Lands End Trial 2008

After winning a Gold Medal on last year's trial there was a probability that I would be disappointed this year and I wasn't wrong.

For signing on at Plusha we had to make do with writing on the freezer in the service station as the cafe has closed down again. The rumour is that the rent is far to high to make a go of it, now that travellers don't have to break their journey on the widened A30.

This year Easter was on the 22nd on March was as early as it has been for years. The earliest possible is 21st so naturally it was dusk by departure. On the way to Bridgewater my headlamp bulb blew twice. The spare I fitted the first time had been carried for years so perhaps it had been vibrated far too much before fitting. Luckily the bulb is a plain H4 item so widely stocked. I was rather fed up with this though, the 6 small cross-head screws aren't the easiest things to deal with on a cold night. Also the LED lamps in the lighting indicators which I fitted during the summer are far too bright at night and dazzled me. They'll have to be adapted. You can tell I don't ride much during the night can't you.

I usually consider the first section to be easy, but this year it was the first that I failed, in common with many others. A restart box had been place on some slippery rocks and I took the wrong side and ended up sliding off. That was a bad start. Before day break I footed rather carelessly on a rocky section where more determination would have seen me through. At breakfast I gained a bit of a boost and thought that a bronze was still within my reach if I didn't fail another section. The tarmac approach to Crackington was littered with clods of clay suggesting that it might be a little gloopy at the top. As it turned out the clay was in neat piles easy enough to steer around. Thus all went well until Bluehills.

The 2 bluehills sections are traditionally tough but they can be cleared. The first has a watery pit and then a restart on a steep cobbled ramp. As I approached this I could see a dry band and amazingly manged to stop on it and do the restart. But then I under-revved and messed up my 'strategic' footing on the 90 degree turn to the right and managed to stall. What a waste! That made me lose any interest in working on Bluehills 2 and basically paddled to the top.

In theory the weather hadn't been bad. Certainly it was windy and this made the night cold but there was no rain nor fog. During the day I hadn't felt very well, alternately nauseous and with a headache but there was no obvious cause for this and I do feel as though I'm making excuses.

Although my score is poor I should take away the positive message that I very nearly cleared Bluehills 1...