ACU Discussion

I must admit to being bored. I canot believe that everything in the ACU garden is rosy - never has been- never will be - but there are so many items for discussion and debate - and yet np posts? I never came into this for an easy time - so lets get some issues going - even if I live to regret it

Following some discussion on another thread recently, concerning the severity of Clubmans championship rounds, are these events limited to one single route or can organising clubs include a non championship B route if they wish? As is the case with many big events, the Colmore Cup suffers from the vast range of riders abilities. Whilst the top 10 or so find it a fairly pleasant ride around, there are a good number who find the going more of a challenge. There are almost certainly a number of riders (genuine club level clubmen and ladies) who would also like to ride in these events but feel they are too hard. Single lap road trials such as the Colmore are a lot of work…

hi, I'm not sure, but I thought I heard a discussion a couple of weeks ago that the ACU was considering working with an insurance company (Carole Nash?) to provide an insurance policy for trials bike, allowing them to get a tax disc, to compete in road trials. This seems like a good idea, especially for those who may not have a bike insurance policy for road bike. Is this being considered by the ACU ? A policy which covers the limited amount of use and distance travelled should be more cost effective than a general bike policy. In my own case, both my road-registered bikes are classed as 'classics' (1978 and 1980) and in infact reduces the insurance for my modern …

Having just seen the final rounds results, is now the time to question the class structure? Those of you who know the riders in both the unit class and the brit special/twinshock class will have noted that all the specials riders are now riding in the unit class because they feel they are not competitive against the twinshocks, hence the guys in the unit class on standard bikes have no chance against the specials so they dont bother entering. IMHO i think these classes need tiying up, so folk know who and what they are competeing against. Splitting these classes into 3 should?? sort the immediate problem. UNIT= standard frames, cub, c15,B40, Crusader, etc BRIT SPECIA…

riding most of the national classic events this year i have noticed riders stopping, ajusting there balance, bouncing frount/back wheels feet still planted on footrests, and been given a clean, i know this sort of riding/observing is still acceptable in modern trials but it has no place in classic trials ie once a rider ceases forward motion a five mark penalty is given, may be the time has come for the ACU/clubs to issue observers with final instructions relating to the classic trial they are observing ie THIS EVENT IS A NO STOP TRIAL ! and for the ACU/clubs to print on there regs THIS EVENT IS A NO STOP TRIAL! i still rember when this modern way of ri…

Youth A + B

This time last year there was one available, when is next years available?

In Feb 2005 i attended a one day ACU coaching course in Devon at my own expence, the course had nothing to do with how you rode a trials bike but more of the H.S.A, child protection, and legal side of things which was all very intresting. Next i get a little book in the post which requires that you spend 25hrs with an experianced trainer and then i can apply to become a ACU coach, now if i lived in yorkshire fine, but as i don't think there are any ACU coaches in the Southern centre, let alone on the IOW i'am a bit stuffed. So i wrote to the ACU explaning this and there reply was that i could attend a 2 day professional coaching course @ a cost of

Well i've been going on about this for ages and some other posts in other categories have touched on it so here goes. The ACU produce a handbook. In that handbook are various rules and regulations pertaining to all the forms of Motor Cycle sport within the ACU jurisdiction. So how come there is such a wide varience in elegibility of the Pre65 bikes and now the twinshock class at Club, Center, National and err Scottish (i'm gonna regret this arent i?) Why is it beyond the power of the ACU not to produce a binding spec for these classes that applies to all events run under the auspices of the ACU? It's a nightmare if you are building a bike to know what you should and s…

Just wondering what everyone's views are on the two different systems that operate in the UK? For those that don't know, ACU riders pay

Whilst John Collins was explaining how the ACU coffers are spent in This thread, he suggested pulling this off into another thread. I made the below comment

IMHO the system is in theory something like this rider => club => centre trials sub committee => centre => ACU national council => FIM => T & E committee => UEM for a variety of practical and theoretical reasons this doesn't appear to function well in practise IMHO how can 8 people relay the view of us all when there are 21 (?) centres out there, when the scope is so wide; club to international, a plethora of championships and governing a second sport (ie a trials only centre votes on enduro issues when they don't run enduros) how do other nations do it? …

Now apart from the Pre65 elegibility issue which i have voiced before, which incidentally the ACU apparently have no position on?????, one issue that is affecting all of us whether you ride modern or like me "Classic Pre65" trials is the lack of observers. Almost all the events i have ridden in this year, my first year back at trials since 1985, have had a shortage of observers with usually 50% of the sections unmanned. Last Sunday there were only 3 yes 3 observers. Now to me this ruins the event. I DO NOT blame the organisers, who put a hell of a lot of effort into the event, I DO NOT blame the ACU or anybody else for that matter. I was just wondering if the ACU had a st…

Great explanation of how things work at the ACU John, enlightend me for one. Can you give a run down of what happens to all the tenners that go into the kitty via the licence and how the money is distributed back into the sport and what for.

A long explanation – with a short shelf life. As a starting point for any future debate I feel it is quite important to look at the ACU structure – in a sort of historical way if you like. I apologise in advance to those like Rabie, Start C and many others who obviously already know all this – but I really do get the impression that many do not – and this then often sets us off on unnecessary deviations. So - although boring – please allow me to start at the beginning so to speak. I will obviously take a simplistic approach. This will obviously be long – so I suggest Andy leaves it on a few days and then just deletes it – and we can discuss matters which I am sure …

I notice that some of the Spainish trial championship rounds have youth and Adults on the same weekend, so why can't we do that in this country? Some of the top youth riders ride in the Expert class anyway so nothing would be any different. You could also put some of the C/D and ladies rounds together on the same weekends. The whole British championship weekends would be much bigger events with say the B class lads riding on the Saturday, and then the A class doing the same sections as the Experts on the sunday, i know you could'nt do it at every round but i'm sure it would work at some. After all the Spainish do it that way and it has'nt done thier riders any harm. …

Just picked up this comment from a previous post about 'cheating' in a Youth A&B event .... I dont condone cheating of any description but you can see why this comment above is an issue. Nowadays there are a fair few of British youth riders riding under FIM rules in Europe and World events and then having to switch when in the UK. I am not arguing for or against FIM rules in this post, but would just like to hear the ACU's view on this subject please?

There were quite a lot of posts recently in regard the whole issue of the cancelled ACU Trials Forum , consequent article in T MX and of course suggestions for an online forum etc. I did post that I was busy with last round of UEM Enduro and then TDN and was not just ignoring the posts

John Dickinson wrote in TMX that there was no interest in the ACU Trials Forum because people believe that the ACU Trials and Enduro Committee don't take any notice of what is said at these forums and just do what they want. I believe that nobody wanted to come to the forum because the vast majority of you are happy with the sport we help to promote. It was also sugested that we could hold the forum over the Tials Central web site rather than make everybody travel to Rugby. I am a member of the T&E Committee and I resent the opinion that we are a bunch of megalomaniacs who dont listen. I don't expect anyone to tell us they are happy with us,that never happens, but…

The fact that the ACU Trials Forum is cancelled through lack of attendance is more than a little disappointing