on the big 500 with a grin under his helmet , and received a few sideways glances from those not in the know as to who they were dealing with . For Chris , though , it was a kind of homecoming . “ The whole thing is just so much fun ,” he says . “ We had a lot of fun riding with Pat Dylan . He ’ s another New Zealander who raced silver class , and Grant Herbert who was riding Silver class as well . He ’ s possibly the world ’ s happiest enduro rider . It was really cool hanging out with them and to have other Kiwis there being a part of it .” Despite his high level of skill , Chris went into the Silver class with a few preconceptions as to how the big five-hundy was going to perform . “ It really surprised me ,” he told us , “ There was stuff that I thought it was gonna be really terrible for , but it was actually absolutely fine . I thought it would be a real handful on the downhills because Romaniacs has insanely steep and long downhills . The only issue I had was on , I think , day three , when I boiled the front brake on one of the downhills . It ’ s the first time in all of my life that I ’ ve ever boiled the front brake . But other than that it was actually fine on the downhills . Going down the slippery rocky riverbeds was quite hard work , but climbing up them it was actually really good . I ended up pulling a lot of time on the guys on the long uphill riverbeds . The 500 motor gives the chassis a lot of stability and it wasn ’ t deflecting off the rocks quite so much .” Interestingly for Birchy , where he thought the 500 EXC-F would really shine turned out to be where he lost the most ground to his fellow Silver class competitors . “ I thought it would be really good on the big , straight horsepower climbs , but it wasn ’ t and that ’ s where I lost most of my time . “ On those big horsepower climbs , the challenge is keeping the traction and keeping the thing straight , so you ’ re making a lot of corrections through your shoulders and body
60 KIWI RIDER