Events

Pau Arnos – 13/14/15 May 2022 – Part 3 Courtesy of Matt being on other duties, I was able to purloin his nice soft ‘Goldilocks mattress’, snuggle up and have eight full hours of wonderful slumber. Deep joy. I was up, revitalised, with the larks at 5.55 am, ready willing and able to overcome what […]

Pau Arnos – 13/14/15 May 2022 – Part 2 I was up early just as daylight crept over the paddock. The morning air was full of moisture, producing a heavy atmosphere like a thick fog, without the fog. It was quite fresh which was a pleasant change from the previous day. The forecast was for […]

Pau Arnos – 13/14/15 May 2022 We arrived at Circuit Pau Arnos early Thursday evening after an uneventful journey, for a change. The Truck was performing wonderfully well for an ‘old gal’ and did the 404kms in five and a half hours with a long fuel stop, as she has big tanks. The recent hike […]

Test day – Le Vigeant 11 April 2022 Apart from the routine preparations, all we had to do on Trudy was the fork oil seals, which were easier to replace than expected. We did experience a little difficulty compressing the springs sufficiently to gain access to the dismantling nuts, but Rik quickly worked something out. […]

Le Vigeant 23/24/25 March 2022 Finished Trudy’s prep with two days to spare, so not quite last minute. That gave me a half-day to play with ‘The Truck’. The hold up with the bike was once again the race ignition system. Somehow I’d been sent the wrong rotor forcing us to revert to the standard […]

Update 16th March 2022 These last three months have flown by, leaving us within a blink of an eye before pre-season testing. Six days to be precise and, true to form, the prep is going down to the wire. I took delivery, at Cigma Racing HQ, of the new fairing set and refreshed tuned engine […]

Update January 2022 A very Happy New Year, we hope and trust a fantastic Christmas was had by one and all. With the season fast approaching and just around the corner it’s time for a little update. Firstly we have had a slight change of plan for the 2022 season and are extremely excited to […]

Season Review 2021 Just a reminder of our goal as a Team, which was and still is racing on The Isle of Man in The TT, either in 2022 or 2023. Everything we do is with this in mind and only practice for this end. Results haven’t exactly gone our way this year so I […]

La Vigeant – 09/10 October – Part 2 The time soon arrived to get up to the collecting area and we were once again blessed with perfect racing conditions. Rik beat us there as he rode Trudie. We were all on foot carrying stands and warmers but by the time we’d caught him up, there was a […]

La Vigeant – 09/10 October – Part 1 Here we are, in the paddock on a beautiful Friday evening for the season finale and it’s rammed, we only just managed to squeeze in. It was a Team decision to forego the Friday practice day as it was only 4 weeks previous that Rik put in a […]

Ales – 24/25/26 September – Part 4 Race result 12th The corner Rik lost it on was a downhill, slowish, right-hand turn with the camber running away, so quite tricky in the wet. I was rather relieved to see the bike being pushed onto the trailer at the end of the race with fairing still intact, […]

Ales – 24/25/26 September – Part 3 First job this morning was to visit scrutineering, which opened up at 8, just after first light. We had, for the first time in ages, a heavy cloud cover with rain forecast for the afternoon. But for now it remained dry and there were no problems to report with the […]

Ales – 24/25/26 September – Part 2 Friday greeted us with clear blue skies with a crisp autumnal feel to the air. Quite beautiful in our mountainous surroundings. It really is a picturesque location and well worth the trauma getting here. We had five test sessions to look forward to with 2 before lunch and 3 in […]

Ales – 24/25/26 September – Part 1 Ales has nestled away in the Ardeche, a mountainous region of France, about 560 km from home with no direct route for the final 100 km of the journey. That last part was somewhat exciting, to say the least. Although the terrain is spectacularly beautiful, the poor old truck […]

Le Vigeant – 26/27/28/29 August – Part 4 Sunday race position 6th Matt was up at 7 am making coffee, the smell of which tempted me out of bed to join him. We formulated a quick plan then got to work on Trudie with the usual race prep routine. I took the wheels next door to […]

Le Vigeant – 26/27/28/29 August – Part 3 Race position 8th. Another gorgeous late summer’s day ahead of us. The race prep had already been started on Friday evening, it was just a case of finishing off, buying some new tyres and giving Trudie a final clean. We had 2 qualifying sessions and 1 race to […]

Le Vigeant – 26/27/28/29 August – Part 2 The weather forecast was set fair for the next four days and so it proved with a glorious sunrise for Thursday’s track day. Both Matt and I had had fitful sleep, the ‘will she, won’t she’ scenario was a heavy burden, so we were up early drinking coffee […]

Le Vigeant – 26/27/28/29 August – Part 1 This is one of the meetings we’ve all been looking forward to the most, giving our friends the ideal opportunity to come along, support Rik and see what it’s all about. ???? Since Pau, Matt and I have put some hours in on Trudie to finally get to […]

News Update 24th August 2021 The fickle finger of fate moves in mysterious and wondrous ways. Last week I was expecting the delivery, from UPS, of our tweaked ignition. Instead, I received an email from BDK Race Engineering informing me that the Royal Mail guy had picked up our parcel, by accident or stupidity or […]

Pau Arnos 6/7/8 August – Part 2 I was up early, just before sun up, closely followed by Matt who also had troubled sleep. Both of us had been going through the procession of problems we’ve had all season, trying to piece together some kind of diagnosis. Nothing is adding up, but both of us […]

Pau Arnos 6/7/8 August – Part 1 The twelve days since Haute Saintonge was barely sufficient time to recover and not enough time for a new speed sensor to be delivered before leaving for Pau. The only choice was to fit the speed sensor from the spare engine. Matt had printed out a test procedure […]

Haute Saintonge 23/24/25 July – Part 4 – Sunday Matt and I were up early, for differing reasons. Me because I wanted to get to work on the race prep and Matt because of his tooth which was now so bad his face had swollen quite badly during the night. Cruelly, I did have a chuckle at his […]

Haute Saintonge 23/24/25 July – Part 3 – Saturday View from Pit Lane  part 3  Up and out of our bunks at 7 am for coffee, nicotine and a peek outside to witness a beautiful dawn, not a cloud in the sky. Matt and I chatted for a bit, not mentioning our respective health problems, then […]

Haute Saintonge 23/24/25 July – Part 2 – Friday Test Day The day was just about perfect conditions. Bit of blue sky, bit of cloud, only twenty-odd degrees with no threat of rain and a great little circuit to learn. We had five sessions throughout the day with each of our sessions only split by forty […]