I ended up in a queue behind a load of cars
that were taking forever to check, so had a quick word with the scrutineer and
was allowed to jump the queue as my start time was fast approaching. The
scrutineering itself was a bit strange as they never even touched the bike? It
seemed to consist mainly of a checklist that judging by the number of “N/As”
was designed for the cars. Anyway suitably completed I was able to now go and hand in my scrutineering card and sign on, only to cause more confusion as of course I’d already done that. This
had all served to make me late, not helped after getting changed to find I had
misplaced the van keys. I eventually found them and got to
the start two minutes late, not that it made much difference other than there
was no sign of Wayne. It later transpired he had decided to follow Russ.
So I got on with the business of getting to
the first section, a 15 mile ride up the A49 in the mist and rain…. Great fun!
Eventually arriving at the section near Church Stretton; Castle Hill, most of the other bikes seemed
to be there waiting but no sign of the other Hertfordshire guys?
We were queued
up at the bottom of a muddy bridleway and I took the time to lower my tyre
pressures having pumped them up for the initial road ride. Setting them at
10psi I still managed to spin my back wheel just moving up the queue, so one of
the old hands advised me to drop them to 6 psi!!! I was to discover this makes
very little difference and trials tyres simply don’t like mud.
You are not allowed to inspect the section
so have to ride it blind, all I could see was a gently climbing, narrow track
heading up round a bend, so rolled up to the line where I was told that as I
was in class B2 I had to keep right when I got to the tree marked with red and
white tape, sounds easy enough; if only I had known!
Flagged away, I headed up the relatively easy
track and soon got to the tree, only to find the “keep right” actually meant, “leave
the track, turn sharp right up a short, steep and very greasy bank around the
aforementioned tree” of course I left it too late to get into position, had to
turn straight up the slope and immediately lost all grip and came to a halt. I
backed down to the main track and rode easily to the top of the section.
I should explain the scoring, in normal
trials the aim is to get a “clean” i.e. zero penalty points, these are scored as
follows: put one foot down (a “dab”) and you get one point, two dabs and it’s
two points, three or more dabs and that’s three points so once you get to
three, you can paddle away to your hearts content as you can’t get more than
three. As long as you don’t stop at the same time or fall off as that scores
the maximum five penalty points. Traditionally just stopping or going backwards
was an automatic five but these days as long as you keep your feet up, you can
stand still, bounce backwards and perform any manner of athletic maneuvers! I
say “you” because I’m clearly incapable of any of this myself!
I was mistakenly believing this was the
same in classic trials, so had just scored a maximum five but later in the day
I learnt that Classic Trials are quite different. Each section is divided into
twelve sectors, starting at twelve and going to zero at the top, these are
marked on posts at the side of the section. The idea is that you have to ride
feet up all the way to the top to score zero. If you put a foot down, stop,
fall off or have to lean against a tree of any other part of the section, you
score whatever is on the last number post you managed to pass. It doesn’t
matter if you stop, fall off or just dab, once you do, that’s your score at
that point. Although on that first stage the instructions said a fail
automatically gets you a six but as that’s out of twelve, I guess it’s actually
better than getting five out of five!
Until I realised this was how it worked, I
was struggling to make it to the top of the sections but once I did, I also realised
I could just leave the section or back down as soon as I scored my penalty; it
certainly saved a lot of wasted effort.
Once I got to the top I continued up over
the Long Mynd, which was cold, misty and with surprisingly large snow drifts all
around to get to the next section, which was the “observed test” at Ratlinghope,
a timed section designed as a tie breaker. A short rocky climb, with a stop
half way up. You sit astride the start line and then when the flag drops you
ride as fast as you can to the second line and stop astride it and place a foot
on the floor, a marshal holds a flag in front of you, and then when he drops it
you set off again and stop astride the finish line. I managed 18.1 seconds in total
which turned out to be fortuitous as we shall see later.
The next section “Gatten’s Gamble” was a
simple rocky hill climb that I was able to ride up “clean” with no penalty points;
although so did nearly all the other bike competitors, so not that hard then!
On the way to the next section I met up
with the other Hertfordshire riders and we stayed together for the next few
sections that all followed the same pattern apart from one tricky one, Priors
Holt 4 that included a stop and restart half way up. I stopped and immediately slid
backwards as there was absolutely no grip, so that was a fail and seven points
scored. This was the fate of most competitors although amongst our group, Dave
managed to get up with only a two scored! I was able to clean the next two
sections but thereafter I picked up penalties on all the remaining sections,
the best results being a couple of fives, the worst a couple of tens.
There was also a lot of boring road work, with
one nine mile stretch between sections that was particularly tedious as it was
cold, wet and on trials tyres at 6 psi, restricted to around 40 mph. The final
two sections were eventually completed and then another 15 mile road stretch
back to Ludlow, by now it was freezing cold!
Arriving back, I signed in at the pub, got changed
into clean, warm gear and washed the bike at the convenient jet wash at the garage
next door, loaded it in the van and then retreated back to the pub for some
food before heading back home, arriving at 7.00 that evening, so not too bad a
day.
So did I achieve world domination? Well I
guess not but despite the conditions, it was good fun and I was able to keep my
myasthenia pretty much under control all day which was good news.
A few days later the results were out and
at first I seemed to be 7th in class one place behind Dave in 6th
but in front of Russ in 8th and Gary in 9th, Wayne having decided to
retire at section seven and just rode round with the others after that.
However in the overall results, I was put
ahead of Dave in 12th place, he being 13th, Russ 14th
And Gary 15th… surely some mistake?
It transpired Dave and I both scored 60
penalty points but my 18.1 seconds on the Observed test beat Dave’s time of
22.6 seconds so there was clearly an error.
I also noticed a competitor ahead of all of
us had entered the wrong class and should have been in Class B1, not B2 with us
as he was on a smaller capacity bike. I queried this with the Clerk of the
Course as it would we would mean we all move up one place in class. It was confirmed this was correct so the final result was:
Penalties
|
Observed test
|
In Class
|
Overall
|
|
Tony
|
60
|
18.1
|
5th
|
12th
|
Dave
|
60
|
22.6
|
6th
|
13th
|
Russ
|
63
|
33.7
|
7th
|
14th
|
Gary
|
66
|
19.0
|
8th
|
15th
|
So I may not be dominating the world of
classic trials just yet but I am maintaining a minor lead in the unofficial “Hertfordshire
TRF Classic Trials Challenge”. The next round is the Launceston Trial in
Cornwall on the 10th February, all four of us have all entered…. the challenge is on!
