Hi folks sorry its taken a while to post but after a wk-end running around fields & woods had an hectic week at work & a trip to london wk-end after.
So went up to westwood on sat 5th morning. The weather was absolutely awfull at 10am when I got there. that fine misty rain & cold.
Quickly found the organisers to find out where & how many sections would be involved. There were 12 in total & not too far apart (for which I was thankfull).
The sections had been set out the day before by Graham Jarvis an ex national trials competitor.
Sections 1-4 were in the old quarry area of the woods so headed off down there first. On first impressions I thought the sections were pretty tricky especially with the rain making all the surfaces very slippery. I got a few 5,s (went down onto my arse) just walking the course. Some of the climbs were quite high up old slippery sandstone & muddy surfaces. This was gonna be an interesting trial.
Section 5 was set out along a ridge with large boulders positioned to make what I thought looked like a spine of a dinosaur.
Section 6 was into the trees & I mean up into the trees, through them & over them. Large moss covered trunks that you knew were going to cause problems for some.
Section 7 was the wet one. A large pond like area that had boulders positioned for the riders to skip across just like stepping stones. You just knew that some unfortunate soul was gonna be taking a dip at sometime
Sections 8,9 & 10 were in the woods again & a selection of tree stumps, large boulders & logs all positioned to make life hard for walkers never mind trying to throw a trials bike up & over them. (yes I got another 5)
Section 11 was positioned on a muddy banking about 20 feet high with logs & large boulders positioned at the tops & bottoms of the slope that the riders went up & down some 5 times.
Section 12 was set just like section 5 but instead of boulders huge logs & felled tree trunks were used.
So walk about over went to seek info on what time practice would start where each competitor would get one shot at each section.
by now it was 12pm & still wet & miserable. So practice was at 3pm, 3hrs away. I jumped in my van & shot home for a hot cuppa & a warm.
Got back onto site just before 3pm & waited for practice to start. at least by now its stopped raining & the temperature has picked up a little. I follow the riders round as they 1st walk & then have their one go on each. Some get to grips with the course straight away while others make a spectacular mess of it but at least its only practice. 5pm comes all too quickly & practice is over, time to head home & prepare for the main event tomorrow.
So its 9.30am on a sunday morning. the weather is been kind with sunny spells & no rain. The event starts at 10am & each rider has 4.5hrs to do 3 laps of all 12 sections. there are 4 groups of riders. Championship, expert A, expert B, & youth. Each doing the hard, medium & easy courses respectively. Each rider is only allowed 90 seconds in each section to complete or he drops the full 5 marks. Each section also has 3 observers 1 doing the timing & 2 spotters looking for dropped marks. All the spotters are from Barnsley trails club so a special thanks to them for giving up their wk-end.
So the youths went first & straight away you could tell it was going to be a hard day for them. it took something like 10 riders going through before we got our first clear of the day to a good round of applause from quite a good crowd that had turned out to watch. Even though the weather & conditions were better today there were still many falls stumbles & rollbacks for many of the competitors. Thankfully though no-one was hurt too seriously.
Expert A&B were the next to get underway & just like the youths found out it werent going to be no picnic for them either. many points were dropped on the first round.
Then the top riders set off & it was easy to see why these guys were the best. some made it look easy whilst others just dropped solitary points here & there.In fact I had quite an hard time running round trying to keep up such was their speed. the way they got their bikes up vertical sandstone rockfaces some 10 feet high at times was amazing to watch.
As predicted some riders got an early bath on section 7. Only wish I,d been there to photo it.
Anyhow onto the results.
Youths
1st no:39 T.Dexter gas gas 101 points
2nd no:35 C. Stay gas gas 103 points
3rd no:38 J. Howell beta 130 points
Expert B
1st no:52 G. Kendrew ossa 30 points
2nd no:41 R. Timperly sherco 53 points
3rd no:56 B. Regan beta 58 points
Expert A
1st no:25 R. Wiggins gas gas 54 points
2nd no:26 J. Spencer beta 63 points
3rd no:22 J. Fry sherco 69 points
Championship
1st no:1 J. Dabill beta 40 points
2nd no:2 M. Brown gas gas 55 points
3rd no:3 A. Wigg sherco 94 points.
All in all it was a very good week end (weather aside) watching some very skillfull riders doing things with bikes that most would think impossible.
Ive tried to attach some pics but seem to be having problems. Being a relative newbie to computers will seek advice & pics will be posted shortly.
Laters Phill.
