RUST magazine: RUST Tref Special

alex’S tref...
G
EttInG tHREE BIKES and riders around
the tref for three days requires more
organisation than you might imagine.
Luckily we had the right vehicle (VW Crafter)
and a spare man (me) for the job. It also
allowed me to photograph and film the event
from a slightly different perspective.
Bikes and riders both need fuelling on a
regular basis and without it you won’t be
finishing the day at this type of event. Each
day has three or four checkpoints and a
similar amount of special stages. the evening
before we went through Warren and Pedro’s
start times and when they should be arriving
at each check. James, as a press rider, was riding at his own pace,
stopping to take photos, so would be arriving later at each check but
also needed fuel and food.
my job was to make sure I was at each check (preferably ahead of the
first rider) with fuel mats out, two-stroke mixed, sandwiches made and
drinks at the ready – a theory which (mostly) went to plan…
Bearing in mind we are in a rural part of southern France the
organisers hadn’t gone into a huge amount of detail with maps and
directions for support teams and drivers and there were some
reasonable distances between some of the checks. What you essentially
get is an obscure village name and a large coloured blob on a map
(mostly obscuring where you actually need to be). Fortunately the VW
Crafter sat-nav helped me out on more than a couple of occasions…
Amazing tool sat-nav – it would have been the job for two men and a
vast paper map not ten years ago.
on reflection it was a lot of fun and what I missed out on in riding
terms was made up for with three days of driving through some
stunning landscapes and the satisfaction of helping the lads get
through three tough days at the tref.
Words: Alex Waters