I actually went to a trials event yesterday too! It’s kind of unusual for me because on weekends our disabled daughter is home all day each day, so it’s actually easier for me to go riding and stuff on weekdays, compared to weekends. If I ask, my wife Janet almost never says no, but I feel bad about waltzing off and leaving her to do all the work. Anyway … after missing quite a few I went to the SQTA event at Wyaralong, near Beaudesert, about 2 ¾ hrs from home. I got there after dark on the Saturday night and camped with young Liam who’s a good mate I’ve paired up with at trials before, and a new friend of his Bart who’s quite new to trials. We had such a great night sitting around in the perfect weather, talking about all sorts of stuff – the time flew. Liam even made me a hamburger for dinner so I didn’t need to get my cooking gear out … and just after sunrise, after a “patchy” night’s sleep, he plonked a cup of percolated coffee at my tent door and said good morning!! I felt like royalty. Liam is one of a a few guys (and girl) at the event who follow Neil’s stuff on YouTube but aren’t part of this app group. But all through the day you could hear us going “Ah, but @Neil Price said blah blah” and so on. Quite fun. I think a lot of the other riders are going “What the hell is RSG??”. Twelve sections, 3 laps. I went in T6 (white line) which is the lowest one except for the orange one where you don’t have to follow any arrows at all. The first couple of sections seemed too easy but of course pride comes before a fall, and it didn’t take me long to do a few dumb-arse things such as forget about a marker, or miss the exit, or try to be a hero and ride the blue line and fall over. I found that during the middle of the day I was sort of fighting tiredness and slipping the front, or losing balance, on basic kindergarten stuff. Just trying to remember the line that you’ve worked out when working the section, is not that easy! I think that for me, dealing with the head-game is the biggest challenge. Most of the stuff in the T6 sections is stuff that I’d do routinely at home but for some reason at an event, I’ll overthink or fail to think or forget something. After the competition had finished Liam and I went back up to the ridge and had fun doing more challenging stuff on the rocky outcrops and gullies. I see myself doing much better than 12 months ago, making me aware how far we have come with this stuff since beginning the MonM journey. And I think I’ve got Bart as a new recruit for our Friday arvo practice session. Thanks for reading!

Posted by Andrew von Berky at 2021-09-20 22:03:36 UTC