In the first one, there is a location where still, and despite the time that has elapsed, I still go up from time to time. The second could be titled something like: A quarry just for me… Those were different times, of course. I’m a very ordinary guy and the only extraordinary thing about it is that I’m still riding the same bike I bought, except for a hiatus of a few years when I had to sell it to a colleague for personal reasons and then I got it back.
The bike has all the original basics except for the rear shock that I have put some Magicals, handlebars, since I have broken a few (the last one with the chest… I don’t recommend it to anyone, I still have the Gonelli logo on the left hemithorax), the frame that I painted black and, of course, the fenders, which were originally grey (I still wonder who and why they chose that horrible colour) and which have been red for a long time.
This is myfirst year as a federated member and mygoal is to compete in all the trials in Madrid and… finish some.
I’m 50 years old and it’s going to be the first time I’ve competed in trial… or not since I once raced a pirate trial in the year 76, more or less, in Collado Mediano, in what was then the football field, it was an Indoor Trial, with tires and such and I got on a Seat 600 with my motorcycle: a 50cc Puch Minicross. My colleague Vicente keeps the visual proof of such a feat in a couple of slides he took out of me.
Unfortunately when I bought the Cota I used it basically for hiking alone, so I’m not very skilled in the subject of trial.
So this has been my story so far, that I rediscover the Trial as a float.
My first season in trial.
Goal accomplished: I have run all the races of the Community of Madrid Classics Trophy
2011.
What I set out to do at the beginning of the year, I have carried out with more sorrow than glory… or not. At the end of this story I’ll think about it.
I started the season in a training session at the Motoclub Valdemanco. It was impressively cold: it was no wonder since the place was in the middle of the mountains east of Madrid. The first thing I felt was uneasiness as the areas were not marked for yellow steps. Considering my lack of experience, what I wanted was a clear marker that would indicate the level of difficulty I would have to face throughout the season.
The encouragement of my fellow workers was of little use to me: either there were yellow arrows or I was insecure because I didn’t have clear objectives.
I did something like half of the marked areas, I didn’t dare to do more.
The second experience was another training session of the same Moto club, this time in La Cabrera.
There I showed up alone and at least they marked some steps of yellows, even if they were yellows for modern motorcycles. That day I began to distinguish the different types of pilots that we met there. As I, in addition to being a novice and not very skilled, was wearing a classic, I noticed a certain air of annoyance around me. Like looking over your shoulder. I alleviated the feeling of discomfort by getting together with my peers, read Sherpas and other Cotas.
The third training session was at “home” as it was organized by the Moto club Trialmadrid to which I have belonged this season.
The passing of yellows was weird for me. I understood the start, part of the line, but the exits were an enigma. How could it be that he didn’t know how to get out of the zones? Anyway, I can’t call it anything other than a debacle: there was an area that didn’t know how to get in or out.
Finally the date of my first competition arrived: the Trial of Vicálvaro and… I didn’t know how to get to him. On Saturday I tried to get there with the car and it was impossible. The relief came when I got in front of the computer ready to download the whole map from Google and oh, surprise! it had been suspended because some of the zones were marked outside the boundary of the district of Vicálvaro.
Postponed sinedie… For this reason, my debut in the competition took place in the Trial de Collado Mediano, to which I contributed with my grain of sand by helping to mark the interzone. On the day of the trial, I was confident. I calmly entered the areas and calmly began to commit f
A lot of people have been able to find a way to Two zones, two fiascos. It’s a good thing the sun was shining at least… I got to zone 3 and scored a 2, well, something’s something. I got to zone 4 and did a 1, well, this gets better. I got to zone 5 and… I didn’t know how to get out. I tried it and a “several” to my card. Zone 6 and I stalled the bike when I locked the rear brake. Zone 7 and (gee, I’ve lived through this) I don’t know how to get out of the zone. The spooky entrance for a novice like me: stone ramp and accelerate and hope not to do a wheelie and fall backwards, right turns and a terrace to take advantage of every last inch and trace as if it were a roundabout and face a fairly vertical descent, be careful with the brake, do not lock the wheel! sharp left turn and a diagonal rock climb, left turn up and… That’s as far as I’ve come. People going to zero and me not knowing how to finish it.
Well, let’s go for the last one: entrance to a cut between two rocks, 180 degree turn, climb on sand and some loose stones, descent around a mini-mountain with a right turn, a little bit of gas and voilà!, you are out of the area… If you didn’t stall the bike on the first lap, that’s what happened to me. In short: to cry. The second round was somewhat better, the third with ups and downs and some humorous details but an unmitigated disaster. I was second to last only beating a teammate who came from the off-road and it was the first time he got on a trial bike and another pair who, unfortunately, had to abandon due to a breakdown. The bad thing was the feeling of loneliness because I didn’t know who to turn to for a hand to solve what for me were labyrinths, instead of zones.
And the second trial of my federated life arrives and it is ROBREGORDO, like this, with capital letters, THE TWO INTERNATIONAL DAYS OF ROBREGORDO: Twenty-nine zones in a single lap… of Thirty-odd kilometers on the way back. Two hundred pilots. Four backpackers, one of them mine:
Arturito. Not to bore me I will say that in the second interzone I wanted to abandon… Regrettable but rigorously true. I finished the trial last of the qualifiers. There were ten or twelve that didn’t make it because of breakdowns and such. On the second day I didn’t even start it, I retired with my right leg with pains in, as they say, muscles that I didn’t even know I had. And then comes the third trial and, after a drought of months without competition: Los Dos días de Los Ángeles de San Rafael. The beginning, unbeatable: I arrive at the verification, Manolo Torralbo is there, he looks at me and blurts out: Have you signed up for the trial? Hey, what morals do you have… Morals? What morals? If I had just left it on the floor. I had prepared this trial thoroughly: a well-reviewed bike, new platinums, new capacitor, spark plug, oil, etc., I even took a room in the hotel next to the paddock. Morning comes, I leave the first, first zone, a fiasco, second zone, a several, third zone, fiasco, fourth… so that I can go on. I vaguely remember two things: one that I must have done something right in an area or two and that I arrived at an area on a river and had to have my bike taken away by five guys. Luckily I got to zone 13 or 14 and broke the bike, otherwise … But I broke it well: I didn’t give a coherent spark (luckily I was able to get back into parc fermé, I don’t know how) and I lost hydraulics on the left bottle. The only good thing about the day is that I took a shower, went to the restaurant and tucked in a five-course tasting menu and dessert… In my defense, I will say that I did not eat dinner the night before, nor was I able to eat breakfast that day because of the nerves that gripped my stomach.
The fault was solved after 15 days of workshop (and 250 euros invoice) They put some caps in the bottle of the shock absorber and replaced the platinums and the condenser (which turned out to be an imitation of the originals) with an electronic breaker… A breakthrough that will be talked about in the last trial of the season. And then comes the fourth trial: Vicálvaro, the one who was suspended months ago. The site: a dry street next to the A-3 motorway. Climbs that seemed impossible to me, a priori, with the corresponding descents that seemed suicidal to me, always so optimistic. Well, gentlemen: I was wrong from beginning to end because I enjoyed the trial unspeakably. The bike was gripping, the embankments were impressive but not that big of a deal and the turns, except for two that choked me, were good for me.
A trial that I remember fondly, who would have thought.
Let’s go for the fifth one, which I’ll summarize like this: do you know the bullfighting saying “there is no bad fifth”
Rotten lie! It was another urban trial, in Las Rozas, theoretically organized by the Motoclub of the same name and it was Vicálvaro bis but on top of that with only 7 zones and, although it seems incredible in such a small space, with the interzone so badly marked that I got lost in the three laps. Now, yes, zeros I made the cake. And here comes the last trial that, for reasons I don’t know, my Motoclub didn’t organize. It was held in Navalafuente and left an excellent taste in my mouth. The ground was very wet from the rain that had fallen until the day before. Stones everywhere that, despite the humidity, they grabbed.
Turns so tight that they seemed impossible but in which the bike entered. Stone steps in their two variants: climb them if you can and now lower them if you dare. And on top of that, it’s safe, at least at my level. In short, a joy. And here is the anecdote of the breaker: I reach zone 5 on my third lap, there are several riders in front of me, I stop the bike, I take a look over it to remember what the zone was like, I will have to enter, I start the bike, not very well because my boots are wet and the kick is not very good.
Or it’s as energetic as it should have been but, well, the engine has started, I get the feeling that something isn’t right, but… They authorize me to enter the zone, I put in first gear and I leave all determined… to my astonishment and the merriment of those around me… I release the clutch slowly and stunned to see that my bike has at least six forward and one reverse gears (I didn’t put in second either because the result would have been the same, I say). I swallow, put myself in neutral, stop the bike with the stop button and start mentally begging:
Please, please, please, it’s zone 5 of the third round, please, please, start and go forward, please don’t do this to me in the last trial, please. I try to swallow again but my throat is dry, I take out the starting lever, put my boot down, get up balanced and give him a kick that not even the Basque’s joke (1) can do.
I put the clutch in first, release the clutch with the sphincters closed to the maximum and the bike goes where it needs to go: to face the area, in which, by the way, I score a one. Wow, test passed! From this trial I have to highlight that in some laps I did all the zones to zero.
In the trial that seemed the most difficult to me a priori, it was the one in which I enjoyed the most and the most
“Trialero” I felt.
Anyway: c ‘est fini, the end, the season is over.
And what am I going to do next year with fifty-one tacos? Well I’m like the song:
What am I going to do? Je ne sais pas
What am I going to do? Je ne sais plus
What am I going to do? Je suis perduPero, just in case, I have already asked my company for the days off for the two-day trials that are scheduled… since I have become a member again because, deep down, I liked competing!
P.S.(1) What’s the joke about Basque? Well, the Basque man who meets a friend on a hill scanning the horizon. So, Patxi, what are you doing? Well, here, Gorka, starting the bike.
But if that’s not done, it’s done by kicking it! Well, I’ve kicked her and I’m seeing where I’ve sent her!
Best regards
