2011 Trials Training Center – 2 Jul

What a great weekend at the Trials Training Center!  Considering that it was pouring rain and slippery as can be just the weekend before, we got pretty lucky.  It was a bit hot and muggy out in the main field but much cooler up the creek and under the trees where the sections were.

This year I set our sections in the midst of the Youth National mototrials sections so that the riders could see each other ride and the spectators could enjoy both.  The tricky thing about mototrials sections is that they set a lot of them (20+) and they use different ones on Saturday and Sunday.  As it happened, they didn’t use the ones closest to our sections on Saturday.  Still, this might have been for the best since they seemed to have quite a lot of chaos going on.  In the end, it worked well.

I ended up setting four Beginner, four Sport, five Expert and six Pro sections.  The difference between Expert and Pro was because I had one Pro-only section.  I hope someone got some video of it.  It was pretty wild.  I was also really lucky to be able to set all of our sections in new areas that I’ve never used before.

As in year’s past, I ran the Beginners and Experts in the morning.  This worked great for us and kept things moving along nicely.  Unfortunately, it did exclude some of the mototrials folks because their event ran from 8am to Noon.  On the other hand, it worked great to have our Sport and Pro classes in the afternoon since most of the mototrials riders who wanted to ride the bicycle event were Sport level.  It also forced the higher-skilled mototrials riders to try out our Pro class.  While they might have found this a bit frustrating, they rode incredibly well, taking third, fourth and sixth.

We had several stars on the day:  First, I want to single out Anthony Vioglavich.  This was his first trials competition and he rode quite impressively to win the Beginner class.  I saw a lot of potential in him and told him as much.  Next was the Sport class winner, Tim Cash.  Tim is an old friend and has been riding my events for a long time.  He has built some solid skills, as shown by his low score for the win.  Another old friend took the Expert class win, Lance Kleffman.  Lance tells me I judged him during his first comp and really got him into the sport.  I had the pleasure of riding with him after he finished competing.  Last but far from least was the amazing Pro class winner, Aran Cook.  By now, most of us know his name.  It was awesome to get to meet him.  He is a super guy and a very good rider.  He absolutely dominated the sections, as is obvious with a total score of just nine points.  I was very pleased when he told me the sections were “spot on.”  Ryder Okumura also rode very well to pull just twenty-nine points.  He is currently slated to represent the US at the UCI World Championships.

I cannot offer enough thanks to everyone who helped with the event, the Trials Training Center staff, Brian Robison for making the medals, American Bicycle Racing for insurance and, especially, my parents.

Results

Pictures

Shirley

Shirley

Shirley

Shirley

Shirley

Cook

Cook

Cook

Cook

Tucker

Kyle

Kyle

Kyle

Winston

Davis

Davis

Kleffman

Hassler

Hassler

Kohring

Okumura

Okumura

Okumura

View Slideshow