Butser Limes Hare & Hound - SEEC

[ShaunGASGAS300]

The Idea - As many laps as you can in 3 hours
The goal - Keep riding for 3 hours
The reality - I prayed for a puncture so that i could stop

So you arrive at the location for half 7/8 to get a good parking space. You bimble down to the food cart to get a coffee then go to sign on and get your wrist band. (Scanner for the check points) Easy enough.

Now time to unload the bike, grab the petrol cans, tools and environmental mat and head of to machine examination, they check your wheel bearings, brake & Clutch levers and that your tyre has the FIM stamp (Enduro tyre) and that you have your mat. Now to the pits you go to find a space to drop your do-do and go grab a bacon sandwhich and another coffee. Make sure the bike is full of petrol and just relax intil the riders brief at 9:45 for a 10am start.

After the riders brief you got 5 mins to warm the bikes up before turning them off for the cold start.

If you don't already know, butser lime is an old chalk quarry - wet chalk = GLASS!

During the brief they told us about the route, gave us some tips and some warnings of what was to come.

We started 6 in a line every 30 seconds, so if you started in the third line you would start at 10:01, therefore you had to clock in after your last lap at any time after 13:01 to class as finished. If you clocked in at 13:00 you would have to do one more lap so you finished after 13:01.

I set of as the second to last row (You set of in numerical order, i was 110 out of 120) as soon as you release the clutch you are going up a hill with comes back on its self, round the corner and back down a hill then BOOM, around 70 bikes in a mass group. There was a hill on that corner that we had been told to hit in 3rd gear to get up, well, no one could get up (Other than the champions and experts) and because we were all bunched at the bottom, no one could get a running start up. We had champions pushing around and through the crown to get past and up the hill, after 20 minutes the shut the hill off and made a divert. 20 mins into the race and I have moved 500 meters!

Following the new diversion we go round the corner then come to a big drop down, bum on the back wheel, foot on the brake and slowly down we go, coming to a hairpin and straight up another hill. This later got diverted again because it was carnage so we go round the corner and get a longer and steeper drop, again bum on back wheel and stay on the back brake. Onto a nice long stretch on wet sludge and clay as your keeping the back wheel straight (Well, trying anyway)

It all seems to be going well now, a few nice hills climbs and could nice corner then up a hill and again, mass riders sitting at bottom of hill looking up and the bikes upside down and on their side not getting traction (Again, other than the pro's who annoyingly made it look far to easy) in the end they skipped it on the first lap to try and spread out some of the riders.

So great, another long stretch and some nice muddy corners, this is great now, then we come to the DESCENT! You go over a lip and dive straight down and power up the other side, the flat bit between the bottom of the decent and start of the climb could only have been 5 meters long maximum, so keep on the power from near the bottom of the descent or your not getting up the otherside! once up the other side, go 50 meters down and back down and up the original side again and you are on the final hill to the pits, just pure wet mud to spin and climb up, don't stop or your not going to get traction again! finally your at the top and in the pits, time to start the next lap!

I call it the DESCENT! because on my final lap, I'm going down go to power on and bike decides it wants to learn to fly up the other side and we both come crashing back down, snapping my brand new, just fitted the day before KTM hand guards. FFS! Broken levers, broken hand guards go knows what else, and a broken ME inside.

I finally finished after 3 hours and 1 minutes making sure i finish my lap after 13:08 so i have done my full 3 hours.

Results are up, i finished 3 in my class with a total of 5 laps, with first place doing 8. To give you an idea of just how hard this was for novices and first-timers, the champions and experts got through 20+ laps with the winner of the day doing 26 full laps! Meaning he did a lap every 7 minutes, compared to my lap every 36 minutes (Now i have just worked that out I can't believe how long it took me to do each lap :O )

Out of the 120 people who took part, maybe 40% did not finish (Quick glance at the results)

To be honest, I will not be entering that event next year, it was just too difficult for my ability and it stopped being fun and became a chore to finish. The laps were maybe 4 miles long, meaning it was taking me nearly 10 minutes to do a mile!

I much preferred the Witley enduro with the 18 miles track through the trees with some nice but achievable hill climbs. I will upload some pictures a bit later on, if anyone if interested in looking at results the link is below. Alternatively, going on to facebook and search SEEC Enduro, they have a page and there are a lot of picture and vieo uploads on there showing the carnage.

Results: https://seecenduro.co.uk/resources/2017 ... ts_V1a.pdf

Shaun

[mudeevee]

Good effort - again! I see a budding expert in the making

Thanks for writing it up and keeping us in the loop of local events!

[Stewie]

Thanks Shaun, great write up, sounds like it was carnage out there, good result for you.

[smokinrider]

https://youtu.be/Z_2_iPBBqYg


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[6daysextreme]

I also did the witley classic but i did not book into this one on purpose.
Never ridden there but Knew it was chalk as know the area. Just didn't fancy it.

How do you like the difference between timecard and hare and hounds?
I do ride H&H but much prefer the TC events

[ShaunGASGAS300]

To be fair this was my first H&H so I can't comment on which I prefer. If the course was a bit easier then I would have enjoyed it more than I did.

Have to wait till the next H&H to make that decision. But I won't be entering this one again next year, that's for sure! Next ones are in May (Missed the entry for Iron Hill

[kevpg]

Good effort Shaun, a brave man to take on Butser lime works in the winter.

I hope you have your Pathfinder entry in? It should be a walk in the park by comparison!

Kev