Trials Blog - Handlebars are there for going over - Trials UK

Trials Blog - Handlebars are there for going over

• 20th June 2010
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Note to self:  Participating in a trial after a full day's practice is not sensible.

Both my arms and legs are in full agreement; they're throbbing. In fact, my legs haven't looked like this since I was 13. My Mother would have a coronary if she saw what I was doing to myself and I'm almost tempted to book myself a parking space at the local hospital!

So, I feel like I have been hit repeatedly with a sizeable lump hammer across the chest and I have a nasty graze on my right arm. This is a result of the seemingly now weekly 'over the handlebar' experience, this time up at Home Farm, Tong.  

I was joined at Tong this week by the rapidly improving Dave Horne and long-time mentor Gareth Shaw for a bit of a casual practice around the area's top venue. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but Home Farm at Tong has everything and it's an epic place to ride. Gareth had set a quite challenging section out at the far left hand corner of the venue (regular visitors will know where I mean) and, to my amazement, I cleaned it - both ways. It was going to be a good day, until Gaz suggested I try the 'up-over-the-rock-tight-turn-around-the-tree-and-back-down-again section. "I'll piss it" was my first thought - and I did. But I did it wrong. I went round the wrong tree. So I had another go and realised that it was a  little tighter than I first thought. No worries, I'll take it steady, I thought...Now this is where my lack of experience occasionally slaps me in the arse. You see, I am starting to realise that my back wheel doesn't always follow my front wheel on exactly the same path and, when I am turning left around a big rock, whilst the front wheel goes around the rock, the back wheel goes over it. In turn, as I am heading down the steepest part of the course, the rear wheel is heading upwards, helped by the rock. The net result: me doing the slowest ever over-the-handlebars manoeuvre known to man and coming crashing to the ground.

That in itself hurts as, invariably, I clatter my knackers on some part of the handlebar's furniture (there is a massive array of things to biff your bollocks against on a trials bike), but as I hit the floor I had a real sense of "phew, that was close". I had landed no further than 6 inches away from a piece of buried branch. It wasn't completely buried though; the bit of branch that was sticking up out of the ground vertically was about 9 inches long and had been cut to a point. Had I landed on that, I would have done myself some real, serious damage. Both lads came to my rescue and kindly untangled me from the wreckage and we carried on enjoying and excellent day. I was to come off another 2 times during the day and, by the end of it was pretty shagged out.  

My bike had been running like a dog all day, so, after 5 hours of continual riding I hurriedly whipped over to Trials UK. Top blokes Nige and John kindly dropped everything to get the bike fixed for the trial in the morning. It turned out that I had been riding with a blown gasket. No wonder I fell off 3 times then (I know, I know - a blown gasket has nothing to do with falling off, but it makes me feel better).

Could I do the trial at Stump Cross the following day? Not if I didn't do some big-time recovering. As it turned out, I did do the trial and was pooped by section 5. I didn't recover well enough and came second from bottom on the trial. Result!

Another lesson learnt, then!