A tie here, a tie there, a clean here, a clean there
At the late stage of any championship series it’s often difficult to attract a decent entry, and the Sedbergh Club certainly thought that the entry would be low for their ninth round of the Rockshocks Trials Championship which the club held at their popular Ghyll Farm venue on Sunday, September 18.
But in the end they managed to encourage enough riders to make the event viable with 58 taking part in the three classes, Pre 65, Twinshock and Air Cooled Mono riding either the hard course or the easier clubman version.
All the classes are closely contested and perhaps surprisingly the Twinshock Expert and Pre 65 Clubman , in both classes the winners and runners up lost the same number of marks, 5 for the winner and 6 for the rider in second place. Miles Jones was the best Twinshock Expert from Jimmy Noble and Chris Myers was the best Pre 65 Clubman with Devon challenger Martin Gilbert finishing behind the local rider.
Carl Batty, upon whose family land the trial was held lost 10 to win the Pre 65 Expert from Chris Garlick on 16 whilst the Twinshock Clubman win went to Michael Platts from Mark Barrow (lead picture), both losing 6 marks with the number of cleans, 35 to 34 giving Platts the narrowest of margins in his favour.
Mike Jones and Peter Blowers also tied in the Air cooled Clubman, both on 11 with Jones having 3 more cleans than Blowers. Only three riders took part in the Air Cooled Expert category with Peter Morris the best.
In the past 12 months trials at this excellent venue have been in most categories; there’s been a Wulfsport British Championship round, an ACU Youth Championship event, a Normandale series competition and Sunday’s Rockshocks round plus the usual club events, which proves there’s enough variety for all grades of event.
The final round of this year’s series will be held by the Bootle Club at Fell Green on Sunday, October 30 with the entry details on line via the ACU over the next few days.
Full results are on the Results page and pictures