Adam Morewood
Adam Morewood first started his association with Jitsie early in 2013, when he was introduced to Jan Cardinals who offered Adam some of their initial Airtime biketrial clothing for the season. The work with Jitsie continued in 2014 with Adam having personalised riding shirts, and he won his second BIU world title at the tender age of twelve years old. Jitsie then started to develop and introduce biketrial components to the sport, which he used throughout the 2015 season together with the UK developed Onnit frame and fork combination. Adam also managed to spend some time practising with the Jitsie Team Manager Dani Comas, who took a close interest in Adam’s performances at both the BIU World Championships and the UCI Youth Games. This sparked a lot of interest and things soon developed ahead of the 2016 season. Trial Magazine wanted to know more and so it was time, in early February 2017, to catch up and find out more about this young man’s progression through the sport.
Jitsie had a vision to develop a full range of bikes along with all their own components right down to the tyres and tubes and Dani had been developing the full bike throughout the 2015 season. Adam was happy with his mix of 2015 sponsors, Onnit and Tartybikes, but a call from Jitsie at the end of that 2015 season with an offer to join the full Jitsie Varial Bike Trial team for 2016 and beyond was too good an opportunity to turn down, even though this was an unknown as he had not even seen a picture of the new bike he would pilot the following season. It was an honour though to be asked to join arguably the most professional team with great riders and help develop the products that would subsequently be released into production.
THE CORRECT DECISION
The following March Adam’s Jitsie Varial bike arrived, and a quick practice session in the Derbyshire Peak District close to his Dronfield home showed the right decision had been made as he quickly settled into riding the new bike and realised its potential. The full team for 2016 was Rafa Tibau (Spain), Nicholas Vallee (France), and Alejandro Montalvo (Spain) with Adam — the youngest at 14 years old.
The season started well at the open international — Ozonys Days — an event just south of Paris in France. As it was an open event Adam decided to move up a category, riding the Expert sections just one step down from the Elite level obstacles. He was probably the youngest rider in the class but didn’t disgrace himself with a fine second-place finish. This was a great boost ahead of a very busy season both at home and abroad.
Round one of the UK Biketrial Federation Cup was held at the well-known Seymour’s Arena venue in Oxfordshire, with Adam taking a narrow victory in the Expert class from good friend Charlie Rolls in what was to become a very close season-long battle. Rounds two and three, held at the Bob McGregor Trials Academy in Scotland in the man-made Holme Farm venues, both went to Charlie. There was then a break in the domestic season as the BIU international events started with round one of the European Cup held at Dudwood Farm, Bakewell, which was combined with the British BIU Championship event. Adam won this event which then set up a good run of results heading towards the World Championships. This run included wins at both the BIU European Championship held in Sardinia, giving him his 3rd European Championship title, and then winning the fourth round of the UK Biketrial Federation Cup to set up a nail-biting finale to the series at the end of the season.
UCI WORLD YOUTH GAMES
Before then though was the main target of the season: the UCI World Youth Games, which for 2016 was being held in the south German town of Friemat. This was the event Adam had been working hard all season for. He had visited the podium at this event twice before, in France and in Poland, but he had never made the top step.
In Poland two years previously, it had been a bitter pill to swallow losing out on the win on the tie decider, after losing the same marks as the eventual winner Seiya Takahashi from Japan who is the nephew of the well-known team Repsol Honda rider Takahisa Fujinami from motorcycle trials.
Many cold winter days practising in the Peak district moors and hours at the gym had been spent focusing on this single event. Saturday’s semi-finals couldn’t have gone much better, with Adam heading the field of 42 riders on just two marks. Sunday was a scorching hot day with Adam’s finals not being held until 4pm in the afternoon. The nerves were not helped as, after all the riders had warmed up, just 10 minutes before the scheduled start time it was announced that the start would be delayed by 30 minutes to allow the previous category to finish their trial. After the first lap of the final Adam was sat in second place on two marks with Spaniard Toni Guillem on zero. However he turned this round on the second lap, adding just one mark to his score as Toni took a five on the difficult concrete ‘Lego block’ section. This was enough for Adam to take the win and achieve his ambition for the year.
OVERNIGHT DASH
However there wasn’t time for celebrating, as straight after the awards ceremony it was an overnight dash across Germany to the BIU World Championships at Blansko near Brno in the Czech Republic, with the first round on the Tuesday and the second round just three days later on the Friday.
The first day was a close affair with Adam finishing second just behind Charlie Rolls. The second day was heading for another tight result until Adam had a big crash on the second section which really upset his rhythm, however he hung on to second place to finish runner-up in the overall championship. The final international event was another trip east to northern Austria where Adam had a faultless trial on zero to take his fourth European Cup title.
All that was left was the final round of the UK Biketrial Federation Cup, which was held at Hook Woods. With two wins and two seconds each Charlie Rolls and Adam were locked together on points with the championship hinged on the final event of the season.
After lap one the two riders couldn’t be split, with both on three marks lost meaning it was now down to the final lap. Adam again returned a score of three with Charlie losing seven, giving Adam the trial and his ninth British Championship title.
2017 AND BEYOND
With the 2017 season fast approaching Adam is facing a tough year at school in year 10, with lots of homework and tests especially around his optional subjects of Business Studies, Spanish and PE in preparation for GCSEs in 2018. He is balancing this with three gym sessions a week following a strict strength and conditioning programme set by his trainer Paul Joyce of PMJ and three bike trial practice sessions each week mainly in the Hathersage / Matlock areas of Derbyshire.
In the UK, it looks likely that Adam will move up to the Elite category in order to prepare him as much as possible for 2018 when he can enter the UCI World Cups to ride against the best of the best in the world. He is also taking in many of the Belgium Cup trials, representing Jitsie in their home country again to get experience; he will compete in the BIU European Championships and World Championships in Spain and the UCI World Youth Games in Denmark, and new for 2017, the European Indoor Championship in the Czech Republic. He will continue with the Jitsie Varial team for 2017, 18 & 19 as he makes the transition from youth to adult events and the challenge that entails.