Page 150 - Classics Issue

Those of you who are regulars to Paddock Life will know that my frst passion is motorbikes and over the years I have owned, raced and crashed most varieties. I of course still like to keep a few tucked away in the garage and although I don’t get out as much as I use to, a weekend blasting off-road on my trusty Yamaha WR250 is my favoured choice of 2 wheeled excitement these days.Despite the mild and dry winter the UK has been enjoying in the main, I have not had the opportunity to tear up the countryside this year until Ade (my neighbour and business partner in our bike building business - 1.618 Machines) and fellow off road enthusiast knocked on my door a couple of weeks back and asked if I would help him over the weekend with a little project. As it turned out he is planning a motorcycle navigation rally event for trail/off road motorbikes in the Brecon Beacons in Wales and needed to go for a few days riding to plot the course for his event. Now I could not turn down a neighbour who ‘needed my help’ or at least this is how it was pitched to my wife before I disappeared off for 3 days and therefore I had to go.I was slightly apprehensive as Ade also informed me that we were camping! Last time I had spent a night under canvas was in also in Wales at a wet and windy race circuit called Pembrey, ahead of an endurance race weekend back in the days when I raced a Honad CBR 600 SuperSport in the British Endurance Championship. That night I got no sleep – mainly thanks to some no riding rowdy neighbours, soaking wet and thoroughly grumpy. The following night promptly checked into a bed and breakfast. That was over twenty years ago. On this occasion, I packed for every permutation of weather and took two of everything just in case and with bikes tools, tents and a giant kit bag full of riding gear options for every eventuality – as Alfred Wainwright once quoted “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing”, packed into the van, 5am on Friday morning soon came around and we headed for the hills. In under 3 hours we were rolling into the Erwlon caravan and camping park on the edge of Brecon Beacons near a charming little village called Llandovery, we found our plot with electricity hook up and a short walk to an immaculate block of bathrooms, power showers and nearly all the creature comforts of home – I don’t remember it being like this in the scouts! So maybe this camping lark would not be so bad after all. It took two grown men rather longer than necessary to erect a relatively simple 2-man tent but we had our own pods inside, I had bought a fold out bed, sleeping