Land's End Trial

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

I've entered the full event, starting Friday night

Rider 167, towards the tail end of the motorcycle entry

IMG_4374.JPG (140.27 KiB) Viewed 2976 times

Anyone else riding.spectating?

[DavidS]

Best of luck and have a great time.
I would spectate if it wasn’t so far away.
Hope the ruts aren’t too bad by the time you get out there.

[ChrisCole]

I feel for you with the weather we have had. Hopefully it hasn’t ruined your enjoyment of the event

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Well...I finished, but I don't think I'll be getting a medal.

Rode off to the start into the face of a 'severe weather warning' for rain. Took the backroads across Cornwall and Devon and into Somerset for the Bridgwater start. Passed the aftermath of an horrific car accident, which was an excellent reminder to ride sensibly (looked like a small hatchback had gone into full earth/sky mode, and it was on its roof with the doors cut off), and an ambulance parked by the side of the road ...I guess they were doing an emergency resuss.

Got rained on all night, crossing the high ground in Exmoor.

Things got better crossing Devon.

Then the sky got less dark, and I could hear birds singing over the sound of the Beta's exhaust.

Some sections went better than others...I ended up in the bank a bike's length from the section ends at my local hill at Crackington, which was sad. A groan of disappointment from the spectators.

Then the sun came out

Bluehills was as hard as I have ever known...I got stuck on both restarts.

Fought to the top and parked...and a little girl plucked at my hand and said: "I thought you did really well!"

Bless her.

Rode to the finish at Redruth, where an MCC man said that they had been seriously concerned in the weeks before the event that it was so dry that it would be too easy, so had mede the sections as hard as possible. Then the weather broke, but the route had been approved so they couldn't change it. Two of the sections were so nightmareish that they had been closed to most of the car entries as deemed undriveable.

A fantastic event...great support from fellow entrants and spectators.

And, I met Chris 'skids and wheelies' Northover from the Bike World youtube channel. He was doing the event with his wife, brother, and stepfather. What a lovely man, and his family are lovely as well.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Here's a clip from Crackington

The bikes had to do a restart on this hill. I got caught in the car ruts at the top, and tipped into the bank.