My first trip abroard with the Challenger.
The bike has been fully prepared and all we need to do now is load up. Dave has arrived with his new l/h drive Mercedes 180 diesel with his home made trailer hooked up. The bikes were loaded, 1 race bike for Dave along with a spare and John Griffethe's 2 bikes were also loaded. An amunition box full of spares, a drum of Shell "M", 5 gallon jerrycan, a spare engine/gearbox unit and any thing else we thought might be handy were fitted in to any space that was left.
An interesting point about the trailer was that it had a 40 gallon fuel tank mounted underneath, along with fuel pump and filter with a fuel pipe going to the front to go into the fuel filler cap behind the rear number plate. Our thanks to Mecedes-Benz for designing a car with a central fuel filler. The pump was actuated by turning on the sidelights.
So, off to sunny Spain. No autostrada in those days so over the mountains we went, with plenty of brake cooling on the way down.
If I remember right the meeting was ok with no problems with the bikes. I think we might even won, not sure on that as it's a long time ago.Now to the next meeting.
5 days to get to Italy. Having got there the bike was checked and prepared for the meeting.Onto practice session.The track consisted of a flat field with a twisting course laid out linking to a second section in a wooded area conected by 4 hills of about 40 degree angle(2 down, 2 up) and approx' 30ft down. During 1st practice Dave got me to stand at the bottom of the first hill and note where he landed, about 2/3 thirds of the way down. 2nd practice I had to do the same thing and this time, after about the 4th lap, Dave landed right at the bottom with no problem.This certainly attracted the attention of the spectators and loads of the riders. In the race everthing went ok, not sure how we finished but one comment from John made everybody grin. At some point Dave caught John at the top of the first jump a promptly passed him in mid air with the cry of Tally Hoe!.
Once again we packed every thing up and started our journey to France.
This is where the grey cells start letting me down as I don't remember if we had a good or average meeting but I seem to recall that it was quite muddy. So , after the meeting it was back into the routine of re-loading everything.
This is how to spend 3 weeks out 4, if you like doing this sort of thing. I certainly did!!!
Now it's off to home and the Greeves factory.
Mike.
The bike has been fully prepared and all we need to do now is load up. Dave has arrived with his new l/h drive Mercedes 180 diesel with his home made trailer hooked up. The bikes were loaded, 1 race bike for Dave along with a spare and John Griffethe's 2 bikes were also loaded. An amunition box full of spares, a drum of Shell "M", 5 gallon jerrycan, a spare engine/gearbox unit and any thing else we thought might be handy were fitted in to any space that was left.
An interesting point about the trailer was that it had a 40 gallon fuel tank mounted underneath, along with fuel pump and filter with a fuel pipe going to the front to go into the fuel filler cap behind the rear number plate. Our thanks to Mecedes-Benz for designing a car with a central fuel filler. The pump was actuated by turning on the sidelights.
So, off to sunny Spain. No autostrada in those days so over the mountains we went, with plenty of brake cooling on the way down.
If I remember right the meeting was ok with no problems with the bikes. I think we might even won, not sure on that as it's a long time ago.Now to the next meeting.
5 days to get to Italy. Having got there the bike was checked and prepared for the meeting.Onto practice session.The track consisted of a flat field with a twisting course laid out linking to a second section in a wooded area conected by 4 hills of about 40 degree angle(2 down, 2 up) and approx' 30ft down. During 1st practice Dave got me to stand at the bottom of the first hill and note where he landed, about 2/3 thirds of the way down. 2nd practice I had to do the same thing and this time, after about the 4th lap, Dave landed right at the bottom with no problem.This certainly attracted the attention of the spectators and loads of the riders. In the race everthing went ok, not sure how we finished but one comment from John made everybody grin. At some point Dave caught John at the top of the first jump a promptly passed him in mid air with the cry of Tally Hoe!.
Once again we packed every thing up and started our journey to France.
This is where the grey cells start letting me down as I don't remember if we had a good or average meeting but I seem to recall that it was quite muddy. So , after the meeting it was back into the routine of re-loading everything.
This is how to spend 3 weeks out 4, if you like doing this sort of thing. I certainly did!!!
Now it's off to home and the Greeves factory.
Mike.
) I might do that.
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