John Holmes now on You Tube
The instructions to the guys who set out Sunday’s John Holmes Trial by the Westmorland Club at Lindale on the final Sunday of October was quite clear. It’s primarily a twin-shock/Pre 65 trial so it needs to be easy, the sections need to be wide and without tight turns. Numerous riders over the past months had said that the number of trials aimed at these classes of machine are few and far between in Cumbria and as John Holmes was very much from the twin-shock era, it was only right that the trial should be to that format.
Yet even though every section bar one would appear to be even easier than intended, only two riders from the 40 strong entry managed to go round the three laps of 13 sections clean, the two riders, both on “big” pre 65 machines, being Jack Butterworth and Carl Batty on a 50o Triumph twin and a 500 Norton single respectively.
The pre-event publicity had asked riders to drag out twin-shockers or pre 65 bikes or air-cooled monos and the bulk of the entry did just that, but for those without such machines in their rev sheds, a modern bike would be accepted. Most riders had something suitable with the least competitive being an original rigid Bantam to the latest high tech, modern version of an old bike.
The weather behaved itself as well being bright and sunny for the bulk of the day and with work having been done to improve the parking arrangements, all went well. Two courses were available but only 8 riders needed to choose the easy route.
The results tell the story of who rode well and after the two clean sheets only 8 riders stayed in single figures, so though 12 of the 13 sections were deemed pretty easy, marks were still lost all over the place. However, it is always best to have at least one section that would prove to be a real mark taker and that was section four where in addition to the two clean sheet riders, Ben Butterworth notched up three cleans but for everybody else the scores varied from three (Anthony Seales, Karl Ratcliffe, Liam Atkinson) up to 11 but with no 15 maximums.
Phil Haygarth not only rode the trial on his Bultaco, but also videoed the event on his new Go-Pro with the excellent result now on You Tube and available to see from this link: https://youtu.be/JqJ-R_UPlc8
Full results are available from the Home page link and Eric Kitchen’s pictures will be in the Gallery Monday evening all being well.