Report written by Paul Davies

Nene Valley MCC held their annual Albert Glover Trial at Duck End, nr Cranford on Sunday. This was the eighth round of the club championship with 54 riders attending for what was to be a great day for everyone. The weather report for the day looked promising and the trial was set out the previous day for moderate conditions.

The trial was 4 laps of 10 sections and the riders comprised of 11 experts, 3 50/50 riders, 3 Inter riders,

14 Clubman & Novice riders, 15 riders preferring the easy route and 6 riders from the youth B & C classes and 2 riders riding the E Class made up the rest of the entry.

The trial started on familiar ground for the first 6 sections with variations of tried and tested sections.

Section 1 took many marks from the expert riders, but was ok for the rest of the field who did not seem to struggle.

Moving into the woods for the next group of sections there were variations from previously used sections as well as what turned out to be a very testing new section 7. Section 7 was created just above the rocky stream and after one lap it was decided that the routes would have to be changed as the stream turned into a bog and was becoming un-passable. The Expert class suffered the most with only Tony Jones managing to secure a 2 mark loss on the first lap. Other than that the section took full marks from every other expert rider for the four laps.

Section 9 was also a brand new section and again took many marks from the expert class. The best ride on this section from the expert class was by Steve Bird who managed 3 cleans and a three mark loss on the third lap.

The expert class was won by Steve Swanson who dropped 47 marks, second place went to Guy Kenyon-Bell who also dropped 47 marks but had 28 cleans instead of 30 cleans accrued by Steve Swanson. Third place went to Simon Dignan with 54 marks lost.

The 50/50 class was won by Billy Bishop who dropped 39 marks, followed in second place by James Philo with 44 marks lost; Paul Heron came in third place with 58 marks lost.

The Intermediate route was won by the Ossa mounted Paul Davies with 47 marks lost, followed in second place by Tony Ritchings who dropped 49 marks. Third place went to Paul Baldwin with 54 marks lost.

The Clubman class was also closely fought with eventual winner, Richard Evely tying with second place rider Chris Aylott both losing 7 marks. The result went down to the wire but was eventually decided on the furthest clean ruling as both riders had recorded the same amount of cleans, one’s, two’s and three’s. Third place went to Paul Robinson with 9 marks lost.

The novice class was won by Colin Ridgway who lost 6 marks. Second place went to Andrew Lancaster with 8 marks lost. Third place went to Richard Carpenter who dropped 18 marks.

The easy route was won by Graham Watts with a 1 mark loss on the third lap in section 3. Second place went to Martin Hale who also dropped a single mark, but his mark was lost on the first lap on section four. Third place went to Nick Holt who lost only 2 marks.

The Youth B class was won by Bob Devereux with 15 marks lost, second place went to Callum Wilkinson with 59 marks lost.

The Youth C class was won by Fred Devereux with only 1 mark lost, followed in second place by Jamie Miklosz with 4 marks lost. Third place went to Edward Jones who dropped 6 marks.

The E Class conducted route managed by Dean Devereux was won by Alfie Ray Turner who dropped 49 marks. Unfortunately Penny Devereux did not finish but deserves a mention anyway.

We hope everyone enjoyed themselves and look forward to seeing you all again at Irthlingborough on the 17th of October for the ninth and penultimate round of the club championship.

A very BIG thank you to the land owner and all of the observers for manning the sections. Also a big thank you to all of the people who helped in the preparation and setting out of the trial.