Snow joke at the Snowrun!
By TMX Archives on 12th Feb 09
As the cold weather is taking a grip, JD looks back to a time when folk used to go out and have fun(!) in winter... WITH no slight whatsoever intended towards the organisers, who I know will have moved heaven and earth (and snow) in order to try and run the event, you must admit there is heavy irony in the fact that the famous Snowrun Enduro had to be cancelled last Sunday because of – you guessed it – snow!
Who would have thought it? In recent years most of the country hasn't seen enough snow in an entire winter to make a decent snowball, then suddenly the white stuff arrives in sufficient quantity to bring the country to a standstill. Some of the inactivity warranted, some, it has to be said, not.
Due to 'elf and safety-mad local authorities, schools that were bathed in sunshine were closed with not a flake of snow to be seen. In one of our local rural schools, all the mums and kids made it in through a light snowfall the other morning – but had to go home because the teachers were told to stay away.
As this piece was being written last Friday (production schedules dictate such things), reports were arriving, at the totally snow-free T+MX office, of events – including the Snowrun – being cancelled because of the snow. As you know, the National Colonial Trial was just one casualty with deep snow and ice up on the east Yorkshire moors. Not much you can do about that – ice is a far bigger danger than snow.
A frequent reason for events being cancelled in winter these days, with many modern vehicles next to useless at offering traction unless on hard tarmac, is actually access to the start area rather than problems with the course. I mean, an off-road motorcycle is one of the best means of transport in snow. As those who have tried it will know, it is excellent fun riding in the snow – especially recently fallen soft stuff – not the frozen kind. You can slide and drift around as much as you like.
Back in the early days of the Lakes Two-Day Trial, when it was held in January, at least one day of the two frequently featured heavy snowfall. The event always went ahead somehow, with Bill Birkett out on his TY175 early morning, in the dark, re-flagging where necessary. And Bill was a tough organiser, the proposed route was only altered if it really was impossible to follow!
Those snowy Lakes have stuck in my memory far more than the fine ones. Riding high-up on exposed Bootle fell with six-inches of snow on the ground but in bright sunshine really was something to savour. I rode one day with John Wren and Frank Whiteway and half a dozen Isle of Man lads came racing past. The snow had made the rough fells look deceptively flat – something that the pioneering Manx boys found out when they flew over the handlebars as their front wheels dropped through the snow into a hidden streambed!
Another year, the aforementioned Mr Wren bought a pair of bright, fluorescent orange, padded, Heikki Mikola MX gloves especially to keep his hands warm and dry in the Lakes. It snowed and rained and sleeted all through the opening day's run and when John removed the gloves we all fell about laughing as the soaking wet gloves had dyed his hands bright orange. And it wouldn't wash out no matter how hard he scrubbed them with carbolic and freezing cold water in the auction mart yard. It took a good week before his hands returned to their normal colour.
Ice and frozen hard ground is a different matter altogether. Back to those early Lakes, there were some fairly nasty icy days back when it was held in January. I have witnessed grown men reduced to tears as they struggled, unsuccessfully, to traverse a steep fell literally covered in a sheet of ice as the always wet hillsides were frozen solid in a hard winter's icy grip.
Nigel Birkett virtually destroyed a factory 325 Suzuki and made a mess of his face in a downhill crash and another year Martin Lampkin saw his Bultaco disappear down a vertical ravine – where it amazingly escaped serious damage by getting hooked up in a tree that was clinging to the ravine side.
Gerald Richardson shinned down the vertical face, then had to somehow climb the tree before he could unhook the unfortunate Bult which was hanging by its handlebars.
In the end, the Lakes committee managed to get the date of their event moved from January to October and, since then, the trial has enjoyed less severe weather. And as popular and as enjoyable a trial as the Lakes still is, I doubt they'll be remembered like those early epics!
Whatever, winter has returned to Britain with a vengeance and at the time