Costa Rica
In my view, the very fact we get out on our motorcycles in some of the most beautiful countryside with our closest friends is paradise. To get to do all this in a location that just about everyone on the planet earth would class as paradise is life-changing; but how did all this come about? Back to 2018 and I’m at the biggest and most amazing trial in the world, the Scottish Six Days Trial in Fort William Scotland. I’m walking down the West End car park on a wet and fairly miserable Monday morning for the start of another awesome week of motorcycles, beer, friends, more beer and some of the most amazing scenery in the world. As I ‘rock up’ to my machine I have a good look around to see who I recognise and which good riders I’d like to catch up with or fall back with to hopefully get a flow going, as you do. My eye caught a guy sitting on his machine shivering with a very light – at best showerproof – jacket on, no base layers or proper protection from the elements! The jacket had Costa Rica printed down the breast; the guy was swarthy skinned, so it was a wild guess he wasn’t a local…
Iintroduced myself: “Hi, I am Andy from Ireland” and he did the same, “Felipe Koberg from Costa Rica” he replied. I asked, did he not have a Goretex jacket or any other layers to keep him warm. He replied “No, we don’t use jackets where I am from. I rode last year in 2017, and the weather was great, so I didn’t think I’d need one”. Luckily my lodgings for the ‘Scottish’ week are just across from start area in the West End car park, so I ran up quickly and got him another jacket, and said that I understood he had travelled a long way so if he needed anything just ask and if I had it he could use it.
WHAT A GUY
As the week went on, we bumped into each other here and there, and I would ask how was he getting on. He always replied he was doing well but struggling with the cold, and he had injured his arm so was trying to keep it mobile while also trying to protect it from further injury. All I could think was ‘what a guy; over here on his own and competing in one of the toughest events in the world because he felt the need to do better than he had done the year before’. I could relate to this, as anyone who has ever ridden the Scottish Six Day will know, the event is the ultimate test of man and machine, and the goal is always to better your own personal best every time you compete. But to travel halfway around the world and spend all the time, money and effort that he had done deserved respect and, at the very least, a friendly bit of support and guidance.
Now I know him much better and if I had to describe the man in a few words they would have to be: focused, strong, determined, fit, brave and kind – in fact, a lovely man.
He battled through the week which wasn’t great weather-wise, even coming from an Irishman, but it must have felt like a week at the South Pole for him being that his home country temperature was in the middle to high forties when he left! He accepted the advice I offered where I felt it was useful and was super grateful that our sport is full of guys all looking out for each other and making sure that he enjoyed his week sharing time with myself and other likeminded guys.
After the ‘Scottish’ we kept in touch via the usual social media channels, and we filled each other in on what we did for a living, and here there were a lot of ‘comparables’ in our lives. He’s a super-easy guy to get on with and loves the sport of motorcycle trials, which makes him a top bloke in my eyes.
JURASSIC TRIAL
As time went on, Felipe told me he came from an enduro background and had taken up trials for more of a challenge. He informed me that they have an enduro event in Costa Rica with over 1,000 riders and that there were only around 30–40 trials bikes in the country, but with extreme enduro getting bigger and riders like Graham Jarvis, Jonny Walker and Billy Bolt all coming from a trials background more and more enduro riders are keen to learn the new techniques from the sport of trials. He said it would be a great location to run a big event, as the terrain is perfect and the country is very open to new international events. This accelerated very quickly from an idea to receiving photos and videos of the type of sections and terrain as he envisaged his idea becoming a reality and he was keen to get feedback from his trials friends from around the world.
Over the next few months, he contacted a number of riders of various levels from Spain, France, Latin America and, of course, good-old Ireland to see if we would be prepared to travel over and see the course that he would like the event to be held on – that was a 100 per cent ‘yes’ from me! I think we all thought this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and jumped at the offer.
I spoke to my good friend and ex-world trials sensation Rob Crawford and he loved the idea, so we both jumped on the plane and off we went.
LOCAL HELP
Felipe and his buddy, Gustavo Jop, along with a small number of local helpers, set about the epic task of clearing tracks and rivers through the dense jungle to roll out and discover the most amazing sections; most of which are waterfalls varying from one metre upwards and, as they say, the sky’s the limit!
They arranged for local riders to lend us their machines to do the inspection of the course, and we all filled a card in to register our views on the 90 sections they had marked out. We scored each one of the 90 sections from 1–3; 1 being a good section for all levels, 2 being hard but achievable and 3 being pro level only. We also listed sections that were either too hard or too dangerous, but there were only 2 or 3 of these in the 90 sections and made for some great video of what went wrong! The course was just about perfect and, with a few tweaks, it was agreed it was a fantastic test for any level of rider. The group then sat at the end of the three days and analysed the course along with everything that we felt would need to be included in the package and what riders would expect from such an exotic experience.
“…set about the epic task of clearing tracks and rivers through the dense jungle to roll out and discover the most amazing sections; most of which are waterfalls varying from one metre upwards”
GOING FORWARD
Moving on to August 2019, and Felipe had been super busy getting crates made for machine transport, agreements in place for the transport and hotels booked to accommodate the riders. Things moved very fast and, with it being the first running of the event, he was constantly on the move dealing with every aspect of this epic event. This is not a small task for the largest of well-oiled clubs and, for a one-man-band that hadn’t even run a club event, this was a huge task to take on. Still, with Felipe in the driving seat, it was never going to be anything other than a success and nothing else would do for this man and his small team of merry helpers.
I flew into Costa Rica on Thursday the 21st November. Felipe had a busy schedule planned, with the first press event, which I performed at on my own, happening at the local Honda/ Repsol HQ on the Friday.
With all the local press and TV companies present, I put on a little demonstration to show them what our sport was about and welcome them all to the following two press events taking place on the Saturday at the national sports stadium. This is a huge venue, and I was joined at this one by the USA number one, Pat Smage, along with Aniol Gelabert,
Pau Martinez and the beautiful Ladies’ FIM world number two, Berta Abellan. It made for a fantastic show to the public as well as the press and made a huge impact with the locals.
PREPARATION
Monday saw the last press event, happening again at the stadium, and then we all parted ways, with Felipe, Spanish legend Carlos Casas, Australian rider Matthew Hannaford and myself making the three-hour drive to the location of the trial in Nandayure where the first two days of the event would take place.
With the event starting on Friday and three days of trials to mark out we didn’t waste any time and as soon as we arrived in the early afternoon, we got changed to head out on to the proposed course.
Carlos had been working on the course via video link and photos prior to our arrival and, to be fair to him, he had a clear plan of what he wanted to do so he led the way as we headed out to mark out the course where Matthew and I simply did what was needed to assist Carlos to achieve the course he wanted.
We finished Monday riding home in the pitch black of the jungle darkness following the local Sherpa guide Jossmann back to the hotel for a well-earned beer!
Carlos had arranged for all the local observers, (remember this was Costa Rica’s first-ever trial, so no one had ever observed a section before), to go through the rules and give them all allocated section numbers etc., which went on for over two hours. Matthew and I had to drink beer the whole time while waiting for Carlos to finish so we could go for dinner.