THE GIBRALTAR RACE
Robert Talton last raced 30 years ago, and had little or no off-road experience when he entered the 4400-mile Gibraltar Race…
4400 miles from the Baltic to Gibraltar (well sort of). On and off-road.
ME: I’M THINKING of taking part in the Gibraltar Race next year. My Girlfriend: well that should not take long, it’s not very big you know. Me: well actually it’s an endurance race which starts in Poland and finishes in Spain covering about 4400 miles, and eight countries.
My Girlfriend: oh, well that’s sounds a bit more interesting. So, you finish in Gibraltar then?
Me: erm, no. We actually finish in the north of Spain at the most westerly point. My Girlfriend: well where does Gibraltar come into it?
She’s got a good point and as I don’t know the answer to this question (at the time) I distract her by telling her that Poirot will be on soon. I decide I best crack on and do more research before any further discussions – I’ve also neglected to tell her I’ll be away for over two weeks and I’ll be spending a lot of time in the workshop over the coming months getting the bike ready. If you’re not familiar with the Gibraltar Race it is an annual event similar to the Parisdakar but across Europe and for amateurs. A certain percentage of the rally also has to be off-road. Let’s go back a bit though. The two week race is not the beginning. The decision to take part was where the journey began and that was nearly a year before the race. Then there’s the registration, payment, training, logistics and bike prep. The first two were the easy parts but then it all got serious.
Why do it?
One year earlier it dawned on me that it was 30 years since I last raced a bike. So, at 58 years old and never having had a midlife crisis I decided it was time I started. I decided to do some green lane riding, having never really had a proper go at off-road (road racing was my former discipline), so I joined the Trail Riders Fellowship (TRF) with a view to maybe doing a few weekend enduro events. While flicking through the TRF’S mag I come across an ad for the Gibraltar Race. That was the spark. The ad described the event as a Paris-dakar for amateurs, at which point the spark became a flame. A quick check on the dates revealed the 2018 race was two days old so I went onto the website to look at the live tracking. I wanted to see how the Brits where faring, and to see where they were, and where they were going. My mind was instantly made up, I was up for the 2019 race…
The Training
September 2018 and I book in for a day’s training, one-on-one, with Mark Kinnard (adventuretrailriding.co.uk), basically to see if was capable of entering the GBR. Adventure Trail Riding also offer mechanical assistance on the GBR, will transport your bike to the start and from the finish, and provide advice and GPS navigation throughout the event. Mark has also won the race, and finished second this year. He knows what he is on about. During my training day he talked me through the event, how it works and gave me advice on which GPS to use. We also rode around what he calls the Thetford loop – a 105 mile route in the forests involving a wide variety of terrains. I rode from my home to Thetford and back so 285 miles in total with 105 miles of that off-road – a typical day on the GBR. So, all I had to do was 14 days like that, one after the other. The following day I was surprised to not feel as stiff as a board – confidence had taken a step up. At the end of the day Mark told me if I got on okay with the navigation I could finish inside the top 20. I’d take that, I thought, but aim higher – once a racer always a racer.
Three days later I registered for the GBR and paid the registration fee.
The next stage was to attend the Gibraltar Race UK Prologue in April – which was ‘navigated’ as per the Gibraltar Race, but as a three day trial run. Three days and 840 miles covering Thetford, Hunstanton, Oxford, Hampshire and the Devils Punch Bowl, in sand, mud and more deep sand.
The Prologue did its job; I was okay with navigation with room for improvement, but my off-road riding had taken another step-up. I had picked up the technique and my Africa Twin was floating over the top of deep sand – big smiles for me.
Also at the Prologue I met up with Will (Christian Brix) who had also entered the Rally. He described himself as an ‘Overlander’, a term, I have to admit, I had not heard before. It transpired he was well travelled and had ridden an XT660Z down the West Coast of Africa, around South Africa and up the East Coast to Kenya before heading to Asia. I read his first book,
‘I neglect to tell my girlfriend I’ll be away for weeks and I’ll also be spending andmy lot of time getting the bike ready’
The Unseen Walls, about the Africa leg, he’s writing his second now about the Asia leg. I thought I best read it as he’d asked me if I would team up with him and his Australian mate Spiros, another overlander. Like myself Spiros was riding a 2017 Honda CRF1000 and was your typical laidback Aussie, so when the three of us meet up in Kdansk Poland at the start of the Rally we gelled. Quickly.
Each team has to have a name and Will came up with The Three Rusty Gears. No pun intended, but appropriate
The Bike
I work at Honda Racing, Louth, Lincolnshire as an engine builder which not only equips me with the skills to prep a bike that can hold together for a 4400-mile enduro, but also provided a few useful perks including a good deal on Bridgestone tyres; I used Battlax Adventurecross AX41 which worked exceptionally well in all conditions, even on tarmac. (For the first two days in Poland I used the more Enduro Battlecross E50, which worked well in the ever tricky sand.)
An email and a chat with the right person at Akrapovic resulted in a full system turning up, at the Honda workshop, with my name on it. Next was a Rapid Bike EVO active engine management system which improved performance overall, especially when it came to the slow, tricky gnarly bits where the Honda’s weight was a bit of a disadvantage. Engine performance taken care of all I had to do was make the bike bulletproof in the event of a crash: the AT’S standard sump guard is not up to the job of protecting the engine from serious off-road work so I replaced that with a Bumot Defender Skid Plate along with a set of Heed crash bars (steel ones). All this added weight to the bike, but without these items my race would have been over in the Italian Alps. Or worse still before I’d even exited Poland where, on day two, I ‘stepped off’ the bike for the first time.
Oh, and I also added Barkbuster hand guards, which came into their own whenever I dropped the bike – which I did more than once, usually when I was just too tired to hold it up.
Logistics
How do you get your bike and kit to the start and then from stage to stage? Well there are various ways including riding there with everything you need or doing what I did and arrange for someone to take your bike in a van along with your essential kit. Obviously, there’s a cost involved but I really didn’t fancy riding all the way to Poland then starting the race. I genuinely admire anyone who did that though.
At ease everyone
The 2019 race started in the coastal city of Gdansk, Poland and finished at Cap Finistère, Spain.
The concept of the 4th Gibraltar Rally was to connect the coasts of the Baltic Sea with the Atlantic Ocean. Just so you’re clear though, the first Gibraltar Rally did actually finish in Gibraltar.
So, the bike and my kit box are all on their way to the start. I take my helmet and a small bag with me on the train from Lincoln to Stansted airport. And then fly to Gdansk. I arrive a day early which turns out to be a good idea because it’s hectic at the hotel where we meet, but the good news is my bike is only an hour away. The rest of the day and night is spent checking the bike and getting all my kit ready. The next day is the welcome day (prologue) and after the medical and scrutineering we turn up in all our gear expecting time trials. We are given directions to the trials site and on arriving I can tell you I’m
‘It was 40 degrees, there was a thunder storm in the distance and the light was perfect as the sun was setting…’
petrified; imagine a relatively small tarmac area with a handful of pink bicycles. This is by far the riskiest stage of the rally because I’m 6ft 1in and these are teeny bikes. Nevertheless it’s obviously designed to put everyone at ease and I have to be honest it’s a good laugh.
The Race
Every morning riders start at minute intervals according to the standings from the day before – there are nearly 100 riders so this can take a while.
A minute before we set off we receive our GPS with the road liaisons and waypoints loaded onto them, along with a tracker and a sheet summarizing the times to respect. We use two stopwatches; one that starts at the beginning of the day and allows us to control the start times of the off-road and a second that is used only during the special off-road stages which are all timed. Penalties are given at one point for each second of gap you are late or early at the start and finish of a special off-road stage. Confused? Me too, until the end of the first week. On arrival at the bivouac at the end of each day, we hand back the tracker/gps beacon which is then analysed to confirm everyone’s routes and times. At the end of each day I can honestly say I’m exhausted – mentally and physically. But, before bed, there is still the bike to prepare for the following day. I’m lucky if I get five hours sleep, although it’s more like five hours in bed as sleep doesn’t come easily: I’d inevitably still be buzzing from the day’s riding, plus not all the hotels have air con. I would also wake too early because I don’t want to be late to the start, which would mean penalty points. I don’t go to the gym, but do ride any chance I get and commute to work on my AT doing green lanes; it’s only 12 miles but it gets me riding fit. My work as a mechanic in the World Endurance Championship – where we do eight and 24 hour races – also trains my body to go without sleep: a 24-hour race for a mechanic equates to around 41 hours without sleep. This rally put everything into perspective though, I’ve never known exhaustion like it. But, it’s amazing what adrenalin can do.
The Highlights
Honestly, what an experience. It’s six months on and I still get a buzz every time I think about what I achieved. The highlights include the challenge (mentally and physically); the freedom, who wouldn’t be happy riding an endurance bike for 12 hours a day for two weeks and then there’s the fabulous scenery; I didn’t think I’d have time to take it in, but when I wasn’t negotiating rocky outcrops and sand dunes there was ample time to soak it up. It may sound a bit tame but one of my favourite memories of the race was riding on fast gravel roads through lavender fields in France. It was well over 40 degrees, there was a thunder storm in the distance and the light was just perfect as the sun was setting. I just remember thinking that this is surreal and that I couldn’t imagine anywhere I’d rather be.
What would I do differently the next time?
The bike was great, but it was just too big and too heavy. After two weeks it was all I could do to hold the damn thing up. Momentum was my friend, but it was also risky and the few bad falls I had were mainly down to fatigue. I’m thinking that next year I’ll go for either a modified Honda CRF 450L or an AJP PR7 650. Navigation is a major part of the race and you need a system that is reliable wherever you are. I’ll be looking into a better GPS navigation system and will definitely take a spare. Will lost his on day two, after a crash in sand, which was a lesson for us all.
And finally
I managed a reasonably respectable 26th place which was okay given I had a major mishap with the bike on day two and had to miss 75% of the stages that day due to a bent front rim.
As a team though we fought hard and came back from fifth place after the second day to take first place in the team event, so I made it onto the top step of the rostrum after all, with Will and Spiros.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. I’m a Gibraltar Hero after all. My girlfriend is sick of hearing about it though. Can I change the battery in the smoke detector? ‘Of course I can, I’m a Gibraltar Hero’. You get the gist.
‘Was it worth it? Absolutely. I’m a Gibraltar Hero after My girlfriend is sick of hearing about it though’
Thanks to: adventuretrailriding.co.uk, ruggedroads.co.uk, ktechsuspension.com, rally-raidproducts.co.uk, Akrapovic and finally Bridgestone Tyres.