Out in the fields
Farmers: the enduro rider’s best friend…
AT THE END OF EVERY SUMMER, when the crops are harvested, a very small window of opportunity opens up in our rural landscape when bike-friendly farmers hand over empty stubble fields to dirt bike racing. This, as I’m sure you can imagine, is as good as dirt bike racing gets. A Lincolnshire Enduro Club event near Tattershall offered me and the KTM 300 EXC TPI a chance to blow away some cobwebs (I’d broken a rib a few weeks before without realising it and stubble fields are a definite confidence builder). Straight away the beauty of riding a stubble field Enduro hit me. It was a wide-open playground rather than the game of follow the leader Enduro can too often become. It was like a seven-lane freeway at 5am on a Sunday with the freedom to go as fast as the hell you like on loamy soil. Ahead of the race I’d been having trouble with a spongy front brake. The original oil looked dark like it had been fried. Fresh brake fluid
gave me the bite back. British company Raptor sent me a set of titanium footpegs (£199.95) to try as well. They’re a bit savage on the shins if you’re not careful loading the bike in the van but they have amazing grip. Standard pegs sit too high (deliberately from KTM to keep them higher for ruts) but they also slope inwards. The Raptors
are flatter, wider and also 5mm lower and sit further back, which makes my riding position much more comfortable to boot. All the better to hang on to while you stretch the throttle cables across a farmer’s field in Lincolnshire.