Monday 19 March 2018

There no business like snow business


With all the snow it’s not been a great time for biking and a couple of ear infections leading to severe vertigo didn't help either but I have managed to get out occasionally. Current focus being another Road Book Caper for Rallymoto, this one running from Torque Racing in Cambridgeshire and taking in lanes in both Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.

The 450 EXC got its final outing to recce the route before MOT time just in case it didn't pass and needed some work. To be honest it could have done with a new set of tyres as a few days of rain had left the lanes near to the Torque Racing HQ extremely slippery but it coped by taking things easy, which when reconnoitring a road book is the norm anyway.

Unlike my last Road Book Caper, this one has been designed as three separate loops, returning each time to Torque for checkpoints, therefore making it much easier to manage and no hanging around in freezing cold laybys or petrol station forecourts for the support crew waiting for riders. The distance has also been cut from 170km to around 130km as the last one took some riders too long and the route had to be cut, although the clocks going forward the night before will give us an extra hour of daylight to play with. Let’s hope everyone remembers and doesn’t turn up an hour late!

The other advantage  of this type of design is it means keeping the route much tighter with a few cross overs and even a few two way tracks, so riders are far more likely to see each other on the way round, hopefully making this Road Book Social, a bit more “Social”.

The bike sailed through it's MOT so I needn't have worried and the next day I was out on the lanes again for the final recce...