Saturday, July 19, 2008

Mountain of Pain

We picked up our race numbers – I am 276 this year, so in the 4th wave for qualifying (the 3rd wave is women only – there are only 6 of them apparently! Quite why they need to qualify to all get places on the front row I do not know!) – I showed them my race licence and they let me in. No need for a medical cert.
More practice on the MOH Qualif and Finale courses. The Qualif now includes the steep double black, whereas this treat was saved for the Finale last year. Instead the Finale now has what looks like a footpath, an overgrown footpath at that, in its place. Its super rutted and bumpy – I fell off twice. I also broke my rear brake lever. So I was stuck half way down. I managed to walk down to the closest red, where I rode it slowly with front brake only. The Hope guy is in town, and he didn’t have any of the short Moto V2 levers, so I had to resort to the original lever in my spares stash.
I also sprained my right wrist in one of the crashes, so that’s now strapped up – I brought some zinc oxide tape just for this job. I have also had some success with my helmet cam, some great fast sections following Gav, the master of the loose corner – hoping to get the whole of the Qualif and Finale on it too……
Also more pics to follow, when I get the pics from Rohan, Joe and Gavs cameras…

Gav Buchanan

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