for our go. The next test was another Enduro style test but with some very tight turns and one up / down ramp over a big round hay bale – all easy stuff for team Kiwi! But again, many riders were caught out by the slippery grass and tightness of the turns. Up next was the spiral test. We rode ever decreasing circles until we hit a tight 180-degree turn in the middle, to then follow increasing circles on the way out, all on a reasonably steep hill side. Again, the Kiwis nailed this, but, trust me, we knew disaster was only a whisker too much throttle or a loss of traction away.
TEAM GRANDPA By this stage I think our team had settled in nicely, were all quite relaxed and pretty confident on our 800MT-Xs. An MX-style test followed with whoops and jumps, the most fun of the day. Then the bog hole test which had many riders on the ground unable to keep their bikes upright. The issue wasn’ t always the bogs themselves, but the slipperiness of the ruts and humps between them. The secret was throttle control, low revs and smooth riding – it was quite fun watching riders that didn’ t get the memo … After my turn, skidding to a stop
and hitting the stop timing button, I was asked by a young Chinese lady doing the timing how old I was. She suggested 50, when I said 62 she looked shocked, but recovered well by saying experience was a good thing and how well our team was riding. We later heard we were known amongst the riders as‘ Team Grandpa’. Ha ha! The rock garden test probably caused the most discussion within the team. The idea was for all riders to push a bike about 30 metres up a slope then back down a shallow gully full of quite big, nasty, sharp rocks. In the end we decided to all push the bike up the slope, then Scotty would jump on and steer while Chris, Mark and I pushed. All went well except those young fellas push quite fast and towards the end I failed to keep up, let alone push. Mark was the true hero diving for the stop timing button from a few metres out. A very classy move, but with a somewhat undignified landing – true commitment! By now Team Kiwi was beginning to get noticed with many fastest times overall … The last test of the day was a balance / skills test and proved to be really quite tricky. Very tight turns between cones with points away for touching a cone or going out of bounds, putting a foot down or stalling etc. Just one part of the test was a figure of eight done twice. It was too tight to do the complete turn on full lock. So,
46 KIWI RIDER