Engine overhaul.

The ACU is not the only governing body allowed to licence off-road motorcycle sport. AMCA can also do this, and are preferred by many clubs due to lower costs and less onerous regulations.

Chris

No the woodland is unsuitable for farming anything although I do grow Oak trees. :) It has a stream running through it, its also very rocky with some very large holes perfect for paint-balling and trials but little else I did let the VMCC use the camping field one year for a round of the grass track championship but that really tore the field to shreads never again

Sorry meant to include this

Very helpful!

Some income for your grandchildren then. ;-)

Cool.

I guess if you have the right gear on site or know someone who has one (are they called 'graders') and the funds / subs covered the cost of machine, driver and some grass seeds .. plus something towards you hospitality, would that have made it 'better'?

Thanks ... watching that makes me want to have a go. The nearest I've got to that was watching our daughter ride up and down some man made earth banks (put there to stop the wrong people entering some unoccupied land, typically used by dog walkers) and riding my wholly unsuitable (it was a 'Soft roader' ) Yamaha XT350 around the 'big' motorcross track. I made it round but found the bike changing gear under my foot as I went over the whoop-de-doos, leaving me in top at the bottom of a big hill. We made it up (just) and let discretion be the better part of valour after that. ;-)

Now I would just be happy to potter round the car park and over the speed ramps. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Sorry, in case it makes any difference, I meant 'official' sites like the one I mentioned at Newmarket. You paid money by the hour / session and either hired one of their bikes and / or gear or brought your own (all of which was checked over for suitability).

Understood.

By 'event' would that also include a say a few mates driving their own vehicles round their own land?

Ah, so 'competition being the key word here ... just 'having some fun in the mud' would be ok (if it was ok on that land etc)?

Not sure there is anything close enough to Nth London to make it easy as such.

I'm hardly surprised, given I have to have 3rd party insurance to sail an RC model, fly an RC plain or (probably) even a kite.

Sounds like an idea location for that sort of thing then.

As would the crazy stuff they do up the sand dunes in places like Saudi as I guess it sorts itself out pretty quickly the next time the wind blows. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Thanks ... that's pretty good then. I thought it might 'linger' in tree bark etc?

Ok.

It's nice when everyone is there for such social reasons. When RC car racing we were often the ones helping to lay the track out and the last to leave after helping to put it away. We were all *supposed* to help at one end or both but few did, as often seems to be the case (these days)?

Quite right too.

Good.

Good for you / them. The law often does work both ways (as it should). Dad got a call early one Saturday telling him he *had* to move his boat out of the boathouse as they needed to do some work in there. He explained he wasn't available and would be more than happy to comply at a later date. They then went on about 'if he didn't move it that day they would move it themselves'. He called to local Police who popped round, just in time to see them dragging the boat outside. "Is this your boat sir .... are you moving it with the owners permission ... no ... I suggest you put it back where you found it ... ". Dad moved it out the next day.

Yup, often the best way it to get the locally community on board.

Excellent. The survival of such places often involves the management team fully understanding the 'bigger picture'. I ran an RC Stock Car club for a couple of years and we got use of a Church hall for next-to-nothing once a month. We often left the place cleaner than we found it, fixed any broken bits we found and respected the locals re car parking and noise etc. Not once did we have even a comment from anyone other than they were sad to see us go when we all moved on (I think the money came in handy, along with the free maintenance). ;-)

Cheers, T i m.

On contacting them again about another matter - and asking if the quote included VAT, it seems I read their original quote wrongly. In my defence it was a rather badly written email reply - that may have come from a phone. Basically they gave a parts cost and a 'labour' cost separately, but made the labour cost look like a total.

The true figure is a total of £1060. Which isn't a million miles from my original guess, before looking into it.

Incidentally, chatted to a pal of my brother who used to run a garage. His hobby since retiring is restoring old MGs - so is up with current machine shop costs. He said where he lives, a ballpark figure is £30 per bore, and £20 per crank journal (all journals needing grinding) for the machine work, with parts obviously extra. Both on an average 4 cylinder engine.

Working on that, it would be £240 for the re-bore, £180 for the crank grind and the rest labour to re-assemble, making up that £600.

If you are interested to know more about trials google you local club and go and watch for free and they are always looking for Observers most clubs have a beginners/novice/pre65 course sections as well as inters and expert dont know if you have ever seen the indoor championships bit more advanced then local club level events.

I may well do, thanks.

I've seen some display riding at the various bike shows and that was quite fascinating.

'Mad!'. No motorcycle (and rider) should be able to do that. ;-)

Cheers, T i m