Trail bike trial
I know I know, a trail bike trial just sounds like a bad idea. A midnight chat with Dave 'G' Giffould had put me onto the idea. It was only a week before the event and I needed an ACU licence.
I got my ACU application in the post the following morning and warned the club I would be entering on the day.
Friday morning before I was due to compete I got a call from the West Glos and Dean Forest MCC secretary, who told me they'd forgotten to stamp my application properly and that they'd allow me to enter anyway. Excellent. A weight off my mind.
There were only 2 rules to the day, you have your ACU card, and you have a trials style rear tyre. I spent most of the week trying to track one down for my bike to no avail. Most trials bikes are 18" rear wheel. Whereas mine was 17".
In the end I admitted defeat and chose a non-legal tyre, but one that was close. 2 days before the trial, the day the tyre arrived my girlfriend's car broke down. Which meant I couldn't take my loose wheel to the tyre fitter. I rode in in the hope they could remove the wheel. They could, but not until the middle of next week. With that not satisfying my needs, I took the loose tyre away and called in a favour from a friend.
I headed over to his house and we (I say 'we', I mean 'he') fitted the tyre beautifully. Really got me out of a tight spot!
Saturday morning came very quickly. I headed to fowlers to meet G where he was picking up a brand new KTM since it was "on the way".
We arrived at the venue in Monmothshire rather early and were the first two to sign on, which allowed us some time to explore the sections. Or what we thought were the sections! Turned out, we were just riding between sections and we were rather out of our depth!
The course consisited of 10 sections of varying difficulty and a special section, which was a timed stage and was more of a hill climb.
I was assigned the number 20. The same I raced with in moped madness. G and I were told to start at the special section. I put in a time of 55s, I was told it was a lot slower than I could do, due to the amount of air in my rear tyre. I had deflated it down to around 20psi and thought it was sufficient. A friendly face lowered it and I found it a lot easier. I later found it was 5psi!
G and I headed to the first section. We both did it with several dabs each, giving us scores of 3. At the second section G and I both scored 5s due to stopping/travelling backwards/generally crashing.
At the 3rd section there was a similar scene. From there on I decided against attempting most of the sections. The KLR was just too heavy, too tall, and I was just a bit...well...crap.
I attempted the special stage again, reducing my time by 10 seconds and fully enjoying myself. At a third attempt I reduced it by a further 5 seconds.
I then headed over to the first section for another go. It turned out the '3' I'd managed earlier wasn't so. G and I had misinterpretted the route and it was ALOT harder than we first thought. On my second go, I managed it, with a real score of 3. And on my third go. I crashed out, scoring a 5.
Then a guy rode up saying "Here ya go lad, have a go on this" handing me a proper trials bike. I politely rode up and down making positive noises. "Well go on then, do the section on it" he said. So off I went. Clearing the difficult section with a single dab. The bugger then did it with a single dab on the monster KLR.
I had an amazingly fun day. I was almost certainly dead last due to missing out so many of the 40 sections (4 laps). But for the £16 entry fee I had an incredible off road experience, and I am currently watching a trials bike on eBay. I will almost certainly be returning in August for their hill climb.
Thanks to West Glos MCC.
Results became available on the 17th of June. I received 8 '5's. Which meant I didn't manage a single section without stopping or moving backwards! So not ideal!
But out of the 21 entrants on the special stage, I came 12th. With G coming 15th. That I was quite pleased with.
(Click here to view all photos from event)