funtrials

1982 was a Bultaco Sherpa T 350 (a tank), 1983 was a Fantic 240 (a godsend!). US Champ Class, which also rode the Wagner Cups along side the FIM-entered riders those years. So no, I'm not a liar. But of course some of my rant was embellished, such as having a "dream" (I didn't really "dream" about it, just made that up to prove a point.) But I do believe all the other stuff about the new no-fun rules hurting our sport. Much of my post was meant to be humerous, as well. Michaud was on an SWM I mostly remember (now Michaud seems to be on, well, drugs, if he actually supports this no-fun non-sense.) Dave was on a "Swim", as he used to call it, at first, IIRC. Those twinshock bikes were fine for no-fun type of riding, but the new hotness (I drool over getting a new Factory Replica Gasser, when I can afford it!) demands rules that don't tame it, and put it back 30 years in time. Allow us to achieve our full potential, of both man and machine, by not handcuffing us, I argue. In 1982 I remember, IIRC, that Michaud was only like 18 years old, but the dude could RIDE! I remember Ron Jenkins and I watching him in practice at Donner and thinking "daaaaam!". Apparently the rules of gravity don't apply to Michael Jordan, or to Mr. Michaud. The new rules handcuff incredible talent like that.

With a username like "twinshocked" can I assume that you pine for the glory days of bulky, inefficent bikes, with comfortable seats for trail riding between the sections, where stop/hop was almost impossible?.....whereas I pine for the glorious FUTURE of 100 pound, two-wheel drive, titanium swathed, 60 horsepower, automatic-clutch (with a reverse gear, too), gravity-defying, battery-powered art-forms that will allow many of us to put even Mr. Bou's current skills to shame. My grandchildren's generation will see that, but not me, sadly. Someday.....unless of course the FIM continues to want to bring us back in time.

I've never had a different username than I do now, and I've certainly never been "STING32", if that's what you implying (I don't know.) If you're implying that I have a similar POINT OF VIEW as that person, then I'd love to see his reasoning for hating the no-fun rules ilke I do.

I see your point, but my point was that I think the first Nazi-like attempt to say "Nein, nein, nien" to the stop-allowed RULES at the FIM level was around 1998. Yes, before 1998 I think stop was always allowed (at least in America), until the reactionary forces at the FIM rose to power, then were defeated, then rose to power again for the 2013 season. No-stop RULES were first FORCED upon us in 1998, is what I was trying to say.

We can't stop progress of course. Otherwise we'd want to do things like stop this horrific "overdevelopment" of things like, say, smartphones. Let's go back to the days when my smartphone was the size of a bread-basket! (Kidding.)

Ok, what year was it (it might have been 1997, I can't remember) that they changed to no-fun rules, and then a few years later (I was at the no-stop world round in 2001 for example) they realized that was a failure and then changed it back to fun-allowed rules. What years were those?

Smage, because our sane USA trials leaders have thankfully decided to NOT step back in time, was at a clear *disadvantage* because the main events that he would train for (the US domestic Nationals) are NOT no-stop this year! He might as well trian for, say, motocross for most of the year, and then practice (no-stop) trials for a couple weeks right before the US world round...the same thing almost. No way could he compete fairly, unless he was to severely hurt his chances in the US domestic National series with its stop-allowed rules. Yet another casualty of this ridiculous new rule.

I'm afraid that's wrong. Stop/hop brought trials to a higher plane. To a higher level of accomplishment in our quest of man against nature.....on my tank-like-piece-of-you-know-what Honda TL125 the 5 foot rock wall was like the moon to me....now with modern stop/hop/clutch techniques (and better equipment of course) I can land on the moon, so to speak. We have these ridiculous minimum-weight restrictions in the FIM rules, so why don't we just force Raga to ride a TL125 instead, as it will accomplish the same thing of bringing our sport back to the stone age like the FIM appears to indirectly want to do. Ah, the golden age of trials (the 1970's), when the manufacturers sold a ton of bike$, but we looked pretty foolish in the sections by the 2012 standards of high-tech 21st century stop/hop trick riding. Sorry, FIM, I don't pine for those days (when just before Saint Bernie showed us the light) that Martin Lampkin used to actually advise AGAINST usiing the clutch in a section.

Agreed. Many people are thinking the same thing. The people who are pushing this ridiculous "no-talent", er, uh, I mean "no-stop" trials are driven by greed to increase corporate profit$ at the expense of the purity and tradition of our beautiful sport. So in the end, the battle boils down to this: its basically the corporate greed of the manufacturer$/importer$ versus those of us who want to maintain the purity of the sport. Pure trials allows stop/hop/rollbacks/bouncing-on-back-wheel-while-stationary, etc. This is ADMIRED in pure trials, not PENALIZED WITH THE MAXIMUM PENALTY! Pure trials is an art. They are, effectively, trying to soil that art in favor of the almighty dollar. While I'm glad we have trials bike manufacturers, my main concern is NOT whether we have, say, 7 trials manufacturers, or only 5 trials manufacturers, etc. Whether a corporate executive of a trials bike manufacturer/importer can afford to buy a new Jag every 2 years (or not) is not my concern. The "art" is my concern! I don't not enjoy watching Bou and Raga performing their art while wearing handcuffs. That's what the FIM has created by converting our beloved sport to Observed Endurocross. I don't CARE if Endurocro$$ makes more money than "real" trial$ does! Have them take their corporate agenda and get off our backs. The FIM has sold out to corporate greed. You see that with, for example, people who oversee the military (like the FIM oversees trials) who get in bed with the military equipment manufacturers, like the FIM is doing with the trial$ manufacturers. They already tried this "no-fun" route around 1998, and then they had to change it back a few years later. They never learn.

I had a dream I was riding my faithful Gas Gas, which I've nicknamed "Hop-along"(it's honestly a RAGA, no less....hehe, some will get the FIM-related humor) right into the next FIM trials rules committee meeting, perfectly Jap Zapping up onto the top of their fascist conference table (feet up!), then I'll balance on top of the table and gleefully stop, hop, stop, hop some MORE, and continue stopping/hopping (way way more than the allotted 90 seconds) while I spout the unanamous demands of all Trials Central forum members that they give us our sport back! Heck, if I REALLY want to get their attention, then I might even roll BACKWARDS(!) on said table, hopefully hitting Michaud's mocha and spilling it all over him, and yell at him "remember when we could do that, Theirry!?" (Interestingly, I actually rode against the dude in multiple world rounds - and I never beat him (probably because we was better at rolling backwards than me on my Fantic), so now's my chance to finally get even.)

Apparently so do the folks at the FIM!

It's my own special brand, and I've been partaking of since I was 12 years old (and have been addicted for 30+ years), it's called "Love Of Trials". Some people at the local pub are addicted to hops and barley....I'm just addicted to HOPS. Long live stop-and-hop! ("The Stop and Hop", sounds like a great name for a new pub in Glasgow, or Cotswolds, or West Leeds, by the way.) Maybe I should start a 12-step program (and as long as I don't STOP for a billionth of a second while taking said 12 steps, the FIM might leave me alone.) When you let a group of mostly balance-challenged motorcycle riders (what percentage of all FIM members are trials riders!?) take control of our sport, then "that's not REAL motorcycle riding" is what we'll be stuck with, as we are seeing this year. From now on let's all refer to "no-stop trials" as "no-fun trials". And let's refer to "stop and hop" trials as.....yep.....you guessed it......you saw this coming....FUNTRIALS! Hey, that'd be an AWESOME username.....oh wait, nevermind.

Stop to masterfully catch your balance, giving the crowd a thrill?....why that's arguably worse than an Endurocross rider doing that (think about that - one "five" and a trials rider can drop a few places in the standings, but an Endurocross rider who stops dead or just a split-second would hardly ever drop in the standings, of course.) Use all the skills you possess to jump the bike magically sideways 3 times, to heroically save a dab?....fugetaboutit! MotoGP riders can't do that, so why should we let YOU? We WANT to take the sport back to the 1960's, when nobody had all these fancy-shmancy "skills" they have today. "Evolution of the sport"?....we certainly don't want that! Work hard to tame a vicious world-class section by strategically hopping stationary on your back wheel, like only a handful of people on the planet can even dream of?...as a reward, we're going to give you the same score as if you fell flat on your face ten times in the section. (Watch Caby in that Goebbels-like FIM propaganda/how-to-score video demonstrate that feat - that only a handful of riders in the world can even dream of doing - and see how that's now STRICKLY VERBOTTEN, for reasons only our elite FIM overlords understand.) "Fourth Reich"? Try to roll backwards, up an incredibly difficult incline, as only the best-ever could even dream of, to line up for a spectacular attempt at a 8 foot tall rock face, to wow the crowd and advance the popularity of the sport!?.....DON'T YOU DARE, THAT'S 5 BIG ONES, FELLA! HOW DARE YOU! WE'D GIVE YOU A "10" IF WE COULD! (Ooops, after reading this they'll probably try to do that too....sorry..) Have the engine die on you in a section and then masterfully conjure up all the balance you can muster and save it for a clean by restarting the engine, w/out even dabbing, giving us something to tell our grandchildren about!?....sorry, Mr. Bou, you've won more world titles than anyone ever, but that great ability is going to cost you the victory on the second day in Japan, I'm afraid....we can't have any great skills on display in these new FIM World Rounds, as it will make the Endurocross riders look bad by comparison (just watch an Endurocross, they are constantly getting completely stuck on those rock piles that would be like a paved highway to World Trials riders...sad really.) Masterfully clean the entire section, but only six inches from the end gate do any of those things mentioned above, and they'll hit you with the EXACT SAME score as my 97 year-old grandmother would score if she tackled those World Round sections in her motorized wheel-chair. "Fairness" doesn't seem to be a concept the FIM understands. Saint Blazusiak dominates Endurocross, but could only muster 8th place in the trials world rounds (back in the pre-FIM-Gestapo days, that is.) So are these new rules designed to help the less-advanced riders compete with the real studs? They see former trials riders dominate Endurocross, so are they secretly trying to nip that in the bud for the future? Are they secretly trying to get people to buy enduro bikes instead of trials bikes? Is the FIM just JEALOUS of people who can balance a motorcycle while stopped? They've tried, but they can't do that on their Harleys, so it must be a bad thing, right? Ok, ok, ok, I give in, how about you just give them ONE point for doing all of the above-mentioned "aggregious" (yet highly skillful) things!?...."Nein, nein, nein!", they say, because showing skills that only a handful of people in the entire world can do deserves the very MAXIMUM penalty, because of some warped belief that that will somehow magically help bike sales....or help solve global warming...or cure cancer...actually I don't really know what the heck they think they are accomplishing - except of course ruining a sport we all love. So why don't you in the FIM just be honest with us and admit that you subconsciously yearn for basically "Observed Endurocross", and just change the dang name. You can have it.

That's why I got the lanyard, I kept losing my darn bike. But not anymore. Wait, after reading through this thread it seems like you guys are implying that the lanyard PULLS AWAY from the bike at some point(?)....but then I couldn't find my bike.

Dead men have a real hard time adhering to the new "constant motion" rule, for one thing.

Speaking of Goldendale: as I write this the boys are heading out to ride in Goldendale.....made it last year, but can't this year.

I put a dead-man switch on my Gasser last year (and, uh, no, I'm not planning on riding world rounds, I just wanted the extra bit of safety.)

Slippery sections....slippery sections are what Jarvis EXCELLED at, relative to his results on dry grippy stuff, more than any world rider I've ever seen. Jarvis won 3 of 6 World rounds at one point when Dougie was ranked #1. Some people sell their soul to the Devil to get what they want, but I think Jarvis maybe sold his soul to the Rain God to get what he wanted. :-)

The GasGas factory report on TC about the Japanese round said that all the riders hate the new rule.....I doubt that's 100% true, but I bet it's very close to being accurate.

Just LOOK at what this one new rule has reduced this once-proud sport to.

The answer is that obviously, OBVIOUSLY, the rules need to go back to stop-ok.

Yes, it's SO MUCH EASIER TO OBSERVE NOW!!!!!!!!! (You just give them all a FIVE now because they all seem to still stop for a split second at one time or another in the in the section.....or you DON'T give them a five and make a complete farce of the so called "rule".) I looked up the definition of the word "rule" in the FIM handbook, and it said "see the word 'guideline'".

Let's boycott the British Round! Let's boycott the British Round! Let's boycott the British Round! Let's boycott the British Round! Let's boycott the British Round! Let's boycott the British Round!

The only worse decision the FIM could possibly make would be to mandate that the bikes go back to what they had before the invention of the round wheel (...you k.now, the square wheels the cavemen probably used....don't put that past the FIM.....)

No I don't think the ENGINE needs some adjustment (that was a CLEAN!), I think the new no-stop RULES need adjustment! I could have dragged my bike through that section, putting my foot down a million times, and I'd only get a 3, yet Toni gets the maximum penalty (and loses out on the top spot!) because of the stupid new rules!? Incredible.