The Moment

of Truth

When we arrived at Bala Lake in north

Wales there was a lot of work to be done in

preparation for the record attempt.

ET in beautiful wooded countryside

and surrounded by hills, is a cracking

place and a very popular holiday spot,

especially with water sports enthusiasts. The

lake is 4 miles (6.4 kilometres) long and a mile

(1.6 kilometres) wide and was the largest

natural lake in Wales until Thomas Telford

raised the water level in 1797 to help control the

water flow to the new Ellesmere Canal, leaving

Bala still the largest lake but no longer entirely

as nature intended.

S

When we arrived in the second week in

September the area was a bit quieter than it had

been over the summer, with the kids having

gone back to school, and the fantastic summer

that we’d had was starting to feel like a distant

memory. Still, the weather was kind to us and

we were able to get to work.

On our first day there, a team of local

carpenters began building a wooden ramp that

I could use to ride the Suzuki into the lake. We

needed the ramp because the shores around

the lake, even where artificial beaches had

been created as landing stages for people using

sailing boats or kayaks, were too steep for our

purposes. That had been a major problem for

us in finding somewhere that was suitable for

our record attempt. At other places we looked

at where there might have been a suitable entry

point into a suitably calm stretch of water,

getting permission to stage the record attempt

proved difficult. You can imagine the sort

188  hydroplaning motorbike

Above: When we tipped the bike up after it had been

in the lake, water came pouring out of the exhaust pipe.

of reactions that we got when we explained

that we wanted to ride a motorbike as fast as

possible into the water and skim it across the

surface while filming it all for the telly – ‘You

must be nuts, mate. You’ll kill yourself. You

can’t do that here.’

In fact, there were genuine health and safety

issues to be addressed everywhere we thought

might be suitable, but at Bala, with a lot of local

help, including from Bala Sailing Club, we

managed to iron out all of the problems. Our

sole concern now was getting the angle of entry

just right, which was why the ramp was being

constructed at the Pant Yr Onnen campsite on

the south side of the lake.