Viewing 34 posts - 1 through 34 (of 34 total)
  • Bit of a shambolic start to the Puffer.
  • kennyp
    Free Member

    90 minute queues to pick up passes. Chaotic scenes and huge delays with vehicles trying to get onto the course. Marshals doing their best but looks like increasing the numbers has been a mistake. My fifth Puffer and never seen it like this before.

    shaggy
    Full Member

    I take it you weren’t there the year that the marquee blew down and everyone had to be towed on to the camping field by a tractor? Oh how I wish we had taken better insurance on that hire car. :-/

    It’ll work out. Good luck.

    njee20
    Free Member

    I take it you weren’t there the year that the marquee blew down and everyone had to be towed on to the camping field by a tractor? Oh how I wish we had taken better insurance on that hire car. :-/

    My sole ‘Puffer experience, I was just pit bitching, but that was utterly miserable! 2008 I believe.

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    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    The 10 man team wasn’t the best idea, no way they can police each team having limited cars. Lots of rumours recently up here that this may be last puffer?. Hopefully just pish talk.

    kennyp
    Free Member

    No luckily I missed that one. Pals were there though and still talk about it. I totally appreciate the Puffer is very prone to bad weather but just been speaking to a marshal who said they were waiting for grit. Given the forecast has been for snow for days it’s a bit ridiculous. And as for the system for picking up the passes well…………!!

    jekkyl
    Full Member

    how’s the weather? snow on the ground?

    huw
    Free Member

    It wouldn’t be the ‘Puffer if it was anything other than that.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    It’s hard to criticise when it makes no money and is almost completely staffed by volunteers. I’d hoped to be there helping out this year but recent illness meant I couldn’t commit to it. i think the 10-man team thing is just a one-off. I’m sure that if it’s caused that much of a problem the idea will be dropped.

    jekkyl
    Full Member

    looking at the forecast: heavy snow all through the evening and light snow throughout the night tonight. Nice!

    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/gfhz89vzt

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    When do you normally arrive…..

    Its always a bit shambolic at this point as everyone arrives after leaving at lunch time.

    Part of the charm 🙂

    kennyp
    Free Member

    Most marshals great and I do appreciate its hard job. That said I did encounter one who was incredibly rude and aggressive. I’d been told to wait for a gap in the traffic and then move my car. I waited over an hour then a gap appeared so i moved. Only to find another marshal shouting and swearing at me. Totally uncalled for just because of some mix up in instructions. Luckily he was the exception. But yes wouldn’t be the Puffer if it wasn’t a bit mad.

    drain
    Full Member

    Remembering the 2008 experience and the tractoring of vehicles. We were the mob in the converted mobile library that managed to block the way in when the motor burned out 😳

    The guy who was driving just about managed to sort things before flaking out with the flu, so our quad went down from 4 to 3 before even starting. Then our uber fit team member got a spectacular stomach bug a few hours in. And then the other quad team member’s lights died. Impromptu quasi solo for me! 😀

    Great memories – peeing on the rear mech to unfreeze it: also realising the next morning that I had a huge haematoma on my ribs from interacting with a tree stump at speed. Loved it. Can’t imagine why I’ve not been back! 😆

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Every year I read about this and think “that sounds incredibly awful”. And one year, it’ll finally reach the point where it sounds so awful, I end up doing it. BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY!

    allthepies
    Free Member

    Brilliant.

    All of it.

    😆

    brant
    Free Member

    I was incredibly lucky to do it two years ago, in a pair, with Shaggy, superbly supported by his Dad, and his wife Mel.
    A remarkable experience all round, from the drive up there, the stupid fast lap, the sheet ice, my girlfriend meeting me in Glasgow to drive me home.

    It’s amazing.

    And that was an “easy” year apparently. I’ve never been quite the same since.

    breadcrumb
    Full Member

    It did take a while to get our pass and get parked up, but nothing to get upset about.

    We did seem to be the last vehicle up the for road for a while?

    Trimix
    Free Member

    Mmmm, weather looks like it will warm up to minus 2 around lunch time.

    Id say its type 2 or probably type 3 fun then.

    onehundredthidiot
    Full Member

    That was the year on of our quad had his tent turn into a kite and disappear up a tree, the big sturdy north face one got flattened. My golf did not enjoy the drag on to site. We were sent to a car park in strathpeffer which was and ice rink and to top it all one of the quad has his stearer tube snap half way down the fast forest descent and i spent a while in A&E raigmore with him.

    crazy-legs
    Full Member

    Bit of a shambolic start down here too…

    I gave Richpips & Minipips a lift from theirs up to Jason “Terrahawk” Miles’s house at crack of dawn this morning, they were then getting a lift with him.

    Pick up Rich & Mini at 5.30am, load car, drive off. 10 miles later, get a call from Rich’s wife, they’ve forgotten the crate of food.

    Back we go, pick up food, head off again.

    Get to Jase’s house, unload my car, load it up into the Team JMC van, we check the car, I ask Rich if he’s got everything, he promises that he’s all sorted. I head off to work. An hour later as I pull into the works car park, an alarm goes off, it’s Rich’s bloody phone which he’s left in my car.

    I’ll be pleasantly surprised if Rich remembers he’s got to do a 24hr race tomorrow, he seems to have forgotten everything else!

    Kuco
    Full Member

    Hope its not the last as i’d like to try having ago one day.

    somafunk
    Full Member

    I’ve done it once solo single speed, every year since when it opens for entries i disconnect the phone line, switch the electricity off, smash up my computer, flush my mobile down the toilet, lock myself in the basement, zip-tie myself to a chair and wait till i know the entries will be filled otherwise i am terrified that my memories of the event will haze over and i’ll start to mistakenly come to the conclusion “it wasn’t all that bad/hard really, i kind of enjoyed it – why don’t i try it again?”………the horror….the horror……..

    allthepies
    Free Member

    Just go out on that date with Junkyard 🙂

    Although you may still find yourself ziptied to a chair.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Someone should set up a site where people can upload video clips live through the event, as a kind of live commentary.. With perhaps someone roaming and getting interviews from people to keep the numbers up. Would be cool 🙂

    An FB page would work if people could post to it or even a twitter feed.. If you can upload videos to a particular feed…?

    BrickMan
    Full Member

    Sounds like its gonna be an exciting one, plenty of snow in Glasgow, WAY more up north, can’t wait!

    ratherbeintobago
    Full Member

    People do this for fun, you say?

    JPR
    Free Member

    People do this for fun, you say?[/quote]

    No, that’s totally the wrong way to thing about it. You do the puffer to make every other ride of the year fun. It doesn’t matter how long, how miserable, how cold, how wet, how many hills or how many mechanicals you have no ride for the next 12 months will be as bad.

    Tips
    Free Member

    Ah Kev (onehundredthidiot) that face plant really did hurt, as did the Dr. scrubbing my face with a scrubbing brush to remove the dirt! I seem to remember that you quite enjoyed it! Thankfully that Irish Dr did a great job of stitching me up.

    I rebuilt that bike as a fully rigid single speed.

    I think our first try at the puffer was better (well, I would say that).. do you remember us both getting cramp in the tent?

    lightman
    Free Member

    shaggy – Member

    I take it you weren’t there the year that the marquee blew down and everyone had to be towed on to the camping field by a tractor? Oh how I wish we had taken better insurance on that hire car. :-/

    It’ll work out. Good luck.

    Ah, good times…


    That was a good year for ice too.

    I really need to get back up there for another go sometime.

    onehundredthidiot
    Full Member

    Tips, seem to remember it was me laughing at your cramp that set mine off.

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    How’s conditions this morning then? By the the amount of differing weather forecasts, it could be very muddy, or a bit icy.

    piemonster
    Full Member

    This ‘shouldn’t’ sound appealing

    Tips
    Free Member

    Kev, yup, I was screaming in agony as one leg cramped and then the other one, you were p*ssing yourself laughing and then karma kicked in and we were both screaming in agony with cramp!

    It’s strange that after that, then the following year faceplanting miles from anywhere, being carted off on the back of a quad for the St Johns ambulance to scrape the mud out my eye sockets, clean me up a little and send me off to Raigmore to have my face stitched back together that I would actually do it again but with a camper van!

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    Camper van sounds like a great idea – to an extent it is…..

    All through the event.awesome

    Driving it home and cleaning it that nigt for returnin it the next day ( despite coverig it in plastic sheetig and havig a no dirtyclothes ad blanket no shoes policy )was grim a

    Best compromise we found was a homebrew camper in the back of an lwb hitop transit.

    kennyp
    Free Member

    Just spoke to the marshal I had the argument with last night. Both apologised for raised tempers. Turns out he is a totally top bloke and we admitted we’d both said stuff we shouldn’t have. Puffer well under way now and a huge well done to all the folk organising things.

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