Well after a shaky scrutinering ; John had taken his bike apart in cork and forgot to put half of it back on so had difficulty convincing the scrutiny Marshall that it was a bike at all and missed his allocated time slot . No such problems for Paul or Simon who flew through and had a good old laugh at John …. Team mates !
It may sound easy but scrutiny at the ISDE can be stressful .. Everything needs to be correct , the paperwork , insurance , helmets ( we hear John got a new one in a lucky bag and would have been better with the bag on his head ) , lights , speedos and noise in particular are all checked . It’s quite normal for the paddies for blag their way through ,,, insurance , registration of course we don’t have that in Ireland and most bikes turn out to be tractors or a van . Would we ..? Never.
Spain of course has hosted the ISDE before in Granada and Pamplona . Granada we can vouch was a great event ( we was there) , Pamplona was before our time … (?) and of course it’s an event that many federations want to promote as despite all the work it’s a lucritavive event for the locality and possibly the federation . Always oversubscribed and a must do on many a riders list and we concur with that . It is a great experience . American Jeff Fredette has ridden and finished 32 ISDE events a record unlikely ever to be beaten . Here at home Adrian Lappin would have the most by a mile 13 or more and finished all bar Wales when we understand his bike ( Husky 250 ) ran out of sparks . Interesting on Fredette is he never used mooses only tubes and in all 32 events had one puncture . He also transported his bike as luggage on planes by cutting the bike in half and fitting into suitcases . He then bolted them back together having made special brackets to hold the frame . All true I can assure you .we hope Jeff may be in Spain assisting the USA team .
This year the trophy team formation has changed …. Gone are the 6 man or woman teams replaced by 4 with all riders to count . Why the change is unsure but some nations felt they were competitive with 4 riders but not 6 . The junior trophy remains the same with 4 . Controversially of course the French may have withdrawn in protest at last years result when Australia were awarded the win after many riders were excluded on day 2 foe missing the route . Protest and counter protest saw the French and the U.K. Riders out . They were not happy but have been offered free glasses this year .
This will be a nice part of Spain to ride in with some open going and there is likely to be forest later in the week . The tests are straight forward on stubble fields so no issues there only speed .
Dust might be a problem but we believe rain and cold is forecast for Thursday .
Enduro.ie will be in Navarra in mid week and will bring you a back room report as the event unfolds . Results are live on line so no point competing with the Internet . We will see how the mad trio get on.
Enduro.ie