An eye opener.

I'm no stranger to exercise, but sitting here on the sofa at 7pm my forearms, hands and back all ache.
My aim was to do two hours of track time as that's how long the enduro race will be and i wanted to get a feel for it. Well i got a feel for it.

Below: the riders car park at Ashby Moto Park

Upon arriving and whilst removing the bike from the trailer another chap came across and introduced himself, Dave from South Africa.  He was new to it and asked if i could help load his bike onto his pickup.  He also explained that the extended Enduro track at ashby was closed, but a smaller Motocross section was open and so that was my target. 

Below: starting area

I set off, it was wet, muddy, rutted, tight, had a couple of jumps and i was panting like a dog in no time.   I noticed Dave from SA watching from the sides as i sped (nope), zoomed (nope) erm, crawled by.  There was as ditch next to one section of the track, and for some reason, i just rode straight into it. (knob!) After about 60mins on the track, sweating through all my clothes i headed back to the car for a drink.

My clean bike, I was just as bad.

Dave approached, we had a chat, turns our he rode a bike from SA to England. It took him seven months and sounded great,  he speaks highly of Ethiopia.
I wanted to try and fit another hour in, I persuaded Dave to unload his bike and have another go - so he did!

Below: Dave and our bikes.

We set off together and raced, where I fell off once and had to push the bike at another point.  Exhausting. I later found Dave at the side of the track and he looked as knackered as i felt :) 
We carried on. 

There were some much better riders on the track on smaller two strokes, they appeared to be enjoying passing others and opening the throttle spraying the person behind in roost (flying mud).  I just had to wait for them lap to me, listen for the two stroke engine and then open up the 500. ah sweet revenge.


Later whilst cleaning up, a couple of older fella's came around the car park asking for advice as they wanted to get into off-road and trail riding. Dave i chatted to them, we swapped numbers and i headed for home passing the little picturesque village below.

 In summary, its hard and i need more practice.