THE RYEDALE RALLY

This was a one day event, run on Saturday the 5th of June 2004.

Not as I thought, Sunday the 6th of June 2004, until I looked at the regs on 2.30pm, Friday the 4th.

At this point all the panels and tank was off and the front wheel out, along with the front caliper unbolted. This, indirectly, led to the wound at the bottom, I rushed to bolt everything back on, ready to drive to Pickering North Yorkshire (about 200 miles). In the rush I failed to check the front caliper was tight, first lap 1/2 mile in, bolt comes out, caliper swings and jams the disc. All as I was approaching a 90 degree right on gravel at about 30mph. Nice.

However, I had a spare bolt and spanners. So I bolted it back on, and the bike was faultless for the rest of the event. Said event consisted of 3 X 27mile laps of Cropton forest, just North of Pickering , North Yorkshire. The course was mostly gravel tracks, many of which were public rights of way still in use, with a very relaxed time limit. The joker in the pack was about 2 miles of course that wiggled through a wood, between the trees with lots of hidden roots, stumps, humps and the odd boggy bit thrown in. Killer on a big bike, 1st lap I must have laid it down about 5 times. This improved to 3 times 2nd lap and on the third lap 3 times again but I got it going on my own until the last bog, when I stopped, watched a guy on a 250 take what looked like a good route as he skipped across, took the same line and sank like a stone with the back wheel stopped against a tree root. Help from two other guys got me out. There were a few other tricky bits but nothing that stopped me, it was the length of the wood section that was a killer. The pic of me with the traffic jam is, I think the exit, so that's a look of relief behind the goggles. Overall the event was great fun and not really difficult if you could take the heart breaking hard work of the wood section.

 

 

Here I am, 2 turns before the first crash, and I'm feeling clever, as the guy I was following, who was on a BM twin, has just gone straight on. I've noticed the turn left arrows and am grinning at the camera. That smirk will soon get wiped off. Look at those groovy red fork boots.
Just so eighties.

Exiting the wood section and look at the traffic jam behind me, and the patches of sweat.

 

Lap or so on, and I'm in the groove, showing off for the camera. Amazing what a few spectators will do, maximum speed achieved on the event, 85mph re-overtaking an DR/XR thingy due to a small audience.

Back home after the event. This is the side that took the force of the crash, a tribute to the strength of Hepco and Becker crash bars.

 

Back home after the event. This is the side that took the force of the crash, not a tribute to the strength of the human body. It shows that when you go down, when the body armour rides up, if you have any excess fat it's going to take a beating.