Last night saw the final time trial of the summer take place.
The plan - a mass race to the finish, elbows out, foot out, flat out.
Everything seemed to go fairly according to plan, except due to incomprehensible excuses for hand writing on some of the sign in sheets, i may have made up some competitors... - barrell, burnell whoever you are, either way like the spice girls song, two became one..

So there was some racing went on apparently, and below are the results as far as i can be bothered to type up.

Prize giving took place in the Cafe with the delightful Jean supplying the excellent food.

Nick Craig, who once rode at the Olympics, possibly - according to Paul, gave out the seniors, and Dave Fletcher, the fastest kid in the county gave out the jnrs.







Jnrs
1. O. Barrell
2. H. Wright
3. E. Jones
4. M. Frier
5. E. Dudley
6. O. Bowes-Hall
7. S. Wheelhouse

Snrs.
1. A. Batty
2. S. Batty
3. J. Lightfoot
4. N. Craig
5. S. Burnell

Medals.
Overall Under 16. S. Wheelhouse
Runner Up. O. Bowes-Hall

Under 12s. E. Dudley

Most improved jnr. C. Metcalfe

Overall Senior. S. Barrell
Runner Up. M. Tyler

Most improved Snr. A. Marshall

Yes thats right, summer is clinging on by the fingertips to 2007, but alas it is our last time trial of the season. To celebrate were having a mass brawl. Well, a mass staggered start, or finish, or something.
Most importantly there will be food! Free food at that!

Oh and the oldest man in XC (according to the UCI) will be here, yes that right subject to his bus pass allowing him to travel as far as clipstone Mr Nick Craig will be here.

Oh and his mate Russ will be here too, but who cares, really..

Congratulations to David Fletcher on his bronze medal win at last weekends world championships.
Beating 86 other riders over the gruelling 7.8km course.

David will be here for next weeks final time trial, so you can all congratulate him personally.

To celebrate Davids win on his Scott Scale were offering 10% off any 2008 scale.


David psyching himself up.


Battling for second.


Dirty boy.


Over the line.


Jubilation.


Podium.

*by at least one person.

Seriously it was pretty busy, the weather earlier in the day didn't help matters, torrential rain flooding the front of the shop to a depth of 3 or 4 inches.

Late afternoon with the Ark firmly in the distance as the waters receeded the EZ-ups were erected and the coffee flowed, oh and there were some bikes too. Speaking of coffee, ive never seen one man eat an entire pack of Jammy Dodgers before..you know who you are.

Tim 'the dodger burglar' from Extra UK had brought along a handful of Mavericks; ML75, Durance, and ML8 iirc.

Alex from hotwheels had bought with him a couple of charge dusters, 2 teocalis and 2 canaan xc bikes.

Overall impressions from both the consumer side, and the retail side were both good, everyone riding, liking the bikes and everyone supplying the bikes, liking the Jammy Dodgers...

Gnarly..

Maverick have confirmed that they will also be attending the demo evening of August 15th.

Bringing with them bikes such as the ML7-5, ML8 and Durance you'll be able to cast a leg over some of the best climbing bikes in the world.

On August 15th Mongoose will be bringing their demo fleet for your perusal.
From the Tyax to the Teocali they'll be here for you to try out, as well as a smattering of cycles from 'Charge - a bike company'.

Last night was as usual as wet as an Otters pocket, with driving rain all the way to Wharncliffe, but as we pulled into the car park the sun did shine on the richous and the heavens they did close.

We started off at the 2nd track along the ridge with a bit of a talk on 'the racing line' and what choice of line to take through the rough stuff.
We had a mixed bunch of riders, some with a more tentative approach and some with a more balls out approach to matters.

Everyone had a crack, then a bit of tuition then another go, by the third run down everyone had gathered some speed and confidence.
One thing i did notice was a comment at the beginning of the night about how big the rocks looked, which was followed at the end of the night by the same commentator saying that it now looked like "a tarmac road".

We mooched on down the track to the area with the drop offs which was painfully slippy under wheel.

Starting off with a small floataway kicker, which caused some overzealous hucking to end in a small crash, but everyone had a crack and gained confidence. So we moved onto the same kinda thing but this time with a chunk missing, thus making it unrollable.

Again all going well until there was a slight pitch invasion "some people are on the pitch - they think it's all over - it is now" or at least for Rob it was who was making a Bee line directly for afformentioned crowd and ended up grabbing too much rear brake which resulted in his bike making impact a good 4 feet up the nearest Scots Pine tree - damage done, one wheel that resembled a pringle.
Undettered Lee had a go, with his huck technique and ended up nearly doing the same. Tree magnets the lot of them.

So with that we moved on to the jumpy section - once we fixed Martins chain - its called downhill because you dont pedal up Martin - a lesson learned.

Two minor crashes ensued once we hit a slippy downslope, Daz bending his Juicy lever until it resembled a quaver.

Finally with Lee going AOT (arse over tit) into Rob we called it a day. Plus it was nearly 10 o'clock.

In conclusion a cracking evening - some minor damages, but everyone still smiling.

Cheers guys.