EKAM is extremely fortunate and
justifiably proud to list Nigel Stevens
as its main IAM test examiner. Nigel
passed his senior observer test at the
same time as your editor and has
gone on to become a very
active and appreciated
member of the club. You will
see him eagerly
participating in events such
as the karting and the off-
roading day; or sand racing
at Le Touquet; or throwing
open his (parents’) doors for
the treasure hunters’ BBQ;
or spending many hours on the road
behind test candidates; or presenting
successful candidates with pass
certificates on club nights.
So it was a pleasure to hear Nigel
give one of his entertaining and
humorous dialogues about Roadcraft
at the October club night.
It was an interactive evening with
Nigel holding forth on a variety of
subjects and inviting a two-way
conversation with the audience. He
talked about the test during the past
year and how advanced
motorcycling is all about you,
the biker, making your own
decisions. That by
positioning yourself to get the
best view gives you the edge
and makes you more visible
to others who could present
a hazard. Motorcycling is fun,
he declared, but we must
take responsibility for our own ride
and not trust our well-being to
strangers’ hands.
Many thanks to Nigel for his talk and
all the time and effort he gives to
EKAM.
As you may remember I wrote a piece for the
EKAM magazine last year telling the tale of how I
and a couple of colleagues teamed up to buy
ourselves a cheap bike from the internet auction
site Ebay to use as a track day bike.
To give you a brief re-cap, we bought a 22 year
old Yamaha FZR400 and spent our spare time
getting it into a useable condition, spending as
little money as possible along the way. Our first
outing at Snetterton ended prematurely after one of
us (not me!) took to the grass at about 80mph.
The damage wasn’t too bad. When we brought it
home it was evident that we needed to straighten
out a handlebar, replace a broken footrest hanger
and stick all the pieces of the fairing back together.
Over the next few weeks (or was it months?) we
slowly put the bike together again. The fairing
panels were rebuilt by welding the broken pieces
together with a soldering iron and reinforcing
them with fibreglass matting. With a bit of filler
and some cheap aerosol paint they looked pretty
good.
Our brief excursion onto the track had been
sufficient to spark a mild addiction in all three of
us. We had much more confidence in the bike, not
only riding it but also confidence that it wouldn’t
blow-up. Not wishing to speak too soon, but it’s
incredible how reliable bike engines are. We had
treated the engine to nothing more than an oil
change since buying the bike from the back yard
of a pub where it had been slowly rusting away. To
date we’ve used it for five track days and it’s
been used in two groups on each track day, so
running for 40 minutes out of every hour and
(touch wood) it hasn’t missed a beat. We just
have to give it a little oil now and again.
With our new found confidence we were keen
to try out a new track and where better for a
400cc sports bike than Cadwell Park. We
booked a couple of places with Focused
Events in September and for a few weeks we
waited like a bunch of excited school kids. I
kept grinning to myself for no apparent
reason and Simon, my colleague and team
book-keeper, kept sending me text messages
the simply read, ‘We’re going to Cadwell…
J’.
Cadwell Park didn’t disappoint. We camped
overnight at the circuit and awoke to a
beautiful crisp autumn morning. Its leafy
twists and turns and ups and downs are just
like riding your favourite back road over and
over again. Sadly Simon’s enthusiasm got the
better of him. I stood waiting for him to
return from his first session so that I could
have a go and he didn’t come back. I feared
the worst – no, not a mortal injury - a
terminal bike failure. I returned to the car and
waited to see what turned up.
Sure enough a rusty Transit van turned up
with Simon in the
passenger seat
looking a bit
sheepish. He’d
gone into the
‘Gooseneck’ a bit
too hot and rather
than hit another
bike up the rear he
took to the wet
grass. Needless to
say the bike didn’t
stay upright for
too long. Lets
apply ‘The
System’ to this
