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Converting From Classic


wallo
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Why not just ride your classic as a twin shock ?

Depends on what you have at the moment but a modernised classic is probably easier to ride than a standard twin shock.

I have just sold a Sprite to a chap who was not finding his Bultaco easy to ride and he can't believe how much better the Sprite is !

I ride an Ariel against the twin shocks and to be honest there are not many sections on our routes where I am disadvantaged and then I always have the excuse come the end of the day !

Just keep those feet up on whatever you ride

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Why not just ride your classic as a twin shock ?

Depends on what you have at the moment but a modernised classic is probably easier to ride than a standard twin shock.

I have just sold a Sprite to a chap who was not finding his Bultaco easy to ride and he can't believe how much better the Sprite is !

I ride an Ariel against the twin shocks and to be honest there are not many sections on our routes where I am disadvantaged and then I always have the excuse come the end of the day !

Just keep those feet up on whatever you ride

:agreed:

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Hi,

 

So the movement that John Smith, Derek Lord and myself created with the first ever Pre-65 trial ever held, in August 1972 has lasted for 43 years before the foreign machine Armada has begun to argue back????????

 

Cheers

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One of my Ossa gripper engines has a double ended gear lever shaft so a right footed gear change could be fitted but there is no rear brake lever for the left and the rear wheel brake arm is on the right :( 

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No need to swop bikes Ken,as suggested just use them in the twinshock class. Then compare your results to everyone else on that route.

I dont think big bikes are dead, alot of the problem is in the organisation. I hate to sound as though I'm moaning as we are all volunteers... BUT, the Miller series is a a mess, class 2 especially - there is no incentive AT ALL to ride a pre unit bike when you are lumped into the same class as Cubs/James etc.( Which are often lighter and more competitive than an early twinshock - Bult /Mont etc)

As a result of this many trials are now marked out to suit  the trick lightweights, tight turns etc.

I've just read the regs for the now cancelled Bonanza trial,all on its side,only to find NO mention of a road trial, £25 for 30 sections aint cheap.

The events page on Rickman Motorcycles website shows a poster for last year,so effectively its a dead website. Riders have become used to up to date info on club sites - and quickly reply on it. I'm told its not that hard to sort out - cant be really,I often used to update the Bath Classic website the night before a trial or even early  on the morning of the trial.

Sort the classes out and get it up on the web with fresh, accurate info and the big bikes will come back.

When I go back to running trials my bias will be strongly towards rigid and pre unit bikes,I have nothing against twinshocks etc,(I even rode a trial on one last week) but I strongly believe that Classic trials should accommodate older less able bikes - and their riders. 

Sorry to dribble on,stop now...

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No need to swop bikes Ken,as suggested just use them in the twinshock class. Then compare your results to everyone else on that route.

I dont think big bikes are dead, alot of the problem is in the organisation. I hate to sound as though I'm moaning as we are all volunteers... BUT, the Miller series is a a mess, class 2 especially - there is no incentive AT ALL to ride a pre unit bike when you are lumped into the same class as Cubs/James etc.( Which are often lighter and more competitive than an early twinshock - Bult /Mont etc)

As a result of this many trials are now marked out to suit  the trick lightweights, tight turns etc.

I've just read the regs for the now cancelled Bonanza trial,all on its side,only to find NO mention of a road trial, £25 for 30 sections aint cheap.

The events page on Rickman Motorcycles website shows a poster for last year,so effectively its a dead website. Riders have become used to up to date info on club sites - and quickly reply on it. I'm told its not that hard to sort out - cant be really,I often used to update the Bath Classic website the night before a trial or even early  on the morning of the trial.

Sort the classes out and get it up on the web with fresh, accurate info and the big bikes will come back.

When I go back to running trials my bias will be strongly towards rigid and pre unit bikes,I have nothing against twinshocks etc,(I even rode a trial on one last week) but I strongly believe that Classic trials should accommodate older less able bikes - and their riders. 

Sorry to dribble on,stop now...

Sorry peeps, but John is absolutely spot on - and, sad to say, it's really all down to good old Auntie A-CU again.

 

When I coordinated the original Sammy Miller series we had a set of regulations that had been sorted out by actual riders in current classic events and then clubs interested in joining in - with guaranteed typical entries around the 120 -150 rider mark there were plenty interested - they had to organise a dummy round to prove that they understood the requirements and had suitable ground and competent course plotters - and if they passed that hurdle, they were allocated a round the following year.

 

But the regs segregated the classes such that you only competed against riders on similar machines - then EVERYBODY rode the same section - with the exception that up to five sections  could be segregated into sidecar versions with a solo alternate route.

 

It worked for over ten years, we NEVER had a single tie to resolve in any class and each year my records show that at least 450 different riders rode in three or more of the twelve rounds.

 

The regulations weren't broken - the series weren't broken - neither needed fixing - but Auntie knew better.

 

I've offered a full copy of the old regs - I've offered a full explanation of any point that requires further detail - has anybody responded.   What do you think.................

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Hi Guy's.

 

Look, to run any event you have to put the time in, and to get what you want to happen, double it.

 

So that is six months working very hard for one event.

 

Then you takes your chance on the cost of doing this, and if it all goes pear shape, you are the one with serious egg on your face.

 

That said I feel that the people that sit back and think that they can rely on there past efforts to get an entry are making a big mistake.

 

You have to keep your eye on the ball and just put that bit of extra effort into what you are trying to achieve, an out of date web site says it all, and you have lost the game .

 

We all know that the BIG bikes and the rest are out there sitting in sheds just waiting to have  that precious fuel poured into there tanks for another chance of becoming a Hero?

 

But it just needs the right event, to stir the juices, this now only happens a couple of times a year, and without some one else putting the the effort I have stressed above, the future does look bleak for the truly Classic trials machine. SHAME A VERY GREAT SHAME.

 

Regards Charlie.

 

 

 

 

 

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Hi ttspud,

 

Sorry to correct you but my original rules NEVER appeared in any A-CU Handbook - and the one VITAL aspect that might attract the bigger bikes back was the segregation of the classes. For example rigid pre-unit models NEVER competed except against other rigid pre-units. No pre-unit bike ever competed against a unit bike, they all rode the same sections (which was more interesting for the spectators) but they all competed for different awards - and their results were recorded separately.

 

I agree that the proliferation of all the totally invalid modifications to engines, clutches, frames that is enabled because clubs do not want to enforce the rules - or maybe haven't any members old enough to know what the original should look like - is a major setback.  In my day as series coordinator any query could be passed to me on the spot, because I attended every one of the trials for over thirteen years (at my own expense) and had, for example, to welcome well-known riders to join in - but ride in the Specials class without their performance being recorded in the overall series results when they turned up with an ineligible machine.

 

You may well be right - the sport appears to be dead.  But that was just the incentive that we had back in 1972 when we created the first ever classic trial that I later described as 'pre-65' in one of my columns in TMX and the name stuck

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Yet another pre65 handbag fight!

 

A 1961 motor cycle magazine had the results for a classic trial held for pre WWII and earlier bikes, so maybe 1972 wasn't the first classic trial?

Edited by suzuki250
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