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A bike racer, adventurer, excitement seeker, pantheist but mostly curious person just doing the best she can, knowing that because of determinism it's all you can ever do.

Bonneville - Who drives your dreams? - Part 4

4/11/2019

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The final part of the story behind how I got to ride on the Salt Flats during Speed Week 2019. Part 3 can be found here
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PictureWhere do we go from here? Just a few hours left and we had so much to get done...
Tired and emotional
We needed to move fast now, really fast. The Hayabusa had failed tech inspection because the tire valve stems had to be metal, not rubber. But the good news was, that was the only failure. So, we hastily rolled the bike back onto the trailer and quickly researched local tire and motorbike workshops. Although Wendover the town just off the speedway was not right next door, it wasn't a long drive away so 30 minutes later and we had managed to find what we needed. Next stop the tire fitting shop.

​We pulled up to S&R Auto on Wendover Boulevard to find a hive of activity in the oily workshop. Eventually we tracked down the frazzled owner who scratched his head with a greasy finger and said it'd be a couple of hours before they could sort it. There must have been a horrified look on our faces because he quickly followed up apologetically telling us the reason - tbe fire chief's truck was being seen to and it was an emergency and nothing, just nothing and no-one, could jump the queue. ​


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Bonneville - Who drives your dreams? Part 3

24/10/2019

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The continuation of the story behind how I got to ride on the Salt Flats during Speed Week. Part 2 can be found here
Christine's run - 13th August 2019
​The Bonneville course starters are super-cool professionals and have the whole process of seeing you off on your run down to a fine art. They check you over, confirm what speed you and the bike are cleared to ride at and make sure you're comfortable with knowing how to signal if you have an emergency. Then a short wait till you hear that the previous rider or driver has cleared the track and then boom. Just like that you're signalled to go. No wave of flag just a smile and off you go, in your own time. It seems somewhat of an anti-climax, your moment to shine should be signalled by fireworks surely? But actually it's quite relaxing not having to wait for the sound of a cannon or gun. You have a good run up before the track to get comfortable on the bike, putting yourself prone as low as you can go in the case of a bike and build up speed slowly. Not always easy when you are wearing new, tight leathers though.
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One of the starters getting us in line.
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Total focus. Total concentration as Dino prepares to run.

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Bonneville - Who Drives Your Dreams? - Part 2

11/10/2019

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The continuation of the story behind how I got to ride on the Salt Flats during Speed Week. Part 1 can be found here
Thursday, 8th August -
​first time on salt

This morning we all woke energised, early and ready to drive the 8 miles to the salt flats down the long straight piece of highway that abruptly stops to denote the beginning of the speedway. This is where the famous Bonneville sign is which has been half stickered to death so you can't actually read all the historical information on it. Nevertheless we also stuck ours up and there was copious photographing and posing before we drove the mile or so on the salts to the pits to set up.

​This was the first time we had been driving on top of the salt and the backdrop of the mountains was just jaw-dropping. It looked like the scenery to a movie, eerie other-worldly colours everywhere, with mountains casting shadows of light amber to dark and putty grey on the crystaline surface of the speedway. There were ominous low clouds too, which added an extra strange feeling to the exposed supernatural place.

​The flats cover 30000 acres so the whiteness all around burns into your eyes. You can get snow blindness it's so bright. It burns the skin in record time too, factor 50 essential just about everywhere as the sun bounces off the salt and you can be burnt up inside your shorts and in your armpits. 

​
Cars, bikes and rockets started to arrive all during the day and we were treated to sights of some amazing machines driving to their pitches. Everyone was friendly, everyone was smiling. This was where they hoped to make history. The air was electric. That, it turned out, was just the problem...
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Dino, Rosaria, Louisa and Maurizio, pilots in the Italian Open Eyes Dream Team
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The famous start of the Speedway. BELOW: arriving on the salts for the first time

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Back to the beach - for a record time!

25/9/2019

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Back to Pendine Beach in Wales to meet up with some friends and try my luck at some landspeed records. As you do.
Sand is unforgiving. If you come off on damp sand at speed, it'll be pretty shit. You won't skim across the top, sliding and flying, letting air resistance reduce some of your speed naturally and over a long distance, oh no. Instead you'll bump and bounce and it'll be crunchy on the bones because every impact will slow you forcefully resulting in a shorter, more energy intensive stop. It's thoughts like these that are not helpful. So I don't think about them.
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Always time for a pose, even on the start line! Photo: Bhodi Keen

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Bonneville - Who drives your dreams? - Part 1

12/9/2019

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It all boiled down to a single moment, as so many things in my life have. I sat there cooking in leathers at the start line on the five mile long course on the Salt Flats at Bonneville, ready to pull back the throttle hand and put fear aside for just a minute or so. I was willing and ready to risk my life for this moment in a distant land, on unfamiliar ground. I would have done whatever it took to do what I had to do. I imagine a similar feeling of total conviction probably descends upon a mother or father when they see a car on fire and their child inside.

I would not let anything get in my way that day - so woe betide anything that tried to stop me! All the events that had led to this, the life changing moments, the pain, the doubt, the chance meetings, all the people I'd met, all the twists and turns of my recent life meant me to be at that start line. At that point in time. It was a certainty I still feel in my very core. 

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Milan - 'Christine' is finally unveiled!

12/7/2019

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The weekend of  6-7 July, 2019, was the first time I was properly introduced to Christine, the bike that I and three others will pilot as part of the Italian Race Team, Open Eyes Dream, in a land speed record attempt during Speed Week in Bonneville, 10-17th August 2019. The bike that I will risk my life on. That others will risk their lives on.. the dream of Dino Romano, who has worked so hard, day and night, to get Christine to the salts. 

​The bike is very special because it is powered by LPG. No-one has taken an LPG bike to the salt flats to race before. Not ever. The environmental credentials of the bike are superb - if Dino achieves his dream it will herald a success for his engineering skill but also could well pave the way for more investment in LPG engine development.

Last year's attempt ended just before the final record breaking run when a battery fire halted everything. This year, Dino has invented a completely new air intake system, the ACFS, which will cool the air before it goes into the engine. This should increase density and increase power output. But this is all unknown at this stage. A totally unknown quantity. That's what makes this whole project so special - it's a life's work and a life's risk - all in a few moments on the salts.
The event in Milan was hosted by Virgin Radio Italy and consisted of a new film showing taken during last years attempt and lots of paparazzi wanting photos. Held at the iconic Deus ex Machina cafe, a perfect setting in the middle of Milan for the great unveiling.

Above is the film that was shown at the event. This is not widely published - it may not even be published anywhere else so click on it now if you have time. It's a beautiful piece of work. Below are some photos of the event. 


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Women Riders World Relay - My Italian Job

5/6/2019

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"Do you need any help?" Was the first thing I asked to the Women Rider's World Relay contact button on Facebook. It all then snowballed like crazy and led to some of the most incredible experiences and opportunities of my life. I had no idea that within four weeks I'd be taking a major role in planning and executing a ride across Italy with a bunch of beautiful, crazy, wild girls and having meetings that would change my life forever and launch me into a motor racing career.
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Receiving the baton from France on the start of the Relay across Italy. The start of an adventure.

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Me? A Speed Record Attempt? I did not see that coming..

9/5/2019

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PictureOn the flats in 2018. I think 2019 will be our lucky year..
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? It might well be because what I'm about to tell you feels utterly unreal.

I have just been accepted on to a race team as a pilot in a land speed world record attempt at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in August during Speed Week. Yep. Me. Who only took up proper biking two years ago after becoming a grandmother. Who was afraid to go over 50mph on the motorway. Who nearly gave up in the pouring rain in Germany. How absurdly fantastical is that? Just like Burt Munro, immortalised in The World's Fastest Indian, whose land speed record still stands today, no-one would have believed two years ago the turn of events that would take me, of all people, to Bonneville with the big boys of racing. Yet, here I am and, as much as anything else can be real, this is my reality.

The Bike
The ride is a beauty. A red-lipstick coloured, partially streamlined, 1000cc LPG powered bike (only LPG racer in the world), built by the great Dino Romano, one of Italy's foremost bike customisers, as part of the Eyes Open Dream Racing Team. Things like this don't happen to ordinary people like me, do they? It seems they do. How did this happen? Did I trip and fall into a vat of dream fluid?

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Not a bad little runabout...

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The Taffy Drwg - or Dakar (Shhhh. It's not really.)

6/5/2019

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​The Welsh gods decided to give the mountains a break over the bank holiday and allowed the sun to shine on one of the most exciting weekends in the Welsh trail rider's calendar - the Taffy Drwg. Yes, I know it's an unpronounceable word and means nothing to those outside of the village but there's a reason for that. The all-weather trail-riding weekend in the Brecon Beacons used to be called the Taffy Dakar but some French lawyers for some reason thought that was confusing the orienteering event with it's beer-swilling, hog roast munching, bucking bronco antics for a rather more serious deal held in South America. If only they had bothered to come to Wales they may have been convinced otherwise.  Drwg is of course pronounced 'Droog' and it's said this is a tongue in cheek reference to some strange weed that makes your head go all funny. But that's just hearsay, I've not had that confirmed by any Welshfolk to date. So what's this 'Droog' all about?


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Train your subconscious to ride, here's how

23/4/2019

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I love life and I love riding. No matter how much I love the latter, I love the former more. That's why I bought an air bag jacket, why I took my IAM and RosPA exams and why I continually give a shit about improving my riding and taking only those risks I'm comfortable with. I often check out riders much better than me and I ask myself, what makes them better and how can I be like them? How can they ride so fast yet so safe? Turns out they have harnessed their subconscious to do most of the work.
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  • Home
  • Blog
  • About me
  • The Bikes
    • BMW F850 GS
    • Indian Scout
    • Triumph Tiger XRX
    • Yamaha TTR
  • SUPPORTING
    • THE BIKE EXPERIENCE
    • BLOOD RUNNERS
    • DEMON DESIGNS
    • PIKILILY
  • Contact
  • Films and Interviews