We are all in testing times
By TMX Archives on 16th Oct 08
While the world around us is crumbling in the so-called Credit Crunch', JD goes off on a jolly, a bike test to be precise - or that's what they think in the office... but who cares!
WENT on a bike test last week, on Wednesday in fact, just when all the world banking cobblers was at its height (it may be even more frantic by the time you read this, who knows) so after listening to never-ending blood-curdling newscasts on the radio as we bumbled along the M6/ M61/ M62/ M18 from Morecambe to Fat Cat Motor Park near Doncaster, it was a welcome relief to escape, with sweating brow, from the end of civilisation as we know it. At least that's how it sounded with the BBC doggedly determined that by lunchtime, inflation would be 100 per cent, by teatime job losses likewise and that by the evening at the latest we would all have lost our houses and be living in caves, eating blackberries. If we were lucky.
Only to find that, on finally exiting the car at Fat Cat, in actual fact the world was indeed still spinning, the sun was actually shining (yes it was) and lots of guys were cheerfully unloading bikes out of vans and going for a blast round the track. Armageddon had clearly avoided Fat Cat - so I made a mental note NOT to listen to the harbingers of doom on the Beeb on the way home, any old trashy music station would be much more preferable.
Tests have been a nightmare this year with the weather. It should really be simple organising a bike test, but trying to get the bikes, a tester, photographer and a venue all lined up for a given date is not always as easy as you'd think. And then you spend a week praying that it doesn't chuck it down all day. Some chance this summer!
But this time we had a plan! Or to tell the truth, Martin Craven who has done such a fantastic job of uprating the Fat Cat practise facility (formerly known as Armthorpe) had a plan. The previous week, when it was absolutely hammering down we had asked Martin if we could roll-up with the 2009 Gas Gas enduros but that we couldn't really pin down a date, what with the weather and all. "I'll tell you what” said he, "I check out the seven day forecast regularly as it helps me plan my week at the track for watering and maintenance. They reckon it will be rain this weekend and Monday Tuesday, Wednesday will be fine and then the rain threatens again. So come on Wednesday, it will be fine.”
And pigs might fly.
Well, credit where it's due - the boy was right and Wednesday was indeed a cracker. Martin must have spread the word as well because he had a fair mid-week turnout. I can't totally get my head round that.
It always makes me wonder how people manage to blag a day off mid-week in order to ride bikes. I mean, it is OK for ME to do it because I, of course, claim to be WORKING! But if I was in a ‘normal' nine to five job - as opposed to this mad one - I just don't see it being possible. I'm sure that people don't pull stunts like throwingsickies and going to grannie's funeral just so they can practise their whoops - do they?
The only other possibility is that they are all self-employed plumbers and brickies and plasterers and roofers. So if building types seemed to be in short supply round Doncaster last Wednesday, I can tell you where they all were! I was reprimanded after last week's column, and quite rightly so, by reader Brian Catt who pointed out that I made a poor analogy regarding lack of electric starts on MX bikes. He is absolutely correct, as F1 cars don't have self-starters either. They rely on a bloke armed with a giant powered egg-whisk that he pokes into the gearbox (or somewhere similar) and that if our multi-million pound giant slot car stalls then it is goodbye race win. So F1 is even dafter than I thought.
At least bikes have a stone-age style kick-start for the rider to thrash away on. I found it highly amusing last weekend when one of the F1 cars flew out of its slot at the very first corner and caused everyone else to either bump into each other or fly off the track. Just like real Scalextric in fact.And then the multi-millionaire chappie who caused all this rumpus wondered what all the fuss was about: apparently.
After the second corner I turned off and went back to my real world problem of sussing out a way to make my diesel Mondeo exceed 53mpg. The less money I spend trundling round the more I have to spend on stuff that really matters. Like riding bikes...