8th April, Applegarths
I go t a ride down to the trial with Mark Gray. We didn’t get time for a practice ride and so I started the day feeling a bit shakey. I honestly can’t remember who I was riding with at the start of the day.It was all a bit muddled. Some people who were riding with us were marking their own cards and ended up doing their own thing.
Anyway, Kevin Tither was marking mine and a few other people’s cards for the first couple of laps, though he was feeling unwell and only rode the first few sections. I ended the day riding with Jamie Mead and Andrew & Byron Adlam.
I wasn’t having the best day. I was feeling a bit sick so I didn’t really have any favourite sections but there a few that had stuff that I need to practice.
There were quite a few banks in most of the sections which are good to do just for confidence. Section eight had a log that was about one metre high and vertical and, on the other side, another log. You got up on the first one and the front wheel goes immediately on to the second one with the back wheel still on the first one. This means that, for a few seconds, you’re a metre off the ground. I never got it properly. I had to pull my back wheel up every time but this is probably the section that I liked most, and got the most out of.
I didn’t have a great day – I kept dropping silly points – but, hopefully, that will get me to practice so that the next trial is better.