Kraut Cup Trial '13

Subtitled "Hotter'n a jalapeño's coochie!" Thanks to my Facebook (and actual) friend Robin Jo for that! It was about 95°F and it kicked my ass but good. More on that later.

Mrs. G mostly caught me not riding very well, but that's perfectly in accordance with Murphy's Law Of Video and once again I thank her for her effort, and effort it was, believe me. She gamely trod through heat and distance and unforgiving terrain to catch me making a fool of myself for all the world to see and what wife wouldn't? Heh.

In clips 1 and 2, I fumble.

In clip 3, Fred and I banter. We ride the exact same machine. He rides much better than I do and he kids me that "it's all the machine!" Then I turn in the wrong place in the section, think I did well, and arrive at the end happier'n a pig in shit to find out I got the max 5 points. Waaaah...

In clip 4 you see Fred on the "1 line" for Advanced riders. I ride the "4 line" for children, beginners, and old farts who oughta be off rocking on their porch but don't know any better. The interesting thing about Fred is that he rides the Modern Bike class on a 27-year-old bike that wasn't a serious trialer to begin with. This is roughly comparable to running Formula One with a Ford Falcon. Then again, Fred is a rather large gentleman of the Kraut persuasion and that little bike wouldn't dare not do what he tells it to! He placed 2d in class this day. I told him that if he'da had just one more Wheatie for breakfast he'da won! Note the tear in his T-shirt from an earlier fall.

It's rare in these vids to have what might be called a "Main Event" but this one has one. A little setup - I had cleaned this section on the 1st loop but thought I had found a shorter line. I outsmarted myself again. Heh. Due to slight miscalculation on my part relating to handlebar width and tree/rock interface distance ... well, you'll see. I did get a number of "10s" for aerobatic form.


Between the time I did the swan dive to clear the bike and the time you see me get back up is an unseen and somewhat heartwarming little drama. The checker, shaped like me, no shirt, is a really good guy named Ralph. You can't see it, but I rolled (on purpose) to a nearly sitting position and started to get up. I wasn't hurt or even jolted very badly, but Ralph has been around motorcycle racing all his life and has seen many crashes where the crashee shoulda stayed down for a minute to regain his senses and hovered over me and exhorted me to do so. I think I finally had to say something like "Hey, Ralph, I'm OK. Lemme up!" I reminded him later that this wasn't exactly the same as going for a walk on the wild side at the end of the front straight at the Sacramento Mile. Heh. He meant well and we had a good laugh over it.

You can see that at one point I'm wearing my protective jersey and the next I'm not. This was because of the heat. It's always a risk to ditch the long sleeves. The branches on those pine trees will cut a bare-armed bitch and usually do. My get-off scratched me a little and I bled like a stuck pig due to my blood-thinner BP med. Joe Bill, one of the event organizers who seemed to be everywhere all the time, and a Fixer & Gordon-class smart aleck to boot, told me not to fret, that'd he'd got a pic while I was still bleeding! Yeah, send me a dozen!

That was the end of the second loop. Went back to the truck where Corpsman Mrs. G patched me up and sent me back into the line.

Now about the heat and a confession. I rode three sections of the 3rd loop and the heat started to get to me. Some of my body parts were not answering the helm as well as they should and I made the difficult decision to hang it up for the day. In other words, if I rode much more I was going to hurt myself. I had already made a coupla bad decisions that you saw in the vid.

Problem was, I wanted to finish the event to get my usual only-one-in-class award. I asked the 3rd section checker to "5 out" my scorecard so I could get a technical finish. He said I had to go to the exit of each remaining section and the checker would do that for me.

I understand the rules, but given my circumstance at the moment, that made no sense to me. The trails in between the sections were harder to negotiate than the sections themselves and that was what I was trying to avoid. Hell, I fall off in between sections a lot more than in the sections. Might as well just ride the sections.

I couldn't, my ass was whipped. I found a friendly checker (closest one to the truck) who 5'ed out my card and I got my class plaque. I think I was not the only one to do that on the day either. The event officials knew what was going on and let it pass.

Cheating? Yes. International scandal like blood doping? I hope not. Let me know what you think.

A final word about the heat. I drank well over a gallon of water from noon, when the event started, until and after I got home about 5PM. Finally pee'd a little at 8PM. Where'd all that water go?