RUST magazine: RUST#42

ADVENTURE
THE ADVENTURE
SPEC CHALLENGE
The Facts
It’s a three-round series: Kielder 500,
Wales 500, IoM 500.
Each event is a weekend (two
days), with a total course distance
of around 500km, predominantly offroad
(mostly gravel tracks) but with road
linking sections.
It is a navigational competition. Riders
follow a paper road book and through
an electronic tracker they are marked
on the accuracy with which they follow
the road book. It is not against the clock
and riders are encouraged to ride at
sensible speeds given most of the tracks
are open to the public – excess speed is
recorded and attracts penalty points.
The series is for adventure bikes
(‘road legal bikes’) with a minimum
weight of 140kg. Common sense tells
you that a CRF250L is eligible, being
at the lower end of what an adventure
bike can be, but say a KTM 500EXC is
not – that’s a competition bike (and
yes, Adam Reiman and his Motology
mates might hack around the world at
great speed on their 500EXCs, but that’s
la-la film-making for you, who really
wants to go RTW with oil changes every
15 hours?). Otherwise anything goes,
including modern street scramblers and
supermotos, pretty sure there was an
NC750 somewhere in the mix too.
The trails can be ridden on road tyres
(and many do), but if wet some caution
is required. Proper 50/50 adventure
tyres are probably the call, for a more
carefree ride!
The events are very social with onsite
camping, meals and bar. Here at RUST
we’d like to encourage riders to ride – as
against van/trailer – their bikes to the
event. The trails are not there to destroy
you, there’s no race and, heck, aren’t
adventure bikes specifically designed
for this kind of thing: highway and
byway…
Want to know more?
Go to www.rallymoto.co.uk
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www.rustsports.com