Trials Blog - Rocky Streams - Trials UK

Trials Blog - Rocky Streams

• 14th June 2010
• Read Comments

It was a Yeadon and Guiseley trials weekend this weekend.  In my experience, Y&G put on some of the best trials in the area because the sections test you and they’ll catch you out – causing you to dab - but they’ll never leave you worrying about hurting yourself.  That’s absolutely great for a beginner rider like me because it helps to increase your confidence – and I’m still a that stage in my trials-biking where that’s really important. I rode with Si and Clive today and, as it was a Y&G trial, I was really looking forward to it.

The trial was held at Emmott’s Farm in Silsden, West Yorkshire – Silsden being the original home of 12-time World Champion Dougie Lampkin.  It is an absolutely cracking venue and offers trials organisers a multitude of possibilities, but most of the sections are set in a stream – and it’s an enormously rocky stream at that.  Now, if you’ve read my last blog you’ll have seen that rocky stream beds were the primary cause of my downfall during the Over 40’s Reunion Trial a few weeks ago, because they’re something I have never practiced.  Well, that’s my excuse, anyway.

So, section 1, the only section not involving the stream, was a major hill-climb.  It was steep and slippery, but if you took a long run up in 3^rd gear an ‘gunned’ it, it wasn’t that hard to get up.  I managed 4 cleans here, but this was the only section where that would happen.

Onto section 2 and it was the first of the stream sections – although there were no big rocks to throw you off, so you’d think this was easy (and it was), but I stiffened up and multi-dabbed my way through 3 of the 4 times we went through, only cleaning it once.  Section 3 was our first intro to the big rocks and again, I rode stiffly and managed 3, 2, 2, and 1. Section 4 was another venture up the stream through a maze of big rocks and, incredibly, I cleaned this the first time, only to follow it up with three 3s.  A pat on my back for consistency there, then!

Section 5, nice and easy really, because the rocks were smaller and I managed a 2 and 3 cleans.  So we’re at the half way point, and I’m wondering how many more ‘rocky stream’ sections there are to go.  The answer would be “the rest” but I wouldn’t know that until I got to section 10. The last part of section 6 caught me out when I should have cleaned it, so I got a disappointing row of 2s and 3s instead of 0s.  Seven was a relatively simple drop into the stream and, after more rocks, a turn to exit out.  Still, I managed to dab and, at one point run over a flag for a silly 5.  Section 8 was so simple, anyone could clean it – so I did, 3 times, before missing the end flag for another 5.  Section 9 and 10 were both very tricky, rocky sections which left me with a line of 2s and 3s for a final score of 70.

I scored 70 points this weekend - The Emmott’s trial caught me out in much the same way that the Over 40’s did.  9 of the 10 sections involved the rocky stream and, if I’m absolutely honest with myself, I think I made the classic mistake of subconsciously talking myself into believing that I was going to fail.  Having said that, I’m actually quite happy with a score of 70 because the trial was outstanding – one of the best I have done so far, and the company was great too.