Snowrun 2004
Words by Ben Falconer and Photos By Colin Jones
Filthy weather, bottomless ruts and dirty great hidden tree stumps - at the beginning of February? Must be Snowrun time again.
Perhaps buoyed by memories of skimming over sun-kissed hilltops in events like the Welsh 2 Day, the Powys and the like, the lure of a proper timecard Enduro at last, blacked out the grim reality of the Crychan and Glen Saer forests in deepest winter for the bumper entry.
Organisers WTRA even dropped a pretty big clue as to how the weather might turn out, in the name of the event.
Still, it didn't deter eight West Glos and Dean Forest MCC members, least of all star man Dan Bishop (200 KTM), who set the fastest test time of all to finish third in a relatively large Expert field.
He even aced the Championship finishers over one lap around the snotty test. Impressive? Winning best 250 2T and taking third Expert on a 200 against more powerful machines said it all.
That West Glos chairman Ian Vessey took his 200 KTM to the last finisher's place in the Veteran's class was no mean achievement - 16th place out of 34 entrants indicated the high attrition rate and bore testament to Vess's ever-cheerful demeanour. When the going got tough, he didn't bugger off like nearly half the entry did but kept on circulating and smiling - or were they gritted teeth?
Sadly Matt Neale's first Veteran outing on the CCM 404 ended before it began - lifting the British iron on to the trailer on the morning of the event proved too much for his back which held up for more than a lap of the 27 mile circuit.
Matt's Haines & Co boss Anthony Moore (CCM 404) appeared to revel in the wet and wild conditions over three laps and just missed out on a Clubman 4T silver. Long legs and a good sense of humour are a prerequisite when confronted by endless ruts in the Crychan, attributes which Anthony has in abundance.
Clearly most of his class didn't share his enthusiasm, with no less than 35 retirements from 59 starters, including Simon Ellway (450 Honda).
Mike Allen (Very Big KTM) completed two laps from three in the same class and seemed keen to come back for more.
Extensive retirements were a pattern repeated in the Sportsman class, whose entrants had to complete two laps for a finish - something more than half failed to do, as the challenging conditions took their toll on man and machine. David Ryan (250 4T Husqvarna) was no exception.
Your correspondent found conditions had eased from 'black run' to 'red run' by the second lap, when a few of the stoppers had sensibly been cut by the organisers, which smoothed his path to a top half Sportsman finish.
Aside from his parental pit crew, he was aided by the knowledge and encouragement from West Glos Enduro guru Colin Jones.
Colin was the biggest West Glos hero of the day, manning Check 3 in horizontal rain for hours on end - and all he got for his troubles was his 4x4 splattered with mud thrown up by hundreds of bikes.
West Glos members fared better than their friends from The Cheltenham Home Guard MCC. Steve Venn (Veteran, Yamaha 250 4T) was forced to retire form the third lap when he was clean on time, while fellow veteran David Johnson (200 Kawasaki) managed two from three laps. Sam Wilson (Honda 250 4T) suffered a lost contact lens and fell back before taking the road back to Parc Ferme with Steve.
The event yet again proved two Enduro truisms - there's only one thing dafter than riding and that's watching, and a bloke called Jones will be the overall winner. This time it was Robert from the Llanidloes Enduro production line who took top honours.
Many thanks to WTRA, all marshals and officials for an excellent event in trying conditions.