This year we see Youth A class competing on the Saturday afternoon, these include all the up and coming young stars of the future and what a promising bunch, headed by current Trial125 2nd place man Billy Green. These young guys will not be afraid of hitting the big stuff, they all ride National and/or World level trials, so it will be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Last year, in the absence of James Dabill who has held the crown since 2009 with seven consecutive wins, we were treated to a spectacular battle for the top spot, which was finally won by Welshman Iwan Roberts, taking the glory from the ever popular Michael Brown who finished just three dabs down. The youngsters really stepped up, Jack Sheppard took third place, Jack Price forth and Dan Peace rounding out the top five positions.

What will happen this year? Dibs is back, so rest assured he will be 100% focused and determined to regain his title on the infamous technical rock sections of Seymours Arena. James is on good form, currently sitting in seventh place in the TrialGP World Championship after the USA round in July. James certainly has some stiff competition to deal with, Jack Price who is also competing in TrialGP currently stands in 13th position in the World Series and is heading the British Trials Championship so you can expect full on commitment from him as usual. Iwan Roberts is top of the Trial2 World Championship, Toby Martyn holds 4th place, Dan Peace in 6th and Jack Peace in 9th place in his first year in the Trial2 Championship after winning the 2016 Trial125 Series. Dec Bullock currently sits in 18th place in the standings. The rest of the field are competing at the highest level in the British Trials Championship so any one of them could come away with the win on the day.

The action gets underway at 10.00 on Saturday with the Ladies Arena Trial, followed by the Youth A Trial. The guys get started at 10.30 on the Sunday morning so make sure you’re here to see the action unfold.

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> POSTED: 26/06/17 16:16

Tom, Tom a Winner

Report: Stu Belcher

With the recent hot weather, the Summer 2-day camping weekend turned out to be very popular, a respectful entry of 80 riders competing over the weekend. The competition was certainly looking to be as hot as the weather, 8 sections set for Saturday and 10 for Sunday making the most of the woodland copse.

It was a double win for Tom Nicholas taking a faultless ride on Saturday to hold off Tom Plant, which turned out to be the same on Sunday. Both riders were separated by only two marks on both days. With the course plotters tweaking the sections for Sunday hoping for a slight increase in marks for the experts, were spot on as the modified section 7 took most of marks for all of the experts as was planned, but both Tom’s rode this challenging looking section superbly. The initial drop over the fallen tree into the bottom of the hollow rode easier than it appeared, but the tightened adverse camber added at the section ends is where it was won and lost, Tom N lost 2 here and Tom P on 4. This is where they both stayed making a Tom Tom double Weekend.

The Clubman expert route was headed by Maria Longden on Saturday, a clear winner from Luke Hora in 2nd with Lee Sullivan 3rd, John Wheeler 4th and Liam Anderson some way back in 5th, Sunday was a complete switch around with no Maria for Sunday Liam Anderson turned things around and was ahead on Sunday pipping Luke by two marks. The Clubman B was taken by Reynard Norris on Saturday for a single mark loss. He was in front of Ryan Tomkins and Ryan Harris. Without Reynard on Sunday Ryan Tomkins took the win from Neil Dodd who pipped Ryan Harris for the second spot

With the biggest entry in the Clubman C route, Justin Heavens was clean on Saturday with Brian Tomkins 2nd and Dereck Fowler 3rd. Sunday saw Brian move up to take the win and a fantastic result for Dereck taking a double third place, with Dereck looking to be on top form now, others in this tightly contested class may need to up their game to hold off a late surge from the popular SVS Man.

With the Youth Classes, William Clark was on his own on both days on the Youth Expert route and Oscar Jones competing on his own in the Youth 50/50. With William Looking comfortable in this class as well as Oscar returning from a break from trials was still riding well. Finley Belcher took the double win from Thomas Hawthorn and Max Agar and the positions were maintained for Sunday. Youth C had George Clark on his own Saturday and was Joined by Ben Nichols on Sunday making his first move up to the Clubman route, riding confidently at the extra challenges and maybe some stiff competition for older brother Tom as they are now on the same grade. Young Harry Wheeler was out on his Oset on Sunday and had Ben Jelfs and Jonathan Brett for a great days competition for these young riders, Harry was clear ahead of Ben in second and Jonathan only 6 marks further back in third.

Thanks to the marking-out/clearing-up crew, Sue and the team for getting everyone signed on on both days especially Sunday after a few glasses of Vino on Saturday evening, great effort. A huge thank you to all of the observers over both days, Derek Dodd, Andy Hora, Sarah Anderson, Mark Anderson, Stu Belcher, Pauline Belcher, Mick Ainsworth, Todd Jones, Peter White, Jim Axford, Neil Harris, Barry Wheeler, Simon Clark, Duncan Agar and Mick Bayliss, we are so grateful to you for your continued support, as you know we couldn’t run our events without you. Sue also for number crunching and getting the results out sharpish.

We hope you enjoyed the weekend.

Pictures courtesy of Pauline Belcher

> POSTED: 05/06/17 14:21

Harts Hill, Club Championship Round 3.

Report: Stu Belcher

With the prospect of new land, it was all hands to the pump to make the most of this opportunity and with the short notice round three of the club championship was switched to Harts Hill Bucklebury.

With the vast land available the course plotters set out a great ride around covering an assortment of terrain. With the land previously used as a paint ball site the sections were plotted around many base camps and section two made the most of a couple of old bridges. Like something from kickstart days the first part of the section made its way across a ditch looping over the main bridge then back under it to use the steep parts of the ditch below. The tight steep entry of the expert route by the side of the bridge caught a few riders but the cambered turn on the loose bank that brought you back to the ends card managed to grab marks from most of the field, a section that was enjoyed by all of the 50-strong entry and spectators alike.

Tom Nicholas was in fine form in the expert class as he lost only one mark on section five, the last turn across roots through the angled exit on top of the bank was masterful as the loose going made the final turn very tough. He easily took the Expert win on a low score of 4, some 8 marks clear of Scott Faulkner with James Grist coming in a close third.

With a large entry of Clubman C riders, Brian Tomkins was on top as he finished 8 marks ahead of Alex Taylor aboard his immaculate Fantic, again section two catching everyone out as the turn out of the ditch loosened as the day progressed making this turn difficult to master. Neil Harris came third but lost his going through the slippery sections of seven and eight.

With a great entry of Youth riders spread across the grades it was Brett Harbud who managed to take the Expert Youth win from Alicia Robinson, they were both neck and neck throughout the trial but Brett managed to get the edge of Alicia in section 8 as the soft going at the stream edge before the drive up to the fallen tree took marks from all that rode the expert route here.  Finley Belcher was on his own in the Youth 50/50 and rode well taking the harder challenges in his stride. Bailey Tidbury was only 6 marks ahead of Thomas Hawthorn in the Youth B with Max Agar a little further back to take third. Again, the enjoyable bridge section taking majority of the marks here as well as the soft banks of section eight. Sam Avenell was comfortable winner in the Youth C class ahead of the Cole brothers Tom and Josh. To finish off the Youth classes Ben Nicholls was an easy winner in the D green route with Ben Jelfs second and new to trials young Jonathan Brett managing to finish his first trial aboard his Oset taking the third spot.

Thanks to all of the marking out/clearing up crew; Sue and Pauline for getting everyone signed on; Sue for getting the results out and all of the observers – Andy Hora, Jim Axford, Mick Bayliss, Doug Wootton, Derek Dodd, Peter White, Richard Harbud, Steve Nicholls and Duncan Agar. Also a special thanks to Mark Stokes for getting us the opportunity to run the trial at this lovely piece of land, as you all know land is so hard to come by nowadays so we were really grateful to the landowner for agreeing to let us use the venue, we hope it won't be the last...

Find the full results below. The next North Berks event is just three weeks away which is our 2 Day Trial at Besselsleigh which is always a good one. Hope to see you then.

TOP PLACES

Expert: T Nicholas 4, S Faulkner 12, J Grist 18

50/50: L Hora 20, Lee Sullivan 44, Liam Anderson 47

Clubman B: M Elms 9, S Belcher 16, D Barrett 19

Clubman C: B Tomkins 26, A Taylor 34, N Harris 41

Clubman D: S Allsworth 2, J Evans 6

Youth Expert: B Harbud 35, A Robinson 49

Youth 50/50: F Belcher 60

Youth B: B Tidbury 47, T Hawthorn 54, M Agar 65

Youth C: S Avenell 55, T Cole 114, J Cole 156

Youth D: B Nicholls 8, B Jelfs 108, J Brett 154

Pictures courtesy of Leah Robinson