Fat Tyre Navigator
Spring Series 2005: Round 2 Apr 10th, Bramley
The North Downs can turn the Navigator field on it's head; we've seen it before at Ockley and the Hogs Back and Sundays round at Bramley showed us again just how the complex navigation in this area can throw up some unexpected results.
Solo competitors usually notch up the biggest scores and attract the most focus, but Sunday was a day for the teams to shine. Paul Smith and Gary Shipp are the one team you can usually really to push the top solo boys close, but at Bramley they went one better and blew the rest of the field apart. 680 points was impressive enough, but they could have claimed that last check and cleared the course completely if it hadn't been for a slow moving group of horse riders ahead of them on the lead up trail! Red Planet Bikes' teams scored second and third in the category with two good performances that made Mens Team the strongest field of the round.
Mixed Team was back to it's competitive best too, with the top four teams all scoring well. Joanne Denman and Nick O'Donnell clinched the narrowest of victories over Team Solents' Dave and Heather Monkcom.
We reported last time on the interesting battle in Single Women and the contest is living up to the billing. Iwona Szmyd (Mosquito Bikes) turned the tables on Team Trail Breaks Annie Marson, with an outstanding 570 points; probably her best performance as a solo rider. Annie on he other hand couldn't repeat last months epic form and found herself 'riding round in circles' and out of the running. GA Cycles' Catherine Pascoe took second place on the day, despite a ride that she felt far from satisfied with. The stage is now set for a big finish to the womens' Spring Season in the big hills of Exmoor.
Elsewhere, the difficult navigation saw a lot of the usual favourites suffering. Nick Calkin (Allparts Auto) just managed to shade Sid Hardy in Single Vets, despite a professed dislike for competing in this area. Nick Dean, who has been the most consistent performer of recent months in any category, had a terrible day by his high standards and lost out in Super Vets to a solid ride from Bob Bending. The biggest surprise of the day came in Single Men, where the often seemingly unbeatable Rick Featherstone (Mosquito Bikes) abandoned after failing to recover from a poor start. The eventual single Mens winner, Warren Bates, clearly thought his 560 points wouldn't see him near the top, let alone secure victory and he didn't even wait around for the prize giving!
The Spring Series final takes place on May 8th at Carhampton as part of our Exmoor Dual Event Weekend. There is an Evans Cycles Trail Ride taking place the day before, which would make for an excellent opportunity to pre ride the area. We're compiling a list of campsites and B&Bs nearby which will be on the site later this week, so if Exmoor is a little further afield than your usual trips, make a weekend of it. The riding is worth the journey!
Click here to book the Spring series final | Book the Exmoor Evans Ride
Bramley Navigator Results
Categories (Summary)
|
|
