayey, smeary area on the up hill on the other side. I was following John on his 900 and he had gone to the left to cross the ditch over some virgin heather. I decided to try the same line and attacked the ditch just to his left.

The balance here is not to go too fast so that the front wheel drops into the ditch and stops dead but also not to go so slow that you stop anyway. John managed to get the balance right and kept his momentum up. I managed to cock it up and stopped dead. It then took 5 minutes and two other riders to man handle the bike 90 degrees right and motor up the ditch to the track to
then get it up the hill and out. Knackering.

Still, we are moving again, and it was more of the same, me getting round the bogs by taking the line round the edge, sticking as much as possible to good, grippy heather. Care had be taken with this though, as the last ice age had left a calling card in the form of enormous rocks littered about the moor and cunningly camouflaged by the same, inviting heather. Hmm, lovely.

Then, cracker, another valleyette with a muddy ditch at the bottom, with a bloke on an XR/DRZ thing struggling up the other side. Gathering up all my rapidly diminishing courage I traversed the muddy and slimy approach with reasonable speed on, and then booted the throttle when I reached the ditch, to get the front light(ish). The whole plot managed to bound across, turning
30 degrees left in the process, I fought the instinct to stop and try to change direction, just keeping the power on and describing a very attractive arc up the hillside, successfully circumnavigating the unfortunate stalled
Honda/Suzuki rider, while ploughing through various patches of heather and bracken. Phew, no rocks.

That was the worst of the first section though there was another half mile of moor track running along side one of the ubiquitous evergreen woods. This entailed more skirting of bogs and a long plough up a really soft climb.

Well, that's the first two miles out of the way, only another 24 to do.

Top of the hill was the start of the first special. From this point it all got a whole lot easier, mostly fire roads, though a lot that were more grassy and rutty than you get in the Welsh rallies.

About half way round appeared the famed down hill section, this was approached along a really rutted, churned up grassy track through a wood. I got along that without mishap and the downhill, though slimy and rutted, actually wasn't too much of a problem. It wasn't nearly as bad as the downhill at the start of the Dyfi lap, which I could only get down by turning the engine off and letting it down on the clutch.

After that there was about a mile of muddy, rutty, slimy but essentially flat, track through the woods (and all dark, Ooooooh creeeeepy). Then, more fire road. The second special had a loop round a quarryette thing with a bit of an off camber climb and some cottage loaf sized rocks, but as long as you didn't loose your head, and kept the power on it was no problem.

So to the finish, one lap done and only come off once. So straight out for lap two. This time with the first valleyette I go just to the right of the track as it looks less ditchy there. Big mistake, big splat.

This time it took a travelling marshal on a quad towing me out, and I lost about 10 minutes. I pressed on to the second valley, irritatingly binned on the approach (I think I backed of momentarily, unsticking the back wheel, which decided to overtake the front on the downhill as they will). However once up and dusted off I got over the ditch in fine style and up the hill, just to prove to the following marshal that I could do it really.

Then, at the top of the hill the motor died and I could only get it going by switching to reserve. OH MY GOD, I can't have used a whole tank on one lap? I ask the marshal for short cut back the the start, there is one, which entails following the course, doing the downhill and then turning off a bit later on.

So, on, on. I manage to bin it again in one of the soft bits at the bottom of the stretch past the wood, but up again and press on.

Traversing the long sections of fire road I try to be very fuel economical, always tricky in what is, essentially a race.

Then I reach the long, stodgy straight before the downhill, somewhow managed to lose momentum as I'm negotiating the entry, the bike stops for a moment and gently topples over in the rut. Can I get the thing up? Can I buggery, suction on the sumpguard seems to jam it. I can get it up and get my knee under it and there I have to stay for about 10 minutes till a handy KTM
rider turns up. During the wait I decide this is too much and I'm out of it, race over.

Once the bike's up I make a real meal of getting down the straight, which is starting to look a lot like the Somme, ending up face down in the mire 2 more times.

So that's it I'm out of it, I find the short cut and get back to the start. By this time the fuel blockage seems to have dissappeared, I'm running on the main again, but I don't care, I'm out of it.

When I get back to the start John's just gone out on his third lap, this gives me the chance to get the camera out and take some pic's of various quad's and bikes (now up on www.stellalpina.co.uk), practising a good position for pics for when the last surviving Elefant comes in. Sure enough, when the Monger machine finally appears, I've got bored with that position
and am trying to get something even more impressive, so I get some not very impressive pics of him.

As it turns out when he stops in the parc ferme, he has got stuck three times on that lap and calls it a day. Even the Clerk of the Course offering him the Testicles of Steel award if he completes the last lap isn't enough to persuade him. Time to pack up and go home.

Despite everthing, including 5 hours of trailer towing on the Motorway (which I can't stand, I'm buying a van before I get knicked for doing 85mph in the outside lane with a trailer in tow), it was a great event and I'll be back. Even the nightmare moor section taught me how much you can get through with a big trailie. Once you have a bit of speed on they have so much
momentum they will plough through just about anything, it just getting the techniques to keep them going and the commitment to keep that throttle open

Mind you, I'm removing that nav. gear for any nadgery events that don't need it, I smashed helmet peak into it when I hit one of those ditches hard, a good way to rearrange your face I reckon.