Here we are then, results from Millwich. For once, unbelievably, the weather has been consistent right through from sorting out sections last week, to marking out yesterday and even more unbelievably, on the day of the trial itself. Waited a long time for that to happen so the scores on each route have come out around what I was aiming for.
With a few expert riders entering I thought there might be one or two clean rides but not so, best ride on the hard route was Steve Harris with 2 marks lost which went on Colin Leese's section 8, the most difficult one to achieve a clean on as the mud carried up the bank onto the cambered turn and made it very slippery - as hoped for Darren Jones was on for a clean sweep of this section but a 3 on the last lap put paid to that, leaving the best ride on this one to Rob Badland with a very good 1 mark lost
On the 50/50 medium route Tom Harris pinched a 1 mark win over Owen Strudley, 28 to 29 marks lost
On the easy route, old 'uns took the honours (bikes not riders...) with Graham Knight taking the win on his nice 325 Bultaco which sounded just like a Bultaco should. Graham was down from Northumberland visiting his parents and stopped off to ride the trial on his way back home - so the results will make for nice reading after the long drive back. In an excellent second place was Stuart Rudd on the big Matchless following up on his superb ride on his last visit when he was the winner. Well done both and I'm not at all biased to see a Bultaco at the top of the sheet...
So the two routes seems have worked quite well but jesus h, the confusion at sign on, me included, trying to explain the the sections are still the same as the old yellow / green medium and white easy routes, just marked with different colours..... and I kept going to reach for white numbers that weren't there... So for next time I'll drop the label of hard and the routes will be called medium and easy. Medium will be red / blue and easy will be yellow / green. 50/50 route between the two. That should sort it.
Thanks to all who came and rode, any comments as to sections, severity, too hard, too easy etc, just drop them below as if no-one says anything to the contrary I can only assume it worked ok. Thanks to all observers, Antony and Dan for help setting up and to all who helped pull the flags in at the end - and most importantly thanks to Jean and Glyn for once again letting us play on our bikes in their back garden.
Next trial, June 9th