Round 4 of the M.A.D. British Biketrials championship took place on Addington Moorside, West Yorkshire, on a surprisingly dry and warm Sunday, 3rd September. The superb rocky region is a popular trials venue, being a practice ground for '99 British champion, Chris Akrigg and multi-time world moto-trials champion, Dougie Lampkin. There were plenty of rocks to warm up on, and a side-show of LandRover trials to keep spectators amused.

The organisers made the intelligent decision to split most sections into two; one region for novice(white)/intermediate(blue) routes and another for expert(red)/elite(yellow) routes. This reduced queuing significantly on these sections, but only served to highlight the problem at the unsplit sections... not that I'm bitter for waiting 1 hour in a queue only to make a dumb mistake within metres of the exit. Grrr.

Initial inspection of the sections revealed some difficult moves for the red and yellow routes, including some big drops and steeply angled rocks. The sections called for the whole range of trials manoeuvres to be used and were by far the best of any British round this year. Thanks must go to the army of observers, assistants and section builders who helped produce such a great trial.

In the juniors, Kris Leeson had a literally faultless ride, cleaning every section, just to prove my theory about the red route to be completely wrong. Sub-champion of the world in the Cadet class and current points leader in the juniors, Kurt Brain made a couple of errors to finish second, dropping a mere 2 marks. Both these riders clearly need a bigger challenge! Kris was riding one of his dad's custom made trials frames, with interesting features such as 360 degree rear drop-outs, highly worked chainstay/bb joint and extra-wide bottom bracket (see pictures). Clive, who runs an engineering firm, has been producing frames for Kris for several years and helped design the pre-Kraus Orange Zero frame, which Kris has been testing this year.

The Elite class produced another close finish. Chris Akrigg narrowly beat Eddie Tongue to take the win by one mark, putting him out of reach for the overall championship title. Eddie was riding superbly but got a couple of fives for uncharacteristically silly mistakes - riding through the wrong gate at the exit to one section and putting a hand down in another. Not to take anything away from Chris - a second lap of 3 marks is phenomenal considering the difficult sections. Relatively unknown rider Richard Lynch put in a superb ride to beat Giant's Martin Hawyes into third on most cleans. Richard's powerful style suited the large rocks and if it wasn't for missing the first two rounds he could be a serious competitor for the overall championship results.

Results:

Elite:
1. Chris Akrigg (Pace) 11
2. Eddie Tongue (Pashley) 12
3. Richard Lynch (Monty) 30 (m/c)
4. Martin Hawyes (Giant) 30
5. Joe Sheridan (Pashley) 46
6. Matt Tongue (Pashley) 50
7. Barry Huskinson (Megamo) 62
8. Stevie Thompson (MAD Saracen) 63
9. Paul Thomson (Monty) 67
10. Darren King (DMR) 82

Senior:
1. John Taylor (Pashley) 24
2. David Holmes (Megamo) 25
3. Chris Swallow (?) 27

Junior:
1. Kris Leeson (Leeson) 0
2. Kurt Brain (Megamo) 2
3. Chris Wright (Monty) 8