Am milking the RN for one last bit of fun before I leave:

What a cracking day out. The weather was dreadful but us Matelots never worry bout getting a bit wet!

The facilities at the track were non-existent which was the only fair gripe about the day. It is unfair to moan about the other things as it is a one man operation and it would have cost more if he had an extra bod to pay and supply with a bike to ride.

Being a one man operation he relied on us helping him out with unloading and loading the bikes etc which wasn’t a problem but it did feel a little unprofessional, he also had me helping get the other riders get going as the majority had not even ridden a road bike and non had ridden offroad. This worked in my favour for the first half of the day as I got issued my own personal Honda CRF250 and extra time on the smaller track while he taught the others the basics of motorcycling. The others were all riding CRF230s which were far more novice friendly than the 250 (not that the 250 was a difficult bike to ride).

After he had taught the very basics he let them out to do some basic circles

When everyone was happy ish with how to make the bike move we went on to the novice track which I’d been let loose on prior. It was a nice lil circuit with both left and right berms and a lil jump. The course was very narrow tho which made passing harder to do without spooking the very novice riders but in doing so let them see how to get round the berms smoother and faster. Once they had all gotten the hang of that we went over to the main track which was lots wider so should have made overtaking easier. If any of you have done any trackdays in novice group you will know that that isn’t the case tho as the new riders will change line and brake/slow down for no reason etc so had to time passing them so as to not upset them or knock them off… I nearly went into the back of a bike doing exactly that but managed to stop just millimetres from hitting them (I then proceeded to stall after too lol).

The main circuit had 4 proper corners and several bends, there were a couple of jumps that were almost doubles which I didn’t have the confidence in the power of the bike to clear even tho I am sure that the 250 was more than capable of doing so in more experienced hands, if I was on my KTM200 I would have been in the air a lot more that is for sure!

Corner one was a lovely continuous radius berm, not tight but went on for a long way and was really quite satisfying to ride

this followed on to a jump, as I said I wasn’t familiar enough with the bike to jump it safely so mostly stayed with bot wheels on the deck.

Corner two was a wide left hander which you could use either the inside tight line or ride the berm

the inside line was faster I think and set you up better for the next bend which then led on to the double jump. Coming down the down ramp of that you could pick up some speed as you got to corner three

This was called “the wall of death” and was a very high berm on a tight 180 corner and was my favourite corner of the track (the first was my second fav).

This then led to the puddle, most were going round it, I paid good money to get dirty so went through it each lap with a giggle!

there was another jump leading to the forth and final corner

the ground here was more slippery and I struggled to find a line I was happy with, I nearly lost it one lap as I slid more than I expected to, dabbed my foot down to push me back up but the ground was a lot closer to my foot than I was expecting so I jarred my bad ankle which stung a tad.

We had two sessions on the main track, we had to ask for the second go tho as he wanted to pack up, this was after only 3hrs so am glad he let us or else we would have not had very much riding time all in.

There were a few offs, no one got hurt tho

here are the rest of my pics

I’ll stick the vids up when I get the chance to put them on youtube

I guess its just like teaching a novice to ride for the cbt but less formal. Less chance of hurting yourself seriously than on the road too.

I may look into finding out if there is an offroad experience place near you guys and try dragging you off to it when I get settled in a new career!