This is a relatively new piece of land for the club. During the summer it is a camp site for guides and scouts and therefore we can only use the land in the winter. We were unsure how many people would be riding. It was extremely pleasing to see that by the start we had 28 riders.

Section 1 was a down hill gully with banks at either side. The section did not appear to cause too many problems. Sections 2 to 4 were through winding streams. Some areas were quite deep but at least the bottom was firm. The banks became quite greasy and many riders found themselves slipping back into the water and spent the rest of the day with wet feet.

Light rain the night before had made the going fairly greasy. It was therefore a shame that many of the steep banks and hills could not be used. Section 5 made use of some hilly areas. The intermediate and expert riders had to cope with a fairly severe climb towards the end of the section. Sections 6,7 and 8 returned to using the stream. Section 6 caused a few problems for the experts as a result of the drop into the stream and then a sharp climb out. But the hardest section appears to have been at section 8, judging from the scores. What seemed like a fairly straight forward drop into the stream became quite tricky as a result off tyre wear and stones being moved.

Although scores were a reasonably high it is good to see that there were no retirements. The day was quite cold (around 3 degrees centigrade) but the sun shone intermittently and at least there was no rain. The weather does seem to be an important factor on the number of riders and the level of retirements. All in all, everyone seemed to have a good day's ride and several people commented that it would be nice to use that land again, perhaps early next year.

Well done to Pat Lloyd-Jacob, Stuart Read, Mark Oram, Chris Roos, Charlie Harris, Peter Jenkins, Fred Pidcock and Ben Read, who won their respective classes. Special mention must go to Charlie Harris for going round the whole course for a clean!

My thanks to Derek and Steve for helping laying out and thanks also to all those that helped take down. I am afraid I didn't see all those that helped take down and therefore I apologise if I did not thank you individually. Again, we were able to take down all sections within about 10 minutes. It makes a tremendous difference when four or more people help and therefore if you can help in the future would you please let us know either before the trial or at lunch time. Alternatively, just hang on at the end and look for any one with a marker back.

Next to trial is Monday 27th December. Look forward to seeing you there. The Star Group Trial is on 12th December and I am still looking for volunteers to help observe or help take down the sections afterwards. Please telephone Rick 01306 886681 (Office) 01306 882575 ( Home). Rick