Wikipedia: Joggers in the Fossil Record.
You know those dinosaur footprints that you see in rock that was once the sea shore or a river bank? Well there were a certain two fossils out for a lunchtime run around the uni campus and to get back to the buildings they had to run through the car-park of the golf club, a public footpath. The car-park encroaches on the path a bit at this point and one gentleman golfer with a flash Porsche was getting into his car, with the aid of a shoe horn to prize his grossly fat backside into the unfeasible bucket that passes for a seat. Naturally he had his door wide open and it took up most of the path. As the elderly joggers got to this point they had to step aside from the path and one elderly fossilised jogger, a guy with receding frizzy grey/brown hair, had to step on the doorstep of the groundsman's shed to get by. This was an interesting and novel experience as yesterday the groundsman had no step to his shed. It turned out to be a mass of wet concrete and the grey haired jogger sank in to the top of his expensive trainers, leaving a fossil record of the day two prehistoric runners passed through. The prehistoric runners felt obliged to scarper quickly despite the taller one (he with the grey/brown hair) wanting to claim for cement damage to a pair of Nike Air Pegasus Trail shoes. The shorter jogger, with almost no hair and laughing like a drain, said that it had added new miles to the shoes which, in scientific parlance, were said to be sh*gged months ago anyway.
One day those footprints will be in a human museum - proof of the existence of the fabled Laughing Jogger or Joggus Fossilus. Until then it would be best to stay out of reach of the groundsman who is probably hoping to give the Nike Air Pegasus Trail shoes a decent burial in a sixth hole bunker, ideally with the tall grey/brown haired jogger still wearing them.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
A race called Grizzly
I took part in the 2008 Grizzly. It's a race across a variety of terrains (all of them horrid) which is now about 19 miles in length, though the race varies from year to year for operational reasons. There were about 1400 starters. The race is always fully subscribed so you have to enter quite early to stand a chance of getting in. The question that burns a hole in your head is why would 1400 people develop such insanity simultaneously?
The start is on the sea-front at Seaton, Devon, a quiet and pleasant place to be on a sunny morning in March. I travelled down to Seaton with Allan Cox, a member of Corsham Running Club and also one of my work colleagues. Seaton was still quiet when we arrived though the streets were quickly filling up with people in strange attire and talking loudly about PBs and racing flats etc.
Then the real noise started and the sleepy residents of the town were shaken from their slumbers by the Tannoy.
Soon the front was rather full and people were gathering at the start line (still being hastily marked on the road with a chunk of rock-chalk) I managed to bump into a few of the other Chippenham runners who had entered, Bumble, Nelo, Dave Jones, Sue and Tom and there was time for a crafty 'pee' in the sea (working on the theory that there is no-one out there whose decency I might outrage - it works at Weston Super Mare too) Looking around me on the start line, there were all the usual suspects but worryingly most were carrying drink bottles, wearing 'bum-bags' and sporting gel sachets pinned to their racing vests. In contrast I was not carrying anything edible. This did little to calm my nerves, though the nerves were soon forgotten as someone sounded the 'off' and we were all tripping over each other to get going. The race immediately turned left onto the beach, a shingly affair with a steep slope and big waves crashing against it. We turned through 180 degrees and headed east for about a quarter mile, some of the runners so far down that they were almost in the sea (some were even less lucky) while some runners were high on the shingle trying to run on the very biggest of the stones. Which is best? - I never found out but soon we were leaving the beach and pounding amongst small craft over-wintering high above the water on the 'hard'. Then we came back through the start area and set off for Beer, which means a wicked steep climb over into the next bay.
I had never been to Beer before which is odd, given that it has a youth hostel and sports a name I might normally be attracted to. It was a steep and slightly worrying place. Off-road shoes are quite poor when worn on tarmac and the road was slippery.
Beer is a small place and we were soon through it and on our way up through a static caravan site, a steep place with a huge view. (The whole area has a similarly comprehensive view of the caravan site which is a bit of a shame but it brings in holiday makers in a place with no industry)
Above the caravan site is a flatter area, agricultural in nature, which was hugely enhanced by a Scotsman (to judge by his attire) playing the bagpipes to everyone in the neighbouring fifty square miles. Excellent! I forgot to suffer briefly though we were all breathing quite heavily after the first few minutes of the Grizzly.
The fields continued and we were treated to superb views of the Devon coastline stretching way ahead of us. Then we started to descend quite sharply and we arrived at a beach; it is Branscombe where the course had been crafted to send 1400 willing idiots through almost waist deep water. Luckily my waist is higher than most...
At Branscombe a man was standing on the roof playing a saxaphone. We ran past,trying not to look surprised.
The next hour or so was spent up hill and down dale through woods and fields with all-too-frequent visits to boggy morasses. In one bog I pulled myself out using the over-hanging branch of a small tree which cracked and collapsed under my weight, making me no friends at all amongst my fellow strugglers.
We ran into a farm-yard where there was a drum band playing a thunderous but unrecognisable tune. Shortly after this the sky darkened and it grew colder. Hail started to beat down like machine gun fire. I could hear squeals and groans from all around. It really was painful and it went on for quite a while. Of course it did end eventually as we dropped down into a wooded valley, having passed the farm with the drummers again.
The miles passed by, many with mileage markers -useful, if only to tell how much more hell to expect. A sharp descent led to a dash through the patio area of a pub and for a few short seconds applause filled our ears and it was necessary to dodge someone carrying a loaded tray of drinks. Beyond the pub was tarmac but that was one of the hardest parts of the course, a serious climb which saw all around me walking.
A woodland climb had me puzzled. I could smell incense, not a normal woodland smell. As we mounted a sticky wooded track there was a Buddhist temple complete with prayer flags, incense burners and Buddha himself. The 'monks' handed me a couple of jelly babies as I grafted my way past and up round to the left and more woodland climbing.
In a while the runners emerged onto Branscombe beach where we ran past the wreck of the Napoli, a ship which had achieved some fame the previous year when it was wrecked there. Certain of the locals discovered that the ship contained a fortune in imported products, even some brand new BMW motorbikes. By the time we arrived all the goodies had been 'saved' from the ship and it was in the process of being broken up to remove it from the beach. The beach turned out to be memorable in other ways, most notably that once again it was necessary to run across the slope of nasty shifting shingle, hard at the best of times but evil as we tired in these later stages of the race. This shingle section seemed to go on for some while, certainly not less than a mile, before the marshal pointed the way off the stones...and up the cliff!
During the climb of the cliff I was caught up by Jason, a newly joined member of the Harriers. Jason lives for these odd off road epics and runs a diet of Long Distance Walking Assoc events, some of which are as much as 100 miles long. Given that he had taken about 14 miles to catch me, he seemed strong and on the cliff, while I increasingly looked like 'the deceased', he strode up purposefully and was quickly lost to sight. The ascent of the cliff was windy and steep, single file all the way, so we all went at the same speed up that bit. (Sorry to all behind me; you went at my speed!)
At the top of the cliff was, not suprisingly, a cliff top and some mercifully easy running for a short while. This is shortly followed by descent through the caravan site and return via Beer to Seaton. By this time I had started to really fade, so much so that I couldn't run down the slopes and was more or less walking up and down hills with a sort of jogging-like-a-statue on the flat bits.(What flat bits?) The beach had one last nasty go at us all as we ran in to the Start/Finish line. Within seconds of crossing the line, Bumble, a pretty and phenomenally tough member of the Chippenham, was telling me that she had almost caught me - it was down to just a few seconds after almost 4 hours.
to be continued
The start is on the sea-front at Seaton, Devon, a quiet and pleasant place to be on a sunny morning in March. I travelled down to Seaton with Allan Cox, a member of Corsham Running Club and also one of my work colleagues. Seaton was still quiet when we arrived though the streets were quickly filling up with people in strange attire and talking loudly about PBs and racing flats etc.
Then the real noise started and the sleepy residents of the town were shaken from their slumbers by the Tannoy.
Soon the front was rather full and people were gathering at the start line (still being hastily marked on the road with a chunk of rock-chalk) I managed to bump into a few of the other Chippenham runners who had entered, Bumble, Nelo, Dave Jones, Sue and Tom and there was time for a crafty 'pee' in the sea (working on the theory that there is no-one out there whose decency I might outrage - it works at Weston Super Mare too) Looking around me on the start line, there were all the usual suspects but worryingly most were carrying drink bottles, wearing 'bum-bags' and sporting gel sachets pinned to their racing vests. In contrast I was not carrying anything edible. This did little to calm my nerves, though the nerves were soon forgotten as someone sounded the 'off' and we were all tripping over each other to get going. The race immediately turned left onto the beach, a shingly affair with a steep slope and big waves crashing against it. We turned through 180 degrees and headed east for about a quarter mile, some of the runners so far down that they were almost in the sea (some were even less lucky) while some runners were high on the shingle trying to run on the very biggest of the stones. Which is best? - I never found out but soon we were leaving the beach and pounding amongst small craft over-wintering high above the water on the 'hard'. Then we came back through the start area and set off for Beer, which means a wicked steep climb over into the next bay.
I had never been to Beer before which is odd, given that it has a youth hostel and sports a name I might normally be attracted to. It was a steep and slightly worrying place. Off-road shoes are quite poor when worn on tarmac and the road was slippery.
Beer is a small place and we were soon through it and on our way up through a static caravan site, a steep place with a huge view. (The whole area has a similarly comprehensive view of the caravan site which is a bit of a shame but it brings in holiday makers in a place with no industry)
Above the caravan site is a flatter area, agricultural in nature, which was hugely enhanced by a Scotsman (to judge by his attire) playing the bagpipes to everyone in the neighbouring fifty square miles. Excellent! I forgot to suffer briefly though we were all breathing quite heavily after the first few minutes of the Grizzly.
The fields continued and we were treated to superb views of the Devon coastline stretching way ahead of us. Then we started to descend quite sharply and we arrived at a beach; it is Branscombe where the course had been crafted to send 1400 willing idiots through almost waist deep water. Luckily my waist is higher than most...
At Branscombe a man was standing on the roof playing a saxaphone. We ran past,trying not to look surprised.
The next hour or so was spent up hill and down dale through woods and fields with all-too-frequent visits to boggy morasses. In one bog I pulled myself out using the over-hanging branch of a small tree which cracked and collapsed under my weight, making me no friends at all amongst my fellow strugglers.
We ran into a farm-yard where there was a drum band playing a thunderous but unrecognisable tune. Shortly after this the sky darkened and it grew colder. Hail started to beat down like machine gun fire. I could hear squeals and groans from all around. It really was painful and it went on for quite a while. Of course it did end eventually as we dropped down into a wooded valley, having passed the farm with the drummers again.
The miles passed by, many with mileage markers -useful, if only to tell how much more hell to expect. A sharp descent led to a dash through the patio area of a pub and for a few short seconds applause filled our ears and it was necessary to dodge someone carrying a loaded tray of drinks. Beyond the pub was tarmac but that was one of the hardest parts of the course, a serious climb which saw all around me walking.
A woodland climb had me puzzled. I could smell incense, not a normal woodland smell. As we mounted a sticky wooded track there was a Buddhist temple complete with prayer flags, incense burners and Buddha himself. The 'monks' handed me a couple of jelly babies as I grafted my way past and up round to the left and more woodland climbing.
In a while the runners emerged onto Branscombe beach where we ran past the wreck of the Napoli, a ship which had achieved some fame the previous year when it was wrecked there. Certain of the locals discovered that the ship contained a fortune in imported products, even some brand new BMW motorbikes. By the time we arrived all the goodies had been 'saved' from the ship and it was in the process of being broken up to remove it from the beach. The beach turned out to be memorable in other ways, most notably that once again it was necessary to run across the slope of nasty shifting shingle, hard at the best of times but evil as we tired in these later stages of the race. This shingle section seemed to go on for some while, certainly not less than a mile, before the marshal pointed the way off the stones...and up the cliff!
During the climb of the cliff I was caught up by Jason, a newly joined member of the Harriers. Jason lives for these odd off road epics and runs a diet of Long Distance Walking Assoc events, some of which are as much as 100 miles long. Given that he had taken about 14 miles to catch me, he seemed strong and on the cliff, while I increasingly looked like 'the deceased', he strode up purposefully and was quickly lost to sight. The ascent of the cliff was windy and steep, single file all the way, so we all went at the same speed up that bit. (Sorry to all behind me; you went at my speed!)
At the top of the cliff was, not suprisingly, a cliff top and some mercifully easy running for a short while. This is shortly followed by descent through the caravan site and return via Beer to Seaton. By this time I had started to really fade, so much so that I couldn't run down the slopes and was more or less walking up and down hills with a sort of jogging-like-a-statue on the flat bits.(What flat bits?) The beach had one last nasty go at us all as we ran in to the Start/Finish line. Within seconds of crossing the line, Bumble, a pretty and phenomenally tough member of the Chippenham, was telling me that she had almost caught me - it was down to just a few seconds after almost 4 hours.
to be continued
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
Good Samaritan or suspicious Brit?
Have you ever wished you weren't such a kindly sort? I sometimes do, wishing I hadn't got involved or getting duped by someone a bit less scrupulous than me.
Last night I was driving home from work and as I came up the slope from Chapel Plaister to Rudloe, I caught sight of a figure desperately waving, flagging me down to stop. Initially I thought there was debris in the road or something like that but as I slowed I sensed that the man wanted my help and I jumped to the conclusion that he was broken down and needed a lift. Easy, and my humane duty too, except that this encounter lead to a situation which plumbed my suspicions and prejudices and caused me to question myself and whether I live up to my own ideals.
I opened the car door and the man outside pointed to himself and said "Turkey, Istanbul!" So we had established his nationality in the first two words, (and liking Turks, I had already accepted him as friendly - why?) but what was his problem? Basically the story went that he needed money to refill his petrol tank to get to London. Whether London was home or whether he wanted to get to the airport I never found out but he claimed to be so desperate that he was willing to part with his very large gold ring, "18 carat Turkish gold!" he told me, in exchange for £20. I have little experience of rings but this was huge and under the car's interior light it did indeed feel and look like real gold but I am a suspicious old soul and have no great desire for Turkish gold. The other snag here is that it is a rare day when I actually have £20 in my pocket. It took me five minutes or more to persuade him that I really could not or would not help him and the last I saw was of him walking dejectedly back to his estate car, an elderly white Peugeot 405.
It could of course have been a scam, or he could have had a whole estate car's worth of big vicious mates hiding behind a bush, or he could have grabbed my wallet and run with it (it's not heavy so that would have been easy but hardly lucrative) but somehow it just seems such a mad place to launch such a scam and he really seemed very genuine and very desperate. So instead of helping a man in need I just feel that I slammed the door in his face.
His car wasn't there this morning.
Last night I was driving home from work and as I came up the slope from Chapel Plaister to Rudloe, I caught sight of a figure desperately waving, flagging me down to stop. Initially I thought there was debris in the road or something like that but as I slowed I sensed that the man wanted my help and I jumped to the conclusion that he was broken down and needed a lift. Easy, and my humane duty too, except that this encounter lead to a situation which plumbed my suspicions and prejudices and caused me to question myself and whether I live up to my own ideals.
I opened the car door and the man outside pointed to himself and said "Turkey, Istanbul!" So we had established his nationality in the first two words, (and liking Turks, I had already accepted him as friendly - why?) but what was his problem? Basically the story went that he needed money to refill his petrol tank to get to London. Whether London was home or whether he wanted to get to the airport I never found out but he claimed to be so desperate that he was willing to part with his very large gold ring, "18 carat Turkish gold!" he told me, in exchange for £20. I have little experience of rings but this was huge and under the car's interior light it did indeed feel and look like real gold but I am a suspicious old soul and have no great desire for Turkish gold. The other snag here is that it is a rare day when I actually have £20 in my pocket. It took me five minutes or more to persuade him that I really could not or would not help him and the last I saw was of him walking dejectedly back to his estate car, an elderly white Peugeot 405.
It could of course have been a scam, or he could have had a whole estate car's worth of big vicious mates hiding behind a bush, or he could have grabbed my wallet and run with it (it's not heavy so that would have been easy but hardly lucrative) but somehow it just seems such a mad place to launch such a scam and he really seemed very genuine and very desperate. So instead of helping a man in need I just feel that I slammed the door in his face.
His car wasn't there this morning.
Thursday, 17 January 2008
French Alps 2005
Composed originally after a tour in 2005, an incomplete account that I wanted to save.
I've started to feel human again after the holiday tour of the French Alps..
We flew to Geneva from E.Midlands (Easy Jet) (That's Hugh, Dick, Colin, Martin White, Fred Gascoigne & me. ) and made a bee line for the French border on the SE eastern side of the city, making sure not to buy anything at Swiss prices! It is possible to get into France straight from the airport gate but we were going to the Alps and that meant crossing Geneva. (Fun that was as well!) Finally escaped into a suburb of Geneva called Annemasse which is actually in France. A quaint place, think Croydon. This was our first and last night's stays.
Next day Dick had to go back into Geneva to get a front mechanism as his had not survived the ride on an hairyplane. (Mostly down to extreme old age - you should see Dick's bike; it's a modern day miracle) While it took four of them to go and get a front changer, Colin and I cleared off up the valley towards the mountains. We took the opportunity to buy the first of the picnic lunches which we always eat. This saves money that might more readily be used for alcohol. Then we sat in a bar and waited for the others. They never arrived as they had overtaken us while we waited at one junction and they were at another. After a while I remembered the mobile phone I no longer use much and we got in contact and arranged to meet at the top of the first big hill through a huge gorge, the Gorge des Eveaux, so we sat and ate our belated picnic outside a bar where we had supped a few bargain price French beers ( bit of irony there - it was great to get back to the British £2.40 pint!) The ride took us eventually via the Col des Aravis, to a small town called Flumet, distinguished by me having forgotten everything about the place! The reason for this was that we found nowhere to stay and so were directed to the nearby village of St Nicholas la Chapelle. Here we stayed in a chalet beside a Hotel which was stuffed full of English walkers from Kent, most of them in their sixties and raring to get up the next alp. Their walks were bus assisted to the high land then walking on to places inaccessible by road then down to a rendezvous (presumably with a couple of glasses!)
The walkers overtook us in their minibuses the next morning as we rode the first hard kilometres of the Col des Saisies up through the ski village of Notre Dame de Bellecombe. I had quite a hankering to walk with them in the quiet paths up near the snow line, looking out for chamois and eagles but there were miles to be covered and the beautiful Cormet de Roselend to cross, a pass with lakes and reservoirs and beautiful views. A few days later the Dauphin, the local paper showed Lance Armstrong riding past the same chapel at the top of the Cormet, but we had got there first.
After the descent of Roselend we found ourselves in Bourg St Maurice, a bustling place with narrow interesting streets and sprawling modern outskirts, in which we found a supremely unmemorable night's digs on the main 'drag'.
Had little to do with the town but bought a new map as I had fallen clean off of the Michelin sheet 328 and now needed sheet 333, the two maps overlapping frustratingly so that I only ever got three 3 euros worth, not the full 6!
The new map showed our way out of town, heading towards the Col de Petit St Bernard. I quite fancied seeing this little Saint Bernard with presumably a little barrel of brandy hanging from it's collar. This is undoubtedly an eccentric place to store spirits. However we turned off before this mighty climb as we were off to climb a still mightier one. Lunch was sought, and not found, in the depressing and empty Val d'Isere, a place I had seen full of clamour as it hosted various winter sports events on the TV but today a useless and ugly blot on the landscape where even the Spar shops were closed for the summer. So we climbed the Col de L'Iseran on empty stomachs. At least that kept the weight down! At 2764, (nearly 9000ft.) Col de L'Iseran is the highest tarmac pass in the French Alps and by the top we were passing snow drifts higher than our heads though the summer sun had got the snow well and truly on the run and it was pouring itself into the mountain streams as fast as possible. Until that morning we had kept Mont Blanc to our left, hardly glimpsing it despite it being one of the bigger items in the general area. Now we had our backs to it though with the twists and turns of a mountain climb it is behind you, in front of you, now to the left, now to the right. A a sign of my general lack of condition and encroaching age I found myself walking stretches of the pass, a habit which I never got out of in the whole holiday but which kept my back and knees from getting too sore. I'm not proud. The pass top came at last and as with all passes, if there is a view to be seen, which is rare, you are too cold to linger and look at it and I was away almost immediately in a quest for warmth.
I can't resist mountain pass descents and I was well into my stride down this one when I saw something in the road ahead of me. An animal. My initial reaction was "badger" but it wasn't a badger; it was a marmot. Marmots are actually members of the squirrel family, as you realise when you see them in their characteristic sitting up pose, but a squirrel that you can confuse with a badger? That is one big squirrel!
The southern side of the Col is steeper and bumpier and dropped us quickly down to a quiet valley where, after a couple of beers as a reward for all that hard pedalling, we found accommodation in a village called Bessans in a comfortable and quiet gîte.
The ride in the morning took us on downhill for many a mile but the first village provided amusement as we could see a huge clamour of people milling around in the middle of the N6. Initially I thought that we had stumbled into some violent scene like a political demonstration gone out of control. But as we entered the main street of the town we realised that the village was having it's communal photo taken with all sorts of people gathered on the church steps and such a huge throng of onlookers that they were being man-handled off of the road by desperate marshals.
100 metres each side of this odd event there was the usual alpine peace and quiet.
From there the road got busier as we neared a town called Modane, the entrance to the Frejus Tunnel. At Modane the road meets a motorway and the railway twists and turns to find it's own tunnel . The trains were busy, scurrying under the mountains into Italy but the motorway was almost empty; a fire a few days earlier had closed the road tunnel. We headed out of town expecting a quiet time of it on deserted roads but came to a place were the main road was blocked by 'Route Barré' signs which ordinarily we ignore. On this occasion the presence of a two gendarmes made us follow the diversion. In fact they were quite insistent. This turned out to be hilly and by the time we reached the end of the diversion, a significant pass in its own right, we had lost Fred. After much seeking he turned up, unaware that we had been concerned, having punctured. It was to be the only puncture of the tour. A picnic was had on the side of the deserted dual carriageway with trains behind us and, in front, a very few cars. Not the most idyllic of sites but we had got hungry in the morning's confusions.
Following this valley we rode on an empty road beside and under the deserted motorway, beside the River Arc and the very steep railway until we reached St Michel du Maurienne. Here we were able to abandon this modern concrete ribbon and start the climb of the day, the Col du Telegraphe.
The Col du Telegraphe is a steep pass and, frustratingly for the photographers amongst us, almost entirely wooded so that opportunities to take pictures were few. I always enjoy the wildlife and the flowers on these passes so it was no hardship to be pedalling along through orchids and butterflies on a hot summer's afternoon. The top came at 1566 metres. We treated ourselves to a beer (more than one actually,) and then dropped quickly down to the town of Valloire. By one of those foibles of my memory and the onset of fatigue, I can't remember a darned thing about Valloire! I must have slept well.
The next morning we climbed the Col du Galibier. It is a magnificent road, climbing to 2646 metres. Actually we didn't climb very far as Valloire had been so high anyway that we had done most of the work during the climb of the Col du Telegraphe. But the bit we did climb was so spectacular, with the road glimpsed as bridges and buttments above us, hairpins hanging out into space above more hairpins and the view below of the road stretching away below us like a narrow grey ribbon, snaking all over the hill side. The road cuts through a tunnel near the top which probably keeps the pass open for quite a few extra weeks each year. Bikes are banned from the tunnel and quite right too. Who wants to miss the roof of the world? At the top is a rather surreal gift shop selling the usual knick-knacks including road racing vests, T. de F. tee-shirts and very welcome coffee. Nearby is the monument to Henri Desgranges, 'inventor' of the Tour de France. Had 'mon courage' complimented by various Belgian lady motorists for having ridden up one hill (didn't feel very courageous; I save that for the crazy descent) Maybe it was a Belgian chat up line, a bit late to find out now.
The descent was, of course, delicious but surprisingly not very long. At the BOTTOM of the pass is a sign telling us we are at the TOP of a pass, the Col du Lautaret. This seems a joke to have descended to the summit. We started to descend again, aware of a great convoy of trucks, with trailers, all carrying caravans and motorhomes. I let them get ahead; I didn't want to mix it with tons and tons of HGVs. What I hadn't realised was that the Col du Lautaret was the best alternative for many of the trucks and cars that couldn't get get through that fire damaged tunnel.
As we sat and ate our picnic in a purpose made area and a large number of trucks hurtled as hard as they could to, or from, Lautaret, we realised we were all sitting directly opposite a glacier, the first I had ever seen. To be honest it was nothing to write home about, just a streak of very mucky ice 5 miles away. Still, I can cross that off the list...glacier, yeah, seen one of those!
That evening we stayed in Briançon, a bustling town made more bustling by the road being so abnormally busy. The Tour de France would finish a stage here in July. One has to hope they sorted the tunnel out by then!
Next morning we woke to the only rain of the holiday and this caused a flurry of sight seeing around the old town of Briançon, with narrow streets and a gloomy and austere cathedral. Around 11 am it dried up a bit but we had already decided to cancel our assualt on the Col d'Izoard. None of us had any appetite for climbing for two hours in the cloud with no views to enjoy so we rode down the Durance valley instead. The main road is fairly busy but we found a pleasant way out of town and it was 10 km before we were forced to join the main road. The rain had stopped and all was fresh and cool; how soon you miss that when you are in sunshine every day.
I've started to feel human again after the holiday tour of the French Alps..
We flew to Geneva from E.Midlands (Easy Jet) (That's Hugh, Dick, Colin, Martin White, Fred Gascoigne & me. ) and made a bee line for the French border on the SE eastern side of the city, making sure not to buy anything at Swiss prices! It is possible to get into France straight from the airport gate but we were going to the Alps and that meant crossing Geneva. (Fun that was as well!) Finally escaped into a suburb of Geneva called Annemasse which is actually in France. A quaint place, think Croydon. This was our first and last night's stays.
Next day Dick had to go back into Geneva to get a front mechanism as his had not survived the ride on an hairyplane. (Mostly down to extreme old age - you should see Dick's bike; it's a modern day miracle) While it took four of them to go and get a front changer, Colin and I cleared off up the valley towards the mountains. We took the opportunity to buy the first of the picnic lunches which we always eat. This saves money that might more readily be used for alcohol. Then we sat in a bar and waited for the others. They never arrived as they had overtaken us while we waited at one junction and they were at another. After a while I remembered the mobile phone I no longer use much and we got in contact and arranged to meet at the top of the first big hill through a huge gorge, the Gorge des Eveaux, so we sat and ate our belated picnic outside a bar where we had supped a few bargain price French beers ( bit of irony there - it was great to get back to the British £2.40 pint!) The ride took us eventually via the Col des Aravis, to a small town called Flumet, distinguished by me having forgotten everything about the place! The reason for this was that we found nowhere to stay and so were directed to the nearby village of St Nicholas la Chapelle. Here we stayed in a chalet beside a Hotel which was stuffed full of English walkers from Kent, most of them in their sixties and raring to get up the next alp. Their walks were bus assisted to the high land then walking on to places inaccessible by road then down to a rendezvous (presumably with a couple of glasses!)
The walkers overtook us in their minibuses the next morning as we rode the first hard kilometres of the Col des Saisies up through the ski village of Notre Dame de Bellecombe. I had quite a hankering to walk with them in the quiet paths up near the snow line, looking out for chamois and eagles but there were miles to be covered and the beautiful Cormet de Roselend to cross, a pass with lakes and reservoirs and beautiful views. A few days later the Dauphin, the local paper showed Lance Armstrong riding past the same chapel at the top of the Cormet, but we had got there first.
After the descent of Roselend we found ourselves in Bourg St Maurice, a bustling place with narrow interesting streets and sprawling modern outskirts, in which we found a supremely unmemorable night's digs on the main 'drag'.
Had little to do with the town but bought a new map as I had fallen clean off of the Michelin sheet 328 and now needed sheet 333, the two maps overlapping frustratingly so that I only ever got three 3 euros worth, not the full 6!
The new map showed our way out of town, heading towards the Col de Petit St Bernard. I quite fancied seeing this little Saint Bernard with presumably a little barrel of brandy hanging from it's collar. This is undoubtedly an eccentric place to store spirits. However we turned off before this mighty climb as we were off to climb a still mightier one. Lunch was sought, and not found, in the depressing and empty Val d'Isere, a place I had seen full of clamour as it hosted various winter sports events on the TV but today a useless and ugly blot on the landscape where even the Spar shops were closed for the summer. So we climbed the Col de L'Iseran on empty stomachs. At least that kept the weight down! At 2764, (nearly 9000ft.) Col de L'Iseran is the highest tarmac pass in the French Alps and by the top we were passing snow drifts higher than our heads though the summer sun had got the snow well and truly on the run and it was pouring itself into the mountain streams as fast as possible. Until that morning we had kept Mont Blanc to our left, hardly glimpsing it despite it being one of the bigger items in the general area. Now we had our backs to it though with the twists and turns of a mountain climb it is behind you, in front of you, now to the left, now to the right. A a sign of my general lack of condition and encroaching age I found myself walking stretches of the pass, a habit which I never got out of in the whole holiday but which kept my back and knees from getting too sore. I'm not proud. The pass top came at last and as with all passes, if there is a view to be seen, which is rare, you are too cold to linger and look at it and I was away almost immediately in a quest for warmth.
I can't resist mountain pass descents and I was well into my stride down this one when I saw something in the road ahead of me. An animal. My initial reaction was "badger" but it wasn't a badger; it was a marmot. Marmots are actually members of the squirrel family, as you realise when you see them in their characteristic sitting up pose, but a squirrel that you can confuse with a badger? That is one big squirrel!
The southern side of the Col is steeper and bumpier and dropped us quickly down to a quiet valley where, after a couple of beers as a reward for all that hard pedalling, we found accommodation in a village called Bessans in a comfortable and quiet gîte.
The ride in the morning took us on downhill for many a mile but the first village provided amusement as we could see a huge clamour of people milling around in the middle of the N6. Initially I thought that we had stumbled into some violent scene like a political demonstration gone out of control. But as we entered the main street of the town we realised that the village was having it's communal photo taken with all sorts of people gathered on the church steps and such a huge throng of onlookers that they were being man-handled off of the road by desperate marshals.
100 metres each side of this odd event there was the usual alpine peace and quiet.
From there the road got busier as we neared a town called Modane, the entrance to the Frejus Tunnel. At Modane the road meets a motorway and the railway twists and turns to find it's own tunnel . The trains were busy, scurrying under the mountains into Italy but the motorway was almost empty; a fire a few days earlier had closed the road tunnel. We headed out of town expecting a quiet time of it on deserted roads but came to a place were the main road was blocked by 'Route Barré' signs which ordinarily we ignore. On this occasion the presence of a two gendarmes made us follow the diversion. In fact they were quite insistent. This turned out to be hilly and by the time we reached the end of the diversion, a significant pass in its own right, we had lost Fred. After much seeking he turned up, unaware that we had been concerned, having punctured. It was to be the only puncture of the tour. A picnic was had on the side of the deserted dual carriageway with trains behind us and, in front, a very few cars. Not the most idyllic of sites but we had got hungry in the morning's confusions.
Following this valley we rode on an empty road beside and under the deserted motorway, beside the River Arc and the very steep railway until we reached St Michel du Maurienne. Here we were able to abandon this modern concrete ribbon and start the climb of the day, the Col du Telegraphe.
The Col du Telegraphe is a steep pass and, frustratingly for the photographers amongst us, almost entirely wooded so that opportunities to take pictures were few. I always enjoy the wildlife and the flowers on these passes so it was no hardship to be pedalling along through orchids and butterflies on a hot summer's afternoon. The top came at 1566 metres. We treated ourselves to a beer (more than one actually,) and then dropped quickly down to the town of Valloire. By one of those foibles of my memory and the onset of fatigue, I can't remember a darned thing about Valloire! I must have slept well.
The next morning we climbed the Col du Galibier. It is a magnificent road, climbing to 2646 metres. Actually we didn't climb very far as Valloire had been so high anyway that we had done most of the work during the climb of the Col du Telegraphe. But the bit we did climb was so spectacular, with the road glimpsed as bridges and buttments above us, hairpins hanging out into space above more hairpins and the view below of the road stretching away below us like a narrow grey ribbon, snaking all over the hill side. The road cuts through a tunnel near the top which probably keeps the pass open for quite a few extra weeks each year. Bikes are banned from the tunnel and quite right too. Who wants to miss the roof of the world? At the top is a rather surreal gift shop selling the usual knick-knacks including road racing vests, T. de F. tee-shirts and very welcome coffee. Nearby is the monument to Henri Desgranges, 'inventor' of the Tour de France. Had 'mon courage' complimented by various Belgian lady motorists for having ridden up one hill (didn't feel very courageous; I save that for the crazy descent) Maybe it was a Belgian chat up line, a bit late to find out now.
The descent was, of course, delicious but surprisingly not very long. At the BOTTOM of the pass is a sign telling us we are at the TOP of a pass, the Col du Lautaret. This seems a joke to have descended to the summit. We started to descend again, aware of a great convoy of trucks, with trailers, all carrying caravans and motorhomes. I let them get ahead; I didn't want to mix it with tons and tons of HGVs. What I hadn't realised was that the Col du Lautaret was the best alternative for many of the trucks and cars that couldn't get get through that fire damaged tunnel.
As we sat and ate our picnic in a purpose made area and a large number of trucks hurtled as hard as they could to, or from, Lautaret, we realised we were all sitting directly opposite a glacier, the first I had ever seen. To be honest it was nothing to write home about, just a streak of very mucky ice 5 miles away. Still, I can cross that off the list...glacier, yeah, seen one of those!
That evening we stayed in Briançon, a bustling town made more bustling by the road being so abnormally busy. The Tour de France would finish a stage here in July. One has to hope they sorted the tunnel out by then!
Next morning we woke to the only rain of the holiday and this caused a flurry of sight seeing around the old town of Briançon, with narrow streets and a gloomy and austere cathedral. Around 11 am it dried up a bit but we had already decided to cancel our assualt on the Col d'Izoard. None of us had any appetite for climbing for two hours in the cloud with no views to enjoy so we rode down the Durance valley instead. The main road is fairly busy but we found a pleasant way out of town and it was 10 km before we were forced to join the main road. The rain had stopped and all was fresh and cool; how soon you miss that when you are in sunshine every day.
Friday, 7 December 2007
International Motorcycle and Scooter Show
So...having passed my test but still owning no more than a pair of motorcycle gloves, it was time to get some clothing in preparation for buying the bike. I was advised that the best way to get affordable clothing was at one of the motorcycle shows and decided to go to the one at the Bath & West Showground. That idea was scuppered when I realised that it wasn't until the spring so we decided to go the International Motorcycle and Scooter Show at the NEC in November.
The NEC was a place I'd heard of but not seen yet, the car-parks are the size of a small county and there is a definite feeling that you are buying a season ticket, not just the parking place for a day, at £8.
The place is huge so the first thing is to catch the bus to the exhibition halls. No queue to get in on a Wednesday so we are straight in, looking at a huge hall full of the manufacturers main stands. The main manufacturers were all there, Suzuki, Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki, Benelli, Ducati, Triumph, Harley Davidson, BMW etc plus a few others such as the newer names from the far-east, not yet familiar. We wandered round, frankly a bit bewildered and identified a few familiar models and did the 'big kid' thing of sitting on them and trying their positions. Showed Lynne the modern edition of the Suzuki I had passed my test on and also showed her a Honda Transalp which is a bike I am considering buying. We sat on a few totally enormous bikes, some of which seemed less than practical, and Lynne insisted on getting on behind me (two big kids)
There were displays of 'custom' bikes which were breathtaking works though, in line with my dis-interest in bicycle machinery, I admired them without the least inclination to own one or emulate the achievement. One particularly extreme 'chopper' had a large crowd round it, none of whom seemed too bothered about the drive chain running along under the thigh of the rider. I've always been attached to these legs and I thought it was a bad idea in general. That's just what you need at the International Motorcycle and Scooter Show, some kill-joy who hates being chopped up by a chain.
Off to one side of this hall was another huge room holding some of the larger displays, mini-moto racing, a skills testing area run by Buell and most interestingly a Wall of Death! Lynne was off in it's direction like a shot, no stopping her. To her it was 'sole reason for visit'.
The Wall of Death is small, obviously small enough to be towed from place to place in a lorry. We had to pay £2.50 each for entry to this circus-like side-show and on entry we found ourselves looking down from a cat-walk into a wooden cylinder about 20 feet across and about 20 feet high. At the bottom were three motorbikes.
When enough people had filled the show, a slightly-built blond girl appeared through a hole in the Wall and started up one of the bikes, deafening with almost no silencer and in such a confined space. Suddenly she was away, riding around and up the wooden fillet at the edge that made a gradual change between the flat floor and the vertical barrel-vaulting of the Wall. Then you were aware that she was doing the 'impossible', riding on a totally vertical surface, blipping the throttle and going from top to bottom of the Wall on every lap, so close to the top that you had to remove your fingers from the edge of the track as she passed by. Each pass shook the structure; you were very aware of the weight of bike and rider passing right past your stomach. My initial reaction was that she looked like a rag-doll. With no helmet, her hair was streaming out behind in the wind and she was shaken as her bike passed over the planking. This was because the bikes were a bit rigid, having no suspension and probably very hard tyres. Yes that's right - no helmet, but it got madder before it finished. A young man took her place on another bike and did more or less the same stunts though at greater speed and with even more alarming shaking of the Wall of Death.
I pointed out a steel wire running round the top of the wall and said to Lynne "What do you think that wire is for?"
"To catch the riders and keep your hands out of harm's way" she said.
"Er, no" I corrected her "It's to stop the wall bursting!"
The next rider was an older man and just when I thought it couldn't be madder, it got madder. This guy stood up and rode with no hands, climbed over the handlebars and sat at the front of the bike, stood on his 'chain-stay' and waved as he passed by, riding 'no-handed' and generally doing things I could not do if the bike was on it's stand in a car-park.
There was an interlude while the girl drove a buggy car round the wall, noisy and mad but nothing compared to the finale, a few laps with ALL THREE riders riding round three abreast. The whole thing must have been about 15 minutes of noisy unforgettable craziness - fifteen minutes when I don't think I breathed once. I was simply stunned into silence. (There are some who would say this too is quite impossible)
We went and sat in another part of the hall then and let our ears have a rest while we ate our sandwiches (food at the show comes with a Securicorp guard - or at least at that price it should!) and watched the Buell skills riding. Felt that I could have done better than a couple of the riders I watched but a Buell is a wildly powerful bike so I doubt it really.
My purpose in visiting the show was to buy clothing. I visited a few stands and tried on a couple of crash helmets. It's very hard to actually know what you get for your extra money but everyone says "Don't buy a cheap one - you can't put a price on your head" I remain a bit unconvinced that the £600 helmets work 10 times better than the £60 helmets. Certainly there will be a diminishing return with great spending. That said I bought a helmet for...quite a lot of money. I put my credit card where my mouth is and effectively put a value on my head ( "What; it's worth THAT much?" ) I bought a Shoei, a well respected make, but last year's model so well discounted. Then we found a stall selling 'water damaged' clothing from a shop which had been flooded in the summer. Couldn't find anything wrong with the boots and trousers I purchased at bargain prices. Think about it - waterproof trousers that are discounted as water damaged stock. Is it me, or is there something rather strange about that?
Watched a rather dire dance sequence on the 'Black Horse' stage with some questionable characters of indeterminate sexuality prancing around in some odd clothing as well as some very good motorcycle gear. More entertaining watching the faces of the people in the audience, trying to keep from guffawing out loud.
There was still time to eat an outrageously fattening Greek Yoghurt and Honey ice-cream and have a look at a few more bikes including a Kawasaki that felt as if it's saddle was made of old house-bricks. The average leather bicycle saddle is surely no harder.
Then it was time to head south into the worsening weather and by the time we got back to Wiltshire it was teeming with rain.
We later learned that one of my friends met with an accident whilst riding home from the show and his bike had continued on down the hill after unshipping it's rider and felled a tree, 'totalling' the bike in the process. Hoping to hear that he is well again. He has had some time off work as a result with bruises in places not fit to be describe in a public blog...
The NEC was a place I'd heard of but not seen yet, the car-parks are the size of a small county and there is a definite feeling that you are buying a season ticket, not just the parking place for a day, at £8.
The place is huge so the first thing is to catch the bus to the exhibition halls. No queue to get in on a Wednesday so we are straight in, looking at a huge hall full of the manufacturers main stands. The main manufacturers were all there, Suzuki, Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki, Benelli, Ducati, Triumph, Harley Davidson, BMW etc plus a few others such as the newer names from the far-east, not yet familiar. We wandered round, frankly a bit bewildered and identified a few familiar models and did the 'big kid' thing of sitting on them and trying their positions. Showed Lynne the modern edition of the Suzuki I had passed my test on and also showed her a Honda Transalp which is a bike I am considering buying. We sat on a few totally enormous bikes, some of which seemed less than practical, and Lynne insisted on getting on behind me (two big kids)
There were displays of 'custom' bikes which were breathtaking works though, in line with my dis-interest in bicycle machinery, I admired them without the least inclination to own one or emulate the achievement. One particularly extreme 'chopper' had a large crowd round it, none of whom seemed too bothered about the drive chain running along under the thigh of the rider. I've always been attached to these legs and I thought it was a bad idea in general. That's just what you need at the International Motorcycle and Scooter Show, some kill-joy who hates being chopped up by a chain.
Off to one side of this hall was another huge room holding some of the larger displays, mini-moto racing, a skills testing area run by Buell and most interestingly a Wall of Death! Lynne was off in it's direction like a shot, no stopping her. To her it was 'sole reason for visit'.
The Wall of Death is small, obviously small enough to be towed from place to place in a lorry. We had to pay £2.50 each for entry to this circus-like side-show and on entry we found ourselves looking down from a cat-walk into a wooden cylinder about 20 feet across and about 20 feet high. At the bottom were three motorbikes.
When enough people had filled the show, a slightly-built blond girl appeared through a hole in the Wall and started up one of the bikes, deafening with almost no silencer and in such a confined space. Suddenly she was away, riding around and up the wooden fillet at the edge that made a gradual change between the flat floor and the vertical barrel-vaulting of the Wall. Then you were aware that she was doing the 'impossible', riding on a totally vertical surface, blipping the throttle and going from top to bottom of the Wall on every lap, so close to the top that you had to remove your fingers from the edge of the track as she passed by. Each pass shook the structure; you were very aware of the weight of bike and rider passing right past your stomach. My initial reaction was that she looked like a rag-doll. With no helmet, her hair was streaming out behind in the wind and she was shaken as her bike passed over the planking. This was because the bikes were a bit rigid, having no suspension and probably very hard tyres. Yes that's right - no helmet, but it got madder before it finished. A young man took her place on another bike and did more or less the same stunts though at greater speed and with even more alarming shaking of the Wall of Death.
I pointed out a steel wire running round the top of the wall and said to Lynne "What do you think that wire is for?"
"To catch the riders and keep your hands out of harm's way" she said.
"Er, no" I corrected her "It's to stop the wall bursting!"
The next rider was an older man and just when I thought it couldn't be madder, it got madder. This guy stood up and rode with no hands, climbed over the handlebars and sat at the front of the bike, stood on his 'chain-stay' and waved as he passed by, riding 'no-handed' and generally doing things I could not do if the bike was on it's stand in a car-park.
There was an interlude while the girl drove a buggy car round the wall, noisy and mad but nothing compared to the finale, a few laps with ALL THREE riders riding round three abreast. The whole thing must have been about 15 minutes of noisy unforgettable craziness - fifteen minutes when I don't think I breathed once. I was simply stunned into silence. (There are some who would say this too is quite impossible)
We went and sat in another part of the hall then and let our ears have a rest while we ate our sandwiches (food at the show comes with a Securicorp guard - or at least at that price it should!) and watched the Buell skills riding. Felt that I could have done better than a couple of the riders I watched but a Buell is a wildly powerful bike so I doubt it really.
My purpose in visiting the show was to buy clothing. I visited a few stands and tried on a couple of crash helmets. It's very hard to actually know what you get for your extra money but everyone says "Don't buy a cheap one - you can't put a price on your head" I remain a bit unconvinced that the £600 helmets work 10 times better than the £60 helmets. Certainly there will be a diminishing return with great spending. That said I bought a helmet for...quite a lot of money. I put my credit card where my mouth is and effectively put a value on my head ( "What; it's worth THAT much?" ) I bought a Shoei, a well respected make, but last year's model so well discounted. Then we found a stall selling 'water damaged' clothing from a shop which had been flooded in the summer. Couldn't find anything wrong with the boots and trousers I purchased at bargain prices. Think about it - waterproof trousers that are discounted as water damaged stock. Is it me, or is there something rather strange about that?
Watched a rather dire dance sequence on the 'Black Horse' stage with some questionable characters of indeterminate sexuality prancing around in some odd clothing as well as some very good motorcycle gear. More entertaining watching the faces of the people in the audience, trying to keep from guffawing out loud.
There was still time to eat an outrageously fattening Greek Yoghurt and Honey ice-cream and have a look at a few more bikes including a Kawasaki that felt as if it's saddle was made of old house-bricks. The average leather bicycle saddle is surely no harder.
Then it was time to head south into the worsening weather and by the time we got back to Wiltshire it was teeming with rain.
We later learned that one of my friends met with an accident whilst riding home from the show and his bike had continued on down the hill after unshipping it's rider and felled a tree, 'totalling' the bike in the process. Hoping to hear that he is well again. He has had some time off work as a result with bruises in places not fit to be describe in a public blog...
Thursday, 8 November 2007
Motorcycling! What next?
At the grand old age of fifty I thought I would like to ride a motorbike again. I'd had one when I was 20ish but was doing so much cycling then that a motorbike was a bit of a white elephant. In those days you could ride a bike of up to 250cc without taking a test first. You just kept your 'L-plates' on indefinitely though you couldn't carry a pillion rider (unless he had a licence!) Well the law has changed since then, a good thing, so now my provisional licence meant that I could only ride a small bike, a 125cc and I had to take CBT, compulsory basic training, before riding that. There is one little loophole though, a short cut for experienced road users which is 'Direct Access', a system whereby you can train on a 500cc bike if you are on an approved course. I liked the look of that, a new challenge, a new skill and hopefully a safer rider as a result. After some hesitation, (that's me I'm afraid!) I approached Phoenix Motorcycle Training, run by Leigh Coldwell in Chippenham. We had a chat about it, initially by e-mail, and I went away and sat in a dark room feeling a bit faint about the cost. Anyway, I made up my mind that I would go down that route so the next thing to do was take the theory part of the driving test, another new introduction since I passed my car driving test in 1975.
The theory test was done in Bath, all done on a computer screen. A certain amount of revision of the Highway Code was needed, a process I thoroughly enjoyed! I hadn't realised how the Highway code had changed in 30 years (no more whip signals!) and there were many things I had forgotten. The Highway Code is only a part of the theory test though as there is also a 'hazard perception test' This was explained well on a DVD sent out by the DSA (Driving Standards Agency) so that on the day I felt confident that I would pass; I did! My marks were a perfect 35 out of 35 on the Highway code, very gratifying and a comfortable middle of the range score on the hazard perception test, harder to revise for (just like real life!) so a good score would need more practice, something I was unable to do.
Having passed the theory test I was able to approach Leigh about the motorcycle training proper. This was to begin with CBT (compulsory basic training) which is broadly the same for mopeds, motorcycles and scooters. It is possible to take CBT on a 500cc bike but I am glad to say that Leigh didn't try to get me to run before I could walk so I found myself astride a Suzuki 125 for my first motorcycle experience since I was an apprentice. The Redland School in Chippenham played host to our first wobbly figures of eight around the playground one Saturday. The other trainee for the day was a young girl, Emma, who was doing CBT on a scooter but the training is essentially the same except that I had gears and a clutch to add to my confusion whereas the scooter manages without.
All too soon Leigh was saying "Well, we all seem to be good enough, so let's head out on the road!" Eeek! The first few hundred yards was a bit slow. We must have seemed like a rolling road block to the bewildered residents of Redlands. The instructor is in touch with his trainees by radio and after a while I heard a voice saying "It is okay to go above 15 mph you know!" I managed to coax myself up to 30 mph over the next few minutes. I have to say that for anyone who values his life, 30 mph is three times faster on a motorbike than it is in a car. The Suzuki was ever so easy to ride, lying low to the road so that even short women can manage it, but it has an impossible gearbox with neutral coming and going erratically. I was so glad to be moving on to another bike for my test. CBT more or less mirrors what will be done later in the driving test, with emergency stops, U-turns, an open road ride (50mph!!!) and a hill start. My confidence was slowly rising and cautiously I started looking forward to the next part of my training, a half day of Direct Access conversion which essentially was a bit like the CBT but involved sitting on a Suzuki GS500 for the first time in my life.
The 500 weighs more. There was no getting away from it. It seemed huge. When you let go of the clutch there's a feeling of being carried away by a real no-nonsense power too. I felt like a pony trekker being sent out on Red Rum. First I rode around the car-park of the rugby club, figures of eight etc, some emergency stops and I started to get the measure of this larger bike. Then the time had come to go somewhere on it and Leigh followed me as we set off down the quiet lane to Biddestone and then left to Cross Keys at Corsham and back along the A4. Much poodling around the town and suburbs and all too soon this adventure was over and I went into work for the afternoon, grinning from ear to ear.
The next day, Tuesday, was just a work day. Presumably Leigh was involved with other pupils, so I trained next on Wednesday, meeting Leigh at his home on the other side of town. We had a whole day of round and round the houses, U-turns, emergency stops, hill-starts over and over with the occasional burst of excitement along an A-road. We finished by going through Lacock and up Bowden Hill to Sandy Lane. It wasn't a cold time of year yet but there is only so much you can do before you need to warm up and go the toilet etc so I was introduced to the delights of Mayhem Motorcycles, Chippenham's motorbike shop on the Bumper's Farm Industrial Estate. If we weren't hanging around in a motorbike shop, we were at a kebab van somewhere. I was a biker!
Wednesday started at Leigh's house again, and we were to be joined by Barny, about 30 years my junior. He was dropped off from a brand new Bentley. Leigh and I watched it drive away with our jaws on the floor. Barny was okay though, a real nice lad who had failed a few weeks ago on his U-turn and so he had to go back to more lessons and a retest. We drove round and round as the previous day, visiting places in Chippenham that I had hardly ever seen, maybe never seen, before. Each estate road had a six metre wide place just right for the U-turn and I slowly got better at them, usually turning rather too tightly - I'm used to turning a fixed wheel bicycle - and occasionally paying the price as I would be going too slowly and have to put my foot down.
The program of training was, essentially, to visit all the known haunts of the examiner and turn in all the places he uses and ride through the junctions that would be in my test.
My test! That was scheduled for Friday morning, six and a half days after first sitting on a motorbike. The morning dawned bright and crisp - in fact too bright and too crisp. It was very cold and very bright with a very low sun. At first the 500 could not be persuaded to run smoothly as it was chilled and I had to bump it back into life at several junctions when it cut out.
The other problem occupying my mind was the cold which was causing my visor to mist over alarmingly, and my glasses too. This combination of glasses and visor misted meant that I was trying to look through something only slightly more opaque than a house-brick. By cracking the visor open a little I could more or less see where I was going. We went off and did a practice route and the bike was just about warm and my nerves were jangling less.
The test centre is the very last building in Bumper's Farm. My test was the very first test of the day. The examiner did all the formalities, eye-test, licence, etc and then we went off. I was surprised when he told me to drive out to Castle Combe, not a normal route. He must have been avoiding the rush hour traffic. Going out in the country suited me as it uses up time and gets the bike warm before the manoeuvres like the U-turn. However I was caught out a bit by his instruction to turn towards Kington St Michael as, oddly maybe, I am not really very familiar with the junction. Even with the sun behind me I had trouble seeing it. No problem though, got away with it. Then we had to negotiate the traffic lights at the Plough. If I had not been familiar with the junction I would have been in big trouble, turning straight into the sun. We went up to the golf course junction and into Chippenham along Malmesbury Rd. I was instructed to turn right into Yewstock Crescent which I did, just as a van hurtled round the corner out of the flaring light at me. This went down on the examiner's score sheet...as did the next disaster when I completely cocked up the U-turn after having done maybe 100 perfect turns. I was dead cheeky and asked if I could repeat the manoeuvre (if you don't ask...) but to no avail.
Barny passed and I didn't. Disappointing, but the examiner is not your enemy; he's there to keep you alive! If at first you don't succeed...
Two weeks later I was booked in again so on the Tuesday I booked a half day off and we went round and round in time honoured fashion, this time on a different bike. I wasn't keen on this bike but it was all good training. Amusingly I had arranged to meet Leigh at 1pm but by 2.15 there was no sign of him so I phoned him on his mobile and he was hugely embarrassed to have forgotten all about me. He promised to get back to his home at 3pm. When he arrived he had another pupil with him, John, on the aforesaid different bike. John was just off home so I just climbed straight on his bike and we did an hour and a quarter of good training until the rush hour made it a bit too manic.
The next day was John's test, and mine too. I was pleased to be back on the old familiar bike - it felt like an old friend.
John failed ...on his U-turn. So that was three people to my knowledge who couldn't take a bike and turn it round. I had to sit biting my nails until he returned and I could go off with the examiner, a different man this time. We launched straight into the U-turn, almost from cold. I did it perfectly! (nervously but perfectly) Then the rest of the test was more or less a formality as we went out around Sutton Benger and the motorway junction and returned to Chippenham via the dual carriageway (70 mph in your driving test - not bad , eh?) At the end he said I had had a 'good ride' and told me I had only made 2 driving faults - you are allowed 15 in a test. I grinned all the way back to Leigh's house.
Then came the icing on the cake - because he had been so embarrassed by leaving me in the cold the day before, Leigh would only charge me for the re-test so a major financial disaster was avoided. A good bloke, Leigh - Phoenix Motorcycle Training, just in case you are interested!
The theory test was done in Bath, all done on a computer screen. A certain amount of revision of the Highway Code was needed, a process I thoroughly enjoyed! I hadn't realised how the Highway code had changed in 30 years (no more whip signals!) and there were many things I had forgotten. The Highway Code is only a part of the theory test though as there is also a 'hazard perception test' This was explained well on a DVD sent out by the DSA (Driving Standards Agency) so that on the day I felt confident that I would pass; I did! My marks were a perfect 35 out of 35 on the Highway code, very gratifying and a comfortable middle of the range score on the hazard perception test, harder to revise for (just like real life!) so a good score would need more practice, something I was unable to do.
Having passed the theory test I was able to approach Leigh about the motorcycle training proper. This was to begin with CBT (compulsory basic training) which is broadly the same for mopeds, motorcycles and scooters. It is possible to take CBT on a 500cc bike but I am glad to say that Leigh didn't try to get me to run before I could walk so I found myself astride a Suzuki 125 for my first motorcycle experience since I was an apprentice. The Redland School in Chippenham played host to our first wobbly figures of eight around the playground one Saturday. The other trainee for the day was a young girl, Emma, who was doing CBT on a scooter but the training is essentially the same except that I had gears and a clutch to add to my confusion whereas the scooter manages without.
All too soon Leigh was saying "Well, we all seem to be good enough, so let's head out on the road!" Eeek! The first few hundred yards was a bit slow. We must have seemed like a rolling road block to the bewildered residents of Redlands. The instructor is in touch with his trainees by radio and after a while I heard a voice saying "It is okay to go above 15 mph you know!" I managed to coax myself up to 30 mph over the next few minutes. I have to say that for anyone who values his life, 30 mph is three times faster on a motorbike than it is in a car. The Suzuki was ever so easy to ride, lying low to the road so that even short women can manage it, but it has an impossible gearbox with neutral coming and going erratically. I was so glad to be moving on to another bike for my test. CBT more or less mirrors what will be done later in the driving test, with emergency stops, U-turns, an open road ride (50mph!!!) and a hill start. My confidence was slowly rising and cautiously I started looking forward to the next part of my training, a half day of Direct Access conversion which essentially was a bit like the CBT but involved sitting on a Suzuki GS500 for the first time in my life.
The 500 weighs more. There was no getting away from it. It seemed huge. When you let go of the clutch there's a feeling of being carried away by a real no-nonsense power too. I felt like a pony trekker being sent out on Red Rum. First I rode around the car-park of the rugby club, figures of eight etc, some emergency stops and I started to get the measure of this larger bike. Then the time had come to go somewhere on it and Leigh followed me as we set off down the quiet lane to Biddestone and then left to Cross Keys at Corsham and back along the A4. Much poodling around the town and suburbs and all too soon this adventure was over and I went into work for the afternoon, grinning from ear to ear.
The next day, Tuesday, was just a work day. Presumably Leigh was involved with other pupils, so I trained next on Wednesday, meeting Leigh at his home on the other side of town. We had a whole day of round and round the houses, U-turns, emergency stops, hill-starts over and over with the occasional burst of excitement along an A-road. We finished by going through Lacock and up Bowden Hill to Sandy Lane. It wasn't a cold time of year yet but there is only so much you can do before you need to warm up and go the toilet etc so I was introduced to the delights of Mayhem Motorcycles, Chippenham's motorbike shop on the Bumper's Farm Industrial Estate. If we weren't hanging around in a motorbike shop, we were at a kebab van somewhere. I was a biker!
Wednesday started at Leigh's house again, and we were to be joined by Barny, about 30 years my junior. He was dropped off from a brand new Bentley. Leigh and I watched it drive away with our jaws on the floor. Barny was okay though, a real nice lad who had failed a few weeks ago on his U-turn and so he had to go back to more lessons and a retest. We drove round and round as the previous day, visiting places in Chippenham that I had hardly ever seen, maybe never seen, before. Each estate road had a six metre wide place just right for the U-turn and I slowly got better at them, usually turning rather too tightly - I'm used to turning a fixed wheel bicycle - and occasionally paying the price as I would be going too slowly and have to put my foot down.
The program of training was, essentially, to visit all the known haunts of the examiner and turn in all the places he uses and ride through the junctions that would be in my test.
My test! That was scheduled for Friday morning, six and a half days after first sitting on a motorbike. The morning dawned bright and crisp - in fact too bright and too crisp. It was very cold and very bright with a very low sun. At first the 500 could not be persuaded to run smoothly as it was chilled and I had to bump it back into life at several junctions when it cut out.
The other problem occupying my mind was the cold which was causing my visor to mist over alarmingly, and my glasses too. This combination of glasses and visor misted meant that I was trying to look through something only slightly more opaque than a house-brick. By cracking the visor open a little I could more or less see where I was going. We went off and did a practice route and the bike was just about warm and my nerves were jangling less.
The test centre is the very last building in Bumper's Farm. My test was the very first test of the day. The examiner did all the formalities, eye-test, licence, etc and then we went off. I was surprised when he told me to drive out to Castle Combe, not a normal route. He must have been avoiding the rush hour traffic. Going out in the country suited me as it uses up time and gets the bike warm before the manoeuvres like the U-turn. However I was caught out a bit by his instruction to turn towards Kington St Michael as, oddly maybe, I am not really very familiar with the junction. Even with the sun behind me I had trouble seeing it. No problem though, got away with it. Then we had to negotiate the traffic lights at the Plough. If I had not been familiar with the junction I would have been in big trouble, turning straight into the sun. We went up to the golf course junction and into Chippenham along Malmesbury Rd. I was instructed to turn right into Yewstock Crescent which I did, just as a van hurtled round the corner out of the flaring light at me. This went down on the examiner's score sheet...as did the next disaster when I completely cocked up the U-turn after having done maybe 100 perfect turns. I was dead cheeky and asked if I could repeat the manoeuvre (if you don't ask...) but to no avail.
Barny passed and I didn't. Disappointing, but the examiner is not your enemy; he's there to keep you alive! If at first you don't succeed...
Two weeks later I was booked in again so on the Tuesday I booked a half day off and we went round and round in time honoured fashion, this time on a different bike. I wasn't keen on this bike but it was all good training. Amusingly I had arranged to meet Leigh at 1pm but by 2.15 there was no sign of him so I phoned him on his mobile and he was hugely embarrassed to have forgotten all about me. He promised to get back to his home at 3pm. When he arrived he had another pupil with him, John, on the aforesaid different bike. John was just off home so I just climbed straight on his bike and we did an hour and a quarter of good training until the rush hour made it a bit too manic.
The next day was John's test, and mine too. I was pleased to be back on the old familiar bike - it felt like an old friend.
John failed ...on his U-turn. So that was three people to my knowledge who couldn't take a bike and turn it round. I had to sit biting my nails until he returned and I could go off with the examiner, a different man this time. We launched straight into the U-turn, almost from cold. I did it perfectly! (nervously but perfectly) Then the rest of the test was more or less a formality as we went out around Sutton Benger and the motorway junction and returned to Chippenham via the dual carriageway (70 mph in your driving test - not bad , eh?) At the end he said I had had a 'good ride' and told me I had only made 2 driving faults - you are allowed 15 in a test. I grinned all the way back to Leigh's house.
Then came the icing on the cake - because he had been so embarrassed by leaving me in the cold the day before, Leigh would only charge me for the re-test so a major financial disaster was avoided. A good bloke, Leigh - Phoenix Motorcycle Training, just in case you are interested!
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
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