EURO VISION
The 2015 the ‘BikeTrial’ European Cup was to be held over three rounds, with two in Italy and one in Slovakia. The first round was in held in the beautiful Tuscan seaside town of Castiglioncello just south of Pisa. The UK had a great turnout of six riders, which was the biggest team apart from the home nation of Italy. This was held in a small bike-park on the edge of the town, consisting of man-made sections of rocks, logs, concrete blocks, tyres, pallets and balance beams. The younger classes rode in the morning over 4 laps of 5 sections. In the youngest class, Poussin, for 7–9 year olds, the UK’s Josh McParland made a great start to the series losing just 5 marks, with 4 of these strategically taken on the log section with the extra dab on the loose rocks. This gave him his first international win, 27 marks in front of second place. In the Benjamin class, for 10–12 year olds, Sam Shepherd from Sheffield had a really good ride to take a close 3rd place on 14 marks, just 2 marks behind 2nd place finisher Diego Crescenzi.
In the final class, riding in the morning session, Team UK had three riders in the Minime class (13–15 year olds). Seasoned international campaigner Adam Morewood was competing in his first year in this category and started off in great fashion, losing 11 marks to take the win in front of local rider Matteo Golfarini on 23 marks. William Ackerley lost 54 marks in fourth place with Reece Seymour finishing 6th on 100 marks. In the afternoon event TJ Reynoldson rode in the Junior class (16–18 year olds). By this time the weather had really heated up, with the riders finding it very tough. TJ battled on to take a fine 3rd place.