Ron Bramley Trial Round 3 of the South-eastern Championship was held at Betchworth Quarry, 7th March. The scheduled date of this event was changed but made no odds, the trial was well organised and very well laid out. I was riding the inter route and so it appeared was most of the field. The final results in all classes I expect will be a close run thing - I know I'm out of the reckoning for the inter crown, my jinxed ride of last year came back to haunt me again when I stalled the bike and went the wrong way to many times. The funniest thing that happened to me in this trial was when I fived section 2. The section basically rode down in to a gully and up the other side. On my ride down I decided to accelerate for extra drive up the other side but at the bottom of the gully the front wheel jack-knifed sending the bike and me sideways out of control up the other side. I nearly made it to the top and had there been a little more grip I would have hauled the bike through the section. Lucky is not a word in my vocabulary I thought as slide back down in to the gully on my back. The expert field attracted some big named riders going head to head for top honours. Stephen Foord was on a flyer, I caught up with him on section 4, a technical section with short turns and climbs. Watching Stephen ride this section was unbelievable, he and his Sherco danced around the section in a effortless display of control, jumping hopping and bouncing to such precision it was hard to see if the section challenged him in any way. I thought I'd better hang around to see how the other experts faired and next up was Richard Ely. Both Richard and Stephen had a clean ride's on this section but Stephen looked a lot more in control and Richard had the upper hand on the vocal F's etc... Rowan Puttock and Gavin Cooper followed with cleans, both of similar abilities and perhaps Gavin appearing to hit the tree's a little less than Rowan so for me he got the nod as the better clean. Dave Shave also rode this section well and so did Ashley Newbery. Dave got my nod as the better rider on board the Sherco when Ashley flounder on one of the tight short turns. Section 8 was up the big chalk hill. The section started with a straight line dropping in to the dug out and then blast up the right side of the hill to the top. I used third gear and at mach 2 the speed I got to the top of the hill had the observer running for cover, good fun for me... When I again caught up with Ashley at section 10 and with my camera flash switched off he appeared to struggle losing a mark when the other experts were riding this section clean around a simple 90 degree turn midway in the section (not simple of me thou) . The section was dry with only some awkward roots for the inters to ride over and the experts having a couple of tight turns to split the routes. Young Roy Beatty was having a good day up until I turned up with the camera and pointed it at him. "sorry mate didn't know you was camera shy". A big thank you to all the observers the Gravesend club and that trio of hard workers Monte, Dave and Stuart. Click here to discuss this trial