5th September
Over the weekend I took a trip to the awesome country of Sweden. I was invited to ride In a round of the Swedish biketrial championship In Partille and In some shows at a massive retail park/shopping complex near Gothenburg.
The shows went really well, we had some great crowds all day and the weather was perfect. The organisers and local businesses were very pleased with the day. Thanks to Peter for the invite! www.peterbackgren.com
We woke up on competition day to a very miserable looking morning and the weather didn’t improve all day. The wet conditions made the competition very tough. Mud everywhere and slippery Ice like rocks made all the sections really hard and a few a bit scary in places!
I had a very poor first lap. I was trying to ride everything too clean and precise and I was trying every move the hard way, making my riding very smooth but inefficient in these conditions. On the second lap (when the heavens opened again) I made a good start and became a lot more relaxed. I decided not to worry about how my riding looked or whether I should take the hard or safer routes and just rode how I felt at each section. This paid off very well, on my second lap there were some sections that only me and the winner got through and my second lap score was the tied 3rd best, 3 behind 2nd. As my first was not great I finished the day In 5th place, 3 points behind 4th place finisher Aurelien Narses from France.
I have uploaded some pictures of the competition to the - Swedish Championship Gallery
Big thank you to Roger and Peter Backgren and to everyone else who made It a very enjoyable trip!
( - Aside from my car breaking down when leaving Stansted Airport and having to sign up to the AA at Midnight to get it repaired - Donations to fix the hole in my wallet this created are very welcome!)