Pre - 65 Trial.

Sunday 30th January. 

2005

        It had been quite a while since I last went and nosed around a trial of any description, let alone a pre-1965 one, so Sunday morning saw me heading for the cafe at Bridgnorth in order to grab a quick bacon and egg sandwich before meeting up with Andy and Ian somewhere along the Stottesdon road.  The quick sandwich idea got scuppered by a thirty minute wait, so after munching my way through breakfast,  I headed towards Billingsley and looked for the trial.  A great long queue of parked cars and trailers gave me my first clue, the sound of four stroke singles somewhere in the woods was also a good indication that something was going on.  Yep - this was the place.  A nice little bit of woodland with a small stream flowing through the middle.  There were around nine sections marked out, and each rider had to complete four laps.  Andy and Ian paid the price for turning up early, and had been roped in as observers.  I spent most of my time flitting between the two of 'em

.

    Even with trials bikes you can get the equivalent of a traffic jam - seems some sections were taking a bit longer than the others.  Despite it being a dry day, it wasn't all that bright down amongst the trees and my camera kept trying to use the flash.  I deliberately disabled the flash so as not to distract folks too much, on the downside, it does give the impression of speed in some of the pictures, which seems to have turned out for the best in this case.

    There was a fair selection of machines there, with roughly an equal mix of two and four strokes.  Some machines were most definitely not pre 1965, some were a mix of old and modern, and some were certainly original, but the main thing is, they were being put to good use.  The same could be said of the riders - some were old, some were new, but they were all having a good time . . . . that is if you call lying on your back in the middle of a stream with a trials bike on top of you a good time.

   Yes - I must admit to enjoying this Sunday morning's outing, and just to round it all off, we stopped for a pint at Bridgnorth station.   Definitely down on my "things to do again" list is this sort of event.

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