Gresford Classic Trials club held its penultimate trial of 2022 at the Llangollen club’s Llyn Farm venue near Trevor. On a dry but cool day 65 riders turned up for their fun in the mud!

10 sections had been laid out, the first 2 in the stream below the canal, the next 3 along the canal embankment and the final 5 in and out of the stream in the bottom wood. 9 of the sections proved very readable in all classes, but section 10 very quickly turned into a challenge for all but the Sportsman’s route. Despite efforts to ease the section after the first lap, which only proved to be possible for the experts, it became a dabbing 3 or 5 up the final slot and camber, except for the sportsmen who stayed well clear of it!

Talking of the experts, only 5 entries were taken for this route, and 2 of those retired due to bike issues, though thanks to Dave Wood and Jim Hough for picking up the observer boards for sections 8 and 9. Chris Gascoigne was the only Pre 70 2 stroke rider losing a total of 45 – 18 on the dreaded section 10. The other 2 finishers were in the water-cooled class where Hayden Rainford beat Henry Dodd , 69 to 84 – both losing 20 of those on section 10.

On the Intermediate green route the Pre 70 class was a Villiers powered benefit with Danny Littlehales on his Francis Barnett loosing 22, half the total of runner up Craig Howarth’s James.

The Twinshock class saw Red Rose visitor Paul Whittaker best of the 10 entries, beating section Ninja Dave Riley by 4.The Air cooled Mono’s on this route was taken by Paul Cook on 26 with Neil Brook on 31, Yamaha overcoming Fanatic.

Another entry of 10 riders in the Water-cooled class was topped by Dave Ellis on 27, followed by Pete Moore on 29, though mention must be made to third place Neil Matthews who only lost 8 on the dreaded section 10, the only rider on the 3 hardest routes to be in single figures for the section.

The Clubmen yellow course had 4 classes – the Pre 70 2 stroke won by John Dutton on his rare Firefly loosing 10 less than Bantam mounted Romeo Spalviera, whilst the pre 70 4 strokes had Paul Thomas winning by only 1 mark from Mark Gaskell, 25 to 26. John Dodsworth had twice that winning margin over Rob Jones in the Twinshock class whilst Adrian Kent losing a mere 12 had a 23 mark advantage over Andrew Steele on their air cooled monos. Richard Corbett rode his Chinese TW 200 to a win in the water-cooled class, beating Alan Dodd’s Beta by 4 marks – mainly thanks to getting out of section 10 on each lap.

Finally the Sportsmen route only had 1 class represented in the results - Pre 70 & twinshock - and Terry Lloyd took a convincing win over Tim Godsmark.

The club would like to thank the observers, landowner and section plotters for getting the trial together, the Llangollen club for allowing use of the land and all the riders for turning up to make the effort worthwhile – we hope you enjoyed your day.