This weekend saw the 3rd round of the Sammy Miller Series, held around the Cotswolds in beautiful sunshine and temperatures as high as I can ever remember riding in.
My start number of 38 set me off near the front of the field and it was clear from early on that the sections would improve as the field went through them and scrubbed loose rocks and slippery foliage out of the way, however I am not much good at hanging around once I get started so we just pushed on and ended up riding at the front of the field scrubbing the sections (we even got in front of the sidecars which was a bonus because you can never tell what they are going to do to the sections!).
Fortunately the sections were all very sensible and on the easy side as normal for this trial so we were not disadvantaged too much, even though there were a few tricky moments with loose rocks.
I rode very well to be honest and was very pleased with how the bike went, some days you get in a groove and the sections seem straight forwards and others you struggle and this trial I felt like I was on my game.
All went well and I was clean up to the penultimate group of sections where there was a muddy slot at the exit of a section near a stream and I overbalanced in the slot and lost a mark. Still not too bad I thought and felt strong going into the last group of 6 sections.
The first section of the last group was a steep bank up some loose rocks to a turn around a tree before a couple of tight turns on the return back down the hill. I would normally have chosen 2nd gear for the bank then knocked it down to 1st for the nadgery bit but as I was only on 1 mark I opted for 1st gear to safeguard against missing a gear trying to change in the section. This was a bad move as I didn't carry enough momentum up the bank and failed to reach the tree at the top resulting in a really soft 5 on a section that should have been cleaned easily.
I made amends on the very next section, which was probably the hardest of the trial, where I cleaned and also cleaned the remaining sections of the trial.
So I finished on 6 which was OK, however as the trial was on the easy side I think the 5 could have lost me a win in my class.
The pictures are from the trial and I will update with results as soon as I get them.
Results were posted on the Stratford Club website today and the Club have misinterpreted the machine eligibility for the classes and subsequently placed me and Martyn Wilmore in the Twin shock class as they have changed the British Replica class to Pre-Unit Hard route class which is incorrect (this has been verified by Tim Fairbrother), so the results will be changed to the following corrected result...
Results
Two Stroke (Hard Route)
1. B Jones 3
2. P Gaunt 4
3. R Jones 5
4. A Wright 7
5. C Denney 11
6. M Chapman 13
7. M Burton 15
8. R Enticknap 22
9. M Tizard 42
Unit Construction (Hard Route)
1. B Stephens 3
2. D Snell 7
3. K Bennett 12
4. J Kendall 13
5. K Gardner 15
6. J Souch 23
7. G Minshall 28
8. A Paxton 29
9. G Hawkins 31
British Replicas (Hard Route)
1. D Dawson 6
2. M Wilmore 7
3. M Grant 16
4. J Pickering 17
5. A Bamford 40
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