66 riders tackled the 3 laps of 12 sections laid out at Rough Heys Quarry near Macclesfield. A cold but thankfully dry day greeted the riders at this popular venue for the clubs first trial of 2018. Only 2 adult Expert riders entered the event but even so it was a close battle for the Len Eyre Trophy. Club regular Iain Robinson on his 300 4 stroke Beta and a rider more accustomed with riding 4 strokes (but of a rather different era), Rob Bowyer who was out today on a modern GasGas, tussled for the trophy.
On a tough Expert route Iain took the win by 11 points. Iain will take the trophy home to Hawks nest but he wasn’t the best rider overall on the hard route. That honour fell to young Mitch Brightmore on his 125 dropping only 61 marks. An entry of 4 youth riders tackled the expert route so it’s looking good for the future .
If the expert route was short of numbers, the inter route was even lower with just 4 riders but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in quality. Macc lad Mike Renshaw took best inter from Ben Wyatt. Chris Brightmore took best O40+ in front of Rob Kelsall.
As ever there was no shortage of riders on the clubman route and once again the over 50 class was by far the largest. Andy Hipwell was best in this class on his Gas Gas followed by Twin-shock mounted Nigel Worthington on his Yamaha majesty . The best ride of the day by far came from Toby Eyre - grandson of Len Eyre whose Trophy the trial was named after. Toby was the only rider to finish in single figures on the middle route. He dropped only 6 marks and this on a Twinshock Yamaha - a special ride.
Best Novice on his return to trials was Matthew Thorpe with a very impressive score of just 21. Best youth was Joe Willshaw on 26 – some distance from his nearest rival.
On the clubman route veteran rider Dougie Greenall lost 27 marks closely followed by fellow veteran Tim (which way do you go here) Wyatt. Best youth on this route was T Shipley on 58 although he did actually miss out section 8 !
On the easy route a good entry of 16 riders - some taking their first plunge into competing trials tackled a well set out route with the sections just about right except perhaps the climb on section 8 . The climb caused no problems for A Moss who took the win on just 2 marks - both dropped on the tricky turns of section 1. In second was Janice Proctor on her Pre65 bike - no doubt getting some practice in for the Pre65 Scottish on a score of 18.