75 riders gathered at Upper Hulme on a brilliant spring day to ride 4 laps of 10 sections at this scenic venue at the foot of the Roaches for the Staffordshire Moorlands MCC Moorlands Trial. There were a lot of rock climbers on the vertical cliff faces nearby as our boys and girls rode their bikes over the huge boulders that had broken off it in the last ice age. The first 6 sections were situated on the ice age boulders with 4 more in the slippery, muddy stream nearby.
The competition was fierce on the Hard Route between Corey Dubik and British Youth Champion Mitchell Brightmore. Only one mark separated them at the finish. They were equal on the big boulder sections, each losing one mark but on the mud and rocks of the stream sections Corey just managed to edge out a victory. Some way back were Ashton Brightmore, Joe Spivey and Tom Shepherd showing that there is a lot of young talent challenging the established experts.
The reintroduced 50/50 class proved very popular for those riders wanting a more technical challenge than the yellow route. Chris Heenan had a mega ride to beat Andrew Smith by 11 marks followed home by Ian Margetts, Mark Hawkins and Greg Moor.
24 riders competed on the Medium Route and it resulted in a tight finish between the leading riders. Toby Eyre riding his twin shock Mystical Yam managed to complete the course losing a mere 4 marks. Andy Hipwell on 6, Mike King on 7 and Jeff Day on 10 were all waiting for Toby to falter, but he never did.
Dave Aspinall and Ben Clark tied on marks lost on the Clubmans Route and were only separated on count back, Adam Moss, Jon Cropper and Tim Wyatt were not far behind.
The club would like to thanks all officials and observers who made the event possible also to Mr Jeff Day for the use of his land.