Proved to be a long day, setting off just after 8am and finishing after 5pm.. the length of time reflected that this year was a harder event than last year... but same spectacular countryside.
There were 34 challenging sections, each with a little something to catch us out.. lots of rock, water, roots, off camber turns and steep climbs.. but all Meat & Drink for our seasoned LDT team!!
Then there was the Special Test and Hill Climb to finish... nothing quite like watching your pride & joy disappearing up the Hill without you, then looping skywards and bouncing back towards you.. my learning was don’t try and stop it on the way down !!
- my Hand swelled up like a bear’s paw..
Trev was our main casualty, muscle injury.. which I may have captured on video.. tackling a tricky climb, Trev & Scorpa ended in a heap to the scream of ‘“I don’t believe it !! “..
the whole forest shook with Trev’s roar!!
- Trev has now launched ‘Project Scorpa’ and no doubt ‘Project Trev’ will follow.. both to address his recent DNFs
- as requested by Fire Dude, I took a number of action videos: Manty looking spectacular (# when will he slow down) and young Doug showing a clean pair of heels.
- John also recorded sections on his Go-Pro
[ John, Trev can you upload video? ]
- FD, you won’t be able to resist joining for the next event...
Call out to Bry, who spent the day taming what appeared to be a KTM with a chainsaw engine.. viscous power delivery.. but you’ve got to get up early if you want to intimidate Bry; it didn’t.
Overall we had a mixture of awesome cleans, spectacular attempts and unexplainable disasters... John introduced the term ‘slip’ as opposed to ‘crash’... a subtle difference that I couldn’t totally fathom..
We also made some new mates.. me and Manty navigated in the afternoon for a lad from Wales who then went on to win the ‘Trials bike’ category.. freeloader!! but we liked him.. so fair play.
Has taken a couple of days to recover but the feeling of satisfaction remains..
Go! Bristol TRF LDT Team !!
Rich
