This ride I mean. Positivelly, the best ride in a long long time, for
sure the best ride I did the last two years.
Sunday I was at Campina Grande, a town in another state, just a few
meters less than 250km away from home, to race the third enduro of the
season. I had my bike ready (02' XR250Tornado), Eduardo (??'
XLRNXR350) and Diogo (02' XR250Tornado) had them ready too. Saturday
we rented a three rail bike trailer in a place near home and by 10am
we were already on the very bumpy washboard pothole roads that
connects Recife to Campina Grande. We arrived almost 3pm, the trailer
we found out was too light and wasn't coping witht the weight, it was
twisting and I could not go faster than 70kmh.
After signing for the race - I signed for the "graduate" class, this
is the top class, Eduardo signed for novice, as this is his first year
and Diogo was going to sign for expedition but unfortunatelly this
time there would be no expedition, so he decided to glue on Eduardo
and ride along, just to ride and see what's like, without signing, as
he had no means of racing: the enduros here require odometers with 10
meter precision and a way to hold the chart, otherwise you won't be
able to know where to go. Mostly, the enduros are on rural areas and
we go from property to property via gravel roads, some large, some
that would be challenging for anything but an ox cart, with some tst
thrown in.
Sunday came and the bastard at the hotel did not had our breakfast
ready. We had to try to munch anything at the gas station that was the
starting point. I had a bottle of gatorade with guava and banana
bars.
I was lucky this time and wasn't the first to start. I'd rather start
behind a few bikes, because that way I can always check their tire
tracks and be sure I'm heading the right way, I mean, this is the
graduates class, we don't do *that* many mistakes ;-)
I did a wonderful first half of the race. I was keeping time
perfectly. Sometimes I was passing the guys ahead of me and still
right on my time. Bike was running 90%, I has a miss when revving
hight, but it's not the limiter, I'm sure. Some electrical thing about
to fail or not connecting properly, or perhaps that CV carb is not
working like it should, but this little glitch wasn't enough to slow
me down, I had inspiration that day. We went through lots of very nice
tst, lots of hills, lots of rocks to climb, lots of off camber
sidehill trails, very little water, almost zero mud. It was perfect
terrain, I had perfect traction (with about 15psi, I think I'm nuts
but I bet traction against pinch flats and bet paid off). One spot we
had a radar - just to clarify this, at the starting line, they fit our
bikes with a small gps encased on a sturdy plastic box. This gps is
not meant for us to do anything with it, it has no display except a
blinking led that means it has satellite connection, the purpose of
the gps is because our checks are virtual checks, after the race they
plug the gps on a laptop computer and it will tell where we were, at
what time and at what speed. And that lead us back to the radar... We
had a 27km/h limit on a road that went right in front of the main
property of a farm and there were lots of kids and the owner asked for
that. The problem was that the radar section started much much before
I could even see the farm house. I was penalized 300 points after
hitting 68km/h :-(
There is a hill that is made of a solid chunk of granite. Think a
really huge bolder. This is called The Saint Anthony Rock. We climbed
it and was great. Up there, the race organization had a table with
bananas, watermelons, mangoes, pineapples and water for us! This was a
30 minutes rest point and we had plenty of time to eat and drink and
chat and that was a great time.
The second half of the race was very different. We had almost no roads
and there was lots of single track with less rocks and less hills. The
very last downhill of the race was a steep single track with lots of
tight switchbacks and a few bolders here and there to make things more
interesting. This downhill was a few kilometers in lenght and took
about 15-20 minutes to get down on the flat lands again. When I
started to descend, my enduro computer was telling me I was zeroed, I
mean, not a second before or ahead time. When I reached the bottom, I
was almost 3 minutes late. At about half the downhill, I had no
strenght to pull my feet to avoid the bolders, the boots were weighing
a thousand tons, each. After almost losing a toe to a bolder, I lift
my feet out of the pegs if I can do it. As I couldn't do it anymore, I
slowed down, two guys passed me.
The last our of the race was very interesting. The organization put
together a trail with a tight speed average, meaning that no matter
how fast you went, you would lose time. This hour was spent going
through dense woods, there was only the single track and sometimes the
grass was covering it, like on a seldom used trail. That was a fast
ride!
The finish line was at a park in middle of town. I returned my gps and
waited for my friends, who started later. Eduardo was the first novice
to arrive, along with a guy on a Yamaha DT200. He had a flat front
tire and destroyed the tire riding it flat. Diogo got lost on the
woods and we waited and waited, and never showed up. While waiting for
him, I noticed my front rim was bent. hmmm. Further inspection showed
a crack along three spokes. The oem DID rim is dead and will be
replaced. I think it was when I hit a tree root while on a high speed
downhill.
As Diogo never showed up, we went back to the hotel. He was there.
After getting lost, he found other people from novice class and
started riding with them. He helped them and they had fun. He rode the
entire trail and want to race the next one, next month, on a town just
30km from home! Ok, more of that later.
After the shower and dinner, we went to the prize party. Eduardo got a
second place trophy, with just 200 points more than first on his
class, the DT200 guy. He did about 17,000 points. I got fourth place
and a trophy with 9,200 points. I blame not being first on me, because
I got lost twice, losing 12 minutes the first time and because I don't
have endurance enough to ride hard for 6 hours and 140 kilometers in
such demanding terrain. The guy who was first on my class won with
about 3,000 points... I can't blame my bike, even though it is the
only dual sport on my class, everyone else rides specially designed
motorcycles, like KTM and CRF and DRZ and TTR and WRF. I had lots of
fun and that's the point if it all! Getting a trophy or even winning a
race ain't what that's all about. Sure a trophy is great, but if
you're having fun, everything comes easy. It's not that hard!
The return home was a pain. The trailer twisting, terrible roads,
night, tired from the ride, wanting to get home *now*, but not being
able to go faster than 70km/h... At least wasn't raining -> hey,
you've got to find a bright side on everything! 5 driving hours later,
we were at home, at last. I stopped at the 24hrs gas station on the
end of my street and finally could drink a cold beer...
-- T
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> sure the best ride I did the last two years.