Argh. I ache.

Tuesday was my bike’s 7500 mile service – undertaken at 8200 miles – so i went up to oxford, dropped off the bike, and got a taxi to a friend’s place. Spent the morning theraputically vegging on her sofa with a book (Benedict Allen, Into the Crocodile’s Nest) and then a quick trip to the Cotswold town of Burford, Oxfordshire. Light lunch, chat, and shopping at a kitchen supplies place (bought some cake tins with buckles on the side, for easy opening. 50% off) and then raced back to pick up the bike at 1730h. Thence home.

Up at 0400 on Wednesday, out by 0500, in Barwell, Leicestershire at 0730 and sleep in the car until 0900 for my Windy Corner KTM Off-Road Experience day.

Now, Friday, days later, I still ache.

I have concluded that it is a fact of life I am not normal, and will never be normal. It’s like L’Exception Francaise:

• Despite phoning them twice and giving written warning too, they had no trousers in stock that would fit me; in the end I wore what I had on, covered by a waterproof overtrouser in my size.
• Boots? A “Extra-Wide 10” or “Wide 11” available? Nope. Size 12, and too long for me.
• Gloves? A pair of overstretched “Large”, because the “XL” pair was missing a left-hand glove.

…and so it carried on; the actual riding was good, as was the experience, although the actual instruction was a little light; the “leaders” (instructors) were nice guys, and very enthusiastic, knowledgable and good to talk to.

Riding an all-or-nothing KTM 200 EXC two-stroke Enduro nutter-bike, I managed to not (completely) fall off for the whole day, although this was in part by my being rather more careful of my skin than some of the others on the course.

I have presentations to deliver next week, after all. 😎

That said, I did manage to stall the bike in the middle of a 30ft-wide, 2ft-deep river, and had to push it out. Five minutes of draining it and kicking it over, and it was fine.

I didn’t fall off, but I did try my own version of freestyle motocross; along the edge of a ploughed field at 30mph, hit a rut, bounced out of the saddle and simultaneously, foolishly, revved the throttle.

Result: one muffett flying horizontally through the air, attached only to the bike via the handlebars. Astonishingly I managed to maintain a straight line and haul my weight forwards, so that I landed back on the seat and regained control of the bike. Almost, but not exactly, like this: [www.motox1.50megs.com]

All that late-night weightlifting is paying off. Must have looked dead impressive from the side. Not.

I suspect my 105+Kg body mass must be both a challenge and a benefit; the instructors were repeatedly urging me to stand up more, for greater control, but my riding stability was much better than most of my peers, so I could basically point the front wheel in the direction I wanted to go, and let the back wheel slide around as if on a skid-pan.

Seriously roosted the instructors, too.

Oh yes – kicking. Kickstarts. I arrived in the morning hoping to learn how to kickstart a bike. I was given a bike with nothing but kickstart available. A two-stroke bike that was incapable of idling. By the end of the day I had kicked it over some 50 times, pulled my leg muscles, got bruised by lever kickback and was thoroughly pissed-off. Give me an electric starter option, next time.

Anyway – it was good fun, and I have a lot more to think about, re: getting a second bike. The bike I was on was approximately equivalent to a 400cc four-stroke, and a rough-and-tumble performance machine that I can barely imagine doing justice to.

Some careful appraisal of what I want to do on two wheels is in order, before I lay down any cash.