worlez

For anybody who thinks Bou’s bike is what makes him so capable, I invite them to watch the video below.

On point one, I'd love to ask somebody like Dibs what he thinks. He's a very strong rider but is often up and down the results, but I don't get the impression he'd want to see sections eased so that he can be more competitive at the top. If anything that kind of thing just undermines the graft that they all put in to attain their level. The level isn't too hard, there's just a big difference between how good the riders are!

Absolutely agree! I really don't think there is the issue that a lot of people seem to think there is. The reality is Toni Bou has raised the standard of competition to an enormous level - I think this would have happened whatever rule changes were implemented. He's just an incredibly committed athlete. Note how the riders who were in Trial GP prior to Bou (Fuji, Raga, Fajardo) have continued to evolve their riding - they've adapted just fine to how the rules/sections have developed, and they're all more or less posting the same year end rankings underneath Bou. To the people who whinge that WTC isn't a reflection of domestic club trials - why is that a problem? If you want trials to continue to evolve and inspire young people, make it an aspirational sport with proportional reward, not limit it's ambition to being a Sunday morning hobby in the mud. The general standard of Sunday clubman is pretty crap and not something that a 15 year old me would be that inspired to emulate.

I'm worried this might be the case also, it would be a real shame to lose him.

I hope so, I thought he looked the strongest he has for ages when on the GG in 2017.

I can see this being a good way to work it too. However I think the main difficulty with any of these is identifying the difference between a stop and a pause. Personally I think it's reasonable to include provision for momentary pauses for composure, allow for body movement across the bike (even thought technically the bike may be stationary). In fact, I can think of lots of situations where the rider is lunging their weight backwards of forwards across the bike to assert direction, yet the bike may be stood still for a moment. Usually the no-stop police come crashing in that the bike is technically stationary, despite the rider positively engaging to move the bike. I think this is perfectly legitimate given the techniques of manipulating the bikes, but is still very different from an actual stop (the kind of thing where the rider has their heads up, is changing gears etc).

No, the sport has evolved naturally - the ‘average riders’ you refer to haven’t evolved.

Correct, but nor were any of the riders in today’s WTC field and certainly not the future generations who will influence how the sport evolves. So it might as well be dropped as a line of suggestion as it will never, and should never happen, lest the sport become archaic and lose any hope of attracting young riders to pursue a career in competitive trials.

Sorry but some of the comments on this are absolute pish. What on earth would limiting or regressing bike ability accomplish?? Do you think old heavy twin shocks inspire the next generation of trials riders? I don’t think so, they certainly didn’t inspire me at that age. And the point about modern bikes exacerbating the difference in riders’ level is not the bikes fault, it’s the riders. I agree there are obvious issues with WTC and X-Trial at the moment, but I think these are primarily commercial issues borne from the sport being undervalued as a progressive extreme sport. Trials needs to take direction from the likes of Red Bull and create a vision of the sport as challenging, accessible and ultimately alluring. Riding fifty year old technology does nothing towards this.

What’s wrong with that? Certainly more pleasant for spectators!

Yep, and very promising start from Toby! In the vids I've seen of him he looked very comfortable in that environment.

I feel like too much is being read into this. I’d imagine Beta have no vacancy for new Trial GP riders at the moment, being committed to Dabill and Cabes. Perhaps RG didn’t want to/couldn’t renew Toby’s contract (maybe some conflict of interest with Matteo being Trial 2 champ), or perhaps he just got a good offer from Beta. Either way, he’s probably not moved up because there isn’t a team who are looking to field another Trial GP rider right now.

What’s that got to do with this topic??

I'm disappointed in this too. Sounded like he had a competitive ride with the big boys at the TdN, and he looked fantastic in the video's I saw of him. Not sure I'd say it's glory hunting, he doesn't strike me as the type to be interested in that. I can see the argument in having another year more or less dominating Trial2 to cement his confidence, but on the other hand moving up has had a steady positive influence on Jack Price's riding.