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The BEST North Kent team entered for the S.E Team Trial
2003 is: Richard Whitebread, Andy Hogg and Cliff
Barnett
The team trial consisted of one route suiting all classes of
rider. Twenty sections were laid out and two laps were required to
finish the course. Each team had three riders and all the teams had
to choose an expert, intermediate and novice rider for their team.
The route in my opinion was low intermediate to hard novice.
Bexleyheath entered three, three man teams and Dennis organised
these teams prior to the event. “I’m sure he spent many sleepless
nights pondering over the various team combinations”. The last time
I rode a team trial two nagging questions played on my mind before
the trial commenced. 1) Who’s going to lose the first mark for the
team? 2) Will I be the top rider in our team? Question one was
answered by Andy on section two “unlucky mate”. Question two, I was
the expert and should either Richard or Andy beat me on the day I
would lose this question “I know Richard beat me”
The rain had already started to fall when the team was midway
through lap one, this had an effect of changing some of the sections
from low intermediate/hard novice to hard intermediate to low
expert. After completing my first lap with 10 marks lost my
disappointment with my ride was evident. Richard gave me some words
of encouragement but I was really annoyed with myself for loosing so
many marks. The clerk of the course adjusted some of the sections
for lap two after a heavy burst of rain which had deteriorated the
out of rivers sections to mud baths. Section 4 was altered on lap
two and this section would sort the men out from the boys. The
uphill bank was like riding on ice and I saw plenty of riders take a
five on this section. The team spent sometime touring the section on
foot with us all agreeing a wide line of approach was the only way
up. More and more riders were jumping in front of us so we had to
ride the section with out delay before it became impossible. I set
off first in third gear, riding around a tree on the flat the bike
sliding gently beneath me, a quick blip on the throttle took me over
a small but tricky rugged lump and then I headed towards the
approach point for the up hill assault, selecting fourth “that was the
gear me and Andy decided to use” I slowly drove straight towards the
next set of red cards but realised half way through my approach I
wasn’t carrying enough speed and grabbed a big handful of throttle,
the rear wheel started to spin but just gave me an extra tad of
speed to carry me through the cards. The bike still managed to go
side ways but not enough for me to lose control, footing everywhere
I got out of the section for a very lucky three. Richard on the
other hand nearly cleaned it on a two and Andy took a five. Richard
I must say is a fantastic rider and if there was one thing that
stuck in my mind about his riding style it was how smooth and
effortless he rides. The next trial at Horsmonsden I will be trying
a more smoother approach to my riding, but bad habits die hard and
being a full blooded clutch junky it’s going to take me some time to
change my ways. As the day progressed I became more and more tired
and I’m suffering now after walking most of sections twice with the
team. The river sections covered about 65% of the trial and had no
big surprises, all first and second gear stuff with one section that
had a double rock step only catching me unaware on lap one.
I’ve just returned from the BDMCC club meeting and have an
unofficial result. My team “Richards Squad” was third overall in the
competition, but more importantly we beat Rob Fleet’s team “Bexley
Bouncers”. The reason why this is so important is because when I
returned to the parking area after lap one, I mentioned to Rob and
Gary that I had just lost 10 marks on my first lap, this created the
usual reaction from Rob and Gary “wind up” I would just like to say
one thing to these two. “Read the title of this article, the better
team won for Bexleyheath DMCC. RESPECT!!!”
By Cliff Barnett
'MBT'
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