ridgrunr

Ok, After reading all the great posts in the topics about how to save our sport in the U.S., it looks to me that three main obtsacles have emerged. #1 The economy,which we have no control over. #2 Distance. Not much that we can do about that either Heck, Utah alone is 1.5 times the size of England, 89,000 sq miles, compared to 50,000 sq miles. As far as I know, there is not another Trials rider within 100 miles of where I am sitting in my kitchen. So, if a rider is going to make that 3-4 hour one way drive to get to an event, how do we ensure (as much as humanly possible) that he has a good enough time to want to go to the next one? #3 Section difficulty. This is one thing we can control (sort of). How do we make our sections consistently fun, challenging and non-lethal? The following is taken right out of our club by-laws: 7B. The Trials Marshal will test rideability of the class lines by the following means: (On Lower classes ensure there are adequate "dabs" on both sides). 1. Novice - ride sections sitting down, 1st gear, no clutch, no brake. 2. Sportsman - ride sections standing up, 1st gear, no clutch. 3. Intermediate - no hopping or trick riding. 4. Advanced - minimal hopping and trick riding. 5. Expert - hopping or trick riding encouraged in at least 50% of sections. 6. Champ - discretion with respect to safety of bike and rider should be used on large obstacles. That's it. Not much guidance there. What do I add or subtract from the above section setting guidelines? What I'm looking for is the mechanics of setting a section. What's the minimum width that a section should be? How many obstacles should there be in each section? What point spread to shoot for? How do you deal with class splits? How does a guy set sections for classes that are harder than he can ride? There's dozens of questions. I'm sure I'll get a bunch of smart assed responses. Already have, from folks who don't understand what we are up against in this country. But I'm also hoping to get something that I can use to help those new Trials Marshals learn how to set a decent Trials. I'm not saying that any of you need to ever incorporate any of the suggestions that are offered into anything that you do. I'm just looking for something that I can use. Something I can send to the new guys who are trying to figure out how to set sections. Help me come up with some guidelines that I can take to the annual club meeting in two weeks, that can help us describe how to come up with those consistently fun, challenging and non-lethal sections for next year, that might help keep the riders coming back.

Many times, we are all just like politicians. We gripe a lot about things without really coming up with solutions, or being willing to try things to see if they might actually work because they are new or outside our comfort zone. I have been thinking about this for awhile now and decided it was time to throw it out there as guys like AMiller are starting to look at Gate Trials too, so I decided it would be better to begin a new thread than hijack the others. This is long, and I apologize for that, but I felt it needed detailed explanation to make my argument. So here it is. Since 1990 I’ve been in our club presidency more times than you can count on your fingers. I’ve lost track of how many. I've set been a Trials Marshal more times than I can remember too and have set thousands of sections. I love the sport, and out club, but our club is dying. Our numbers are half what they used to be even though some of our riders are out of state riders who can’t find a club to ride in their own states. I’m with AMiller. It’s time to figure out how to make this thing work and I too believe the answer is Gate Trials. I rode two of them this year, and I have to tell you, they were the most fun I had at events all year. The other neat thing about Gate Trials is that the format has the potential to fix many of the problems that we are all experiencing right now in our clubs. 1st The idea of Gate Trials is more in line with almost every other sport. You gain points to win. That’s easier for most American type riders to understand. 2nd Gate Trials is easier for the Trials Marshal to set. The Marshal never has to try to decide how hard a line has to be for a particular class. All he has to do is take a given obstacle and break it down in difficulty. There are 5 possible lines, not 12 different classes. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. They are marked that way. For example a #4 line would be between the #4 markers, a #2 line between the #2 markers. The #1 line is easiest and may be nothing more than a trail ride line through the section that a guy could ride on a Honda Trail 90. The #5 line is the hardest #5 Champ. There only has to be one or two of each gate numbers in a section. The riders will have to figure out how to string their line together to get as many of the gates as they want to get. There can even be solo, less apparent gates that are not grouped with the others, that a rider can try to figure out how to get too if he chooses to do so. That can make it even more fun. 3rd Trying to standardize section difficulty from meet to meet would no longer be a problem. The Trials Marshal doesn’t have to worry about the Advanced lines having the same difficulty on each section. He just sets the Gate markers, deciding the difficulty between 1 and 5. The riders would decide which ones they want, or don’t want to ride. The gate difficulty might change from meet to meet or even section to section too, but that’s ok as it’s up to the rider to decide what they want to attempt and how much they are willing to risk. At one meet they might be riding up to the #4 gates. At the next, maybe only up to the #3. It’s up to them. 4th No one is ever forced to ride anything. You say that is already the case in Conventional Trials. Well that’s sort of true, but your choice right now of choosing to not ride a section gets you a section failure. In Gate Trials a rider never has to “take a 5” because they are scared of a section. The rider chooses what lines they want to ride. They don’t have to ride the #4 line if they decide it’s too much. They can instead ride the #3 or even the #2 line. It’s up to them to decide what they want to attempt, but they always get to ride the section. Of course the more gates they get, the higher their score will be. The better the rider, the higher they’ll score. That’s why the higher score wins. 5th You don’t have to ride the biggest obstacles to win. One rider may like the big gates, while another rider likes the more technical gates. Both play to their own personal strengths, and both will use their best strategies to get the most points they can accrue. That’s the beauty of Gate Trials. You have to decide what you can complete without “dabbing out” (I’ll explain that in a bit). The rider who executes his strategy best…wins. Gate Trials actually takes a little more thinking than regular Trials where your main goal is pretty much to keep it between the red and blue and get from one end of the section to the other. In a Gate Trials the riders in many of the upper classes will try to get every gate they can. This can make the section as complicated as they are willing to make it. That’s why an Expert may accrue 197 points where an Intermediate will only get 104. One thing we have been considering trying after our last Gate Trials is to restrict the Expert/Champ classes to only the #3,#4,and #5 gates. They could ride through the lower gates, but get no points for doing so. This would help them not needing to be in the section to get every gate, but we haven't tried it yet. Gate Trials requires more turning. I’ve seen more full lock turns in one section at a Gate Trials than I usually see in a whole event at a regular Trials. At many of the conventional trials events today, turning has become a lost art. Instead, our sections have become one death defying up, followed by a life threatening drop off with very little turning in between. We seem to be forgetting that we are supposed to be turning on these things in the sections too. That’s sort of why the front ends pivot. 6th Scorers are getting increasingly hard to get at our events. You can split the day to achieve Observed Scoring, but Gate Trials can be easily scored in groups, although I believe we should NOT score in class groups. Class group scoring is not good for honest competition. In class groups, you are often being scored by, and scoring riders who you are competing against. That just isn’t right. Class groups also can and do make a club very cliquish. Mixing the scoring groups is a better option and makes for better competition. I’ll explain how that’s done in a minute. 7th There are literally thousands of old bikes sitting around in garages. The guys who own them won’t come out anymore because they cannot or will not ride the obtuse sections that now dominate our sport and require the latest techno whizo machinery to be at all competitive. They might however, bring out those old bikes if they learn they can come to a meet and not have to worry about getting killed. They could pick their own lines, as easy or hard as they want and actually have fun riding sections again. 8th Gate Trials is much more rideable by someone on an Enduro type of bike who may come out just to see what the sport is all about. They can ride the #1 or even #2 lines, or what ever their skill level will allow, and probably actually complete the day and have some fun. However, when they actually see how much easier that kid on the GG50 goes up the #2 lines, they may start thinking about trading off that KTM650 for a real Trials Bike. Scoring: One good way to score a Gate Trials is to have mixed class scoring groups. They are easy to set up. Select the largest class that has signed up that day. Say the largest class is Intermediate. If there's six of them, you'll have six scoring groups. Have the Intermediates line up. Now start lining up the rest of the riders behind them. One champ (if you have them), one expert, one advanced, one sportsman, and one novice behind each of the Intermediate riders. You shouldn’t have more than 6 riders in a group. Let a kid ride with his Dad if they want to. This will actually help us to be that “Family Friendly” sport we are always touting. If they don’t want to ride together, they can ride in separate groups. This is especially good for new riders. No one is ever sent out on the loop without a clue of what the heck is going on, as there will be someone in every group now who can show the new guys the ropes, maybe even coach them a little. You’d be amazed how fun that can be. Nobody is riding with, being scored by, or scoring anyone who they are competing against. You'll have to pick your own lines instead of not riding till all the other riders in your class have ridden and showed you what works and what doesn't. You might actually have to compete. The other upside to mixing the scoring groups is that you’ll get to ride with different riders at almost every meet, so you’ll actually get to know who some of those terrific folks in your club are. You’ll also get to watch riders who are better than you are, which is cool because riding with riders who are better than you are, will make you a better rider too. If you just ride with the same old buds every meet, you seldom get better. Usually it’s the opposite. It takes the upper classes longer to complete a section. By mixing up the groups, it should take each group about the same time to complete a loop. If you have all Champ riders in one group and all Novice riders in a group, the Novice riders can finish three loops in the time it takes the champ riders to do one. So how is this version of Gate Trials scored? It’s a little different than you’ve heard. This is not conventional Trials, so IT IS NOT NO STOP. Use what ever skills you have acquired. Hop all you want. DABS are counted as usual except that a DAB is a DAB, no matter what the bike is doing under you. However: for ever dab you take in a section…you lose one (1) point that you’ve accrued for that section…UP TO 3 DABS. Sliding your foot is the same as two dabs. AFTER THREE DABS (on your fourth dab), YOU HAVE FAILED THE SECTION and get (0) as in zero points for that section. This ends the paddling through a section with 99 dabs and still getting a three, and the guy who tries to back up half a dozen steps to try the obstacle again. Of course going out of bounds or killing your bike in the section with your feet down and all of the normal rules for failing a section apply. So, if a rider successfully got through a #2 gate, a #3, a #2 and a #1 gate, with only 2 dabs, the rider would score a 6 for the section, 8 points minus 2 dabs. This is different than the gate trials that many of you are familiar with. Instead of having to clean the entire section to get the points, all or nothing, in this version a rider can still take three (3) dabs. After 3 dabs the rider has failed the section. This is much easier for the riders do swallow instead of getting zero points at their first dab. It also stops the rider from just dabbing through the section. Like I said, it’s all in the strategy. A good Champ rider could possibly get a lot of points, and do. It takes longer to ride a Gate Trials section than a conventional Trials section, so do not set more than 8 sections per loop. Everyone will get a lot more riding than they’ve ever gotten before. No one will be able to say they didn’t get their money’s worth. You will also see way less crashes and falls than you see in a conventional trials. Additionally, You cannot cross your tracks. This is a section failure. Gates can be ridden backwards, but there is no points gained for doing so. If an obstacle has multiple difficulty gates, ie, a #2, #3, #5 etc, the obstacle can only be ridden once. If you displace a gate card, for any gate, you have failed the section. There may be some other specific rules I’m not remembering, but those bridges can be crossed when you get to them. This also requires a revamp of the score cards. There would have to be a 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 on each card. A zero is still 0 Scores above 9 would be combinations such as: 10 points 1 + 0 14 points 1 + 4 At one Gate Trials instead of punches, a permanent pen was sent out with the group, and the score just written next to the section number. This seemed to be easiest. Gate Trials takes more thinking than a regular Trials event. That’s one thing that some guys don’t like. I’ve even heard some guys complain that they have to think too much at Gate Trials so they won’t go to a meet if it’s set that way. I guess thinking can hurt. I just don’t know how to deal with that. I find it hard to imagine that someone would really rather stay home and watch T.V. than go out and ride that way specialized machine that you paid way too much for just because the meet has a different format. I guess you can’t please everyone. Sure the format is a little different, but the concept is the same. Ride your bike across that obstacle course without putting your feet down. The only difference is that the rider with the highest score wins. That should be pretty easy to get our heads around. That’s what we are taught to do from the day we are born. Then there are the purists, the protectors of the sport, who say that they do not want anything to change…ever. Ok, but the sport as we know it is dying. Everything needs to evolve. The ones that do survive and grow, while the ones that don’t die. NASCAR (NonAthletic Sport Centered Around Rednecks) is NOTHING like it was when it started. Neither is drag racing. Neither is MotoCross. Neither is SKIING. Skiing...on two of them critters at least, is about gone. Heck everyone is using them funky boards that look sort of like the Snurfer that we used to play with when I was a kid (If you know what I’m talking about you are dating yourself). The Ski Resort industry was dying. No body wanted those stinking snow boards on the slope. The majority of the kids on the slopes now days are snow boarding. The ski resort industry is thriving. It has evolved. We’re getting very few new riders as they don’t dare try the obscene stuff that we’re trying to force riders to ride. Old guys are dropping out because it’s not fun anymore. We’re killing them off. Their not coming to the events is killing Trials off. Things change or they die. Look what happened to the dinosaurs. Couldn’t evolve, so there’s no more T-Rex. So maybe it’s time to evolve. Ok don’t call it Trials. Call it MotoTrials, TrialsCross or something else. But the bottom line is that if we don’t do something to rejuvenate the sport, pretty soon all the clubs are going to be facing events where there are only 10 riders at a meet. Like I’ve asked before, “How does a club pay for that $1,000,000 dollars liability insurance, $200 permit fee, $100 in medals, $50 in materials with only 10 riders at a meet?” They don’t. They fold up their tent and call it quits. I hope we don’t become the T-Rex of motosports. [/size]

(WARNING...THINS IS A RANT! DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LEARN SOMETHING) I used to think we were, you know "family friendly", but I wonder sometimes just how "family friendly" we really are. I mean think about it. A new guy comes to a meet with his kid. More often than not, if the event is run fully "observed", we send them out there on the loop by themselves and maybe they really don't have a clue of what is going on. They struggle all day, and don't have much fun. The next time there's a meet, they go quad riding. If the event is run "group scoring" as most of ours are, the Dad signs up for the Sportsman class, the kid Novice. They go out with their respective classes, and never see each other again till the end of the day. Dad didn't get to spend a minute of the day with his kid. Kid rode with a bunch of guys he didn't know. Family friendly? Next time they go quad riding. How do we stop this. Here's one way to do it if you score in groups. Mix up the scoring groups instead of having them go out in classes. Pick the largest class, say the biggest class is Intermediates. If there's six of them, you'll have six groups. Have the Intermediates line up. Now start lining up the rest of the riders behind them. One expert, one advanced, one sportsman, one novice behind each of the Intermediate riders. Let a kid ride with his Dad. There will be someone in every group now who can show the new guys the ropes, maybe even coach them a little. Nobody is riding with anyone who they are competing against. You'll have to pick your own lines instead of waiting for the rest of your class to show you what works and what doesn't before you ride. No body is scored by anyone who they are competing against. You'll actually have to compete. What a concept. Plus now..you are family friendly. Now lets look at another thing that's been brought up. Section difficulty. We're killing ourselves and our clubs when we gear the sections for the top riders in each class, which we usually do, to insure that they have a good time. After all, aren't we all there for the challenge? What if some are there just to have a fun day? So say the #1 rider in lower class B wins with 38 points. Not bad. he had a pretty good day. But if there are six guys in the class, the bottom rider of the class will probably have 88...or more. That's unacceptable, especially in the lower classes. How can 88 points be fun? In the lower classes, a section should be set so that the #1 rider wins the day with 15 or less points. Maybe only as much as 10. Too little you say? No, and here's why. Say a rider takes 1st place for the day with 34 points. The last place rider #6 has 92 points. How much fun has the #6 rider had? Not much. His day has been nothing but 5's and maybe an occasional 3 that took him nine dabs to get. Maybe he even crashed a few times. Maybe he broke his bike. Maybe he got hurt. Think he'll be in a hurry to come back? Probably not. But the sections had to be that difficult to keep it fun for #1, right? Wrong! If # 1 had won with 10 points. #6 would have probably had 40 points. That's liveable. 92...or even 82 is not. If #1 had won with 10 points maybe he'll decide that he's bored and has maybe gotten good enough to move up to the next class. Hey! Isn't that why we have classes? He might even survive moving up, if the sections in the next class are also designed so that the winner gets around 10 points. But if in the next class, the #1 rider has also been winning with 30 points, what's our rider who just moved up a class going to get? You got it, 89 points. Frustrated, he moves back into the old class and lobbies for the sections to get harder to keep him happy. See, it's a vicious circle. Long story short. In the lower classes, say Intermediate, on down (maybe even every class), the sections need to be set with the LOWER half of the class in mind. NOT the upper half. If the upper half of the class thinks the sections are too easy...they can move up to the next class to stay interested. Again...can you say it with me?...ISN'T THAT WHY WE HAVE CLASSES? The upper class riders want it harder. That's why they are UPPER class riders. But how many times have you heard an Intermediate rider say "If I had wanted to ride the Advanced class...I would have signed up for the Advanced class." No one needs National caliber sections in the lower classes. Leave the National caliber sections to the guys who might actually ride the Nationals... the upper class riders. So set the lower class sections easy. Make them fun. Their section don't need to be life threatening. Technical is fine, but dangerous...no. Let them clean a few. This is where the majority of the riders in most clubs are going to be, in the lower classes. Leave the hard death defying stuff for the upper classes who are looking for it. If a guy wants hard, he'll move up (given the chance) until he finds what he wants. There's only 1 rider (or maybe less) out of every 100 guys who is going to have the natural talent to get into the upper classes. He'll learn the basics in the lower classes and will quickly move up through the lower classes as his skills and natural talent improve. The rest of us 99 out of 100 are guys who have no natural talent. None. We can barely walk and chew gum. We've been riding Trials for twenty years or more. Commitment? We've been riding since 1975. We aren't great riders and know it. We are never going to be Expert riders. Still we love the sport and still love to ride. We are 56 years old. We do have the cash for a new bike. We never get the chance to practice much. If we did, we'd probably be riding alone. About the only time we see our bike is the evening before the meet when we drag it out of the shed, make sure the tires aren't flat and that we have a gallon of rancid six month old gas still left in the can before we load it into the back of the pickup truck. So we get up at 4:00 am. Drive for 4.5 hours to get to the meet...alone. If we get 92 points for the day, crash twice, break the clutch lever and hope we'll be able to make the 4.5 hour drive home...alone and then get up to go to work on Monday. How much fun did we have? Why keep doing it? Good question. How many of us do you think will keep coming back? Wouldn't it be easier and less painful to go golfing? Still wondering why most of the clubs are so down on membership?

Our rider numbers are down too. I suppose the economy could be part of the problem, but people seem to have money for the things important to them. One problem is that most of the old guys who have been around forever are for whatever reason slowly attritioning out of competition. Some how, as a sport we have to figure out a way to get new riders to come out and see what it's all about. I think that may be some of the thinking behind the change to the name MotoTrial, to get some excitement in the name that might attract the younger crowd that we need so desperately in the sport before us old guys are all gone. The other thing is the cost of bikes. The enduro riders we met on the Five Mile Off Hell ride were really interested in our bikes after they saw how much easier they went across the trail...that is until they asked us how much they cost. They were shocked. Our Trials bikes cost more than their high dollar enduro bikes did. That has hurt the sport too. Our sport has become very exclusive. Used to be that guys would show up to the meets on just about anything that ran, but now it seems that the mind set is that if your bike is more than two years old you can't compete. Somehow we have to get back to the mindset that you can have just as much fun on an older bike that you can pick up for 2k as you can a new bike that would cost 8K, and get all those 1990 and 2000 something bikes back into play, instead of sitting around, rotting in a some garage. We have vintage classes, maybe we need some in between class's that will allow a guy to bring out a 1994 Fantic KRoo and play, who won't have to compete with a 2011 GAS GAS Raga. We had to quit the AMA. The cost of doing business with them made it too expensive for the guys to want to come ride, so we got private insurance. These are the WTA fees: First Time Riders: $10 Adult Club members: $20 Member Children < 16: $10 Non-club member riders: $30 WTA Club Membership Fees: Single: $20 Family: $30

That is exactly the problem here in the states. Those sports you mention above are our competition for riders, and dollars and they are wining because the sound exciting and are exciting. At our August event we had 14 riders. At our September event we had 10 riders. At our October event we had 9. How do you pay for that million dollars liability insurance policy, the $300 permit fees, and buy ribbon, medals and everything else that's needed to run and event with only 10 riders? We need 22 just to to break even. We used to average 35-40 riders at our events. A lot of the old guys are just that...old...most of us are in our late 50's now and can't do it or run it anymore. One of our club founders died last year. He was 79. We need new riders and new blood to run take over. Who's going to run the thing when we can't? That day is fast approaching. There's a handful of us old guys keeping the sport going. Are you doing all you can to help keep the sport alive? Some guys want to keep it "pure" and refuse to see that the sport needs to evolve to survive. That's great, but we are going to "pure" the sport to death. Some blame it on the economy, which is true to a point too, but if we don't do something entice those new riders who get excited by motocross, and motoGP etc., to come spend their recreational spending money on MotoTrials, there won't be any Trials period and we can all use those expensive Trials bikes in our garages for boat anchors.

I've ridden across it once with a fellow who was riding a 1975 Suzuki. A TY175 would be fully capable of riding doing it, though it wouldn't be easy. The main factor, as is the case with any event, is the rider skill level. On a vintage bike, unless a rider was a very competent Intermediate/Advanced type rider, riding a TY175 might make for a VERY long and possibly unfun day.

We rode the 5MOH on October 16th. Check out the updated story and pics on Utah's Five Miles of Hell. http://utahtrials.com/5moh/5moh.html

We've been trying to get the name changed to MotoTrials for years. I remember a big campaign a few years ago to go to MotoTrials and to try to get all the clubs on board doing the same thing in an effort to unite the sport nationwide, but there were too many folks who just couldn't deal with the idea of trying something new to save the sport. So we moved on. We do MotoTrials now. We even got a MotoTrials venue in the Utah Summer Games last year. Observed Trials means nothing to anyone outside the sport. Trials means a bunch of lawyers. I guess we can try to keep with the old traditions and let the sport slowly die, or we can update. So we went MotoTrials for the USG. We're the only motorized sport recognized in the Utah Summer Games. Here's the link for last year. http://www.utahsummergames.org/sports/mototrials.html . The USG is a big thing in Utah. It's like the Olympics. Last year was our first year and we learned a lot. The event for 2011 will be the weekend of June 11th. We're hoping to make it bigger and better this year. We've gone to Facebook too. On FaceBook we're known as UtahTrials. We've got to do something to get the word out to new riders. The web site is http://www.utahtrials.com.

Paul, that's exactly what I needed to know. Makes sense. Thanks a lot!

Hey guys, On the side of the engine cases on my 08 250R it says 700cc oil, but in my Scorpa owners manual it says 600cc. So which is correct and would 100cc make that much difference? I know on my previous GAS GAS's higher gear oil volume causes shifting problems. Anyone know about the Scorpas? Thanks.

I think it's how it works and how it's packaged. A buddy of mine is big into RC aircraft. He had both kinds of engines, 2 stroke and 4 stroke. He had thousands of dollars into those highly sophisticated micro motors. Things absolutely screamed...literally! Would hurt your ears! More than once he got a finger whacked good trying to start the things which sometimes simply wouldn't start, then there were the mixture problems and fuel flow problems and...well you get the point. He always hauled around a giant box to carry all the fuel, glow plugs, starters, tools, and everything else needed to get them to fly. Then a couple of years ago he discovered electric motors. That's all he does now. Throws the plane and controller in the back of his truck and he's off. Box is history. He was always out there in the parking lot at work during his lunch break flying the electric thing. Coudn't do that with the gas version because he could never get it started before his lunch was over. You could hear it if you tried, but it was nothing compared to his gas models. Even flew his helicopter on the control room floor. That would have never happened with the gas engine model. I love the IC engine. Have since I got that first 1946 Chevy pickup forty years ago. I have four bikes, two big road bikes, a quad and the Scorpa. But that love affair is going to end eventually. The world won't run on the IC engine forever. The greens (man I hate that term) will eventually kill it blaming it for every ill thing known to man, real or not. The main thing for an electric trials bike, car, RC plane or anything else is that it'll have to work as well and look as good as the IC engine model before people will go for it. With the micro fuel tanks we're seeing on the Trials bikes now, an electric model could probably easily have more range. I'd love an electric powered car to drive to work, but I need one that can easily run a hundred fifty miles or so without recharging. We have a lot of space between towns out here in the wild wooly west. But I don't want to drive something that looks like a bread box. Now build a cost effective electric with decent range that looks like a Pontiac Solstice and I'm there. Same thing with a trials bike. Someone builds one that looks cool and will run for an entire meet and you'll see them (not hear them at the meets). I think the IC engine replacement for almost all applications is a lot closer than we think.

If you go to the Scorpa forum, you'll see a write up I did on my new 2008 Scorpa SY250R. First Scorpa I ever owned. It's not perfect, none of them are, but so far I like it a lot.

Try some Maxima 75 wt lite transmission fluid. Worked really well in the '99 321 and '00 280 GG's we had.

Here in the states I was told I got the last SY250R in the the shipping container. Don't know if RYP is getting any more before the 2009's come out or not. I haven't even seen it yet as I've been TDY out of state, but had my buddy open the top of the crate to make sure it had the 40mm Marzocchi Alloy forks and all the parts. I've read some of the GG's have been showing up with Paiolis when they are supposed to have the Marazocchi's. He says it's sure pretty sitting there in the box. I should get to see it next week! Makes me wonder what's going to happen over the next couple of years. Can't get Montesa's, and the other manufacturers seem to be having supplier problems. I sure hope this settles down soon!

For our meets we try to have two guys setting the sections that we call "Trials Masters". We try to have one upper class rider and one lower class rider. We've discovered that often the upper class riders forget what it was like to ride the lower class sections. It's been my experience that if you get more than one or two heads setting a section, they usually end up butting heads as everyone has a different idea of what a section should look like. Too, an upper class rider will tend to spend much more time and effort of the upper class sections, and will sort of slop the lower class sections together. So having a lower class and upper class rider helps our intent to try to keep the section complexity and difficulty somewhat standard, at least as much as is possible. Doesn't always work, but we try. These two riders, the "Trials Marshals" also get 1st place points for their class for the meet they set. They can only get "marshal points" one time during the year though. We normally set 8-10 sections and two experienced marshals can pretty much set a meet in a day. Sometimes there'll be helpers, but they don't get any points for the meets. Only the "Trials Marshals" can ride the sections for rideability before the meet.

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One of the selling issues I always used when approaching land owners for potential riding areas was how quiet Trials bikes were...and they were. That always boded well when I was showing trials videos to the land owners. BLM really liked that. None of my two stroke Fantics, Beta's or GAS GASES were loud. I could ride in the back yard and the neighbors usually didn't know I was out there. The two strokes were the quietest motorized competition machines on wheels. That helped keep us less hated in the woods too with the other types of recreation. Can't use that argument now days though. The Montesa can hurt your ears even though it has a silencer that looks like it came off a a John Deere. Haven't heard a Beta, Scorpa, Sherco or GAS GAS 4 strokes other than the videos. In the video the GAS GAS 4 banger sounded like it could be loud too. Do the four strokes have to be loud to produce any power? Also, typically it takes a 350cc or better four stroke to produce the power of a 250cc Two stroke. I've heard the Montesa Bou is riding is almost 400cc. Is that true?

Don't know if this has been posted or not, but it's a pretty cool video of the 4T GG in action.

I've been doing these forums for years. Due to employment reasons, I haven't been able to ride for over a year so I devour almost every topic in the forums, trying to get a desperately needed Trials fix. Some of us started feeding our Trials hunger way back in the Trials Action days, and there have been lots of lively discussions about scoring rules, hopping vrs no hop, class names etc. I used to post frequently, it was fun, but I seldome post anymore as one of two things happens almost everytime in the thread which usually kills the the poster and the thread too. 1- someone goes off the deep end, takes whatever the discussion is as a personal attack on their own personal perfect idea of what the sport is supposed to be, grabs .44 magnum worth of keyboard and proceeds to blow the apparent offender and his entire family tree right off the net. 2-someone who almost none of us knows, decides to do his Don Rickles "comedy" routine to someone he dosen't know (or maybe he does but we don't know that), hijacking the thread while thinking he's being funny with his comedic chops, when he almost never is. This usually kills the thread too because personal joking "the typed word" almost never comes over the net the way it was intended. Instead it almost always comes off as a personal insult to those "outside" of the joke. I was not a Mich Lin fan. I was a fan of his wife Debbi Evan's though. I'm still in awe of watching her do a headstand on her trials bike at the So CA Nationals. I know Lane or Mich Lin or what ever he called himself could be insufferable at times. I personally chose to quit reading his posts as they were becoming pretty much unreadable as he rambled on and on promoting himself, but I'm not sure that banning people, unless they are being extremely foul, does much good in the long run. If they are at least discussing Trials issues, IMHO I think it's better to let readers choose to read the posts and reply to them...or not.

What oil are you running? My GG321 and my son's GG250 clutches would drag if we used the wrong oil. Some oils are really bad for the clutch plates as they make the fiber plates swell. We had pretty good luck with ATF, but still got some dragging. We finally went to Maxima Lite 75 wt transmission fluid. No more clutch drag problems.

Too bad it's sitting in a crate in my buddy's garage and I don't get home for six more weeks! Forked out the cash for it and I've never seen it yet! He opened the top of the crate and says it sure is pretty. Offered to put it together and break it in for me. What a pal! A new bike in the box. Sure gives me something to look forward to though!

The last big bore TXT was actually a 321, great bike. A bit heavier than the Pros. http://www.geocities.com/fn_owens/gasgas/01gg321.jpg where the TXT PRO is a 300 http://www.geocities.com/fn_owens/gasgas/06gg300.jpg They are different bikes. A dead give away is the right side engine side case and the frame. One difference is that the Pro's have a black waterpump cover, TXT's are silver. TXT's also have bigger frames and have down tubes that are stamped where the Pro's are more tubular. Same differences with the 280's. TXT321 was a better clubman bike as are the PRO300's, smoother engines and easier to ride. 280's are a little higher strung which the upper class riders like Expert riders prefer.

I'm looking at a 2004 or a 2007 SY250. Other than the color schemes and flat skid plate on the 2007 what are the differences between the 2004 and the 2007 models? Are the 2008's much different other than the new aluminim fork? Anything that mere mortal would notice?

Those short plugs for the KRoo's were impossible to get here in the states. I never could get one for my '94 KRoo. Finally took one of the stock plugs down to a parts store who was able to cross it to a platinum Bosch. That Bosch was a little taller than the shorty KRoo plug, but I discovered if I cut 1/8 inch off the top electrode, I could get it in and get the cap over it. Ran great with that Bosch plug. Sure loved that KRoo. Other than the flimsy front fender mounts, in my opinion it had the best suspension ever put on a Trials bike. Most gound clearance and one of the best motors too! I was all set to buy a new CASTO but then they went belly up. What a shame!

Dog bone bearings are really pretty easy to replace. Simply put the dog bone between the jaws of a bench vice with a socket the same size as the bearing on one side (I think it might have been a 13 or 14 mm) and a larger size socket (might have been a 17mm) on the other. Close the vice and the smaller socket will push the bearing out of the dog bone and into the larger socket. Then use the vice to push the new bearing back into the dog bone. Works just like a press. Make sure you put some anti-sieze on the outside of the bearings to help them slide in easier which will also ensure they come out easier next time.