My ISDE Gold medal

[wayneg]

Here are some pictures of my ISDE Gold medal - won through hours of training and peeling the odd banana (and drinking the occasional beer ...)

I helped an old friend at the '98 ISDE in Oztralia and he mocked up a fake medal to say thanks for the help. The event was spectacular and I really enjoyed myself. Its worthwhile going to one of these events just to watch, theres some fast people out there - maybe I should stick to trials.

Heres the flip side of the medal just to prove that I can't really ride a motorbike, and that peeling bananas is really my forte.

 

[KiwiBird]

wayneg - who did you help out? Was it the aussie from Sawyers?

 

[Girlrider]

Wayneg,

Not only should you go to see one but you should ride one. It was the hardest and the most fun thing I have ever done. There were times I wondered if I would finish the day let alone all six days. Starting the final moto with thousands of spectators was awesome. When I was done my husband was so happy and all I wanted was 2 brautworsts and a coke. This year I have taken up trials and am going to the Trial De Nations on the women's team. I will be the first person in history to compete in both the ISDE and the TDN. I think it is pretty cool. Someday I hope to do it again and go for a silver.
Nicole

 

[wayneg]

I was originally just going to help a long time friend Grenville Button, who sort of introduced me into dirt bikes in '83. He has been racing in NZ in enduros and cross country since then, except for a 5 or 6 year absence when he was doing the family thing. He was trying really hard to get a gold medal, but crashed in a couple of special tests on the first day, and then was chasing his tail for the rest of the event to gain some time back. He rode in the 250cc four stroke class, and ended up very close to the gold medal he wanted. He also got deliberately taken out in the final motocross, looked like getting a bronze for a while, but then got his a into g and managed to get back up to 12th or 13th place by the end for a silver. Overall I think he was pretty satisfied with his performance, but learnt why the European riders never let go of the throttle in a special test - even if they crash. Hot four strokes can be hard to restart when every second counts.

Grenville is now running guided trail rides in northern Canterbury, from Kaikoura through to Rakia. He has good contacts with most of the local farmers, and one of his one day rides goes through 5 seperate farms from the mountains right down to the beach. He has 4 KTM 400EXC's, and 4 Honda XR250's as rental bikes, and uses some of the local farmstays for accomodation during the rides.

So I ended up helping with one of the vans, refueling and giving the riders some food or water at a checkpoint for each day. The way the event was set out was pretty good as we had plenty of time to go and watch some of the action each day, even though we had riders spread throughout the field. The Kiwi team had some real characters in it, riders that impressed me the most were Sean Clarke, Darryl King, Paul Whibly, and the whole bunch from the Bush Riders Club (from northern Wairarapa/Manawatu). The event was really good fun to watch and help with, with the occasional adult beverage consumed by the support team each night (especially Tjebbe Bruin - talk about pi$$ed!).

The one time during the event when the Kiwis seemed to be making a better impression were when it rained and got a bit muddy. It seems that the Oztralians don't get that much mud to ride in normally, and also don't geenrally ride too much in the rain because of the dangers involved with flash floods and floating snakes etc. There were quite a few complaints from our guys when the whole day was dropped from the event because a creek crossing got a bit too deep and split the field.

The Ozzie from Sawyers was a pretty fun sort of bloke, he ended up doing pretty well to get a silver medal - and he had an awesome final motocross. He went on to europe after that and wanted to become a GP mechanic. Last that I heard was that he got a job working for one of the privateer 125 GP teams.

I don't think that I could ever ride the ISDE as I'm just a very very slow rider (think first or second gear, or maybe reverse!!!), and as I have gotten older I have become even slower (which is good for trials isn't it? :confused: ). For example when the guys were having a test and training session about six months before the ISDE, I went and had a bit of a try out of the test loop on my KLX250R. The fastest guy was on about 5 minutes, the slowest was on about 7 minutes and my time was about 11 minutes. This was over a cross country test on farm land which wasn't rutted or very challenging, so my time would have blown out even more if some hazards were included. I would definitely have houred out at some stage during the event - unfortunately a bronze medal would not have been an option for me.

So congratulations GirlRider you have achieved something that very few people have the tenacity or determination to go out and attempt. I think that a lot of people dream of doing something like that, but very few have the guts or determination to go out and do it - good on you!

Good luck for the TDN, and if you see a young bloke called Shane Clarke from NZ in the mens event tell him to stop mucking about and get stuck in. :thumb:

 

[Girlrider]

You are right it takes a lot of determindation. The bad part is I broke my collarbone 10 weeks before so I trained the whole time it was broken. At 6 weeks the doctors said no bone growth which obviously is not good. I think it is healed but I never went back. At the year end banquet for the Rocky Mountain Enduro Circuit I did a presentation on my ISDE experience and told the guys to quit dreaming about it and get out adn do it. Funny thing is this year there are 7 people from the RMEC circuit going. It hope I inspired them.

I will look for Shane. Does he ride the A line or the B line?

 

[bagger]

good luck at the tdn this year girlrider,show them ladys over seas that you are not just another hottie from the usa but you are there to win :)

 

[wayneg]

The NZ team will be riding the 'B' line, and has only one team member that has ridden in the TDN before. The other two guys are both pretty young, so can expect to learn a lot. I think it will be a great experience for them, riding a similar loop to the world championship riders.

Anyway good luck and be confident!

 

[kiwi_925]

Shane should do alright, prep. himself for next year if he goes. wayneg how did u do in the NI round down there??

 

[wayneg]

I helped out by observing as I can't do any other rounds in the series. It did highlight what a really difficult job it is. I was just trying to be as consistant as possible, which was hard as there were three observers in the one section, and I could only see about 20 feet.

We ended up having quite a lot of spectators, which was a bit unexpected. Apparently there were about 200 cars parked in the paddock and on the side of the road. A pretty good turnout all things considered.

The section that I was at seemed to be virtually impossible for the Experts, tough for the Intermediates, and pretty hard for the Clubmen. It was in a narrow creek, with a pretty difficult exit.

 

[kiwi_925]

Saw the photo of Shane in the post, but missed the one of Luke. Advertising helps, when they had the nationals up here, they had anything to do with motocross in the paper, and even got the front page a month before it, and just about something every day in the week leading up, and they got between 3000-3500 people there, not bad for hawkes bay.
Carl said that Warren L. couldnt get one section and went back afterwards and still couldnt get it. Told him to come do the 6 hour with me but said no, are all trials rides soft like this?? ;-)

 

[wayneg]

I don't know about all trials riders being soft - but I am! Warren is still coming to terms with his Scorpa just at the moment, but seemed to be riding very well to me. I think that the severity of the sections was pretty hard for this event, and it really pushed the top riders. Kind of makes me glad that I wasn't riding to be honest. :scream: Hopefully the nationals in Christchurch will be a little bit easier as I'm taking a friend down who has only really ridden in 5 or 6 trials. This is my big event of the year so I'm hoping to have a good ride, and the occasional beer.

I went up to the 6 hour a couple of years ago with Grenville to watch. I was really impressed with the way that the event was run - very smooth and well organised. It is a tough event, and you really have to concentrate on the start if its in the same place as it was then. If you get a good start it helps a huge amount with any of the longer events as you end up losing so much energy trying to pass people in the first few laps - and otherwise the leaders pull out to a huge lead. If you can start out in the top ten you might latch on to one of the faster guys like Sean Clarke and learn a few things about speed in the trees.

Good luck in the 6 hour, get stuck in. :aj:

 

[kiwi_925]

Carl's is soft, needs to harden the #u%k up and get on a real bike and do this, but dont think he's use to having so much power...he also doesnt get out the on the piss the night before til 4 or so and then up at the track at 8, either that or let me crash his bike the night before and see how he finishes(did that at the Hawkes Bay round and he finished 3rd on day 2), only flipped it and broke the back mudguard and bent the footpage, nothing much....
The 6 hour change tracks last year and this year is that same as last, i have to find a person to ride with, cos thers no way im doing 6 hours!! might just do the trail ride the next day. I did a cross country 3 weeks ago and that was ALOT of fun but ran out of gas, was my first ever, and only did hour and a half, 30k loop, the leader was 30-40mins behind me after i stopped for good, and this guy finished reasonable well in the national cross country champs so i was happy he was so far behind me, cant wait till they start the cross country series up here, Adam and Dave Youren are trying to start one.