Welsh 2 Day Enduro 2007
Reports by: Ben Falconer (and Photos), Jim Delahay
Ben's report: This year's Welsh was a cracker - if you like your enduros fairly hard. Lots of rain in the week beforehand and on the Thursday kept everyone honest. It also meant plans to line up at the Lakeside with the Bultaco were shelved, with carburetion glitches still to be ironed out.
I switched to the Gas Gas 200 which gave me a magic carpet ride round, and meant I stayed on time on the first tight check of the day in Irfon. Yet again I used my spare minute here - no matter dry or wet, I always use my minute. I thought I was going quite tidily until check 6 which took us from somewhere near St Harmon to the test at Abbey cwm hir.
That changed after a quick squirt up some fire road took us to a recently forested area and a sea of stranded riders - chaos! I met Pete Neale here, pushing the CRF 230 back down with a blocked rear wheel and a reluctance to start on the button. Unfortunately it ended his event.
My guardian angel, Guy M-S had dropped back on time to just ahead of me thanks to drowning his new Husky 125 at Strata, so while unlucky for him, it worked for me, as he threaded his way up the rutty hill and I followed in his wake.
After that, it was a piece of cake, kind of. We had 66 minutes to cover the 23 miles of seemingly never-ending four rut tracks and killer hills.
While I made it in 13 minutes late, I passed many more than passed me but to put it in to perspective, the top experts managed to get round in 50 minutes!
What it did do though, was mix up the result a bit, with less reliance on test times. Which was handy because I'm no ace on tests.
Day 2 was quite a bit easier, with the hard bits of the toughest check cut out, although that didn't stop me getting in to a pickle a couple of times, through fatigue (read: lack of fitness). On to Strata, gave Sue and Trevor Hunt a wave, before heading back to the Irfon, where I was a little slower than before.
It all added up to 27th in Clubman E2, maybe a silver, probably a bronze.
It's fairly irrelevant though, compared to the sheer enjoyment the Welsh brings. West Glos was well represented on and off a bike, and very well represented at a well-known hostelry in Penybont.
Drew and Ant Moore fuelled both days and with our new stripped down fuel strategy (2 refuels and buy the rest at petrol stations), Guy Calderwood, Angela Neale and my official mechanic (that'll be my Dad) did a day each and kept every West Glos and CHG rider motivated, fuelled, fed and watered in fine style. Huge thanks to them and to Jim Delahay for popping up at the right moment with a pen in the Irfon when I realised I'd missed a check off my timecard!
I'd better mention Andrew Weddle's success too - he saw off some very good riders to win the Twinshock class, with a gritty ride. As you may know Andrew is a real rider from the old school - none of this fancy monoshock stuff, no goggles and rolls his own fags at checks. He even let West Glos members repair his bike while he took a breather (hopefully pictorial evidence of this will appear on this website).
Just a thought - Welsh 2 Day weather is becoming almost predictable, with wet weather on at least one day every other event: 07, 05, 03 (no event in 01), and 98 were wet, but then again so was 97. Whatever, roll on 08!
Jim says: This was the one not to ride in I reckon but okay to watch! I was with Andrew & Anthony at the Rally school for refueling on the first day and there was some difficulty in fueling one bike without a funnel; so I went to ask the two Army guys with a Landrover nearby, who were fueling the army team.
"Have you got a funnel"?
(Blank look from both.)
"Have you got a funnel I could borrow"?
(Long pause and looked at each other.)
"Is it a 4 stroke?" the one said.
"Forget it - we`ll manage - thanks", I said
Ant said "God help us if there is another War!"