Blue’s WordPress Blog

My first time ever at Donington but as the Fast group had been selling out and even had some reserves, I was riding in the Intermediates, aka the group most likely to crash (this is because - according to legend - it’s the one where people too proud to book into Novices go and/or it’s where the self-styled heroes go so they can beat all the slower riders). In truth, I’m better suited to the Inters. as I’m not as fast as I was and I ride a bike that’s much, much heavier than the rest - imagine a sportsbike with a rider and pillion and that’s about the right weight…

We don’t allow laptiming at our trackdays, but one of the ZRXOC Team Phat Bastid Supporters Club contingent clocked me at under 1:37 for a lap.

Donington Park is now one of my favourite tracks as it’s a lovely one to ride and not ‘Mickey Mouse’ like some others. Problem is, it’s another ‘premium’ MSV-owned circuits so it’s an expensive day, especially for a so-called Noisy day: despite being next to East Midlands Airport, the locals complain about bike noise, so there are normally noise restrictions in place.

That and they prohibit on-board videos, the buggers.

Photos in the usual place:
and

Monday

Back after our family hols. Mum drove up to collect the kids to take them off to hers for a couple of days via Banham Zoo. Hmm. Shouldn’t “hers” be “her’s”? Anyway. It rained bucketloads which made loading the Fester with bikey gear and then loading Blue Rex onto the trailer a tad worrying. Still, by mid-afternoon, I was ready to head off to Mallory and - shock! horror! - Mrs. Blue was coming with me!

The journey to the Royal Arms near to the track was a pain in the arse as some fecktard had decided to park his lorry on top of a car just past Thetford on the A11. We diverted into Thetford but found traffic queues, so did a U-ey and then went towards Brandon only to find that at a standstill, so did another U-ey (all with the bike and trailer, remember) and then decided to check the A11. The ½ hour peeing about had been enough time for the road to have re-opened so off we went.

Got to the M11/A14 bit at Cambridge and found that at a standstill {sigh} so diverted through Madingley onto the A428 before heading up the A1. The last section of the journey went fine and we arrived at the hotel by about 6-6.30pm to find a bunch of others sitting out with beers, so we joined them, drinking until we all went in for Dinner at 8.30pm.

One of our group was getting married so was treating Mallory as his stag do, so he bought £100 of champagne for us (to go with the cost of the hotel, the trackday, hiring the bike, etc.). It was his first trackday since shattering his elbow at Mallory three years or so ago. Hooooge meal and then to bed. Way too hot in the rheum so a fitful night’s sleep.

Tuesday

Up at 6.00am to get ready and packed for breakfast at 7.00am and away to the track for 7.30am. Marvelous weather. Assembled the trackdayers for the briefing at 8.45am and onto the track for the first fast group session at 9.00am. One older rider highsided at the Devil’s Elbow almost taking out his daughter’s bloke who was about to overtake.

One or two more red-flagging incidents, then the big one.

Novices group, so should have been safe as houses. One bloke (who’d been at the Royal Arms the night before), loses the front end of his Ducati Monster at Edwinas. Aforementioned stag on the hired Honda SP1 drops it avoiding him and a third rider who’s managed to stop. Fourth rider (also at the hotel) on an Aprilia Falco manages to stop too, but fifth rider (ditto) is approaching at a much quicker rate and cannot brake in time. His bike hits the Falco and then launches about 10 feet into the air taking Duncan with it and knocking the bike out from underneath the fourth rider. Red flags waved, both ambulances go out to collect Stag and Duncan. Duncan’s wife just happened to be spectating at Edwinas and caught the whole thing on video…

Stag is brought to the track medical centre but is fine if very battered and bruised. Duncan is taken straight to Lecister Royal Infirmary leaving a distraught Janie behind. Hugs from me and Mrs. Blue help, apparently, before she drives off to the hospital. His bike is totalled but the marshals shove it into a pit garage and I drag his trailer in there.

Rest of the day goes OK and an incident-free journey home.

Photo here

I still didn’t trust Blue Rex’s front tyre after the Mallory ‘off’, so a day at Brands on the Indy circuit which is quite short and twisty was probably not a good idea, especially as I would be in the Fast group…

Fast? I’d have been quicker pushing the bike around Clearways.

Photos here and here. Footage showing just how slow I was will be on Google Video shortly.

They said:

One of Lowestoft’s biggest fundraising events is coming to an end next weekend.

Motorcyclists will be revving up for the final time to complete the Eastern Lights Cavalcade to raise money for the James Paget Hospital in Gorleston. The event, which will take place on Sunday, July 31, has raised nearly £25,000 over the last four years for the accident and emergency department at the James Paget. This has helped to completely refurbish the relatives’ room and buy a blood gas machine. Mr Howard said he would ideally like to raise more than £6000 this year, which would pay for two years upkeep of the blood gas machine. He said they were on the way to the best ever attendance with up to 1000 bikes booked but soaring insurance costs has urged the committee to call it a day and go out in style.

Daughter Amy and I were set to join Michael (Bandit 1200) and his son Chris and Tony (Z1000) and his wife Sally for the Norfolk Eastern Lights charity ride-out from the Norfolk Showground to Lowestoft to raise money for the A&E department at James Paget Hospital. I also arranged to meet another ZRX rider, Gregg, on the way.

Despite the weather forecasts, it had been raining overnight and there was still some drizzle in the air. Mrs Blue took son Jack over to Michael and Carole’s house on her way to work. I went to get the bike out of the garage but found it locked … with my house and garage keys inside. I jumped into the car and met Mrs Blue as she arrived for work to get her house keys. Then back home, got the bike and leathers out and we set off for petrol. I decided to see if Gregg had made it to the rendezvous early - which he had - so we collected him and Chad on a FireBlade and went to Michael’s house to wait for Tony to arrive.

Then off to the start point, handed over our £8 on the gate and waited in some light drizzle for the off. At midday, the convoy rolled out. Limited to ‘just’ 1000 bikes, we all pulled out into the road which was blocked off my police bikers. They did the same at the roundabout over the A47 and as we rode down onto the southern bypass, I saw that the police had closed it for the bikes to have to themselves. We rode on in convoy with police outriders all the way to Great Yarmouth and from there to Lowestoft. The roads, laybys and bridges were packed with people waving and filming. Amy was amazed and said she felt like a celebrity.We got parked up in a special area at Lowestoft seafront and wandered off for lunch. Met up with another ZRXOC member who’s currently got no Tinterweb and so hadn’t realised we’d be coming along.

Then we decided to take the long way home, so we headed south down the A12 towards Leiston before turning off towards Stowmarket and taking the back roads back to Michael’s. Some spirited riding and a dice with an Aston Martin DB7. Amy got airborne over one small rise despite my keeping our speed below 100mph for most of the time, anyway.

Back in time for tea.

Marvellous. Amy is definitely teh biker chick.

Yes, I know it’s been a while since the trackday itself, but I’ve been waiting to get hold of the photos.

We stayed overnight the night before at the Admiral Horny, Rodcastle Admiral Rodney, Horncastle which was very pleasant and well priced. I passed around my copy of the Motorcycle News as I was sort of featured in it in an article on the Kawasaki ZRX1200R.

On the day itself, I drove up to the circuit at around 7.30am to get myself in place to help out with signing on before handing out wristbands and getting changed into my new leathers. During the briefing, Geoff singled me out as someone to avoid following my ‘off’ at Mallory.

For the first time, I was due to be in the Fast Group along with the racers and track bikes on slick tyres. But you know what? It was much better there than in the Intermediates as the Fast Group (me notwithstanding) know what they’re doing and overtake safely. Marvellous!

I’ve uploaded some video footage: most of one fast group session is here.

What’s that? The photos? Oh, if you insist:

Click on the photo to go to two larger versions.

All in all, it was great fun and the weather was superb.

Control youselves!

Yes, it’s Captain Blue in his new riding gear! w00t!
Just got back
Hiding behind the visor

So John at the Motorcycle Clothing Centre rang me this morning to tell me that my Richa GP Race Gloves had arrived.

These are Richa’s top of the range sports glove “featuring Kangaroo leather to palm and fingers for extra protection. Carbon protectors to knuckles, fingers, wrists and palm. Vented leather section. Double wrist closure.”

Fresh from the packet, they fit like, erm, a glove and are soooo comfortable. They look as though they’ll do an even better job than my old Richa gloves did if I have another off.

Well good to their word (and for an extra tenner) Lings at Lowestoft delivered my Arai RX7 Corsair in Sport Blue like this one:

At least my head’s not big: this was a Medium shell like last time.

It also came with a free cleaning kit, Arai baseball cap, lanyard, water bottle and a voucher to swap for a cool bag and seat combination as I bought it from an Arai 5 Star Centre.

Marvellous!

It seems that my replacement Oxtar TCS Evo boots are not to be: despite ordering them well over a week ago, there aren’t any in the country still in my size - I’m a 43 euro normally and I was in the Oxtars these were replacing, but the slightly different toe slider arrangement seemed to mean that the inisde of the boot was smaller, so I’d ordered a 44 instead.

So as the thought of trying to do next week’s Cadwell trackday in trainers was too scary and - dahling - I couldn’t possibly wear red boots with blue leathers, I bought some slightly cheaper Gaerne G-RS boots as worne by WSB rider Chris Vermeulen and other top flight riders:

These also have the added benefit of coming with spare plastic toe sliders for tracks where the owners don’t like titanium ones.

So the nice man from UPS arrived this afternoon with my new Arlen Ness 1790 two-piece leathers like these ones:

That’s the proper colour, but for an idea of how the suit looks from the back, this is pretty good (if slightly off, colour-wise):

Only downside with the new ones is that there’s no external pockets like there were on the old ones. Old, haha, I mean the ones I got in January.

Oh and the Euro 56 size I got maps to XXL it seems…