Friday 8 December 2017

So what’s been going on in my world?


Having slowly got back into riding after tearing my anterior cruciate ligament and then breaking my nose on my first trail ride… yes keen readers will recall that on the day A&E said I hadn’t broken it. However they also said that I should see my Doctor if the swelling and the pain didn’t subside in two weeks.

It didn’t, so I did, he took one look and said it was definitely broken; luckily it’s not displaced so I get to keep my handsome good looks (I wish) and all I needed by way of treatment was a steroid nasal spray to bring down the swelling, although he did mention that if it doesn’t improve I might need what they euphemistically refer to as MUA or  Manipulation Under Anaesthetic. Grainne informed me this was when they re-break your nose with a hammer and chisel and re-set it. She should know as she’s had it done twice after horse riding accidents (a good reason not to participate in dangerous sports like horse riding methinks)!

The knee is still sore and although I can ride OK (wearing knee braces), the biggest issue I have is standing for any length of time, so recently I’ve helped out on the Rallymoto stand at the Dirt Bike show and the TRF stand at Motorcycle Live (I’ll do anything for a free ticket me)! And these have proven to be quite painful as you are on your feet all day.

Apart from resuming my surveying work in the Peak District for the TRF, which I did on a very cold, wet, windy and thoroughly miserable day in the aftermath of Storm Brian, my motorcycling focus was on helping Burt Hughes of Rallymoto to run a “Road Book Caper” practice day around Hertfordshire.

This involved plotting a route, converting it into a road book, then getting out and reconnoitring it and then updating the road book appropriately. Then making arrangements for the day, The KTM Centre in Hemel Hempstead kindly agreed to host the event and provide coffee and cookies before the off (actually if you’re visiting the centre, there’s always coffee on offer)! Burt printed off the road books and coordinated the entries and we were good to go.



The day itself went off really well, we had two more experienced participants but eight road book virgins, they got lost, they fell off (but nobody was hurt), ran out of petrol and some finished after dark! But what was clear afterwards was everyone had a great time!

We learnt some valuable lessons; a large single loop with multiple checkpoints doesn’t work as well as hoped, so in future a cloverleaf pattern with several loops returning to the start/finish point is the aim, also a greater element of training is required for the newbies, we had forgotten just how amusing watching a bunch of guys trying to load road books for the first time can be, much assistance was required.




Now to start work on the next one!

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