baldilocks

Maco thanks for bringing this up. We had a discussion in this thread and others suggested something to try. Seaton Delaval club had an event coming up at a suitable venue so agreed to try out a conducted adult course. On the Thursday evening this was publicised via trialscentral calendar, front page, this thread and Facebook. By lunchtime on Friday Stanley Club had announced a similar event on the preceding day. Stanley are staging the same event again this week. More events for beginners is a good thing but why didnt they just run this weekend ? Too many trials in a centre aimed at the same riders is part of our centres problem with low entries. Stanley got 19 riders for combined trial and tuition, Seaton Delaval got about 40 for a centre trial including conducted adults and beginners. One trial with 60 entries each weekend would surely have been a better result for both clubs and for the riders who would have met more fellow beginners.

A lack of time and effort is what's wrong with trials. Riders who expect to win because they bought a bike, clubs never looking for new sections never mind new land. Yesterday wasn't a waste of time in my view and it was my time. Numerous key board warriors will talk but rarely turn up. We go three people to have a go. One had ridden a beginner event previously. With three riders and probably 4-5 attempts at each section it took 2 hours 45 mins I think to do a lap. So more than 5 you will need more instructors. The riders all improved during the day. Wayne bought his first trials bike two weeks ago and went home having cleaned a section. Best thing for me was having done a lap they re fuelled and went back to the section none of them had cleaned. David Baker cleaned it in the end. So I'd say yes it works IF you have club members prepared to do it and riders prepared to try.

I think you would struggle to find section that would allow such a varied ability level without compromising either the top level or the lower levels. This is exactly what's happening with club trials now I think. Centres with bigger riding populations can do separate trials but many can't. You then end up with riders at both ends of the ability range unhappy with the event.

the frame looks a bit over the top when compared to the Mecatecno

The structure set out above used to work very well However now its potentially closed to club, centre trials and nationals for modern bikes, then all of those things again for pre 65 / twin shock ? There is an appetite for small 4 lap courses but equally a lot of people like a single lap trial, yesterdays white rose attracted 130 entries for example. At some point we need to decide how many national championships we actually need. At the moment we have British Championship British Expert Championship British A Class Championship Ladies British Championship Youth B,C,D Championship S3 Championship KIA Championship British Bike or Pre 65 Championship there may be more but I'm not sure ? Then on top of this a national most weekends and various 2 days such as both of the Manx events, Alwinton, Killin, East Yorks, Loch Lomond, Middlesbrough and the Lakes Two Day and then Reeth three day. None of these are bad trials in any way so how do we make them all viable ? Make the S3 series all two day events ? Merge KIA and British bike ? Merge Male and Female Championships ? .

I'd think he'd do better on a different bike but will anyone provide one ?

It's a bit pointless though for the factories isn't it.... Despite a more professional world championship new bike sales are declining as people by pre65, acm, twinshock etc. To compound this entries are down as well. So clearly funding the WTC isn't generating sales ?

Brilliant only 3 riders so far but I only posted it last night. Great you are coming @davidbaker

This is where the WTC is just plain daft. We get Tong instead of the kind of section above because Tong has a version of hard standing and WiFi?? Not to criticise Tong as I enjoyed it but I'd far rather watch the section in that photo

entry now made in trials central calendar and North East Centre Facebook page. Id like to think some people will actually turn up............

Ok I've spoken to other members of Seaton Delaval tonight as we have a trial in the 17th September at Wards Hill Near Rothbury. I'll get it in the calendar tomorrow. We'll put on an adult conducted course, see what happens and feedback to this thread. It's a very easy course to get round, it's almost flat between the two groups of sections. We'll do a full lap conducted then let riders either practice on the sections they prefer or do two more laps to get a result. A couple of more experienced riders will provide advice and guidance to the group.

well I tried to like your post @b40rt but i'm not permitted to... You are correct, trials is much more complex than many people realise until they try it.

I'm a rider , club official , commentator, I've tried to train some new starters over the years and Ive also given up my ride numerous times to observe. I disagree with you on section severity. It's sometimes too hard but it's unfair to say it's always too hard. Sure some of the things I've mentioned will take effort, I'm not suggesting otherwise but I don't want trials to die off. Whats your contribution to our sport ?

Maco I'm trying to suggest the same thing but just by having more sections per lap. Then you can have 4/5 sections of different severity and it's a better day out. More courses could more confusion for riders and observers.

I think the one you mean has 5 way adjustment it's on @splatshop

@totty79 the part of that post I like is @on it pointing out that if you make the easy course easier again then the sections will be less difficult than actually getting to the sections. I think @john b s idea of an adult conducted course can help here. I've helped a couple of new starters in their 40s and it's much harder to learn later in life as we are much more risk averse. But if we think in terms of a ski school then the conducted course will also develop as a social group which provides encouragement. It then becomes a separate group in the trial and people move to the easy route when comfortable. What venues did you ride first @totty79 ? Was it an easy / beginner trial or a centre trial with an easy course ? Two different things called the same which doesn't help either.

Club trials are the feeder system for the rest of the sport. I think a conducted course for adults is basically a trials school at a trial, great idea. Section severity can't really get that much easier in a trial that also has to cater for everyone else but this is why we have easy / beginner trials. By making the easy course even easier you make the gap to clubman even bigger. So the better easy course riders then lose 0 but can't make the jump to the next course giving them nowhere to go. Right through the sport this is a problem, people cannot or don't want to progress to the next level. Rob Dyson from Alwinton has the best idea on the relationship between courses. The best riders on each course should be able to attempt every section on the next course up, then progress can be made. I think we need to consider some times whether peoples expectations are realistic ? People don't expect to run a marathon the day after they buy their first running shoes. When i learned to ride trials I crashed a lot. But the same is true of learning to ski or snowboard, thousands of people do that, look at downhill mountain biking! Im currently learning to snow board on a dry slope, lots of crashes. I accept that as part of the challenge and I'll keep going back till I learn to do it. We can do all that is possible to help people learn but we shouldn't kid them they will never fall off and by no means is everyone who starts trials ever going to be good at it. If you lost 120 in your first trial your average score is 3 marks a section. Assuming you had a few fives you must have had some single dabs and maybe some cleans. As a beginner that shouldn't be the end of the world. I'd suggest we are now trying to make trials appeal to different people. The risk takers who used to do trials now have lots of cheaper more exciting alternatives ? Trials taster sessions like I got with the snowboard would be good, where someone can try a trials bike for an hour or so. But that needs someone to run it, it needs a venue , maybe clubs could chip in to buy used bikes? I'm still a fan of bigger trials, better trials in terms of sections I want to ride not necessarily harder. More sections need more observers but it allows a greater range of section and a better chance of keeping everyone happy. It needs more effort, 4 laps of the same 10 sections every time a venue is used is dull for everyone.

The RR has the 3 way Reiger. Colour of the forks doesn't really matter but they are the olive green tubes if you know what I mean. Fantastic bike

Could we do something about structure and what we do? It may just be terminology but most centre level experts ride as clubman at national level and clubman at a national is nothing like clubman at a club trial. We usedto have a term called non expert but something other than clubman would do. Or call easier route at a national Expert and the top class championship or super Expert. The other issue is of course having an easier route at a national takes entries away from club events in surrounding centres. There's no doubt we have too many trials but a national event should be harder than a local event. So do we increase national severity or are we at a point where we just don't have enough better riders for harder nationals ? Or have regional harder events and ease off club trials. On a regional basis there may be enough entries to make a harder club trial type course viable ?

Maco we all know there's a few urban myths about too. It's always handy to go back and check. Thrunton Woods , a great trial, difficult by NE standards but gets an entry of almost 100 and it's pre enter. Bollihope a great trial over the years also gets very high entries. Both feature riders from other centres. Sat / weds easy or beginner trials recently less than 30 entries. It's not always the case that easy trials get more entries. Equally we have AlWinton last weekend getting 23 and Butsfield at Christmas getting 100. Both due I would suggest to events in other centres or a lack of events in other centres. I think On It above has the right idea, we need separate trials but for that we need more entries across the board. It's interesting you can't comment on clubman or expert, we are all part of the same sport. Unless we have separate events then everyones needs have to be accommodated. So whilst the easy course is fine for you by your own admission it's too much for others and from my point of view it's limiting the scope for the other courses. The ability range therefore seems too great ? Trials schools would help but some are quite open to saying they have no desire to improve. Hard to accommodate this attitude with others who do want to progress and this drives an even bigger ability gap and a gap in expectations.

The North East Centre may be hijacking this thread but it's a good case to look at in order to answer the original question. Trying to set an acceptable course for the range of ability in the North East is difficult. The easy course wasn't planned as such, it started as a white route back in the 90s so that a growing number of people who had bought twin shocks and pre65 bikes could ride a centre trial. Within a couple of years lesser riders went onto this course on modern bikes. But this course itself now has a massive range of ability. When setting a trial, for a number of years now, we have good natural sections for middle and hard course riders that we often can't use as the easy course can't have a section there. This group are driving the location of sections for the other two or three routes. People correctly state easy course is 50% of the entry. We now sometimes have expert sections which are made in easy course locations, not good sections and often just tight corners. I could say no thought goes into them at all but actually it's a compromise. I genuinely didn't realise how big the ability gap was until setting out Alwinton 2 day the first year it ran. Some easy course riders only did a lap (it was three laps on day 1 the first year) as they couldn't get round the course, riding up and down the hills round alwinton was harder than their typical section. One bloke went home having lost 8 marks in a lap of 15 sections as he said it was too hard, he was riding a cub, I still cant believe that actually happened. Someone else on the same course didn't come back for three years as he thought the easy course was a waste of time. He wanted to ride the gullies not along the bank side. This rider was in his 60s on a acm. Impossible to please everyone even with three courses. So at one end of our ability range you have Maco asking why the easy course isn't easier still. But at its current level it's a barrier to the other routes in terms of where you can have a section and just getting round the course. And then theres the uncomfortable truth , the centres harder bigger trials get the best entries ! Yes I know some venues are too much according to some, Macos friends will go practicing instead some weeks. But at the other end we have experts doing the same thing, venues which aren't suitable for them so they practice elsewhere or ride in Yorkshire / Scotland or the lakes. We actually have two clubs running beginners championships on weds nights and sat afternoons which is great but is this isnt enough for the easy course riders ? Wheres the series for just the middle course and expert riders to have sections specifically for them ? The jumps between the routes need to be manageable for people wanting to progress but there is quite a gulf and this differs week to week club to club. Some on here will know I'm Glen Quinn but for those that don't know I've been kicking round national trials finishing absolutely nowhere in terms of results for years. I'm still riding Exp in the north east centre most of the time at 49 years of age. I'm often finishing as high in North East Centre trials now as I ever have. For me the whole things gone backwards. If the sport was progressing i should be losing 30 marks, an enjoyable day out for me, on the middle course but I don't lose much more than that riding Exp in all but a couple of trials. We have another rider in his 50s riding an air cooled Yam who can ride and win an Exp course on less than 5 marks. We had one of our experts win the easy course at the Reeth 3 day recently, he lost over 50 marks. Centre to centre the variation is enormous. So I wasn't trying to boast, I'm just pointing out that our trials are no harder now for me and others in terms of marks lost than they were 20 years ago. Sections might be harder in some cases but bikes are much better. Our trials can be much easier than other centres. Then most of our trials are 4x 10 sections. So a section that's two hard or easy is a material proportion of the day. Get two or three and people are off home. One or two lap trials nobody minds a couple of sections which don't suit them. But bigger trials need more helpers / land / observers. As a centre we can do that but it's a lot of effort. So after all that I think the more we have tried to please the more problems we have actually created. This is the same across the country. Despite all the courses and championships theres still lots of unhappy riders and even more who have quit. As a sport our ability range has always required different events local, regional, national etc. Our problem is that we no longer have enough riders to make it all viable. Back to new riders then......

Has the White rose got enough entries , I've seen a couple of reminders for entries ?

I think it's a great thread by the way, as a sport we need ideas. I've had nearly 40 years riding and I'd be very sad if in 5 /10 years it's finished.

Repeat don't feed the troll!

I'm not talking particularly about ne centre John. It's great that we get 100+ entries now and again but a lot of those riders are out of centre. The thread I think is about trials in general on the back of a national championship trial and the Allan Jeffries being cancelled this year, Deryk also refers to lower club trial entries. Giving riders lots of choice is good but it has to be viable for clubs in terms of entries or entry fees will go up. However at £6000 for a bike I don't think even if entries were £20 that should be a problem.