TMX SAYS: Desmond visits TMX Towers
By TMX Archives on 10th Dec 15
Just a couple of days after our 2000th issue hit newsagents shelves the spectacularly named Storm Desmond blew through the Morecambe Bay area and ultimately left the flood zones where some brainiac had only gone and placed the electricity substation that serves Lancaster, Morecambe and a good chunk of South Cumbria under a few feet of water.
While the floods didn't quite reach us up here at TMX Towers, the lack of power has definitely played its part in making this week more than a little bit stressful.
Only a month or two ago I was celebrating taking a break from technology and actually enjoyed not knowing what was happening in the wider world. But it's surprising how quickly that loses its charm when it's not a choice you've made and you have no electricity, no means of communication with the outside world, all the shops are shut and some dude called Desmond is trying to blow your house down.
Fortunately, power has been patchily restored since and by hook or by crook we're going all out to get this edition of TMX to the printers on time. As I write this I can't actually guarantee if the 2001st issue of TMX will hit newsagents on time – or ever – as a number of network issues are slowing things right down.
Because we'd all been offline over the weekend we basically had no clue of who'd won what until the power and phones came back on which is quite a weird situation for us to find ourselves in. Normally, there's very little conversation about weekend results as everyone is so well connected but this week that's not been the case.
We're also all somewhat distracted with storm related problems sucking our attention elsewhere n'all. For some it's worse than others – Beth had her BMW's fuel filched by Mad Max-style super-unleaded siphoning bandits and Jason's power has not been restored at all just yet and so he's been living without lights, hot water or television (gasp!) since Saturday. I'm told that he absolutely stinks although I haven't got close enough to find out myself just yet. It's nice to see his commitment to the cause though...
Outside our crisis zone the world continued to run as normal with Sam Haslam winning the Southern Experts Trial and Knighter the Valleys Extreme Enduro while the Yanks took control of the SuperEnduro world championship in Poland. Cody Webb ran 1-6-1 to take the overall ahead of Cumbria's Jonny Walker who himself ran an uber consistent 2-2-2. The other race win was taken by the rather inconsistent Colton Haaker who ended tied fourth overall with Taddy Blazusiak who took a tumble or 12 on the night.
Aside from Walker – who was absolutely solid – the Euro fighters seemed a little rusty in comparison to their Stateside counterparts who entered the SuperEnduro series opener having just wrapped up their own national series.
Aside from the Enduro Extreme Indoor t'other weekend there has been very little to help European riders prepare for the SuperEnduro championship. Although all the contenders have got their own ‘indoor style' practice tracks there's no better preparation for racing than racing and in my mind that's where the majority went wrong. It's almost as obvious as not placing an essential electricity distribution box right in the middle of a flood zone...
