Yesterday I went to llangollen for the round of the Northern Bike Championship..... What a good trial. The countryside in that area was superb and the route managed to take in scenic views of the valley as well as some excellent green lanes and single tracks to join up the various groups of sections. Plus the weather was good too after the recent rain. The only dowside was that the sections in the first half of the trial were possibly a bit on the easy side.
It was a bit of a long day in the seat though considering we started just after 10.30 and were the first to finish at around 5 pm. No idea how late some of the serious rock kickers would have taken to get round.
We were set off in alphabetical order so I was off near the front and as I didn't really fancy sitting about I knew it would be a day of trail blazing and scrubbing the moss and slime off the fresh sections that would undoubtedly have eased during the day. This didn't seem too bad for the first half of the trial because as mentioned before, the sections were not too difficult.
After about 6 sections we arrived at a quite large motorcycle show and the central show ground which was housing a trials demo and freestyle motocross show has an arena style section laid out (tyres, barrells, logs and a zig zag between some poles) and was also timed to decide any tie breaks on score. This slowed up proceedings a bit as we had to wait for almost an hour for our 'slot' in the show. Not too bad though, a free burger and a chance to take a look around and say hi to my old friend Jason Rennie who was performing a 150ft jump with his show that he takes round to this sort of event.
On with the trial and soon a few odd dabs slipped away on slippery rocks as we were now at the front of the field and first through the sections. I had a single dab out on the moorside on a loose and slippery slate climb which was certainly going to catch others for marks and another couple as the sections began to get more difficult just after half way. Still riding well and the bike performing like a dream I was on just 5 marks when I got to about section 22 (of 30).
We then came to some sections in Dodd's Wood that were not too difficult, just some rocks up a steep gully followed by a couple of sections on the banks in the wood, all normal stuff that we ride every week, yet I then just went through a bit of brain fade, I had been riding most of the sections all day in 1st gear and finding good grip but I guess I just needed more speed and a bit more agression rather than trying to finesse it and lost 3 on the first gully followed by 5, 5 and 3 on the next 3 sections on the banks. I think if I had just pulled 2nd gear I would have used the momentum to get up rather than losing grip on the steep parts of the climbs which resulted in failure. The extra 16 marks on the card resulted in a reasonable score that I was pleased with turning into a pretty average one!
Once the score had gone I started trying other approaches and used 2nd gear in the next couple of sections with dramatically different results and finished the trial for a loss of only 1 more mark for a total of 22 marks. I think this will be miles off the pace but I am actually quite pleased with the bike and how I am riding it and I guess you just have to put these things down to experience!
I will certainly try and ride this trial again though as it was a great event and a good day out! Will post results when I get them and the rather blurred picture was taken by one of the spectators at one of the last sections of the day.
Thanks to Steve Thompson for being the chauffeur for the day - especially the slow drive home! (Not every day you get to overtake a Ducati roadbike on the country roads in a van - eh Tommo!!!!)
Just found the results on the web - took some time to get them posted on their website.... anyway 8th in the Unit class and just as I thought, the disasterous run on sections 23-26 turned a pretty good ride into an average one, but a good learning experience! See the full results here
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