RUST magazine: RUST#32

TRAIL
w
follows Sport Adventure tours around rural
France but I can only remember getting
soaked to the skin once in over 45 days of
riding. And even then I didn’t actually get
cold. Partly this is ‘thanks’ to global warming.
I was looking through some old photos
the other day and was amazed by how
muddy everything used to be. There’s a track
where I live that used to have a boggy bit all
year round. In winter you had to go round it,
in summer pop the front wheel over it. But
now, even after it’s been raining steadily for a
couple of days, you can walk down the track
without getting your shoes dirty.
Another important element of a good year
is of course the punters, and in this department
I was particularly blessed. Inevitably
when organising any event for people who,
let’s be honest about this, suffer from adult
attention deficit disorder, you occasionally
have to lay down the law. But this year I
don’t remember raising my voice once. It
could be that I’m mellowing out in my old
age but I doubt it. A more likely explanation
was offered to me by a customer who
works in marketing. He explained that small
businesses tend to attract clients that are in
some way similar to the proprietor. I’m not
sure if this theory is more insulting to myself
or my punters but there is an undeniable
logic there. My marketing man went on to
advance the idea that over the 25 years I’ve
been running trips, by the laws of attrition,
my customer base has been whittled down to
those people who can stand me and visa-versa.
I’ve got no problem with that – everybody’s
happy.
I’ve also been very happy on the bike
thanks to the acquisition of my Yamaha
WR250F. Now I’ve banged on about this
quite a lot over the year so I won’t go into
too much detail again here but essentially I
really like the way the bike handles and this
trumps all other considerations, such as the
fact that the engine is very peaky compared
to my KTM 350 EXC and that the WR is
not nearly so easy to work on. The fitment
of an Akrapovic silencer has improved the
low down torque considerably (much more
so than messing around with the mapping
via the Star Trekky ‘Power Commander’)
but I did fall seriously out of love with the
bike the other day when the clutch cable
snapped mid-tour. Fortunately I remembered
that these things tend to let you down
from the last time I rode a dirt bike with a
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