Well, after the massive intro and history of The Mighty G from Monseigneur McSnotty this update may leave the reader somewhat underwhelmed.
As prepared as I thought I was, it simply wasn’t enough for me to be able to unleash the full , and somewhat mediocre, potential of what I’m going to unscientifically call the worlds fastest G (prove me wrong). I had entered the bike into multiple events to try and make the most of the time during the Burt week and to have as much fun as I could. All this went a bit sideways on day 1 when I attempted the Hill climb on gearing that’s more suited to a long track. I have no defence, I was warned, but apathy and having no concept of the how steep that hill would be for a 75 year old little Enfield undid me.
As described in McSnottys article,Th’G has not seen the light of day for a few decades and so most of the prep has been in getting it running and there wasn’t a lot of time to fettle/finagle/fekabout with the bike. The closest I got was an un-spirited ride around the block followed swiftly by being pulled over by the Rozzers for neglecting to wear a helmet. Mumbling apologies and redfaced pushing the bike home and pronouncing “Its good to go” in retrospect was probably a bit optimistic.
The Hill Climb
All unloaded, scrutineered and ready to rock, got up the Hill OK on the ‘sighting lap’ , 1st gear all the way. The dawning realisation that 1st gear was about all it was going to manage, hell I was here, the bike was running, it’d been up once, what could go wrong right? Well what went wrong was the poor old clutch couldn’t cope off the start line, gave up at the 1st corner and proceeded , against all good mechanical advice, to take up smoking. I’ll never get the smell of burning cork out of my nostrils…… And There ended Day 1, Beers and Tears followed, but not many, after all i had brought Spares 🙂
So back at the hotel, I rattled through the Clutch Plate “Spares” I had thrown into a box, ready to put together another clutch pack. Now these “Spares” are basically a bag of old (old old) plates accumulated from various RE projects, so condition isnt exactly factory fresh. But you work with what you have right!
Teretonga Sprint Races
I did get the thing back together for Practice at Teretonga on Friday. Rolled up, back thru Scrutineering and sign on. Alas, for the rest of the weekend I had clutch issues and spent time after each race tearing it apart, cleaning up the plates, reassembling and trying to be ready for the next race. ( There was only 4 actual scheduled races, 1 was cancelled due to oil on the circuit)
When the Clutch was holding on it was great fun, but again overgearing and over weight ( I may have packed on some additional kilos over the last couple of decades too) and overwhelming (lol) power from Th’G meant i was more rolling chicane that rolling thunder.
I learnt a lot and there’s much to do on Th’G to be ready for its next outing ( I’m not giving up yet) . I had an awesome time, all of the Officials and Competitors at The Burt were absolutely awesome. I got parked next to a top bloke racing a Suzuki T500 in the Pre 72 class who let me use in Roller starter for the weekend (Thanks again Brian if you’re reading this). What a godsend they are so I’m adding that to my list of things to have.
The To Do List
- Sort out the Clutch with shiny new plates and carry shiny new spares
- Clean out the tank again and add an in line petrol filter
- Sort out the Front Brake so it works better
- Change the Gearing to something more suitable for short circuits
- Don’t enter the bike in any Hill Climbs
- Try to get to some track days (locally) to make sure its all running as expected
- Mount a Permanent Rain light ( Had to get a bicycle one from the Warehouse missing 1 race on Saturday, who knew)
- Roller Starter
- Finish all the races
The Teretonga circuit is one of the best tracks Ive been on, such great fun. It would be great to see some more Pre 63’s out doing it.
Knob