Preparation

Prior to heading off to Nogaro I needed a few bits and pieces. A company called HPS had started a racer support scheme which was intended to provide kit and up to 20% discount. I duly ordered a couple of stands and some sprockets.

To be fair I did only give them a weeks notice but having agreed to pay for next day delivery I was promised everything for the Wednesday before I left for Nogaro. When nothing had arrived by Thursday I started to get a little worried but everything was there when I got home from work on Friday. Only one problem, they had sent the wrong front sprocket and the wrong adapter for the front stand.

Not much could be done about the adapter so instead of spending the Saturday fitting the sprockets I ended up driving all round the countryside trying to get a 15 tooth front sprocket instead of the standard 17 tooth one. Good old HPS had sent me another 17 tooth one - Doh! I managed to track down a 16th tooth front at Hyside Motorcycles in Romford, Essex and a 15 tooth thanks to Paul at rsvr.net in Guildford. Needless to say I spent most of the day in the car.

18th - 21st February 2002

Having driven through the night to get there we were all hoping that Nogaro would be bathed in sunshine. Unfortunately it was freezing cold and had started to rain, in fact, the weather was worse than we had left behind in England.

Monday

After the frustration of having to track down the correct sprockets I now had to fit them to the bike. Not a problem for a competent mechanic, unfortunately I'm not a competent mechanic so it took me most of the morning to sort out only to find that the battery was flat. After pushing the bike up and down the paddock for a while we realised that the slipper clutch wasn't letting us bump start it. On with the battery charger and a delay until after lunch.

As I couldn't use the front stand that I had bought due to the incorrect spigot being supplied for the bike I had to borrow a stand from a friend. Unfortunately that meant I could only use it when he was on track so I was relegated to the track day group rather than the ACU race group. Not necessarily a bad thing given my recent history but there's nothing like having a good chat after a session with your mates.

Got out on to the track after lunch for the very first time on the track and the bike, in fact, it was my first time on the bike since my accident at Brands Hatch last year. The bike felt great and kept me upright when by rights it should have thrown me off when I did something stupid - Shutting the throttle mid corner or changing down a gear at maximum revs. I really needed to get used to a road pattern gear shift before I damaged either myself or the engine. Fortunately the slipper clutch saved the day although I noticed people gave me a fairly wide berth after that ;-)

Managed three sessions in the afternoon which was great fun although the circuit took much longer to learn than I had expected due to a couple of decreasing radius corners that seemed to go on for ever. The circuit layout can be found on the 100% Bikes site here. Managed to get my head down and get by most of the track day guys although it took a while to get used to how quickly the bike could accelerate and I wasn't anywhere near using full throttle yet.

Tuesday

Not such a good day as I started to feel ill on Monday evening and spent most of the evening throwing up. Must have been something I ate so I spent all of Tuesday in bed feeling awful.

Wednesday

Managed to get out of bed and head down to the circuit although I think this was more out of desperation for something to eat than any desire to get on a bike. The weather was terrible and rained quite hard. Still felt too fragile to walk quickly yet alone ride so I headed back to bed for the rest of the day.

Thursday

Got up bright and early and headed off to the circuit. It was raining again so after sitting out the first session I set about changing the wheels. Almost made it but the infamous Aprilia chocolate calliper bolts finally got the better of me. I managed to round one off so there was no way I could get the calliper, and therefore the wheel, off.

It stopped raining just before lunch and I headed out on to a very damp track with my Dunlop 207GPs still on the bike. I have to admit I absolutely hated this session, I was overtaken by most of the field, got lapped by a couple of them and wanted to give up on biking altogether. Maybe things would be different after lunch but I just wanted to go home at that point.

Over lunch the sun came out and I got out for a couple of storming sessions in the afternoon. Not only did I start getting my head around the circuit but I managed to overtake most of the guys that had come past in the earlier sessions and even lapped a few of them. Much more like it and a lot more enjoyable. I even managed ti limit myself to one down change and that was an accident when I caught my foot on the lever whilst trying to get it underneath to change up.

All too soon it came to an end and the guys I travelled down with wanted to head back before the day was over. A real shame as although they had managed four days of hard riding I had managed a total of six sessions. Rather expensive track time I thought and I still had that calliper bolt to sort out when I got home. None the less I really enjoyed the last couple of sessions which put me in the right frame of mind for the first race at Brands Hatch in a few weeks.

Fixing The Broken Bits

A call to HPS when I got home met with assurances that the correct adapter for the front stand would be sent as soon as possible so I set about trying to fix the calliper bolt I had managed to round off. My first attempt merely resulted in a small hole being drilled in the head of the bolt but neither my bolt extractors nor my larger drill bits were of any use. In fact, the cutting edges of my larger drill bits started breaking up when I tried to make the hole larger. Amazing how the bolts can be tough enough for that but not able to withstand a simple Allen key!

A quick visit to Machine Mart and I had a nice set of Cobalt tipped drill bits and some advice to drill as slowly as possible. Gradually the hole got larger and larger until I had a 10 mm hole through what was supposed to be a 10 mm bolt and still I couldn't get the thing out. Anyone who has seen an Aprilia fork leg will know that the nice Ohlins forks do a good job at protecting the bolts to the point where the head is completely recessed in to the leg.

At this point I started to really lose the plot. I had now spent two whole evenings trying to get the thing out. In the interim I had acquired a very nice set of Titanium calliper bolts from rsvr.net but there was nothing I could do to shift it. In desperation I took it round to a friend who calmly unbolted the other end of the calliper and twisted it up and down a couple of times. This was enough to loosen the problem bolt and out it came. As you can see from the photos above I had drilled all bar a very thin sliver of metal away, in fact, I was lucky not have drilled any of the pointing point away on the fork leg!

With the first Brands Hatch practice day fast approaching I now had the bike sorted but still no adapter for the stand. Several phone calls later and first HPS promised that they had made one especially and it would be in the post on Thursday and when it hadn't arrived on Monday assured me that it had gone in the post on the Sunday night. Subsequent phone calls on Tuesday and Wednesday assured me it was in the post so there was nothing to do but wait.

Not overly impressed to be honest particularly as the discount amounted to something like ten pounds and the amount of hassle had been considerable. Getting one thing wrong can be forgiven if it gets resolved quickly and easily but not only had I spent a day driving around to get the correct front sprocket I was still without a usable stand a couple of days before the first race!