Yesterday, Sunday, I finished rebuilding and fettling the bike after the crashy Hafren rally and decided to take it over to Elsworth Motoparc for a shakedown.
I’ve never been to Elsworth motoparc before, indeed I’ve never been to any MX track, so I was interested to see what it was like. It’s a big place, with some bigger jumps and on arrival there were some guys out making it look very easy, but also very fast. They run 3 sessions, Adult Expert, Adult Intermediate and junior. I noticed there was an Adult Novice slot in the waiting area, but it’s covered in grass and obviously hasn’t been used in some time. I quickly identified that these were the Adult Expert and I didn’t feel quite so daunted!
I chatted to a few of the riders to get a feel for the course and also general opinion on taking a rally bike round. The long and the short of it was that no-one cared what you were riding, and more than a few commented that it was good to see something different.
I headed off for my first session and managed 3 laps before I ran out of steam. It is indeed a very twisty and jumpy track. Undoubtedly good fun, but also bloody hard work on a bike like the TE630.
A managed 3 sessions, and averaged between 3 and 4 laps on each session before I had to give up. While I was very aware that I was, in effect, a mobile chicane, I wasn’t getting lapped or passed as much as I expected. I think if I can get a bit fitter and get a bit more practice in, I might be able to keep up with the slower MX bikes.
Taken with the iPhone 5s in Burst mode, then edited together in Gimp
While I was there I was playing with my new iPhone 5s and experimenting with the burst mode in the camera. I took a few sets of shots and compiled this image from one of the bursts.
Mike Bennett was there taking photos, and he got a couple of excellent ones of me , including one while airborne. I also had the helmet cam with me, and taped a couple of laps, as below.
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