4 of the Isle of Wight’s top trials riders recently competed in the annual Southern Experts trial, which this year was held near Frome in Somerset.
The event is limited to expert riders from across the South of England and is usually a much tougher trial than most riders would normally experience during the year.
The best performance by an Island rider came from British championship contender Chris Stay, a seasoned campaigner at national level. He should have finished in 3rd place but due to several marking errors that even his closest competitors admitted were wrong, he was demoted to 5th place. Despite the demotion it was still the best ever performance by an Island rider in this event.
Another Island rider attacking the top course was George Gosden from Newchurch, who is gradually getting back to his old form after some time away from the sport. George finished just inside the top 10 despite suffering a heavy crash during the event.
Riding a slightly easier course, Island and southern centre champions Rob Howard and James Stay had a bit of a shock to the system with some really hard sections on their route. The duo are used to loosing around 20 points at an Island trial, so to finish with scores of 133 and 136 respectively it just goes to show the difference between local and national standards of riding.
This was probably the first time that 4 riders from the Isle of Wight have competed in this event.
