A game of patience

As you might have seen from my previous posts I have been extremely lucky to have been given the use of a trials bike which I am really enjoying and think it will help with my overall bike handling ability.

Now when this all started I had no plan to start competing but James has been really enthusiastic and he was keen for us both to do a competition. Now the racer in me can never say no to a bit of head to head so naturally I agreed.

The course consisted of 10 different sections of which we had to do four laps, so we had to do each section 4 times. Some of them were quite easy and others were near on impossible. There was one particular hill climb which proved to be very difficult as it seemed impossible to get enough traction. Impossible until a more experienced rider sailed up it of course. After attacking it a good few times I was stuck for ideas. I tried it slow, I tried it fast, in a high gear, in a low gear and I still couldn't make it up.

The competition between James and I was very close and by the end of it we didn't know for sure who had won between us but we knew it was close. I was leading for the most part until I started to get a little cocky and made some stupid mistakes. One thing I realised is that trials is about patience and consistency and about giving each section the respect it deserves.

As you can see from the photos, it was also an opportunity to try out my new race gear provided by Urban Air. Trials folk aren't down with Fox and Tech 10 boots so as you can imagine I got some funny looks. However I was proud to be a motocross racer and for people to know it.

We got the results back on Monday and James and I were tied for 5th. How crazy is that. After doing 40 sections we had exactly the same score. A great day overall, thanks to Cooper for coming along and taking some photos.