Here at Fast Bikes, we never shy away from some friendly competition, so to follow on from last month’s outing at Ady Smith’s KTM Enduro Experience, where I absolutely handed it to Bruce, I thought it was only fair to give him a chance to claw back some dignity and pride at Inch Perfect Trials over in Lancashire. With trials riding being much slower paced than most forms of motorcycling, I figured this would probably give Bruce his best chance to date of keeping up. But, slow as it may be, trials riding is incredibly technical – especially when you’re presented with the kind of playground at Inch Perfect, set among more than 100 acres, surrounded by hills so high you’ll strain your neck, plus rivers, rocks, and even a custom-made trials arena that looks like a Red Bull boot camp.
Neither Bruce nor I have bundles of experience in trials riding, so it was somewhat of a level playing field between us, although he did like to keep reminding me of my visit to Inch Perfect two years prior (I’m still useless). The other thing we had in common were the spanking new Epure Race Electric Motion (EM) trials bikes that the venue graced us with.
Yes, you heard correctly, electric trials bikes. Unlike trials as we know it, it meant we were to spend the day blasting around on next-generation electric-powered machines that sounded impressive – but I was just a little sceptical about how they’d actually perform. Call me old-school but I know what I like, and combustion engines are of a proven quantity. As a petrolhead, it’s really hard to come to
