Deep in the heart of the Derbyshire countryside the enthusiastic brothers Andy and Kev Hipwell put on their annual Man 17 Road Trial last weekend. This years event attracted a bumper entry of 134 riders who were all treated to two blasts around 25 sections. With competitors coming from far and wide, some as far away as Kent in the south and Kinlochleven in the north, at 10.30 they were all on their way around the course. With the large entry inevitably there was the odd queue to contend with but in general the trial flowed nicely around the now standard 5 mile course, laid out along little country lanes and in and out of stream gullies.
As usual the course started gently in the first group of Gautries just along the road from the start area. Then after a short road trip over the hill the riders found themselves in the relatively new group of Greens which proceeded to start to extract some marks from the now emerging leaders of the classes. In fact only the eventual winner of the 50/50 class, Scottish visitor Callum Murphy and guest rider Mike Roberts managed a double clean on the tricky second section in this group, with the first section catching out previous winners Dan Thorpe and Richard Timperly on the hard route.
After the following couple of groups of Earnshaws and Barmoor Clough, both designed to catch out the unwary rider yet keep the trial flowing, the riders skipped back over the hill to the big group of Bettfield just outside the town of Chapel-en-le-Frith. It was in this group which managed to extract some marks from the eventual winners of all the classes. Visiting the trial for the first time North Wales rider Kyle Hayes must have thought he was going to go clean until he cast the odd mark away on the last few sections, but still managed to keep his cool to take the over all win for the John Hartle memorial trophy. Local clubman route winner Scott Rowland had to have a couple of steadying dabs on the now infamous banking section 18 and managed to have some lovely cleans on the tricky waterfall sections, showing the youngsters there is still life in the old dog yet !! Riding around with his father, Martin Leddy used all of the guidance the ex Cheshire champion Mike Leddy gave him to full effect and clinched the novice award just ahead of Katy Thorpe on her come back ride from recent knee surgery.
This years Les Hipwell memorial award will go to a previous Pre 65 Scottish winner, this week out on his more modern bike Rob Bowyer. He must have thought his award hopes were dashed when he, along with numerous other riders came to an abrupt halt on the big log jump of section 22.This section was perfect for sorting out the big group of 50/50 riders because if the line was not just perfect a 5 was the inevitable result. However with a nice clean on the second lap this secured him the trophy.
So with a good spread of Experts, Over 40, Intermediate, Novice and even 4 lady riders coming over to the Peak District to support this popular event, the club would like to thank all those involved for a fantastic days sport.
Report by Bert Fletcher
Experts
Kyle Hayes 5 ( John Hartle Trophy )
Chris Pearson 7
Dan Thorpe 10
50/50 Intermediate
Calum Murphy 3
Mark Reynolds 10
Robbie Weir 19
50/50 Over40+
Rob Bowyer 17 ( Les Hipwell Trophy )
Darren Wasley 20
Chris Brightmore 26
Clubman Over 40
Scott Rowland 8
Graham Haslam 12
Davy Morewood 13
Clubman Novice
Martin Leddy 17
Katy Sunter Thorpe 18
Matt Higham 25