Riding around the Donington Circuit
 

http://www.donington-park.co.uk/abou.../hope-charity/

I'm booked in for Friday and I've got permission from the organisers to film the laps :D (they've asked for a copy for later publicity...happy to provide it for free)

I reckon it'll be available on Youtube within an hour of me getting home :lol1:

The race track is only a couple of miles from where I live, so I'll be riding over after work and caning it down Craner Curves just as soon as I can.

Nice one :thumb: and for a great cause as well.:)

Will you get your knee down in the corners?

If I do - there's going to be one hell of a funny vid getting posted on Friday night :D

Me, bouncing off across the grass and embedding myself in the tyre wall (I was THAT fast! :lol1: )

Not sure if we're going to doing the Melbourne hairpin or I get to try out the fast right / left flick on to the home straight - it's a downhill run to that so I should get some good speed up

If I can average over 20mph for the whole circuit, I'll be a happy chappy!

Whilst I'd love to do a track day round Donny, this is not excatly what I was expecting :lol1:

What better way to learn the circuit :D

Definitely going to be a lot of fun, and there's a CAT 3/4 race to watch as well - it'll be interesting to see just how much faster the proper riders are

It was certainly one of my favourite circuiits. Redgate used to have a discontinuity which could send you off if you did not know about it but I think that has been sorted now.

The Craner Curves can certainly cause a bit of tooth sucking until you get used to them but all round it is a good circuit to drive.

Good luck on the 'bike anyway.

Les

can I come and do it in my Porsche? :)

I did it a couple of months back....awesome circuit


Inters Session 6

I did an hour ago :D

My God that was great fun!

Managed to top 40mph down the Craner Curves, and when I got some really good speed up on one of the laps I got held up by the Cat 4 riders!

(I'd like to point out that they were going a HELL of a lot faster when they were actually racing)

Great, great fun and I'd recommend that to anyone.

I knew you would like it.

Les :)

Couple of thoughts about cycling 'round a race track:

The skids marks are bloody amazing - you get to see up close just how many 'offs' people have, and they all seem to be in the same place, the old hairpin is full of 'em!
The chunks missing out of the road surface are a little frightening - you can imagine a car / bike / person somersaulting and taking bits out of the track as they go

Oh, and: if you get the chance to cycle 'round your favourite track, take it. Even if you don't normally ride a bike - just do it. It took me 6 mins to ride around the 2 and a bit miles and you get to see the whole circuit up close and personal. Something you will never normally see even when driving.

Was it the full GP circuit (2.5 miles)?

Full circuit would give 25mph ave. National would mean a less impressive 20mph ave.

Still good considering the hill from Old Hairpin.

National circuit - and 20mph is impressive enough with the bloody headwind ALL the way down the Dunlop straight ;)

and that hill up past Starkeys was a little surprising to say the least... I've got footage of this guy looking like he was dying on the saddle. (while I'm flying past him, I don't think he was too impressed :D )

I suppose if I'd gone balls out I could've pushed up the average speed, but it was just great fun cycling on a smooth road that happened to be my favourite racing circuit.

I can understand why you like it.

My dad used to go there before WW2 and remembered the fantastic single seaters they had then.

Les

Here's a montage of evening - nothing really exciting I just wanted people to get a feel for the kind of event it was:

http://youtu.be/POOWpTXldTs?hd=1

(watch for the guy in red on the second section as I climb up from the old hairpin ;) )