The last round of the Club Championship took place at Bumpy's Howden Clough trials land on Saturday bringing to a close a great year of competition at Northern England's top trials training academy.
As usual, Julian Ford laid out a wonderful mixture of sections always keeping in mind the vast mix of abilities of the riders that come to his 9 acre venue ideally located 5 mins from Junction 27 M62. All too often at certain trials the severity of the tests leaves some novice riders feeling overwhelmed and disheartened - never the case here. This is reflected in the spectrum of ages, abilities and machines coming to every Bumpy trial, from 4 years to 67, first timer to stalwart, Oset to Francis Barnett and everything in between!
After heavy rain during the week, 8 sections and five laps were planned by Jules, sensibly avoiding the rock areas which are treacherous when wet. First test on ash banks and round trees proved tricky for the Easy and Clubman riders, not so bad for the rest. No.2 woke up the Hard route contenders, a steep drop over slippy roots and logs traversing across a clay bank took a lot of marks. Onto the third, very tight turns on camber round trees needed featherlight clutch and throttle control, many dabs and stalls here. On to the stream section by the car park, a good test that needed full revs on the exit up a steep, loose banking. Five was over wet grass banking and deep ruts, easy for all but the top guys - a maximum score here for a red faced Jordan Ashington!
The two subs in the main stream area proved fairly straight forward for all, newly crowned British Champion Henry Stephenson on his Oset cleaning No. 7 every lap, however, veteran Richard Thorpe dropped more than a handful of points here riding the new 2014 Honda Montesa!
We will have to forgive Mr PJ1 though, he had hardly ridden the lovely Cota 4RT 260, on loan from Craig's Motorcycles Dewsbury, launched to the nation's press only three days earlier.
The day stayed dry and mild, the sun appearing for the last lap rounding off a very successful year's competition at Bumpy. Many thanks to all the helpers and observers throughout the season who have made it possible to run the events, and all the support from riders and their families. Please look on the website for future trials dates and all are welcome to the Bumpy Bonfire and Prize Presentation, details on www.bumpy.org.uk
Hard Route: J Prior(Ossa) 39, C Laws(GG) 51, J Ashington(GG) 60
Clubman: T Heath(GG) 4, C Mosley(Beta)5, A Goodlad(GG) 7
Easy: H Mosley(Beta) 7, H Stephenson(Oset) 11, J Curtis(Scorpa) 14
Picture: Like a cat with the cream, a smiling Richard Thorpe rode the 2014 Honda Montesa Cota 260 4RT
Report and picture: Nigel Land