bikerpet

I looked up Plettenberg's manual - they use Hall effect as standard, but can also supply other options. Surprised me a little. But then it might not be a Plettenberg motor in this prototype, or this could be one of their "custom encoder and positioning sensors."

Call me cynical, but I reckon you'll get what you pay for. Probably OK for a bit of a play, but not even close to comparable to EM, Dragonfly or GG. I've got a mate who's looking at selling them, waiting to hear his review.

I expect 2 speed is sufficient, but reserve judgement that a second trials gear might be useful occasionally. I can't really see point in reverse, anything added is going to fail or cause trouble at some point so cost:benefit doesn't add up to me. I'm very firmly of the view that a clutch without a decent flywheel is only slightly better than nothing. To get the same performance electrically is going to be very expensive and take some major controller software development, if it's even possible. The EM & the Dragonfly are no doubt very capable bikes, but I maintain they're handicapped by lack of gears & significant flywheels. Maybe the GG will close the gap. Sadly I can't see the price dropping significantly for a little while yet.

Looking very "prototype", but great to see them getting back onto the program. Fingers and toes crossed that they now do some serious R&D on it and bring something really good to market. It's a shame there's so much music over the video, you only get glimpses of the motor sound. It did sound like it might be a fairly high RPM motor, which I think's a good thing as it means there can be much more energy stored in the flywheel per unit weight. You can see there's still the standard flywheel cover, but no clues if there's actually a flywheel in there or just the motor. My guess is going for just the motor, which would help explain why there's no video of Busto doing any of his trademark big splatters & gaps. Without a decent flywheel that aint happening. I reckon listening to the motor spin up is a good indicator of flywheel mass - if it spins up significantly faster than an ICE bike does then it's probably not got enough inertia. I'd love to know if they've stuck with the Plettenberg Nova 15 motor that the previous TXT-e used. Good chance they have as it's a known fit to the standard GG clutch and it's a quality motor. I haven't checked, but I'd be very surprised if the Plettenberg on the ETA conversion didn't use an encoder, I can't see a quality focused company like Plettenberg using Hall's. I don't know of any reason you'd use halls except to save money, & Plettenberg aren't a good option for saving money! I like the look of them too, but it's such a shame they dropped the gearbox the prototype had - I almost completely lost interest when they did that. From what I've heard they suffer a bit the same as the EM - not enough flywheel and tend to run out of puff at the top end. It seems it's difficult to get the ideal torque/power curves out of electric trials bikes. Perhaps it's because they tend to be so weight constrained - it's tough to substitute mass of steel and copper in a motor. Sounds like good value to me! You get the proven chassis of GG, one of the best clutches out there and gears. It's absolutely beyond me why anyone thinks having a single gear capable of 50-60kmh is a good idea on a trials bike! It's a complete joke as far as I'm concerned. Even with a really serious amount of flywheel inertia it just isn't the same to dump a clutch into a high gear ratio. When you combine such high gearing with insipid, lightweight rotating mass how on earth are you going to get anything like the performance of current ICE trials bikes? You're not. The fact Gael can get so much out of the EM is a testament to his skill as a rider. I'm not at all convinced an e-trials needs 6 gears, but 2 or 3 - Absolutely. My e-trials is far lighter than any of the bikes above and I believe it probably has significantly more flywheel inertia and lower gearing, and it's still not equivalent to a current ICE bike off the clutch. One of the problems is that if you dump the clutch with max rpm on the flywheel then the back wheel is going to try to accelerate to top speed. We don't want the back wheel hitting the face of an obstacle at 50kmh! What we want is the back wheel to accelerate REALLY fast to quite a low top speed, maybe 15-20 kmh. Perhaps a low gear could help? What a novel idea! I'm hanging out for the first e-trial bike to come out with 2 or 3 gears (one about equivalent to 1st/2nd on an ICE), several KG of real flywheel (not just the motor rotor) and a good clutch. Ideally around 70kg max.

I busted the end cap on my exhaust so had to remove it and do some surgery (replaced the plastic flange that the captive nuts connect to with aluminium riveted to the main body. We'll see how that pans out.). I tried repacking the glass into the end cap but struggled to get it all back in without it pushing down into the main pipe as I pushed the cap back on. The difficulty seems to be that there is very little space along the sides of the cap, so the packing gets dragged back as I push the end cap on. It seems to me that the bike is now louder than it was. I hate noisy bikes! Does anyone have a recommended technique for repacking these things? Is it better to remove the perforated pipe, wrap the glass, put on the end cap (stuff it full if needed), then fit the whole assembly into the pipe? Or is it better to fit the wrapped perforated section into the exhaust, then jam the cap on? Any tricks to getting a really good fill? Any tricks to getting everything to line up and socket together correctly? Any suggestions very welcome!

I guess trials displays have somewhat conflicted purposes sometimes. The client most likely just wants something that draws a crowd and keeps people entertained. The operator primarily wants the money so they have to cater to the wants of the client. But then there's the third prong which is appealing to new riders, and it's that one that must come a far distant third place in most cases. I guess the way around that is for non-commercial organisations like clubs to provide the display services, which I've no doubt does happen a fair bit. But it would be tough for a club to put together the truck, ramps, props, PA, insurance, etc. and then maintain a pool of riders to staff it. It starts looking suspiciously like a commercial enterprise again, with all the commercial drivers coming to the fore. Maybe clubs could partner with a commercial display - the pro does the shiny new tricks and the polished display, then the club demo real world trials skills at the mere mortal level - accurate turns, tricky little angled approach obstacles .... Interesting that your club Junior line was too hard. That certainly seems a bit of a shortcoming on their behalf. At our events the introductory level line is always pretty much ride in through the start gate and find your way to the finish gate. Often there's another gate or two, but they're usually set just to force people to spend a bit more time in section than the straightest line between A & B, and make at least a couple of turns of some sort. Although 3 or 4 laps x 10 sections does take a while, and it's certainly a good day out on the bike, there's often not really that much riding time in between all the walking, talking and waiting. Another way of looking at 30 or 40 section events is just to ride the sections that look most fun to you. Treat it more like a Menu rather than like a Prescription - "Oh, I like the look of that one, let's give it a go. Nah, that doesn't look tasty to me, I'll leave it for others." I'm completely with you on the travel aspect - most events are 3-4 hours from me, even more disincentive to go. I went to a training day with Billy Green on the weekend, 4 hour drive, leave after a friends' 50th birthday, camp at midnight, up at 6:30am to drive the rest of the way, ride until mid afternoon then drive 4 hours and home by late-ish dinner. Next day I was knackered, but luckily no need to go to work.

Not I, but I'd be surprised if it was much over 50C really. 60C hot water is standard and really very hot to touch. I don't make a habit of sticking my hand on the gearbox but it never feels as hot as that when I do touch it.

Checked: coil resistance - my meter isn't good that low but it gave more or less sensible readings. plug cap resistance and trimmed the HT cable. grounds. Flywheel, woodruff and windings (only visually) I then put the CDI in a cool oven for 10 minutes. About 50-60C. Put it back in the pre-warmed bike and bingo, started spluttering and carrying on at higher RPM. Cooled the CDI down again, replaced it and bike ran fine. New CDI ordered. I'll keep this one for winter riding only. 😆

OK, I'm back looking for more ideas. Today after about 15-20 hours of faultless running the gremlin came back. Missing and spluttering, stalling at idle. Seems OK at higher RPM, but I wanted to get back home ASAP once it started to carry on - didn't like the idea of a long push if things got worse. Pulled the plug (BPMR6A at the moment, although I've used 4's in the past at the Ozzie dealer's recommendation) - looked nice, light tan going slightly toward white. I've been making sure to give it a good blast up some long steep hills every few hours to keep the engine and pipe a bit cleaner. Frustrating! I've found the primary coil resistance value (0.255 - 0.275 Ω) so I'll check that tomorrow. The woodruf key has been pointed out as a possibility, although seems unlikely to me in this case. Also the carb needle as a potential issue, again, I don't think so as it has run perfectly for several weeks and the needle was fine when I had the carby apart for the initial problem. I'm reluctantly heading toward buying a replacement CDI. I've read through various other TRS CDI threads and while mine isn't quite the same symptoms, it's close enough that I reckon that's probably it. It was a warmer day today, so perhaps that contributed? If it happens again tomorrow I might try dousing the CDI with water to cool it and see what happens. I used to have some freeze spray, but it seems to have gone AWOL. It's probably a silly little capacitor buried in the CDI potting that's gone bad, worth 5c. But I know from experience that digging out the circuit board and finding that faulty cap can take a very long time!

I believe (and it looks that way to me) that the pin is flanged at the bottom, so it can't pull through. So I very much doubt that's the problem. I've fitted a 1.5mm rubber washer above the main nut. Only a couple of hours up but so far it hasn't moved. Perhaps a wave or conical washer might be a more "engineered" solution. I did notice that the top bolt taper does not mate perfectly with the countersink in the upper - there is only a very thin wear mark in the red anodising where they contact. That could be part of the problem - the taper should help lock it up, but if it's not accurately mating then it wont work like that. I'll keep an eye on that bolt to see if it loosens.

@lemur a small sample I know, but out of the maybe half dozen who've commented on this post two have said they'd probably not return to an event set with the hardest obstacle first as you do. So perhaps ask yourself this, "Has anyone ever come to an event I've set and never come back?" If the answer is "Yes", maybe question why. So I think @faussy is probably quite correct making the assertion you're driving people away. The value judgement on that is entirely up to the individual and the club involved. I feel pity for you if you are truly so constrained by those rules and whatever requirements force you to stick strictly to them. That must be incredibly frustrating. But many places have the ability to run events other than strictly under national rules. Our National Champs are run to stricter rules than our club events but both are run under Motorcycling Australia auspicing. Indeed, I don't believe gate trials are even mentioned in our National level rule book (not sure on that, don't care that much), yet I recently rode and enjoyed one. When the sub-juniors are in a section they are often not held to the letter of the rules, in order to encourage them and give them a sense of enjoyment and success that might keep them coming back. You can disagree, but for the most part rules are guidelines that need some sensible interpretation from time to time. It would be willfully destructive if we all took our National Rules, which are often in line with FIM rules, and applied them to our local events as strictly as at Trial GP for instance. There is no single correct way of doing things regards trials events. It's a game we play, just a game. Like all games, we choose to play by an agreed set of rather arbitrary rules. There's a lot of scope to what those rules can look like, and for the most part the hierarchy providing the insurance (let's not pretend that there's any other reason clubs nearly all run events under the auspices of our respective national bodies) don't really care which particular rules are used as long as those concerning safety are implemented effectively, or in the case of Title events that lead to national or international ranking. Are they going to get upset if your club runs a club event where you get to ride an unscored lap? I doubt it, unless they get complaints they have to waste time on. If you make it clear before entry what the rules for a particular event are then people get to decide if they want to ride it under those rules or not. Choice is a marvelous thing. @faussy Your observations around Experts vs the rest of us are interesting. Where I am we have far less than 10 Experts - usually only 2 or 3. But at our series events they always get a complete ride on sections set to their ability. Our sections typically have 5 routes, sometimes gates overlap and sometimes they are totally different. Experts typically start a little later and do one less lap than everyone else. There were no gates set that were "expert only" level at our recent gate trial, and no experts rode. I feel like our setters do a great job devising sections with routes that cater to everyone. Obviously sometimes there's obstacles, sections or even whole events that somewhat miss the mark and are a bit hard or a bit easy, but it's rare. For what they are, I think they're good. Based on little experience. But what they are only has limited appeal to me - I enjoy them for sure, but there's something missing in the whole format for me, and I really wonder if that same missing factor isn't similar for many others. A brief history: I rode a TY175 in the mid-late 70's, mostly on the farm just mucking about, but I did go to a few trials - I have no recollection of ever taking note of my result, maybe I did, it would have been very far down the list. By the end of the 70's I'd discovered other pursuits and didn't look at motorcycles for years, to become decades. In the late 80's I was sharing with a bloke in NZ who had a trials bike back in the UK. Having lived with him and chatted a little about trials I considered if I could fit a bike into my life again. I watched a video of indoors trials and immediately decided that was not something I was remotely able to aspire to and completely dropped the idea of a trials bike. In hindsight that was unrepresentative of club trials, but I didn't recognise that at the time. Fast forward another 30 odd years and I steered my son toward trials bikes when he started riding with his mates (all on MX or Enduro bikes riding in the forest). He lost interest in bikes but I became hooked again. Now I'm loving getting better on my bike. I spend way too much time learning how to hop, splat, rear-wheel gap, floaters, flick turns etc. All the young kid tricks that are mostly useless to me at an event, but that are just so much fun. I try to show some discipline and do all the basics of turns, balance and smooth control, but I admit not enough. My take-away from this is a couple of things: All these videos of Trial GP and the elite riders may well be scaring off a whole lot of people, just as the contemporary video I watched in the 80's did me. At the very least they may well be creating people like me who want to do all the cool tricks, even though we have absolutely zero practical use of them. Not productive for developing low-intermediate competition riders! Traditional comps are perhaps losing some relevance to riders who really just want to have an opportunity to try out their useless human tricks at an event with others. I look at bicycle trials and see some similarities, but they currently do much better. How many street trials bikes sell for every comp trials bike? 10? 20? Lots anyway. There are street trials riders & groups all over the place - not big, but relatively common. Yes, they still hold UCI style comps, but they are almost an irrelevance compared to street trials numbers. I was quite involved with a few national championships a few years ago and we were getting about 10 riders! But there are hundreds of street trials riders out there. I'm inclined to think Moto Trials comps might be headed the same way - the only people who will attend them after the current crop of 50-70 year olds move on will be the handful of youngsters striving to make it into the European events, which will themselves be a relatively small number of competition-obsessed youngsters. Not a recipe for long term viability! We need the equivalent of Street Trials and maybe Street Trials bikes to revitalise the sport. Electric could make quite an impact on this too - I really enjoy taking my little electric trials bike out into public spaces and playing on boulders on the edges of car parks etc - no way I could ride there on my TRS! So far possibly the most interesting suggestion I've heard has been a class where you are excluded from results, but you choose what you want to ride from the menu on offer in each section. Pick the obstacles that provide the level of challenge you seek, have a fun day. Ride with your mates, or go it alone. I reckon I could really enjoy that. I was given a quote the other day that tickled my fancy, and seems quite apt for the ageing demographic in trials - "Nostalgia is like heroin to old people." Get off the crack!

I pulled apart every electrical connector on the loom, cleaned with contact cleaner, added dielectric grease and reassembled. Including dismantling the magnet kill switch. I left the map switch, light and light switch disconnected initially, then reconnected them once it showed that it was running consistently. Nothing changed. About 5 hours riding now and it's run faultlessly the whole time. Seems a somewhat unlikely solution, but so far so good. If it reverts to bad behaviour I'll report back, otherwise read it as problem solved. I'll just say that working on the electrics is the first time I've sworn at the designers of this bike. Whoever designed the electrical layout could not have been the same person as designed the mechanical structure!

I marked the nut as suggested. It's definitely backing off, almost a whole turn in under 10 hours. Beats me how it does it! I tightened down the headset until it was starting to bind noticeably, clamped down the upper tree using a 19mm spanner on the top bolt, clamped the forks then backed off the headset nut firmly against the top tree until the headset moved freely again. So where does it get the slack to loosen further? Mystery. I'll have a go at fitting a thin rubber washer between tree and nut. Or maybe thread lock, although that seems a little risky on such a large diameter alloy nut - could make for a fair battle and faffing about with heat to get it undone later. I'll try marking the top bolt this time - maybe if that loosens then the tree can start to lift. Although to do that it either needs to slide up the fork legs, or the legs have to slide up in the lower tree. Those bolts are all torqued to the upper suggested value and I always clean the legs and trees with brake cleaner before installing to be sure there's no oil in the clamp area.

The TRS airbox sometimes comes from the factory with an imperfectly sealed join between upper and lower sections. It's pretty trivial to split the join, add sealant to the voids and screw it back together if you find dirt/water getting in. Once it's properly sealed I've not seen any water get into the airbox from washing or riding in non-drenching conditions. Removing the airbox is just four easy-to-get-to socket screws and a hose clamp. No big deal to wash the inside as needed - similar to GasGas.

Some interesting insights in there @lemur. A complete aside - does anyone know of an international grading comparison table? It does my head in trying to figure if "Advanced" is equivalent to "B Grade", or "Trial 2" or some other nomenclature from another part of the world! In most of Australia we've more recently settled on using Trial 5 to Trial 1, in line with FIM. It's not as inherently descriptive perhaps, but at least it's dead easy to understand where things sit within the scale. I'll play devils advocate here - exactly why can't you, "have the sections tracked up and trashed minutes before the real event starts"? It's going to be "tracked up and trashed" minutes after the real event starts. The last rider is not getting to ride the exact same section the first did (sometimes to their advantage and sometimes to their disadvantage). Whatever the state of the section, it remains a test of skill who can ride what's in front of them best. I acknowledge that in some conditions (pouring rain and soft ground for instance) it might be completely inappropriate to allow any more wheels on the section than absolutely necessary. But that can be determined on a case-by-case basis. I'll return to a common theme - if people aren't interested in riding the events as they presently run, then something has to change else there'll be no event to ride at all. Our numbers are dwindling, and I know for fact that many other clubs around the world are finding the same. Your comment about 'we wanted to ride the same sections as everybody else' is quite illuminating I think. It reflects a fundamental nature of those who attend competition at all. They (we) all go at least in part to test ourselves against our peers. Even though I really truly don't care about my overall result, I do like to gauge how I'm going compared to a few others who are around my level. So what you saw makes sense from that perspective - why would I ride sections that my peers aren't riding? Still, as you say, it does reflect a rather self destructive approach. Lemmings spring to mind. Some people cheat. That's just the way it is. As far as I'm concerned I try not to let it bother me. They're cheating themselves more than me. Heck, sometimes I cheat - I've had observers give me a 1 when it should have been 2 and gone along with it. Conversely they've sometimes given me 2 when it really should have been 1 and I've gone along with it, not a murmur of complaint. They do their best and I appreciate their efforts for what they are. Maybe if I was in it for my financial security I might get a bit more vocal. But I maintain that if you're not in the scoring competition it is by definition impossible to cheat. Cheat is variously defined as to deceive or to violate rules. Competition is defined by rules so therefore if you're not in competition how can you cheat, except perhaps your own rules? Similarly if you are quite up front that you are practicing a section before taking a score you are not deceiving anyone, ergo not cheating. Finally, I object! I strongly resemble your comment about, "some riders that absolutely insist on riding above their ability"! 🙂 The irony is not lost on me. @lineaway I was totally (almost totally) poking fun. I figured something like that was the case - a sudden "ahah" moment over those couple of hours. But I can never resist taking people to task whenever I hear anything that in any way overlooks the effort and commitment that inevitably precedes any "sudden breakthrough". Those sudden breakthroughs never, ever happen without hours of work preceding it, so they're never, ever really a sudden breakthrough. Just the eventual culmination of hours of application. In his case that sudden breakthrough took 10 years. Far more admirable to me than any sudden miraculous development. A good coach can help pull those moments together a little sooner, or a little more noticeably, but if the athlete hasn't put in the hard yards it's not going to happen. I used to go watch my son play football (Aussie Rules) and basketball. I also breathed a sigh of relief when he stopped! Balls are anathema to me, and team invasion sports leave me absolutely bored & uninterested. Spectator driven versions of invasion sports leave me downright appalled. Conflict for spectacle - about as attractive to me as Ukraine v Russia or Israel v Hamas.

Choosing which events I go to is certainly one of the conclusions I've come to. Past couple of years I've tried (somewhat unsuccessfully) to get to every event. Next year I'm planning on dropping that back to maybe just 3 events that I particularly enjoy. Obviously the main driver in the club was less than enthusiastic about that idea - we're already low on numbers. But that's entirely up to the club if they as a group want to try some different formats that I and perhaps others might find more satisfying. I can see that if it was lineaway's club then they'd lose me for all but a few events. No drama. It's easy to say, "stay and keep riding", but that's most often not an option at our events. The sections need pulling in, the trailer packed, the land owner's property vacated and the organisers want to go home after a busy day or two. I can usually sneak in a bit of out-of-section practice while the last riders complete their final lap, but then it's expected to contribute to packing up, or at very least not get in the way of those who are. And then I've got a 3-4 hour drive home. There's a very strict no-ride rule prior to rider briefing too. Same for continuing after a 5. That is generally frowned upon, although there are sometimes exceptions. I think I might have completed one or maybe two sections after a 5 in the past 5 or 6 years. I'll keep niggling away at ideas that might make for events that are more attractive to a slightly different group of people. If some people don't like it, they don't have to come and ride. Just like now. Trials has changed over time and will continue to change in future, or basically die out. This idea that only "Conventional" comps are valid and worthwhile completely glosses over the face that current events are quite different from the original trials. I'm not sure you'd get too many riders if everyone had to ride the same line - presumably the Pro line. That's what used to happen. And what about stop/non-stop. What a mess that could be, as we've seen. Shall we go to the strictest, old style interpretation of that? Zero tolerance. Of course with Observers who are all capable of scoring it and are consistent. Good luck at most club trials! And the rule about the axle moving backwards in the section - that is absolutely not assessed as it once was when you see people doing zig-zag hops - no question that the axle has moved further toward the direction from which it arrived. Finally the point about cheating - if you aren't competing you cannot cheat, by definition! Things change. Wow. That's impressive. 2 hours to Expert. I'm certainly not that talented! Sorry, couldn't resist that little dig. EDIT. Billy Green (2023 T2 World Champion) is coming to Oz later this year. He's running a series of clinics, one of which I've leapt onto. Now that gets me far more excited than going to any competition! Even though to be honest my expectations aren't tremendously high, I know very well that activity skill has virtually no correlation to coaching skill. Although expectations of great coaching are low, I'm certainly totally open to be being pleasantly surprised. If nothing else it's always a pleasure and an opportunity to learn just watching truly skillful people and getting to ask them questions.

I've been mulling over the comments from @lemur & @lineaway to figure how I might channel some of their attitude to riding events to my own. I came to the thought that we are just fundamentally looking for different outcomes due to being at different places in our riding "careers". You have both been riding for decades, with hundred of events behind you. Critically, I'll take a pretty confident guess that neither of you are on the steeply rising part of the skills acquisition curve, your peak was quite some time ago. This gives you quite a different set of goals. I'll hazard that you don't much see trials events as an opportunity to learn and improve, nor as an opportunity to identify skills and techniques to work on before the next event - very obvious when lineaway states he doesn't practice between events. My guess is going to events is sort of a comfortable, familiar activity that just gives you pleasure for the simple act of going riding and with like minded people. And whatever else tickles your fancy. I completely get that - in skiing I peaked in my early 30's, some few decades ago. Since then I've only been on the gradual decline of skills, so I have a far more relaxed attitude to the activity than I did in my 20's. I'm not in the same place in my Trials journey. I'm still on the steep side of the learning curve, and loving that. I am driven to improve my skills for as long and as far as I can. As I said, I expect there will come a time when decreasing ability due to age effects intersects increasing skill due to practice, and that's as good as I'll ever get. Then I'll need to adopt a new mindset. But until then I just want to get better, learn to ride things I presently can't and generally feel progress. However alongside that I am not externally competitive - I don't care how I place compared to others, that's irrelevant to me. I only care that I am learning and competing against my previous self. There will be a third group of people at events who are trying the improve just like me, but are also competing for the sake of competition. They want to move up the placings and grades. Perhaps they want to reach toward the pinnacle of the sport and ride Trial GP. Then there'll be all sorts of other individual motivations, but I think these three groups probably pick up a majority of riders at comps in some shape or form. For instance the Enduro cross-over riders are probably more akin to my motivations than the other two, even though their ultimate goal might be competition driven in Enduro itself. So while I can appreciate your approach to events, I'm not sure that it's entirely relevant to me at this stage of my journey. No doubt I can take some part of it and bring it to my own psyche, but fundamentally I go to events to learn and ultimately improve. If I come away feeling like there's been little opportunity to do that, then there's little motivation to return. I already try hard to take away from events some key areas to work on, whether that be coping with bigger, scary obstacles or being more accurate, or simply keeping a bit more flow in my riding. This has made me wonder if there might be room for some adjustment in an event so that people like me could maybe start riding half an hour or an hour earlier, without observers and without score cards. Our first lap would be totally un-scored and pretty much do what you like. Then our remaining laps would be scored, but not included in results. There's obviously a bunch of issues to solve, it wouldn't work for all events, but maybe one or two a year? I feel like this would be a huge motivator for me to go. I could really work on some of the sections and obstacles that I can see are where my skills are lacking or where I'm just not confident. Then in the scored laps I would get to see how it all transferred to comp riding, and be able to just enjoy the comp without feeling like I want to stop and work on something. Maybe tie it in with section setting - if you come and help set sections you can ride all of them before the event, but then not be included in results. Just thinking out loud.

@lemur I penned a rather lengthy response (as I tend to I'm afraid), but thought better of it. I'll just say thanks for the thoughts on attracting enduro riders, I'll keep that in mind when our little group setting up the trials club comes to discussing our first events. @apriljo That reflects what I've seen too. I've had a fleet of up to 4 bikes sitting here with a variety of beginner obstacles available, but trying to get someone to come ride is nigh on impossible. "Oh sure, I'd love to try a trials bike" But then it's like pulling teeth. Distance is always a bit of an issue too - I'm as much a culprit. There's a small group of friends about 1.5 hours from me who ride on one of their properties most weekends - 21 sections permanently set and periodically updated. I only get there every few months, largely because I can't be faffed driving 3 hours for a couple of hours riding. It doesn't help that we tend to just do a lap of the sections then call it quits - I much prefer to ride something I can't get until I do, or until I have to admit defeat. The club in Melbourne gets lots of people riding regularly - well established trials park literally in the suburbs. Easy access for lots of people to nip over and ride for an hour after work or on weekends. That's certainly a factor in my consideration about events - they're a significant drive to get to and from, and I'm not a big fan of driving distances if I don't have to.

@lineaway Yes, there's some crusty old codgers (some of whom are about the same age as me in fact) who turn up to our events and ride the Masters or Veterans classes and make most of it look easy. I'm sure they never practice between times. I also see that they generally don't turn up to the "ride in pairs/groups" events so often. In many ways I envy them. Never any stress, just another enjoyable day out on the bike. I totally get what you say about just riding what you want in a section - I can't see that going down at all well at our events! But I'm an ageing 25 year old at heart and in terms of hours and skills. I don't have those hundreds of events behind me, and frankly I can't see hundreds in front of me either at 61 years old. So I'm trying to figure how to maximise pleasure, minimise frustration and get as many events in as I have left in me. The trouble with my practice is that I don't have any riding buddies at all, always ride alone so have to be rather conservative, and my terrain while expansive is somewhat limited in variety. Lots of logs, no rocks at all and only crumbling dirt banks for steps. All on public or other people's private land, so my options for building stuff is severely limited. So events are where I get to challenge myself on different stuff. Tricky.

There's a big difference between talking about what engages an individual and criticising those who provide a service! No-one here has said that anything being done is 'bad' or 'wrong'. We've just talked about our personal preferences. I don't want to race motocross or enduro, but that's not a criticism of the events or those who run them. I don't want to ride the Novice T5 line, nor do I want (or have anything close to the ability!) to ride the Expert T1 line. But that doesn't mean I think there's anything wrong with how they are set. You prefer to set the hardest obstacle at the entry, for sensible reasons & based on your experience. A couple of us have said we prefer to see it toward the end. No right or wrong, just preferences based on our personal experience. For every one of us who might choose not to ride your sections, I've no doubt there's as many or maybe more who love them. All good. When I ride an event, even one I come away from feeling depressed, disappointed and frustrated, I am sure to thank those who made the day possible - with full sincerity. My response to an event is my problem, not theirs. I've spent considerable time establishing, running and competing in events in other sports that now I have absolutely zero interest in attending. I hope they continue to be run similarly to the way they always were. They just no longer fulfill my particular desires. All good. I've two aims for this discussion. Try to get more clarity about my own motivations. I hope that comments from others might give me some tools to modify my attitude. I think I've already got some clues. Tease out some ideas for events to make them more attractive to people who are perhaps, like me, a little conflicted about traditional Trials events. This because in fact I am involved with a small group trying to establish a Trials Club in our region and I see that if we want a change from the medium/long term decline in event numbers in our State then we need to do something different. Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result is not a rational option. In our case there is a significant and longer term decline in numbers. If we want enough people attending to make events viable then we obviously need to arrest & reverse that decline. Your experience may vary. Regards number 2. above, by far the biggest club in our State has several hundred members, most of whom ride recreationally at the club grounds. Yet there are only perhaps 20 or 30 who go to competitions. This suggests to me that there's something unattractive about the structure of the current events to a majority of trials bike owners. I look at my own mixed feelings and try to work out what it is that attracts me and what it is that puts me off. Getting some more views here can only help come up with ideas to try. That doesn't mean we need to turn trials into something new and different - there's still a place for conventional trials comps. But perhaps there's room for some tweaking at some events to broaden the appeal? Maybe some events continue to attract the "competitors" and other events are re-structured to attract more of the less competitive sorts? We're all just mucking about with trials bikes for enjoyment, there's barely more than a couple of handfuls of riders and event organisers across the globe who are really making a living out of this! It's not sheep stations we're talking about here! I love riding trials, but it's a bloody stupid activity looked at entirely objectively - why on earth would you deliberately try to ride the hardest possible route through a tiny little area that has to be taped out and marked for you? Why would you spend a bunch of money on a bike that is so specialised you can't even sit down on it? Madness. Which is probably what most of the world thinks about it. Let's not be too serious about ourselves.

I get the feeling you might think we're being critical of those like yourself who set and run events. I assure you that's not the case. This is just about what it is about events that make them personally appealing or not. It's the same as you might prefer a Honda & I prefer a TRS - no right or wrong, just preferences. Some people go to competitions strictly for the competition - they want to strive to win or improve their placings. I get that, but it holds no interest to me personally. I've been a serious competitor at world champs level in another sport and I don't need to go there again. Some people ride events largely for the social gathering - that's part of my motivation. I'm still trying to work out exactly where my motivation lies. I know it's not competing for placings and I know it's only partly about assessing my skills against someone else's section setting. I think it's more about getting in a good ride on different terrain with other people and with people who ride better and can show me new approaches or give me confidence. It's more about challenge and learning. Finding the right balance of challenge, success, failure, and attitude for me is what I'm trying to sort out. So the way you prefer to set sections may not be the most appealing to me, but it may be ideal for someone else. No problem. It's just that I might choose not to ride in events with your style of setting because it doesn't tick the boxes for my particular desires. In some ways I think I'd be happier going to Practice/Training days rather than comps, but at least around here they are nearly as rare as hen's teeth. It's comps or nothing. I guess that's because there are a significant number of people who wouldn't come if it's not a comp, so then it becomes non-viable to run. Although perhaps a practice day with a the right balance of competition sections and training challenges could be a winner? I do note that some of our more popular events are also some the least "serious". My current favourite event is a two day event, Top Naas out of Canberra. 2 laps of 20+ sections, run in a figure 8 so you can refuel easily. You ride in pairs, depart at 30 sec intervals and self score. Really enjoyable. The transfers between sections are mostly fun single track that rides like MTB track, almost as fun as the sections themselves. The sections are challenging but not super hard or anything I call scary. Lots of riding, always with someone to discuss sections and push each other along, not a lot of waiting in line. And a nice campfire and yack in the evening. Excellent event. But I note that not too many of the "Guns" show up to that event. It's probably not competitive enough or hard enough for those striving for the pointy end. We're all different.

I'm still trying to work out what my attitude is. Call it conflicted. I feel about the same as you 30-60 sounds about right to me too. 100 is not too bad a day for me. 120 is getting a bit high for fun. My least favourite trial was the opposite - 2 sections I stopped even pretending to attempt, and too many others that I might as well not have. Exercise in frustration. I don't think I could ever take a gate trial seriously enough to think about the score, except as a tactical game. I really like that I can warm up with a conservative first lap, then start to up the stakes.

I'm much more aligned with @faussy regards the preferred location of a crux obstacle. It's not the end of the world if the hard obstacle is right at the start, but if they mostly were I'd probably drop that event down to the "least preferred" category. If the first obstacle of even a few sections were the hardest at the event I'd be unlikely to return (unless miraculously I cleaned it most laps, which suggests I'd be up with the winners, which just doesn't happen). I don't really set sections so I defer to those who do, but I don't see any mutual exclusion between having the hardest obstacle with a decent run up at the start or later in the section. Surely you can just move the tapes out further to allow a bit more room in most cases. Or just choose a slightly easier obstacle/gate with that shorter run up - just as hard. There's certainly plenty of video of BIG obstacles mid-section with lots of run up. Setting the first obstacle just inside the start gate expecting people to get a run up from well outside is fine, but it does perhaps raise the question, why are the start gates inside the "real" start of the section? Another approach would be to offset the start and put the tape where the setter believes the obstacle is achievable but suitably challenging. No right or wrong, just different ways of looking at it. But for my time & money I want to get in as much riding as I can when I go to an event, not find that I 5 out on the first obstacle of a bunch of sections. As for the terrain discussion - moot point. Yes there's plenty of that terrain in the world, just as there's plenty of long, rocky creek beds and massive dry grippy rock slabs and steps. But they aren't all within reach of everyone. We make the best of what we have locally available. And that also is one of the big reasons I get in my car at sparrows fart in the morning to drive 3-4 hours to a trial - so I can ride different terrain to what I have available locally. It's pretty disappointing if all I get to do is either fail sections and not get to ride them, or ride sections that don't feel particularly challenging. I am well aware that the perception of "challenge" is totally subjective. Some people are extremely happy with the challenge of scoring 0, 1 or 2 for the day on relatively easy sections. Perhaps I should nurture that attitude. Because I far, far prefer to attempt things that are at or near my technical limit and end up with a high 2 figure score (I get a bit disappointed when it goes well into 3 figures!). The pleasure I get from trials, be it practice or at events, is developing skills. Simply applying the ones I already have is less appealing to me. I enjoy a certain level of failure - a 1 or 2 on an obstacle that I see as right at my limit is far more gratifying than a 0 on something I'm 90% sure I can ride.

All our sections have an obvious flow to them, that's not a problem. We run 5 classes from absolute novice ride-in ride-out, to top "Pro" class. Each class has different coloured gates, gates usually must be ridden in one direction only. Available setup and exit space generally gets progressively more restricted as the grades go up, by Trial 3 class (where I prefer to ride) some hopping is occasionally required. Only Trial 1 runs to a time rule. It is definitely expected that riders leave the section once they have 5'd. Sometimes observers allow you to continue if no one is waiting at the Start, but don't count on it and ask nicely. Personally I dislike the hardest obstacle at the start - it means if I fail it or even struggle on it for a 3 then the rest of the section either can't be attempted or feels somewhat pointless. If I've already got 3, why do anything that might risk a silly 5 when it makes no difference to my score if I just put my foot down anywhere with the slightest risk? I much prefer the hardest obstacle late in the section. I can choose whatever grade I feel like - Trial 5 if I feel totally incompetent, or Trial 1 if I want to get 5's on every section and perhaps commit suicide! But whatever grade I ride I have to ride the coloured gates for that grade or get 5 and leave the section. I could ride Trial 5 (easiest grade), go through the white gates and attempt any other gate I felt like, but if I fail any obstacle it's a 5 & I'm expected to leave the section. Even if I ride on a "recreational" non-competitive entry, the same rules apply. I can see that there is possibly a path for me to enter a lower grade (Trial 4) and, in some sections that lend themselves to it, ride the odd Trial 3 obstacle that is challenging but not too challenging and which still allows me to get to all the T4 gates. That should allow me to complete the sections but also add some adventure. I'll think on it further. The cost I referred to is my total cost for the day, not just entry. Our club events are maybe $40 (about USD25 I guess) and Nationals a bit above $100. Most events are around 300km (185 mi) away from me and fuel costs $2.26/L ($10.30/gallon). Fuel costs more than the entry. Plus annual comp licence fee. Our Gate Trials tend not to be "Serious" events, they certainly don't count toward series points. So they are self observed, honesty system. Personally I don't care if there are observers at an event or not. If someone wants to cheat that's their loss, it makes no difference to my score. I get it though that some people are much more serious about their competitions and relative results than I am.

At our events you ride the line you enter for. If you miss an obstacle it's a 5, and if it's a 5 you are expected to leave the section directly. It's possible I suppose to ride whatever line I feel like - you haven't definitively missed a gate until you ride out the end gate, so they can't 5 you until you're out I guess. Although there would quite often be gates that would become unachievable without crossing your track once you pass them, therefore a 5. I haven't really considered doing that before. I suspect it would be rather frowned upon but I'm not sure they would actually stop you. Probably tell you pretty firmly that it's just not cricket though. Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps I'll ask. I enjoyed the Gate trial for almost the opposite reason to you - I could ride lines that were 90% sure to place me even lower 🙂