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We don't usually have problems getting observers. The observers hopefully know our view on abuse, and will at least be comforted by that until they get to speak to one of us. I hope we don't go the way football has - younger kids see abusive top sportsmen and think that's the way to behave. I've mentioned Taddy before - i've not liked the bloke since Hawkstone 3 years ago when he said he hoped my family died a painful death (nice chap ). On that occasion I decided to annoy him more by smiling and saying "It's still a 5". Hopefully I ruined his day, but it was a blatant 5. I won't mention names for others but one of the top 5 or 6 British youths nearly got drowned in a Novogar event when he ran back down the section and mouthed at the observer for what was a blatant flattened flag. I'm sure there's many opposite examples, but Wiggy springs to mind. I saw him get a 5 on what I thought was a fairly dodgy decision and took it like a true gent. I don't know Wiggy that well (we tend to ride a different level of trial ), but Julian seems to have kept him on the straight and narrow through his early years and now he's his own man he seems to be keeping it up (from what I've seen). Great example. I think it's up to the old farts of trials (and I include myself) to have a bit of banter with the observers, show the respect, provide an example, and to a certain extent protect the observer from dumb schmuck abusive riders.

I'd love to be good enough to have any idea where my back wheel is in the swinging arm, except somewhere between it

Is the plug wet/ You getting fuel through? As some people have said, the spark can be REALLY difficult to see in daylight. I stripped my lads bike down and put all my electrics on it, just to find that couldn't see spark on that either. Turned out spark was there, just couldn't see it. Found float was full eventually - tiny crack on the seam, so it was flooding. Have you had the carb off and blown it all out? Just on the off chance check that the floats are empty. Unlikely to be that i know but worth a look.

What sort of spec is your PC and how much memory. Although I don't expect that's the problem. Only guessing but maybe the interface with the card reader isn't too fast. You tried copying the video over to hard drive and running it from there?

I don't mess with half links any more. I use the large snail cams from trialcast that allow you to go back far enough to take a full link out of the chain. Did mine last week in fact.

You might have something there. - all I need is a picture of Alexz and the eye brows off Animal from the muppet show. I'll get to work on photoshop

I'd stay away from Kliponoff (if they're still around). I paid 90 quid for mine, years ago, mainly because Dave Cooper never answered his phone - but too difficult to 'klip' on and off, and my missus hates picking off the body parts that tend to appear when I leave it on during the week Brother in law bought a Dave Cooper second hand for 15 quid - absolutely ideal - comes off in seconds - I was gutted

Sounds like he was asking you to leave. It's a corny old saying only ever said by numptys but I think that's it. Be like a tree and leaf (leave). Where was it and who was he?

Ah gotcha - seems reasonable then. Don't let me put you off, as I said, I'm no expert. My level of photography is probably more suited to point and shoot, and I'm normally riding, so it's handy to shove in my pocket. It's also usually for the web, so the quality is not as crucial. If you do get one, be interesting to see what you think after a couple of months with it. It's still sort of on my shopping list, but moved much further down it at the moment.

That sounds quite pricy for the Sony at least (not checked the Canon). Any way you can buy from Europe and get it cheaper? This is a handy site I used recently: CameraPriceBuster And this is a voucher from Sony which gives you cash back no matter where you buy the camera from. I've given you the direct link but you'll also find it on a few of the suppliers web sites (I know it's on the Jacobs web site) Sony voucher I looked for ages and decided that the Sony was slightly cheaper but apparently slightly lower quality photos somehow. May be lens because reviewers reckoned the internals were very similar. That may be wrong - I'm no expert. In the end I bought a couple of Canon Ixus off Ebay for around 50 quid. Once I'd tried them and seen the results I decided I wouldn't bother with the SLR at all, as the entry level there didn't seem to be a massive difference to what I was getting with my cheapo shove in the pocket job. I'd still like one at some point, but I've decided I'll wait until the price settles - there's been massive drops over the past few years. I think there's graphs on one of these sites that shows the price drop. Dunno how far they can go though.

If you're looking at SLR type thing, then you can ignore what I'm going to say. I'm no photographer. I was looking at an SLR recently, but in the mean time I bought a couple of Canon Ixus second hand off Ebay for around 50 quid each. Eventually I decided I didn't need the SLR for what I wanted - the Canon slips in a pocket while riding round, takes great photos and vid, and if I break it it's not the end of the world. I'm a fan of the Canon Ixus now, got a 5Mp and and 8Mp and both decent. I've been surprised how good the photos were. Recently took a great photo where I didn't get time to zoom in, was a fair way off, but was that clear I cropped it to about quarter size afterwards and was still a good photo.

A bloke called Randy Beaver works for our company, and another one called Randy Koch (of course he pronounces it 'khosh'. We've had them on the same conference call before - hard to concentrate :-)

We certainly won't be bothering with stopwatches. I don't believe they were ever needed in the first place. The observer can give the rider a warning "Don't take the **** - get on with it". If he doesn't buck up, he gets a 5. That'll do for me.

Yeah - I'd go with that - fairly sure 2006 was silver and 2007 was black

Don't worry Graham, I think your question's a good one and well worth discussing. I know I'm not the man to answer your question, but thought I'd forward my thoughts on this and very similar issues. Bilco was once held down and severely tickled by a gang of top ACU men and since that grim day has not been able to resist a little ACU dig Judging by his constant interest in the ACU funding I suspect he's a bit of a banker or something. P.S. Bilco....in case there's any doubt, this is semi humorous attempt at banter from my point of view, I'm not particularly passionate about the subject, so feel free to ignore me if I'm annoying ya buddy P.P.S Our club would like to bagsy your left kidney if there's much left of it, we've got a few candidates for it and will raffle it at the AGM. Thanks.

I'm presuming that puts the mockers on the idea that Wiggy might have fancy a Xispa?

ACU accounts department? You another one of those that thinks that ACU House is a 5 million pound mansion house within a country estate with dirty old men chasing scantily clad women round the grounds. While it's a nice thought, it doesn't quite resemble the truth. I'd imagine the accounts department might fit in a robin reliant when they go out for their xmas dinner. If you really think that trials is such a money spinner I think you're sadly deluded Cheer up chap! Nobody's trying to rob you in my view. 1. You can go AMCA if you don't like the way the ACU do it 2. You could get involved with the ACU and bring some of your ideas to fruition. 3. Keep whinging and giving me something to smile about on an evening

If you don't already, I wouldn't imagine you're likely to in the next few months until the bike import tax idea has been stopped.

That's also rubbish man Have you seen the interest rates at the moment? If the ACU kept all of your vast amounts of cash in the bank for the full year, they're not likely to get as much as 5% interest. They could achieve this massive profit by charging

I'd imagine it's complicated to manage that. I believe the ACU licences are dealt with by an external company. At the moment they'll have a once a year batch to run off and send out a few thousand renewal forms, then obviously deal with the applications as they trickle in. I would think that to pick out individual expiry dates and send out renewals would be much more expensive, which would no doubt be passed on to us. My suggestion would be - go along to a trial, get your form signed for 2009 membership, blag it on the 28th with your 2009 card

I guess Honda will be distancing themselves from Montesa for US exports and you'll be getting a few more of them coming in? Oset?

Can't beat that for a land owner though eh! Carried them round in his 4x4 when they're marking out, guides everyone in to their parking space, then observes all day - he was the bloke on section 8 up the top, real chirpy bloke. Don't think he's an awful lot to do with trials, does Land Rover trials and just loves motorsport.

Sorry Munch - missed your posts. Not many people been there before, I think they've only used it once before? You should have said hello, although you might well have done, and I just didn't know who you were You don't own a bike shop do you? I thought it was looking a bit grim at first - didn't like the drop off in section 1 as I was first through, and liked section 3 drop off even less - luckily I didn't manage to get up the bank twice, so only had to do the drop twice - my bogey section that one, but good trial I thought.

LOL - this feels like we've lived half his life with him. He now seems to be doing Steve Colly style shows, performing to half of his town: Steveo Collio

Here's another one, looks like a more recent one - some good bits of riding in here - with guts like that, he was either going to get good or dead Getting better Nesco