| Posted: 05 June 2010 at 5:56am | IP Logged
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Ok as promised (and for all of you insomniacs out there), here's my full piece I've written for the TR3OC club magazine.
Hope you don't get too bored reading it
22nd / 23rd May 2010 : Brit Butt Rally
After riding in this rally for the first time last year using my T160 Legend and getting a finishers award, I was “chomping at the bit” to get a chance to compete in it again and so as soon as the dates were announced, I submitted my application. Over 400 people apparently applied for the 50 or so places and so when on Christmas Eve I received the e-mail to say my application had been successful, I was more than a little pleased. The fact that both John Jnr and Sonia also managed to make the cut, meant that the 2010 Brit Butt Rally was truly going to be a family affair.
Although in 2009, I had finished the rally (in 23rd place), I knew that I’d ridden well inside of my comfort zone. This was mainly because John Jnr had ridden most of the route with me (although we had separated for most of the final third of the rally) and with it being his first “scatter rally” of any sort (nothing like jumping in at the deep end), my paternal instinct had overcome my competitive nature. The fact that, as is now documented, after we’d split, he pulled a bit of a flanker on me so that he finished three places higher in the final standing, meant there was little chance of me repeating that mistake again JJ
It did briefly cross my mind to use the Daytona 955i, as on that bike I believe that I could be truly competitive enough to possibly win the rally, but the lure of seeing just how high I could get in the standings on one of my “proper” Triples just proved too strong.
Although the Legend had performed admirably last year, having to use sling over panniers and a rucksack to carry my bits and pieces on the rally had slowed me down. The lack of a fairing and most noticeably the lack of a dedicated bike Sat-Nav had also played their part to ensure that it was a less than spectacular debut for me in 2009. These were points that I intended to address this year.
The obvious choice to ride on the rally (well at least to me it was) out of my collection of bikes was the totally standard 1975 T160 that I’ve had for around 12 years but hardly really used, as frankly compared with some of my other bikes, it’s just a bit dull …. If I really wanted to test a Triple against modern BMW’s, Harleys and modern Jap superbikes, using anything other than a totally standard bike would (again in my opinion) provide a false comparison. For example the Legend, the Renegade and the Slippery Sam Replica all have substantially larger than standard petrol tanks, a much better seating position and up rated electrics. On the other hand, the T160 is still exactly how it left the factory some 35 years ago.
The one concession I did allow myself was that I could add to the bike anything that would have been available back in 1975. These aren’t IBA rules, but were the rules that I set myself.
Over the four months or so leading up to the rally, these are the list of “improvements”, I made to the bike :
- Fitted a Vetter Windjammer III fairing. This was introduced in the Spring of 1974. Personally, I slightly prefer the look of the Windjammer SS, but those weren’t available until 1977
- Fitted a Craven rack and QD panniers. These were one of the “standard” UK luggage kits available back in the seventies
- Fitted a up rated seat with more foam padding. This was an upgrade that was relatively easy to do back when the bikes were new and so I felt it was justifiable.
- Fitted Boyer electronic ignition for reliability. Although there are now better ignition systems available, in 1975 it was a straight choice between the Boyer Bransden system or the Lucas RITA system. You can no longer buy the RITA system, but the Boyer is still freely available, so that was what went on.
- I swapped the T160 UK style handlebars for T160 US style again to improve the seating position.
The only modern concession I allowed myself was the use of a Sat-Nav as using maps for most of the 2009 event had simply wasted too much time. I figured that I needed at least one nod to modernity in order to help to begin to level the playing field with my fellow competitors on their far more modern machines - I don’t think that even my harshest critic would deny me this …..
Although one week before the rally, I decided that the bike needed a quick top end overhaul – new rings etc – as the rally approached, I was becoming more confident of a good finish. The bike was running well and on the “training run” for the BBR (basically the Welsh National Rally), I’d ridden the bike near on 500 miles in 14 hours without too much discomfort.
The bike – all kitted up and ready to go. Glory (or total embarrassment) awaited ……
On the Wednesday night, I packed the panniers with any spares that I thought I might need, waterproofs that given the weather forecast, I thought I’d definitely not need but they went in anyway and all of the other bits and pieces required to do what is billed the Toughest Road Rally outside of the USA.
Finally it was time for us to set off for the hotel. By “us” I meant myself and Sonia as John had been unable to secure the time off work from his new job. He had found this out early in the year and had notified Pete West (the Rally master) back in February that he needed to withdraw his entry from the rally.
Apart from heavy traffic and it already being very hot, after a couple of hours we arrived at the Cheshunt Marriott. Both bikes had ran well although a plug had failed on my bike about 3 miles from the hotel, but a quick change to a new one once we’d checked in, cured the misfire that had developed.
There were a handful of riders staying over on the Thursday evening and we eat dinner with Sam Clarke. Both the company and the meal were fine. What wasn’t so great was the fact that I managed to break a tooth whilst eating the food !! When I woke the next morning, I had a mouth full of blood where I'd cut my mouth open on the jagged edge of the broken tooth and my pillow looked like some demented axe murderer had been at work. I needed to find a dentist to fix it and after several fruitless phones calls, I found one about 2 miles away who could fit me in. I have never been more grateful to have pain inflicted on me by a dentist than I was that morning. The dentists was even next to a petrol station, so I was able to kill two birds with one stone !!
By the time I returned back to the hotel, the car park was filling up with rallyists and it was time for the formal part of the rally to begin.
First I needed to register at Rally control. Here, as well as being given your various forms for the technical inspection of the bike, you have your photograph taken. When (and if) you get back, you again have your photograph taken thereby ensuring that the photographs sandwiched in between the two mug shots can only have been taken on the rally.
Next is the safety checking. I patiently waited my turn in the line and eventually was “done” by Steve (Codcutter). The bike passed ok as did the Trocket. Next it was the odometer check. Here you are given a pre-planned route to follow. Your odometer is checked before you leave and checked again when you return. Later you are given an “adjusting factor” that you apply to your odometer reading to ensure that you’ve met the minimum mileage requirement. I found out after the rally that of the 40 bikes or so tested, mine was the only one that was 100% accurate !! The speedo on the Trocket however was something like 8% out and so Sonia would need to adjust her minimum mileage requirement to take account of this fact.
Then you wait ………..
Around 7.30pm, we all assembled for the pre-rally meal. Lots and lots of pasta was on offer. I remember from my training for the one (and only) marathon race that I ever run, pasta is a great “slow-burn” food, releasing energy into the body over a long period of time. I made sure my plate was very full as we wouldn’t be eating again properly for 48 hours.
After the meal, the rally books were given out, Pete notified us of a couple of printing errors, we were told the minimum number of points and (unadjusted) miles for a finish (28500 points and 1206 miles) and then we promptly retired to our rooms to plan.
Shortly before dinner, we had already prepared the room for the route planning. A five foot high map of the British Isles had been pinned up on the wall, post it notes had been cut up into strips and numbered and were all neatly ready to be put on the map and both of our Tom-Toms had been charged.
I’m lucky in that I know the UK very well. Years of National rallies, Landmark Challenges and just general riding have given me a much better than average appreciation of how our country is laid out and with 10 minutes of returning to the room, the map was adorned with 67 bonus locations. After suggesting to Sonia what she should look for when planning her route, I settled down to look at my own. My route was actually forced upon me to some extent by my choice of bike. A 35 year old T160 is simply not capable of covering high distances both quickly and reliably. High distances and quick tend to be mutually exclusive concepts in the world of Triples J - especially if the temperature was going to be as high as forecast. Anything north of Blackpool was therefore immediately ruled out, as was anything west of Bristol, either in Wales or Devon/Cornwall. So I effectively went for everything else. My initial route showed a possible 33 bonus locations and a score of in excess of 42,000. On the Daytona, I knew that this route would have been perfectly possible. However on the T160, I also knew that it wasn’t !! There were two obvious places were I could change the route simply by missing out two or three checkpoints if I began to run short of time and as it happened these were more or less a third and two thirds into my “ideal” route. After punching in the 33 bonuses into the Sat-Nav it had already turned midnight and after checking that Sonia was ok with her route and taking a final stroll around the car park to clear my head, I hit the sack. Sonia had a much less ambitious route than myself, in that she simply wanted to be the first female to get a BBR finish …..
What seemed like only a few seconds later, the 4.45am alarm sounded. I was dressed and outside with a coffee in hand by 5.00am giving my bike a final check over. Sonia duly appeared at 5.20am and by the allotted time of 5.30am we were primed and ready to go.
After last year, I knew the benefit of getting near the front of the queue of bikes at the start line and bang on 6.00am, Robert Roalfe was the first to leave the car park. I think myself and Sonia were probably in the next five or so bikes to get away. Sonia headed west, I headed into central London. I wouldn’t see her again for 36 hours. Even at 6.00am, it was already very warm. This didn’t bode well for comfortable riding later in the day
My first bonus location was the Cenotaph in Whitehall. This was a popular choice of competitors given the amount of riders who by the time I arrived, were already there. From the Cenotaph I headed east, picking up the points at Greenwich before heading down into Kent. One of the problems that people seem to make on the BBR is that they fail to see the “big picture”. Whilst none of the three bonus locations in Kent was particularly high scoring, together they mounted up to nearly 2000 points but at the same time you could put some miles under your wheels whilst collecting the points. It seems to me to be so important to be constantly monitoring the accumulation of both points and distance as you go along.
A nice “bonus” of my ride down into Kent was that in the early morning, a blanket of mist covered the county that meant that I didn’t start riding in the very hot sun until later in the morning as I approached Heathrow.
I had quickly settled into a routine. I needed fuel approximately every three bonus stops and so with each fill up I would buy enough water and snack bars to drink and eat whilst I was taking my photographs at the next batch of bonuses before the pattern repeated itself at the next petrol station. Likewise, my routine at bonus locations never varied, following the same routine at each and every place.
1. Arrive.
2. Kill engine (or as the temperature rose, the bike just conked !!)
3. Final check as to what was needed from Bonus Book.
4. Flag out, camera out
5. Picture
6. Details logged in notebook – time, mileage etc
7. Flag back in tank bag, camera back in tank bag, bonus book back in pannier.
8. Fire bike up and leave.
I repeated this pattern over and over again, never changing the order. In the meantime, I kept my wheels rolling constantly as I simply did not have time for anything other than scheduled breaks.
A typical “bonus picture” – this one was in Wantage, Oxfordshire
As early afternoon approached and having “done” London, Kent and the M40 and A34 corridor up to and then south of Oxford, I arrived at Southampton. This was the first of my places were my route planning allowed a deviation without affecting the overall big picture route. Given that time was marching on, that the traffic around the coast was incredibly heavy and that my bike was protesting violently at slow speeds in towns due to the heat, I decided to forgo three previously planned for bonuses. The bonuses that I was about to give up were worth just under 3000 points. However, as I’d sat in my hotel room 18 hours earlier planning my route, I’d always known that the perfect route I had planned was actually just not achievable on the Trident. Although therefore the “xanadu” of 42000 points couldn’t be achieved, I’d always really known that the far more likely scenario was that I could probably get a score of somewhere between 35,000 and 38,00 points assuming all went well and so even with this slight alteration to plan, I was still on course.
From Southampton, I spent the next seven hours making my way first across country to Bristol and then north ultimately around midnight finding myself in Blackpool. At Chirk, I met my first BBR co-participant since I’d seen Simon on his Rocket 3 in Ashford nearly twelve hours earlier. This time is was Tim on his Triumph Sprint and I allowed myself the unbridled luxury of a five minute break to have a chat. From Southampton to Blackpool, I had been consistently scoring points. As I took photographs of various locations around Blackpool (the actual picture specified was not possible due to the tower not being illuminated), I knew that subject to my paperwork being correct and my sleep bonus being verified as good, I had already enough points, if not miles to secure a finish – albeit probably quite low in the rankings.
From Blackpool I had one more bonus planned before I stopped for my rest break. This was the “Another Place” sculpture (Iron Men) on a beach in Liverpool. As this was a time sensitive bonus – you could only take the picture a low tide – when I arrived there was a group of riders there. Apart from the Cenotaph and the Greenwich clock at the very beginning of the rally, this was the only bonus where I came across more than one other rider throughout the entire 36 hours. With my photograph in the bag (and more importantly the 1100 points it was worth), I headed for the M62 and the first service station I could find for my rest break.
It was 1.40am when I switched off the bike. Apart from fuel and bonus breaks, my 35 year old engine had run continuously for almost the last 20 hours in temperatures approaching 30 degrees. After getting my timed receipt for a day old cheese sandwich from the 24/7 shop at the services, I returned to the bike just to give it a quick check over. Nothing seemed too bad. Sure, in the big towns it had started to spit and bang a little, but other than that, it was running well. The chain had started to sag a little, but on the basis of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, I left well alone. It wasn’t that bad that it would get me back to Cheshunt.
With having satisfied myself that the bike was fine, next was to reassess exactly how I was doing and to check whether everything that I’d done so far was ok. If I assumed that my paperwork was going to stand up to scrutiny I was already well past the 30,000 points mark and as importantly, I had nearly 900 miles on the clock. Things were looking good. Then the phone beeped. I had a text message ……….
It was from Sonia and it was basically a message to say that she’d lost final drive on the Trocket, she was on the hard shoulder of the M6, on her own, in the pitch black, somewhere near to Lancaster – but don’t worry !! Mmmmm ……
I was obviously back on the phone to her straight away. Although she’d let me know earlier in the evening that the Trike had been running hot (as it happened I later discovered that one of the relays that controls the fan was beginning to fail), she had been going well. At the time of the “little problem”, she had amassed (along with her rest bonus and fuel log) over 20,000 points and had covered nearly 70% of her required mileage.
This was the “Little Problem”. The drive shaft had sheared off !!
In fact the emergency services were very good and within 30 minutes had a “pretend policeman” (aka Traffic officer) with her who then stayed with her until she was recovered by Carole Nash. She finally got home around 7.30am, went to bed for a couple of hours and then drove back down to Cheshunt for the Sunday evening to help with the scoring and for the presentations. She’s now eagerly awaiting the opportunity for another crack at the BBR in 2011.
Once I knew that Sonia was ok, I was able to relax a little and spent the last hour of my three hour break drifting in and out of a very light sleep. At 4.42am, I picked up my second sleep bonus receipt and hit the road again.
I had worked out during the rest break (and checked and then rechecked my calculations) that if I visited the planned bonuses for the Sunday, I was still on course for a good points haul and as importantly would cover the remaining 350 or so miles that I needed for the minimum mileage requirement. So it was easy then from here on in ….. JJ
On the Sunday I basically worked my way across the country from Liverpool to Donnington, via Manchester, Stoke, the Peak District and Nottinghamshire. After Donnington, it was down through the Midlands eventually finishing at Broadway and the Tower. More importantly, I had again been continually scoring as I was clocking up the miles. It was just before 12.30pm when I pointed the wheels away from Broadway and headed back to the finish. At this stage, it was still my plan to collect a final 600 points at Hertford and Harlow obviously dependent on how much time I had when I got nearer to Cheshunt.
Having picked up the M40 and then joined the M25 clockwise I was making good progress and was trundling up the A10 at 2.45pm. I had already decided as I’d ridden around the M25 that I wouldn’t risk the final two controls and the heat was beginning to affect the carburetion on the bike quite badly whenever I found myself crawling through traffic. Both of the bonuses looked as though they would involve some town work and so as I knew that I already had a respectable score, I didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances. Now all I needed to do was to ride up the A10 past the hotel for 10 miles or so, just to give myself plenty of breathing space on the mileage front, turn around and ride triumphantly (pardon the pun) across the finish line ……
The Sat Nav read 6.1 miles to go. The bike was running like a dream, purring along at 60mph in beautiful sunshine and with a hatful of points accumulated. At 6 miles to go, the bike stopped dead. Blown fuse – but not just blown, the fuse holder had melted and the end of the fuse had soldered themselves to the metal terminals within the fuse holder. After repairing the fuse holder as best I could, I put another fuse in which promptly blew. I was then down to three spares fuses …..
Next I waggled the wiring loom to see whether that had any effect. New fuse, ignition on – blown fuse ! Two fuses left now …….
Has anyone seen the original version of the film “The Flight of the Phoenix” with James Stewart and the six firing cartridges at the end ? That was what was going through my head ……
At this moment, I sat down on the side of the road and burst into tears simply out of frustration. I phoned in to the final control to let them know that I was probably going to be a non-finisher. They asked whether I could push it home …. 6 miles in 2 hours in 27 degrees after being awake for nearly 72 hours (remember Friday night had been spent mainly planning) – I think not !! LJ
I looked at myself in one of the mirrors. My tears had left streaks in the dirt on my face …..
At that time I thought “F*ck this, I am NOT going to fail. Me and my bike deserve to finish” and promptly started ripping out ( I didn’t have time for niceties like disconnecting in a controlled and logical manner) any wiring not directly concerned with forward propulsion – lights, horn, starter motor, indicators, charging system – basically anything not directly connected with sparks.
New fuse – I turned the power on and it didn’t blow. The only problem now was I has no sparks !! I was lucky in that I quickly found the fault – I’d pulled off a wire into the Boyer black box and with the next kick, the T160 started.
I am not ashamed to say that as I talked the bike home over the last few miles, I cried every yard back. We'd given everything that we could into the rally ride, me and my bike and we weren't going to let something like this screw us up !! (As I reconnected the wiring on the Monday morning, I actually found the fault before I left for home – it was as simple as one of the wires to the starter motor was shorting on the frame)
This had been my view for the previous 34 hours ……
As I rode into the hotel car park, I was actually the first rider home and as Pete and Roger shook my hand (and took the required photograph) words simply cannot convey how I felt. Me and my bloody bike had done it. We’d taken on this mammoth challenge and got back safe and sound. Now all I needed to do, was not screw up the scoring !!
As I had plenty of time in hand, I decided to do my paperwork in my room. I had a nice shower, got changed into some clean clothes and with a cup of coffee by my side, sat down to complete the paperwork. First, the sleep bonus, then the photograph log, next the fuel log and finally the bonus book itself. I then checked the paperwork 3 times. My trusty trident didn’t deserve a “f*ck-up” from me at this stage and so every detail of that paperwork was checked and rechecked. Then I went down for scoring.
Fifteen minutes later, I left the score room with my points intact. My paperwork was faultless and the number of points I went into the room with, was the same number I came out with. Now all that I needed to know was how many that was !!!
Then we waited and waited until the evening meal was ready. After the evening meal, it was results time.
First the stats – how many non finishers, but Roger didn’t give out the names this year. Then the finishers, 27 in all. As the first few finishers were called out with none of the scores being above 31,000 points I knew that I was in with a chance of a good finish. However as my name still hadn’t appeared by 7th place and having seen some of the riders who had already been called, I began to have doubts as to whether I’d actually got a finish at all. Even though in my mind I had been so absolutely certain that my score was “a good ‘un”, self doubt started to creep in. Had I missed the mileage requirement ? No, I was certain that I was over the minimum. Had there been some monumental fault with my paperwork that hadn’t been discovered until after I’d left the scoring room ? All of these questions were flashing through my mind. When the fourth place name was called and I still hadn’t appeared I turned to Sonia and said “I think I’ve f*cked up. I haven’t even got a finish”.
And then I heard my name ….. One of the top three. As I walked to the front of the room, I was speechless. I couldn’t really have cared less what position I was now. As my name was finally read out in third place I looked around the room at some of the guys I managed to beat and still couldn’t quite believe it. Even now as I write this “story” two weeks on, I’m still on “cloud 9” about what a 50 year old bloke and a 35 year old bike managed to achieve over that weekend.
Before I sat down to write this piece, I looked at what I wrote about the Brit Butt Rally after riding in it in 2009. The final paragraph that I penned back then read :
“So how do I sum up the rally ?
Well actually, it was a brilliant event, by far the best road rally I’ve ever competed in. I think Johns ride at 21 years old, on a Supersports 600 and then getting a finish amazed a lot of people. So did the fact that I got a finish on the Legend, even though that deep down I know that had I have been riding on my own I would have been able to achieve a finish much higher up the list. In fairness though having seen how John performed, I suspect if he had been on his own he would also have finished higher. Assuming that we’re lucky enough to make the “cut” next year and get a starting place again, I suspect the “Youngs” will be a much more potent force. We may even be able to make it a family affair, since Sonia has subsequently announced her “intention” to put her name in for the draw.”
Maybe some of the people that read my article a year ago, though those comments where nothing more than idle boasts. I hope that me and my Trident have shown this year just what a well prepared Triple is capable of.
And as for next year ? Well, the thought of doing the BBR on my modern Daytona is just so appealing. I know that with modern machinery I could massively improve on my score. Over the course of this years rally, my Sat-Nav showed that I never once exceeded 65mph. On the Daytona, I simply wouldn’t have that hindrance. Not only that, I can ride the Daytona, hard, fast and for hours on end
However ……. I wonder, I just wonder whether I could improve on this years finish on another “Antiques Road show Special” again ?
Finally, thanks to Roger and Pete and all of the other Rally Team, the tech spec checkers, the scorers and all of the other unsung heroes for putting on a truly great event.
See you at Cheshunt next year …..
Edited by John Young on 05 June 2010 at 10:41am
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I do not want the last sentence that I speak alive in this world to start with the words "I wish I'd have ......"
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Iron Butt.org General Discussion : IBA UK
Topic: JY BBR 2010 - the Directors Cut
