I have just had a weekend which was so packed with Some Mother's Do 'Ave Em or One Foot in the Grave style calamities, that if this post was submitted as a script for either of those sitcoms, it would have been rejected for being too far fetched. So, the plan was to do a weekend of enduro training in Surrey and then on Sunday evening head out west, with the aim being to stop at a campsite next to Longleat Safari Park, spend Monday afternoon there and then set off for Cornwall on Tuesday. I had arranged with the guy who runs the course (Carl Venter - top bloke) to give me access to the site on Friday evening so I could stay over in my motorhome rather than having to get up at stupid o' clock on Saturday morning and then drive round the M25. I got there at around 10pm and found the entrance to the green lane which leads to the site without too much trouble but somehow took the wrong right turning off the lane and I ended up, first, getting stuck on a wet muddy uphill section which left my motorhome and trailer skewed diagonally across the lane, with the bike stuck in a hedge. Using the levelling ramps, I managed to get going again and ended up in some woods on what was basically a footpath barely wider than the van and deeply rutted and holed, one of which was so deep that I grounded out, smashing the front bumper and also wondering whether the bang I heard underneath the cab area had caused any damage (more on that later). This path would have been tricky to traverse in a 4x4, never mind a 35 year old diesel Transit motorhome towing a loaded trailer, but I somehow made it out of the woods and seeing that the path carried on for miles across the landscape, worked out that I was completely, comprehensively, lost. Naturally, I had no phone signal and my Starlink dish couldn't find a satellite due to overhanging trees, so I couldn't call Carl to see if he could direct me. My first thought was "Fuck it, I'll just stay here for the night and work it out in the morning", but then I saw a light come on in what I (correctly) assumed was a farmhouse about half a mile away and I didn't fancy being woken up by Police, or even worse, the muzzle of a shotgun against my temple. My phone had also made contact with a mast and so I called Carl, who, eventually worked out where I was. Unfortunately, as there was no way I could turn round in the lane and in any event, I wasn't sure I would make it back to where I had taken the wrong turn, the only option was to keep going, which involved driving through the farmyard. God only knows what the poor guy (or gal, it is the 21st Century after all) thought was going on as a slightly post-apocalyptic looking motorhome and motorbike rig emerged from a footpath and made its way carefully through his property. I eventually found the site, got through the gate and parked up for the night, but before going to sleep, I let my working cocker spaniel, Iggy, out for a wee. When he came back into the van, he was not only soaking wet and muddy but was in a right state, panicking because his paws, the feathers on his legs and his tail had numerous balls of what looked like thistle stuck in them. They proved extremely difficult to remove, not least because they were very sharp and causing him a lot of pain but because he hates having his paws messed with, so we kind of ended up rolling around the floor of the van together, with fur, dog spit, mud and bits of thistle all over me, him and the carpet (to which they also stuck like velcro). By now it was 130am and close to 2am by the time I got into bed. It was at this point that Iggy, feeling anxious that we had had a bit of aggro, wanted to make up with me, so he kept licking my face and trying to spoon with me. All night. I eventually gave up on having unbroken sleep at about 6am and instead fortified myself with chain-drinking mugs of espresso strength coffee. Carl and co and the other riders showed up at around 9, we had a bit of a laugh about me already having done an enduro in my van, I got the Gas Gas unloaded and rode it to where we were assembling for the start of the training. Except I didn't ride it there because I got stranded at the first hint of an uphill gradient due to horrendous clutch slip. The same problem had curtailed my last enduro day a couple of weeks before, so I had changed the pack and master cylinder, but, crucially, hadn't had time to give the bike any sort of test ride. But even if I had had a properly operating clutch, someone pointed out that my (newly fitted) rear tyre was completely flat. Curses. So, I pushed the bloody thing back to where my van was parked (naturally, it was uphill) and called my mechanic to tell him I was heading back, to meet me at his workshop in St Albans and judging by the state of the oil I could see in the sight glass, I reckoned the water pump had failed so water had got into the clutch and that I wanted him to fit the spare one he had there waiting, after which I would come back to Surrey and at least be able to do the second day's training. It was a sound plan and probably would have borne fruit, but for the fact that despite being ripped to the tits on caffeine and sugar, I then fell asleep for two hours until I was awoken by the ring-ding-ding of passing bikes on their way for a drinks break. Anyway. It was still just about possible to get everything done in time if things went smoothly here on out, but as I was driving back up the green lane, I heard a loud bang, followed by an ominous scraping sound under the cab area. I knew immediately what had happened - the exhaust had fallen off. A quick look underneath confirmed that the exhaust had cracked where it joined the first silencer, which, along with the remaining three quarters of the system, was now partly on the ground, partly attached to various hangers and intertwined with crossmembers, pipes and all sorts. I got up, gathered my thoughts and as I was doing so, I noticed that the offside tyre of the trailer was completely flat. Fuck me. Could things get any worse? Well, yes, because it was at this point the heavens opened. Shaking my fist at the sky in impotent fury, I resolved that I was not going to let whatever hex had been placed on me thwart my plans. Fortunately, I am not a bat fastard and I am also blessed with the explosive power and upper body strength of a young Mike Tyson, so I shimmied under the van and using nothing more than brute force and white hot anger, I tore the severed pipework free of its moorings and entanglements. That was one problem solved but I still had a puncture to repair and there was no way my recovery service would come to my rescue because, frankly, I'm pretty sure the green lane was actually a bridleway and therefore illegal to drive along. However, I remembered I had a can of that foam stuff and luckily, it did the trick. There then followed a deeply unpleasant drive to St Albans with a banging headache due to the lack of sleep, stress and liberal inhalation of exhaust fumes that were making their way into the cab area. After arriving at the mechanics it soon became apparent that the changing of the water pump was not going to be possible in the time remaining because in their infinite Spanish wisdom, Gas Gas had designed the bike in such a way as you needed to not only remove the exhaust but also need to drop the engine in order to remove the clutch cover. Still refusing to be beaten by this development and remembering that he still had my DT175 there following him trying to rectify some fuckery with the gearbox (for some reason, neutral is between 2nd and 3rd) so I got that on the trailer and headed back to Surrey. By this time I was almost out on my feet but looking forward to that fickle mistress Fortuna's wheel turning in my favour the next day. After a refreshing night's sleep, I woke to blue skies and hope for the day ahead, so following more coffee and filling in Carl and the riders about the previous day's misadventures, I got the DT unloaded and kicked it over......at which point the kick start lever broke off at the very bottom. Incredibly, rather than calling it and certifying the time of death of my weekend at 910am, Sunday 14th September 2025, I resolved to bump start it using the hill, which I did. But then when I next came to pull away, I forgot that I was in 3rd rather than 2nd (due to the aforementioned issue with the neutral position) and I stalled the fucking thing. I managed to get a push start, made my way to where the training was starting and got on with it. It soon became apparent that the DT was not up to the task. For one thing, I couldn't stand up on the rubber covered pegs as they were extremely slippery and the tyres couldn't cope with the very wet and muddy conditions, which was confirmed in brutal fashion when I lost traction, went up and over the edge of a berm and ended up upside down, trapped underneath the bike, in the ditch on the other side. Luckily neither the bike or me was damaged but I could not be arsed trying to push start it again, particularly on a surface which had the appearance, viscosity and friction coefficient of butterscotch Angel Delight. Carl's son, Jake, who was running the session came up with a brainwave - at the drinks break he would give me a pillion ride back to the vans, where I could borrow his Stark electric enduro bike which he would be racing next year but for the moment, the school was using it as a demo model. I asked whether, given my recent run of bad luck and given that I had literally only minutes before binned my own bike, this was wise, but he said that so long as I agreed to pay for any replacement parts in the event of an off, it was cool. So, about an hour later I took charge of my new Stark steed. The second session was jumps, climbs, descents and front wheel lifts and while I was ok while riding at a reasonable pace, slow speed work was tricky because the bike was much taller than I am used to (Jake is about 6'3" while I am a mere 5'9"), it carried its weight a lot differently to my Gas Gas, but most importantly, the left lever isn't the clutch, but is the rear brake, so inevitably I kept pulling it thinking it was the clutch and then toppling over. However, those falls were mere irritations and fate had more than that in store for me, because when we were doing a free riding session on a series of manmade hills that were about the height of a 5 storey building, I crested what I thought was a steep but flat topped mound, only to find to my horror that it had what looked like a more or less vertical 20ft cliff face on the other side, I was going far too fast, and though I tried to save it, the front wiped out and I went down, hard. I had badly scuffed the plastics all down the left side, the left lever had snapped off, the throttle tube was split (most likely from one of the previous low speed falls), the left handguard was broken and the left handlebar grip was torn. Additionally, I also had suffered a subluxation (partial dislocation) of my left shoulder but thankfully it was not a bad one and went back in place. I recognised what had happened because that shoulder is vulnerable to dislocations due to an old sports injury and it happens every now and again, the last time being July 2020 when, of all things, I was reaching up to untuck my ear from the lining of my helmet. The bike was still rideable but I was in too much pain to continue the session and I was so exhausted from fighting it to get it upright using only my right arm that I had to be helped aboard, like a mediaeval knight being winched onto his battle charger. I rode it back to base and sheepishly told Carl what had happened. He was very good about it, though obviously not too chuffed as the rest of the trainees were supposed to be doing demo rides on it at the end of the day (presumably he gets a commission on any sales). The destruction of a 3rd bike and the soreness in my shoulder emphatically called an end to proceedings so I trudged back to the van whereupon opening the door I was hit with an overwhelming stench. Iggy had obviously developed a severely upset stomach and he'd had an accident. And what an accident it was, because although he had had the good manners to deposit his diarrhoea next to the door, he'd also obviously been pacing up and down and barking at the window, so it was everywhere. Literally every surface to a height of about 18" was contaminated. Two and a half hours it took me to clean it up, the joy of which was only added to by the fact that it started belting down again so every time I went outside to dry heave or to wash my hands or get some more water, I got drenched. And yet, through it all, I suffered stoically, some might even say my forbearance was saintlike in nature and while the weekend had been a disaster, I was looking forward to the rest of the trip. Longleat here we come! I got underway and things went smoothly until I needed to stop for diesel about 40 miles away and the van wouldn't restart due to a flat battery caused (presumably) by a combination of a power hungry Starlink dish the night before and the almost constant use of the wipers, heater and lights for the past hour due to the absolutely appalling weather. A lovely African guy realised my plight and offered the use of his car for a jump start, but I saw it was a hybrid and I recalled reading somewhere that their battery management systems can be damaged by jump starts and having already wrecked 3 bikes, a motorhome and a trailer that weekend, I had to decline this Good Samaritan's offer. Recovery was going to take hours to arrive on a stormy Sunday evening, it was now 710pm, the campsite check in office was due to close at 8pm and the remaining journey time was exactly an hour. "OK", I thought, "In that case, I now live at this Esso service station because I am done. I'm fucking done. Let's get the kettle on Iggy!" But before doing that, I decided to give the key one last turn and, incredibly, the engine fired up and I got back on the road, but with an ETA of 826pm and no answer to the campsite's phone. Thankfully, and totally against the run of play, a lovely lady named Lesley called me back, told me I could use a late arrival pitch and check in the day after, so it appeared that Fortuna's Wheel was inching its way upwards once more. Indeed, after a restful night, I awoke hopeful of better things to come and an interesting afternoon observing wild animals up close in the safari park. Except when I went online to buy a ticket..... I. Don't. BELIEVE. It!!!!!!!! Tbh, it might be a blessing in disguise because I suspect that the monkeys would have had a field day with my moth-eaten motorhome which manages to shed parts without any provocation from our primate cousins at the best of times, and so I probably would have exited their enclosure looking something like this. I wonder what awaits us in Cornwall. Perhaps I had better phone ahead and warn them that I am coming.
Honestly, I think it suffers from not having a clutch and, to a lesser extent, gears. The absence of a clutch means that (self-evidently) you can’t do “clutch pop” wheelies in order to get over logs or to pivot turn, and while you can get the front wheel in the air by compressing and releasing the forks at the same time as blipping the throttle, it felt a lot less controlled. I rode a different model e-enduro bike a couple of months ago which had clutch (or a system which simulates a clutch) and gears and I much preferred that one. Plenty of power though, plus all the torque is immediately available (which is a bit of a mixed blessing off road) and so it takes off like a scalded cat.
