Phil Evans and the crew from the Pontypool DMMC & East South Wales Centre worled bloody hard for many weeks to dig out, chop, chainsaw and clear a route for the 2011 Mitchell trial... and as far as i am concerned did a brilliant job. I had popped over for a day riding/helping the weekend before the event liked the look of the natural sections, no made made bits needed in this part of Wales! The stream running through the bottom of the valley was running at just the right height to make things damp but without the chance of the raging torrent that occured at the St. Davids Trial.
  One or two of the big climbs looked just about impossible to my eye, but of course I have trouble getting 2 metres up out of the stream so they would wouldn't they!!
Some images from the team setting out the sections for the 2011 Mitchell.. more here

... Saturday was practice day, to some in different countries reading this the idea of letting the riders have a practice on the sections may seem a little weird but I have to say I think it works ok. It gives the sections a little bedding in meaning that the first handful of riders on race day are not just burning a line for everyone else and it also allows some section route tweaking if needed. The tweaking may be because a part of section proves to be just plain impossible, the whole thing far to easy for this level of comp or it could be because something proves dangerous. One or two of the big climbs and a large step at section 11 had to be modified or removed, and a few route changes were made to either allow the section to be ridden in 90 seconds or to make it at least possible to reach the ends cards.
There were a few murmours around the paddock after the practice about the severity of the sections for some classes but Phil and the crew worked very hard in the evening and the next morning to change what was needed to produce a very good trial with what looked to be about the right spread of scores in each class....
Some images from the Practice on Saturday..... Saturday images

... The day of the Trial and the first thing I must do is thank James Bower, who also owns much of the land the trial was run on, for the loan of his GasGas. I broke my rear brake pedal riding in the stream last week and needed something to get about on for the trial to save my knee a bit and allow me to get to all the sections. The sad bit, for me, is how much I liked the bike!! It was a 300 2009 Pro and it was so easy to ride. I also noticed how soft it was to ride, by that I mean that the vibrations and knocks I feel on my beta when just riding up the stream were much less. I guess because of the steel frame it doesn't transmit every knock into your body, like the aluminium frame of the Beta seems too. And of course the right foot kickstart was kind to my knackered left knee. Being the 300 it had plenty of poke, which i like.. I'll say this quietly, if i was in the market for new 2012 bike it would be a GasGas... there i've said it!!!!! As I haven't the money I will continue to enjoy my Beta.

  Some overnight rain and the promise of a little more meant Phil once again rode around the loop to see if anything needed sorting, and at 10am the expert B's were off... just as the rain started. The way things are these days the B's are the largest class. It was good to see a few more local riders having a bash. Several Welsh riders and a few from just over the Bridge here in the West Country gave a good account of themselves. It was also nice to catch up with an old friend from East Sussex, Jim Cottingham, who was following his lad Mark around the woods. The first couple of sections proved fairly easy for them, just a nice steady warm up for what was to come on the muddy hill climbs.
The expert A's sections had some big steps and huge climbs, but all proved possible... the youth riders 125 machines did struggle a bit with the climbs though and their scores reflected this. I asked several of the A class riders if they would move up to the Champ class and not one of them said yes. I guess only Jack Sheppard is going to jump into the top class if he stays to ride in the UK.
  Sadly for everyone involved in the BTC these days there are only 6 or 7 regular riders in the Championship class. We have had discussions in the past on here as to what the solution is but one thing is for sure, many organisers are not going to continue to put all the work, time and money into running these events if only 6 riders are going to show. There seems to be total silence on the subject from the ACU, who laughingly run these events under the ACU promotions banner... funny because the one thing they don't do is promote them!!! To me it seems the two points that need looking into are the riding rules, no-stop or stop etc, and costs. We all know the cost of fuel these days, add the over night stay and it becomes an expensive thing to ride the championship ... and that is before you factor in hurting yourself or breaking the bike. This conversation will run and run I fear until there is no Championship left to worry about... but one up side of there only being 6 riders is that you get to see them all ride the sections on the first lap without losing track of any of them!

The final scores on the day, I think, proved that the sections were about right. Neither too easy or too hard. All were cleanable and all were fiveable, the riders who finished in the lower order in the Champ class still only lost just over half the marks that could have been lost. It was also nice once again to see natural sections in a rocky stream with mud and root climbs.... bit of a nightmare for photography under the tree cover but a little bit more like the terrain most of us ride in ourselves. It was also nice to see the sun come out after the first lap, in Wales no less!! ;)

Congratulations to Michael Brown, and it was good to see the event go down to the last section. Forgetting any of the on-going issues it was a shame not to see Alexz riding, but understandable. The fight between Ross and Sam for 3rd place in the final championship tables is going to the wire as well... will make the last round next week interesting.

Sunday images ... it was very dark under the trees and I was playing with a new camera. At the time of shooting i thought the images were just for here so i didn't worry too much but it looks like the T&MX may be using some on friday now. I'll get better, promise!!