I haven’t been on Trials Central for the past five days as I’ve been away, but having looked at it tonight, I can’t believe the crap that has appeared with 70 postings about Dougie’s loss of time on Monday morning of the SSDT at Lagnaha when the ignition coil failed.
The thread is the biggest load of rubbish that has appeared on here for some time, and I’m totally amazed that folks didn’t know about his problem come Tuesday as it was common knowledge throughout the trial.
However, aside from the rubbish that I’m referring to, elsewhere there have been intelligent articles from various sources about the trial in general, and once again it’s the comments from John Shirt which have been the most in depth and young Shirty hasn’t been afraid to be critical of his team riders.
All week he was very much on the ball, doing his best to ensure all was set up for Dabill to give it his best shot and repeat his win of 2007. But it was not to be and Alexz Wigg proved to be the star of the week, and with the unflappable Harold Crawford as his minder, the pair came up trumps. Young Wiggy never fails to be cool, calm and collected – at least he is whenever I see him and it is reflected in his ride. To go clean on the final day under such pressure sure is class, so well done.
Talking of Harold Crawford, I met another Crawford – Robert – last Thursday evening in Portrush on my way back from the Spar shop with a bottle of milk and some groceries. Robert was coming out of a house where he was staying and we chatted over old times for ten minutes or so.
Robert (no relation to Harold – or at least I don’t think so), has been out of the trials scene for a number of years now, but when he was at his very best, he came so close to winning the Scottish, with a best result of second. Some say that he actually won that year but was pipped by Steve Saunders as the result of a questionable observing decision. Whatever the real facts are, Steve won and Robert didn’t.
Getting back to Robert, he plays with the sport now, taking in the occasional trial but did ride a couple of indoor enduros on a 300 KTM back during the winter. Despite some long hours of training to get bike fit for the events, he said that he tired very easily as a result of not riding all that regularly, but enjoyed himself. His business (selling, tuning, moving and installing pianos) obviously has nothing to do with trials and like so many folks he keeps in touch via Trials Central and found the regular SSDT updates on here and the SSDT site most informative. And no, he doesn’t miss the long, cold and sometimes wet haul up to Laggan Locks on Monday and Chairlift on Thursday.
Having been away for a week at the Scottish, I was back for just two days before heading off by road bike to the North West 200 road races over the seven mile triangle circuit between Portrush, Portstewart and Coleraine. I’ve not been before, and as I’ve said in this column before, ALL forms of bike sport interest me. Having ridden trials, enduros, sidecar trials (and even the odd motocross) in my long career, there is absolutely no way I could ever have done road racing. It requires a commitment and level of talent way beyond the vast majority of bikers, yet remains fascinating to watch. The speed and bravery of the top men every lap takes one’s breath away. It’s as simple as that and if you’ve never seen it, I think it is being shown on BBC Northern Ireland on Monday night at about 10pm – Sky 973 as I recall