Friday

Philippe Vandewalle





What a great guy........

Hello friends of this marginal recreation sport we love…
The SWM dirttracker does not only look good, its works like a Swiss watch J
That will be until I got a puncher at the rear…



So, what is all about? Just going in Essex kindly invited by Anthony brown who run a series of flattraker for every levels…
The venue was Rye House near Stansted and even the sun and blue sky came along…just great!

I never knew what was flattraking, kind of guessed it was easy, just lean the bike and….voila!
But reality was of course a bit different, first a briefing from the organizer, a selection of riders in 4 different groups and levels as well of a nice mix from BSA, Triumph, lots of 4 stroke Rotax powered machines, some Husqvarna, few Japanese and…. Of course few KTMs

Been lend a steel sole and a Daytona boot for my left foot and we make our way to the short oval (same as greyhound track it was J) Anthony did mention to me…as a novice …don’t use the brakes, just acceleration, lean the bike, gentle but progressive throttle and then full whack!

OK, did exactly that, second then a touch of 3rd gear, then…..whooaaaaaa already the turn and no engine braking, so that was a near miss by doing a longer turn near the hay stacks
Tried again, then not much better, then been told  “Sorry Philippe…forgot you have a 2 strokes” Yes it was one of the two that day (a young lady on a 125 KTM and me)

We set up for more runs, 12-14 minutes at a time, stop for 30 minutes and start again…well, it was really fun and I just started to understand the technique of leaning the bike earlier and keep 3rd gear and open a lot more...great that looks like a long slide and got into a rhythm that was consuming all my energy, but equally was placing a large grin on my face…

Then got this puncher…but it was nearly the end anyway and if I could simply conclude with these:

·         The bike….not bad at all for a Chef J works superbly and what a noise!
·         I will recommend Flattraking to any of us “off road riders” that is really a Must Do experience

Bye for now, and be open minded!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Brilliant!