The 16th of April 2022 saw Round 2 of the Midlands OSET and Minichamps Junior Trials Championship get underway at the scenic Manystones Quarry, Nr Matlock in Derbyshire. The course setters faced a beautiful dry day of blazing Derbyshire sunshine to dry out the open sheep pasture with its rocky outcrops. As always the team pulled out all the stops to set out a circular course of 8 sections with four routes, with the hardest ‘Blue’ route being easily capable of testing adult novice riders at a club trial.
Following the morning briefing presented by Clerk of the Course Tim Hudd, the riders set off from different sections to avoid queuing in the sun. The white route started at Section 1 where Toby Twigg again rode his OSET to a confident victory through a moist stream bed and rocky outcrops. Alfie Holmes took second place on the white route – one up on his last round despite struggling with section 5, and narrowly beating Eddie Jubb into third place. The future looks bright with theses young riders!
At the old quarry at Section 2 the riders faced a series of larger rocks to negotiate, but these proved no match for Finlay Samual mounted on his Beta 80 who dropped only 6 marks all day! James Hunt lead the charge for the OSET riders by successfully cleaning both the first two sections on the yellow route, battling all day with OSET mounted Vinnie King who finished just 3 marks behind. Harry Craig took 3rd place on the hotly contested Yellow route with a spectacular ride showing his practice is paying off.
Section 3 again used historical quarrying works to test the riders before they followed the route out into the open air for some steep climbing action at section 4 – over looked by the High Peak Trail which brought some extra spectators.
Section 5 took the riders to the top of the course and proved to be a real points taker for everyone on the Red Route, with Daniel Pursglove coming out on top dropping only 11 on this section through the day on his Beta 80. Top of the OSET’S on Red Route was Finley Dixon with a confident ride to finish on 62 for the day.
Section 6 gave the riders some restpite as it wound across a rock face before they approached the grassy hill climb and decent of Section 7 - A new idea for this round, the course setters decided to utilise the natural, grassy terrain to test riders’ grip on a steep bank. The weather gods shone on this occasion but a wetter day could have made this the game changer of the day. Every rider on the Blue route cleaned this section which was no mean feat when you saw how steep it was at the top!
Section 8 saw the riders negotiating a partially dry stream bed with steep banking's either side, Beta mounted Jacob Murchison and OSET riding Sam Lefevre being the only Blue Route riders to clean this section.
Mansfield Maun would like to thank everyone who gives up their time to help support these events and the generous landowners that give up their land for our use.
