Your Bike will bring you on many adventures

I was meant to write a blog about my trip to Japan, this was because it was such an incredible experience I never wanna forget it. However I was too tired and now, a week later, I have pretty much forgotten it already :(

So I am going to write about my trip to Liverpool instead, because it has just happened. It's called "your bike will bring you on many adventures"

A few weeks or months ago I came across an event called a super enduro. It seemed weird and my curiosity took over. I like weird events, ever since I did the red bull minidrome a few years ago, I like the feeling of nerves that come with the unknown,  its not like "have I trained enough? Did I eat correctly?" There is no self analysis, its just pure anticipation, like a child waiting for something their parents have told them about, which they have been told will be good, but they have never done it before, so they cannot expect anything. It's weird,  but it's cool.

Whizzing around the red Bull minidrome, one of THE most fun feelings ever!

Also, being a show off, I like crowds, I buzz off the extra nerves of doing things in front of people, the Cobble Wobble in Frome for example. I never would have thought I could get pleasure riding hard up a hill!!! But bouncing off the cobbles, trying to put pressure down without wheel spinning (do u say that??) And have the street lined with people in funny outfits cheering their heads off for you, its fucking cool! It makes me buzz with adrenaline and concentrate on what I am doing. And anything that makes me concentrate is a winner in my book of personal entertainment!

Burning my legs dressed as Christmas at the Cobble Wobble

There is usually an added element of camaraderie amongst the riders. Sometimes, like at the Tyne Tunnel race by the Veloctiy crew, there is a lot of  money up for grabs, so the competition is high. But, the strength of the unknown is stronger, you have to chat to riders to find out what they know, how they anticipate it, how they think it will feel, to prepare you best you can. So you all end up clustering together, feeling slightly jittery, and all united by the feeling of "why am I doing this? Will I embarrass myself? If I do embarrass myself at least I am with these guys now and not just a lone loser..."

Hanging with the racers pre-Tyne Tunnel Sprint at Velocity Street Race

so u wanna beat them, but you wanna align yourself with them too.

So, that will explain why I wanted to find out more about this super enduro. It was in the Echo arena in Liverpool,  which is like, a big stadium, and the format was following motorbikes. I dont know anything about motorbikes, so that meant nothing to me, I just put my faith in the fact someone else obviously thought it was a good idea. Not many girls were signing up, and me and Maxine, my super cool buddy who raced the Tunnel race with me, were both game for it. We badgered a load of girls to join us and have this big old trip, race, party in liverpool.  Some girls were busy, some girls knew about super enduro motobikes and made the call that it wouldn't be possible so they'd rather sit out and see how it goes.

How it looked initially

In the end, me, Maxine and Lorena drove up and met Sandy (I have blogged about Sandy before, she is so cool it makes me wanna run around the cafe I am writing this from shouting "you should meet sandy!!!" And a couple of other girls were already signed up.

Smiles en-route to the race

From here, I don't really know how to write this to make it interesting. The event was a motocross event, and the mountain bikes were meant to be an additional show using the same track. The track was mud and went over logs (big ones) and other obstacles.

After arriving we looked at the course and thought,  what the fuck?!, that simply isnt rideable. We got our bikes out and gave it a go, the original course had been shorted, so we only had 4 obstacles to do, but the mud/clay was so sticky it was hard just to ride the flat. I attempted the thing where we rode over tractor tyres, which were bigger than me, and after 3 or 4 goes I managed to get to the top, and my heart felt like it was gonna explode!!

We had some meetings, the organisers said they'd get some ply wood to modify it and we all went off.

The Charity Ball

An interlude to all this was that a lady, Sheena, from Twitter had contacted us and we basically ended up inviting ourselves to a charity ball that night. At one point we had run to H&M to get ball gowns for under a tenner (I was in charge of choosing something for sandy) and after all the problems with the course we ended up late for dinner. We quickly changed in the car park, where I quickly realised the colourful floor length gown i had got for Sandy was in fact a Rustafarian beach dress... my sparkly shorts turned Maxines boots into a hooker outfit... and the shoes Lorena had bought still had the security tag on, so she had to remain in trainers. I am laughing writing this, we looked so ridiculous that we could barely leave the car park we were laughing so hard. We tried to sneak into this ball...2 hours late, right in the middle of the raffle and where everyone looked like super models and one table of people actually laughed at us. I have never been so embarrassed in my life!

hooker

rasta

Yup...we were all at the same party!

However, the food was stunning and the dancing was energetic and at 2.30 am after a screw up with parking,  we ended up back at Sheena's house.

luxury meal

It is also worth noting,  Maxine looked stunning...and Lorena had oil on her face.

So we got up at 7, got back to the venue for this race, and no changes had been made to the course. We rode/ran/scrambled it and ummed and arred for a bit. Then the motocross dudes went on and BOOM the track was ruined!

We called a riders meeting and made a decision that the girls, and half the guys, were not gonna race. It sucked, because Anneka who had driven from holland really wanted to ride, and if we didn't,  she couldn't.  This made the decision really hard, but after the embarrassment of the night before, I think us girls felt like we just wanted to retain some pride, for ourselves and our beloved sport. The prize money didnt change that feeling. So we declared ourselves out.

It tasted pretty bitter, and was it the right decision? I dunno, but put it this way, when the winner of the guys won his race, nobody clapped, I dont think anyone even noticed. In the middle of an arena! Six girls, crawling over tractor tyres, dragging our bikes...it makes me cringe even more than it does thinking about turning up to a charity ball dressed as a hooker!

So, imagine dragging your bike over something like this...

We stayed around and watched the motorbikes,  the best race of the day was definitely the girls. It was close, it was brutal and it had the audience stood up and screaming, which none of the boys races managed. I was proud of that, because a lot was made of the mtb girls, whether we should or even could do our race. But racing is about entertainment,  us mtbers wouldn't have been able to provide that here, but the motocross girls? Well yeah, they were slower than the guys, but holy shit, did they put on a show!!

Anyway, after a few disasters later on the journey, which I wont go into, we came to the conclusion: we try stuff, we give shit a go, and it cant work out every time, but when it does...its the freaking best decision in the whole world ever!!!

So, your bike will bring you on many adventures....even if you don't actually ride it!