WHY HILLCLIMBING?
Hill climbing is racing individually against the clock, mainly on a section of road race track ie, Olivers Mount. With tyre warmers BANNED this makes for exciting racing and crashes are frequent. All motorcyclists know how dangerous and slippery cold tyres can be for the first few miles of there journey. Road racers have tyre warmers on there bikes on the grid then do a warm up lap. Sometimes 2 warm up laps if its a very short circuit like Brands Hatch indy. Imagine if they started on cold tyres and the race was over before they got up to temperature.
I have done a couple of track days the first on a Suzuki GSXR400RRSP and then a Honda Hornet 600. I prefered the one on the Hornet because the standard suspension made it a challenge. Where as the GSXR was so planted it was almost boring ( i know i am very strange). I turned up with the Hornet on mismatched tyres, puncture repaired rear, (right hand side) the track was Mallory Park. Which if you are'nt aware has one of the longest & fastest right hand corners in Europe. And i had a ball, ground my belly pan into retirement and pissed off a lot of other riders on bigger more capable machines at the same time.
So if i only like track days when they are a challenge why not go road racing? And the answer is i wanted to go my own way & to try something different. No one round my area 'Mid Beds' who i know has done or heard of Hill Climbing. And what could be more challenging than going as fast as possible on cold tyres.
I popped up to watch the last Hill Climb of 2004 at Dalby Forest. The track is 6ft wide, half covered in mud, has 1 ft of grass run off & is lined with huge trees. And upon 1 riders return a friend asked what speed he was crossing the finish line. 150mph was the reply. 150MPH!!! In a forest for f**k sake.
Awesome!
I would like to thank Reservoir Cogs for there help in my first season (Spares & Dymags).
