Lonsdale winners are Craig Talbot, Richard Gaskell and Dan Thorpe.
As the headline says, the three winners in the opening round of the Westmorland Club’s organised Lonsdale Trial which was round 1 of the S3 Parts Trials Championship were Dan Thorpe in the Expert Championship, Craig Talbot in the Clubman Championship and Northern Centre ace Richard Gaskell in the Over 40 class.
Starting from the club’s own land at Firbank, the conditions were bitterly cold with a fierce wind at the hilltop venue as the 118 starters set off for a single road based lap of 36 sections set out by the experienced Anthony Brockbank. After five steady sections at the start location, the slippery stream at Black Horse hill just off the Sedbergh to Kendal road was mighty slippery and the Expert course riders had a fearsome section out of the beck up a grassy slope then a muddy and slippery drop back into the gently flowing waters, which proved mighty tricky for the early experts until the potential winners had a go after a long and lingering look. None of the experts managed a double clean of the two joined sections where Richard Sadler and Sam Yeomans both lost dabs, and where Dan Thorpe, Josh McParland and Tom Swindlehurst lost two. Only Ben Butterworth on his 40 year old Fantic twinshock went clean, proving, as if proving was ever needed, it’s the rider and not the bike in this tantalising sport of trials riding.
At Sandbeds, Sadler fived the big step much to his disgust and at the big hill climb nearby every expert lost five except for Will Brockbank who exited the end having lost a single dab, just as he alone managed last year at the same section.
Onto the Knipes group, Talbot and Butterworth were neck and neck, five marks to six and with the BVM boss losing only two more marks from that point, he secured a decisive win which undoubtedly made his journey home satisfying. Gaskell was in a battle with Anthony Ayrton all day long and came out on top by having four more cleans than the Yorkshireman whilst third and fourth in the over 40s went to southerners Brian Francis and Ben Skinner.
To a number of riders the cold proved their downfall but the observers stuck it out and as the trial progressed through Packhams and the railway line sections where the West Coast mainline passed within sight of the tricky group. The middle section had only one clubman clean – that man Butterworth again – and where only Sadler in the experts went clean, but Sadler’s downfall had already taken place many sections earlier where he had a failure on a section cleaned by Thorpe, Tyler Rendall, a long way from his Tiverton home, Swindlehurst and by Charlie Smith.
The results of the Lonsdale Trial, round 1 of the S3 Parts Championship by the Westmorland Club are now available from the Results link on the Home page, pictures with thanks by Brian Ayrton.