Trials Blog - Back on it - Trials UK

Trials Blog - Back on it

• 29th November 2009
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The pot is off and I’m back on the bike!  Oh, the joy.  It seems like an absolute age since I had a ride.  On the downside, Nige has had to sell his bike as his knee just isn’t strong enough. That’s my buddy totally out of the frame and I’m gutted.

Anyway, onward and upward.  I wandered down to Swainey again this weekend to blow some of the cobwebs off me and to have a go on the bike.  I felt a bit nervous to be honest, even though I was mad-keen to have a ride at the back of my mind was the thought that I could break another bone, just as easily as I had my wrist. I’d managed OK with a broken wrist, still being able to run my business, just as before.  Had I broke a leg, it would have been a different story all together.

Swainey Woods has totally changed since September when I last had a mess around.  Last time I rode here the ground was bone dry, there were leaves on the trees and I was in a t-shirt. Suddenly everything is wet, slippy, muddy and filthy and by Christ, it’s cold.  I’m layered up with t-shirts, fleeces and a waterproof coat.

I genuinely don’t remember it being this hard to stay on my bike – I’m all over the place.  Thank God, Gaz is here to help me through it.  “You haven’t ridden in mud before, Mike.  That’s all it is.  It’s a different ride when you’re in the sloppy and wet stuff, but it will teach you far more about balance than you will ever learn in the dry”.  Once again, Gaz, bless him, took the time to put me back through the basics – although this time it was how to ride in the wet.  He taught me how to relax off the throttle a bit, how to centre my balance over the back wheel for maximum grip, how to ride over slippy tree roots and, as before, had me weaving in and out of the trees - only this time the turns were getting tighter. 

Subtly, Gaz was making things more and more challenging as the day went on and, by the end of it; I felt that I had done well.  I did take a bit of a fall and landed on a rock, with my knee taking the brunt of it (yep, there’s blood) but that will teach me to wear the knee padded trousers I bought before my accident. 

Gaz asked if I was going to participate in the upcoming trial at Parkwood 4x4 centre – Tong.  I asked him if he thought I was good enough yet.  “Of course you are” he said “just take it nice and easy on the beginner route and if there’s a section you don’t like the look of, take a 5.”  Fair enough I thought, in for a penny and all that, even though my memories of competing in trials were not overly positive ones.

Oh, I have to add, washing the bike took forever!  It was utterly caked in muck and the cheapo Karcher washer I bought really had to work overtime! Bloody winter, I hate it.