RAF Wittering Supermotoped 2010 round 1

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RAF Wittering Supermotoped 2010 round 1

Post by -g- » Mon May 24, 2010 9:45 am

I've always liked the idea of moped endurance racing and have done it once before with the national club I raced sports bikes with a few years ago (BMCRC) who held a special event in February 2007; unfortunately the DNA125 we used for that isn't applicable for any other events I could find.

When I saw that an eight hour event was being held at RAF benson, very close to me, I thought it'd be rude not. Two friends sitting around were willingly conscripted and we found a c90 on ebay that was very within 20 miles, ending a couple of hours later. Some sharp eyed sniping won the bike and we collected that evening.

As things progressed, having some grander plans for what I would like to do the ped (and possibly wanting to have more riding time/faster team mates, I admit) I decided to try and set up another team and get another bike or two to play with.
After several times being let down by people promising to sell to then going elsewhere, I managed to acquire two more from ebay that weren't too far away - the first one I started modifying to take some WP CCM suspension I had lying around; unfortunately with a week to go, the reality was that I had no chance off getting it near done if I was to go to work as well! With a front end modified along, it was going to be a serious 'chopper' style and it would need rather a lot of luck to get a rear end that worked as I hoped.
I instead did all the basic servicing on my 'back up' bike (includes the rattly valves, which were way off), which proved to be generally in a very reasonable condition - maybe the ebay page wasn't such a fabrication and it justified the £100 extra I spent on it over the first one! I had ridden the other one at four marks; an off-road practice track/mess about area; but had not ridden this at all really before the event. The team I have defected from have plenty of time to work on their space theme for the bike and the riders:
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The sunny weather, while normally welcome, didn't make packing the van so pleasant; I was soaked in sweat at 7pm and didn't have time to change clothes.
We got to RAF Wittering soon the last sunshine disappeared; after driving around in circles for a little bit we finally found the designated area and setup camp.
After setting up tents, some general titting around on the bikes a late night BBQ is decided upon:
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I also try and get some tarty slow shutter speed pictures of the bikes, but it doesn't work particularly well:
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I get up not too long after the 7am listed official start time for the day - to be confronted with a fluffy white misty atmosphere - not the shorts weather I was expecting, I keep on the 'work' short sleeved shirt I've been wearing since the previous morning and get signed on, then start cooking some breakfast (egg and bacon sandwhiches) as my team mate Luke arrives, having ridden up from Readin, leaving at 5:30!

There's a basic briefing then we have an hour practice from 9 to 10 - As I'm getting in to leathers I send Luke out for his first ride of a c90. We each have a couple of goes at the circuit; with only two of us there's plenty of time as the day really starts to heat up.
Last minute tinkering after the practice session sees me attaching my bullet camera system as well as finishing off the 'number boards' - or the top of two pizza boxes with some gaffa tape numbers.

More to come... laptop about to die and needs to be rebooted...

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Re: RAF Wittering Supermotoped 2010 round 1

Post by Boo » Mon May 24, 2010 10:27 am

Exciting!!! I'm glued for part 2!! :D

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Re: RAF Wittering Supermotoped 2010 round 1

Post by -g- » Mon May 24, 2010 5:32 pm

Before I forget, here's a quickly edited video Sarah of "One small stepthrough" did - the footage is from my onboard camera and some taken from the side.

I chose to do the LeMans style start myself (what with putting most of the money and all the time in :) ) - lining up I check with the bloke I'm standing next to and we decide to switch places as our paths are going to cross. The people holding bikes are all asked to move one bike along, so there's less opportunity to cheat by giving your team's bike a bit of a shove away.
Running across in proper motocross boots isn't ideal, but I get the bike started quickly, however I don't quite get it into gear at the first attempt, meaning when I try again I'm revving it a bit too much and wheelie away, though still managing a respectable 'hole shot' position around 5th. Unfortunately the first lap definitely shows up the inadequacies of the C90 suspension and stock power levels and I get passed by quite a few in the first lap - the second lap I'm perhaps trying a bit too hard to compensate and drop it one of the dirt sections.
Thankfully it's a relatively nice crashing experience (something I do have a lot familiarity with) - slow speed and the bike's still running with the auto clutch disengaged so you can jump straight back on. However, for the remainder of my first session out, I do have increased ground clearance on the right thanks to the now differently-contoured peg!

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After another crash I realise I'm probably trying a little too hard and tiring myself out a bit too much - I'm approaching it more like a club race than an enduro. I do occasionally do off-road Hare and Hounds and enduro practices; however there there's a much longer track were there tends to be a wider range of skills (ie, everyone's flying past me :) ) so less incentive to 'give chase'.
I manage to calm myself down a bit, as I'm definitely also getting quite tired and it's only the first session of many!
After calming down a bit I head back in - note must add a small watch to the bars for next time - or get my veypor working on it maybe :) - a lot of the time I was wondering how long I'd been out, as time can get into a bit of a blur when you're into that zen-like state attempting to keep the bike just on the right side of crashing.

After I give the bike to Luke for the second time, I watch for a bit, then head off to get the BBQ stuff, with the intention of getting some food going at some point. After some dithering at the van, I collect all the required bits; walking back Jay of team "One Small Steptthough" is ambling towards me. It turns out that Luke has got a puncture - I head back to get the tyre levers and spare innertubes. Getting back to our 'pit' area Luke has already got the front wheel off, I start loosening the rimlock and valve, then start looking for the tyre levers I had just brought over. After some fruitless looking, I decide I must have forgotten them so grab my KTM 690 that's handily sitting there - with further minutes wasted I get back and start getting the old tube out.

I do have some instant tyre-repair stuff, but only one small tube, so don't want to risk it in case it doesn't work. I do however stick some in the new innertube to hopefully help prevent any future punctures. Which doesn't work so well when I managed to get two pinch flats trying to replace the tyre on the rim which are too big for the foam to heal. Moral of the story - use lube, protection or be very careful!
Luckily I have more than one spare innertube - and I'm a lot more careful on the second one.
With it back on Luke asks if he's okay to go out again - which I'm quite happy for him to do as I'm still quite knackered.

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Going out for another session myself, I'm still feeling a bit abused, but am getting used to where I need to stand up to smooth things out a bit and which lines to take for the path of least resistance. I do think that perhaps racing a bike with a basic design from the 1950s and even then one that was designed to be cheap rather than for performance perhaps isn't the sensiblist idea out there. It seems you really do need to use the gears to make decent progress, but first gear runs out very quickly giving no noticeable acceleration unless from a stop, while changing into third sees it bog a bit, then very slowly start to increase speed with the main benefit seemingly being that the engine isn't screaming, as much as the muted exhaust allows.

The day is very hot and not ideal for full leathers - even in an off-road enduro I'd be going a lot faster most of the time and then have a lot more 'breathable' kit on. I did change from my Shoei XR1000 to a Hornet ('adventure' style) helmet, which allows a bit more movement of air around my face - doesn't mean the helmet isn't soaked in swear when I take it off, though.
I'm also still wearing my black short-sleeved shirt from work the previous day, probably not ideal.

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A lot of the times coming back in to swap bikes I do have to make some minor 'repairs' to the position of pegs and levers, with the aid of a large crowbar. I had bought some aftermarket folding footpegs, but they wouldn't fit with the stock exhaust so stayed at home.

More to come when I get home ....

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Re: RAF Wittering Supermotoped 2010 round 1

Post by Newtsalad » Mon May 24, 2010 9:03 pm

Superb, just absolutely superb. Fair play to you for getting there, I am gutted we couldn't be there, with the close of Wittering and Benson in the pipeline, each of these meets is so special.
There won't be many opportunities to do this in future, PC and the compo culture will see to that.
We just had too much on, and ag's exam shift was the final straw, but we MUST make the September meet.
Thank you so much for posting this up.
Good job chaps, good job.

Gutted. :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

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Re: RAF Wittering Supermotoped 2010 round 1

Post by -g- » Tue May 25, 2010 12:04 am

Eh? I'm sure I pasted the link to the video in, here it is again: http://blip.tv/file/3661917

As the day went on I settled in to a bit more consistent lapping - though unforuntaley this was a bit TOO consistent and didn't account for the changing track, where more and more dirt was being deposited further up the entrance to the tarmac sections.
Crashing, almost crashing, then crashing again on the third lap got me a big cheer in front of the timekeepers. I had been hanging off quite a lot whiched seemed to be working ok - this should allow the suspension to work better for bumps in the track. I was able to keep up and sometimes catch up with better speced bikes in the longer corners generally - though straightline speed was still letting me down.
However I was getting some decent jittering from the front wheel with any reasonable cornering.
As the race went on I tried experimenting with sticking my more foot-out on the tarmac. Especially after I repeated my 'two crashes in three laps' thing in the same place, though this time at the back section of the course - all Luke's fault for telling me to crash less!

While when I had been told that the time was only one'o'clock it did seem like there was an awful long slog still to go, by three'o'clock I was getting in to it - possibly settling down a bit and generally my body always seem to get a decent 'second wind' after not really having a first one.

Thinking we only had twenty minutes or so left, I felt I better come in and give Luke a last ride - with instructions to stay out until the end if he so wanted. Turned out it was actually getting on for forty, so he did come in and I got the final ride. At this point I'd have still happily carried on for another hour or two I reckon (well, another couple of half hour stints anyway :) ), but sadly it was over. I entirely failed to wheelie or stoppy at the end (a stoppy is just about possible purely from body weight I have found in the past), however I did manage a celebratory burnout - not quite as impressive in sound or smoke as a sixth gear burnout on a 143hp superbike though.

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I did manage some wheelies while riding however - though I admit these were 'posed' as I wanted a tarty picture :).

All that was left was to tidy up our stuff and give a hand with tidying the course marking tyres up.
Then check on the results, where we found we'd ended up 15th out of 46 - a result we were pretty happy with considering it was two of us on an entirely stock c90 (bar the pizza box number boards anyway) - a later email offered some corrected results and it turned out we actually finished in 13th place with 194 laps - just 25 shy of the winners. Even more pleased with that, especially factoring in our puncture issues.
Still not having had lunch, we fired up the BBQ and further put off the dreaded 'packing the van' duties.

We waited around for the presentation before heading home and while we were way out of sight of any awards, 'One Small Stepthrough' did manage to get the Best Dressed award.

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Re: RAF Wittering Supermotoped 2010 round 1

Post by aliengravy » Tue May 25, 2010 2:26 am

Guys what can i say!! Proper proper well done!! :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!:
I am extremely jealous!! I really wish we could have been there!! :( :( :( :(
Looks like you had a good race! And you came back in one piece which is the main thing!!

Hopefully we will see you on the track in Sept :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

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Re: RAF Wittering Supermotoped 2010 round 1

Post by Neil-Cheltenham » Tue May 25, 2010 8:05 pm

Hi G
I had no idea that was you or I would have come and said hello. We were team 53 (always at Wittering but we keep changing our name): Noodle and the Nob Heads with the bike covered in Rainbow coloured fur. In case you were wondering, all the comments about an air ambulance were being directed at us as my friend Kevin had a bit of an accident last year and set a new record for the number of broken bones in a single crash at Wittering. Thank goodness that didn't happen again and all of us made it to the end in one piece. I'm so pleased you enjoyed yourselves and I hope to see you at the next event, pop over and say hello :-)

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Re: RAF Wittering Supermotoped 2010 round 1

Post by -g- » Wed May 26, 2010 12:26 am

Cool - your bike was definitely 'noticeable' (and obvious where the bits of multicoloured fur around the track came from :P ).

My friend's got a few more pictures up now if you're interseted, sure I saw one of you at least:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16567909@N ... 133564960/

We're also in the process of uploading all the raw footage we got re-encoded - but even then it's 4gb, so gonna take a while. Will stick a link up when we're done.

Thought I saw another c90 or two that I recognised from pictures on here, but was generally too busy to investigate.

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Re: RAF Wittering Supermotoped 2010 round 1

Post by Neil-Cheltenham » Wed May 26, 2010 7:13 pm

Hi G
Another bike you may recognised was Poppet. The organisers had asked if anyone had a spare bike they borrow for use by the marshals, so as it was a nice day on Friday I hopped on Poppet and rode her from here in Cheltenham up to Wittering and then the marshals used her on Saturday whilst we raced Noodle. I think Poppet was the only one on the track with a number plate and lights on.
Noodles fur was a nightmare as we had fixed it on using double sided carpet tape, but the adhesive became soft in the sun and Noodle started scattering fur everywhere. She was almost bald by the end and it took me ages to pick it all up! So we will have to think of a new fixing method next time.......maybe velcro. All in all I was very happy with Noodle as we had only finished building her 3 days before the race and ridden her no further than 20ft. The parts to make her came from anything and everything and she must contain bits from at least ten different bikes, even the engine and carb were assembled from spare parts of mostly unknown history. On the day though she performed almost perfectly with the only major mechanical happening during practise when the pilot jet fell into the bottom of the float bowl, I guess I didn't do that up then.....oops, like I say even the carb had been built out of spare bits.
All the Best
Nut

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Re: RAF Wittering Supermotoped 2010 round 1

Post by Pjam » Wed May 26, 2010 9:45 pm

I don't know what to say! just brilliant. Thanks for putting it up. You must have lost a lot of time with that puncher, You did really well. :)

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