JAMES DABILL No.1 JSTGGUK rider finished 7th and 5th at the superb UK round of the World Trials Championship at the weekend.

The event itself was superb and in my opinion was the best WTC event so far this year. The Trial was slightly different to the normal WTC Rounds in the fact that the sections were ‘slightly’ more traditional and quite long for the 1 minute section rule which meant the riders had to keep moving which made for some real exciting riding.
Some of the top riders were not impressed after viewing the sections on the Friday but they must realize that they must be able to ride all kinds of terrain to be the best.

Our weekend started well, Dibs was excellent in the Friday mornings practice session matching everyone. He was also happy with sections when we viewed them Friday afternoon. He was again on the pace in the warm up practice session on Saturday morning.

He started the event with an easy clean on section 1 to settle the nerves which he was under because of his home GP. He fived the big step on 2 because of lazy legs. He fived 3 ‘overdoing’ the rock face for another quick 5. He recovered well with an awesome ride on possibly the hardest section 4 with a fantastic 1 dab ride and I thought ‘here we go, he’s on it!’ Unfortunately he struggled for most of the lap with more bad fives on 5,7,12 and 14. He boosted his confidence with a stunning clean on the last section which was needed to cheer us all up going into the second lap. Six fives on his first lap was simply too many.

He was more like ‘Dibs’ on the second lap improving on his first lap by 16 marks which lifted him one place to finish just ahead of his pal Michael Brown who was riding well. He has some fantastic rides on the second lap and certainly redeemed himself and the Team.

As we summarised the day, Dibs knew that he simply had to battle with his demons and improve dramatically on Day 2.

Day 2 Dibs woke earlier than usual and went for a quick Mountain Bike ride to wake his legs up and maybe just to clear his head a little. He didn’t push himself too much in Sunday morning practice but what he did do he did well and he seemed more relaxed.

He started well and got out of section 2 which was good. Another ‘dumbass’ five on 3 when he crashed down the rock face again (which wound me up!) seemed to fire him up because from then on he rode more like the James Dabill we know and looked cool and confident with some stunning rides to finish the lap on 23 and in 6th place. He was consistant on the second lap and was again amazing on section 4. I must say that James reminds me so much of working with Steve Colley because he will do the most amazing things on a bike and then at the very next section have a complete brain fade moment and do something really dumb. As I said he was riding very well on his second lap and after the clean on 4 he was buzzing. Good on 5 for a dab then onto 6 which he struggled with which was strange because it wasn’t difficult at all. He had cleaned all but the end of the section and through rushing revved the bike on a slippy boulder and nose dived the final step for a reeeeeally dumb five. Not good and he knew instantly it was his fault and probably felt sick (I did!).

We blasted off to 7 which gave him a little time to refocus. He was brilliant on the stream sections near the ‘gondolas’ and again awesome on 13 when it started to rain. We raced back to the finish to try and do the last two sections before the heavens opened. Sections 14 and the awesome last section were very slippy and unfortunately fived them both which actually didn’t harm his finial result of 5th which was good and a lot better then Saturday.

Dibs is now 6th overall in the Championship, 15 points behind Jeroni and 13 points in front of Doug.

Thanks to Jack and isma.
Thanks to Trialmag for the pic.

GARY MacDONALD (JSTGG) had a fantastic weekend riding as a guest in the Junior Class and finished 7th on Day1 and 8th on Day 2 beating Jonathan Richardson easily on both days.

CRAIG ROBINSON (JSTGG) finished a fantastic 12th place on Day 1 scoring 4 World Junior points.

CHRIS SHORT (JSTGG) was 10th both days in the Youth Class.

Steve Plains GGUK Enduro Team were out in force last week at the infamous ‘Welsh Two Day Enduro’ and it was the ‘new kid on the block’ Danny McCanney that impressed the most blitzing the Expert Class easily and in fact finished 3rd overall on Day 1 finishing in front of Ed Jones, Paul Eddy and his Gasser Team mate Ashley Wood! He was again fast on Day 2 winning the Expert Class easily and 5th overall for the Day. With these two days together Danny finished 4th overall at his first Welsh…not bad for an 18 year old !

Ashley Wood was as consistent as ever and finished 6th overall for the weekend.

Bradley King got caught out at a slack check and missed his minute and had to take a 1 minute penalty….drrrrrrrr L He still finished 16th in the Champ Class and will learn by this dumb (but easy) mistake.

Regards
Shirty