motovita

Or they work their asses off, take their lumps and learn from the experience, and eventually do some ass kicking of their own.

I agree, and keep it simple 180 pound minimum weight, min 5 liters of fuel capacity and a functional seat. Trials tires, of course, other than that anything goes. And if you want to attract new riders, forget "no stop" rules, too complicated. These machines would be the ultimate trail/woods bikes so resale of competition bikes would be excellent.

Yes I'm familiar with the 200. It's certainly one of the best twin shocks around. And you've got a disc brake as well. I'd say it's worth investing in a good pair of shocks. I don't imagine very many 123s made it into the U.S.

I wonder where U.S. motocross would be today if european riders had not come here in the 70's and had not a few americans gone to europe to contest the world championships. Things seem to have worked out pretty well for us in that instance.

I wasn't aware that there was such a Cota. In that case, and since it's not AHRMA legal anyway, I'd get the best shocks you can afford and have fun.

I reccomend you start with NATC lines (they have 4 now I believe) and then add your lower class lines in evenly spaced increments down from there.

Unless you've got full size wheels on your Cota, and it's your primary bike, I'd say the Rock Shocks would be a major waste of $. I have The NJBs on my Bultaco and they work fine. If you damage one you simply replace it.

Glad you like it ridg Our club is considering a promotional video, that we would use for free distribution. Essentially a sales tool to encourage/recruit new riders. We don't need to show off advanced techniques (plenty of that out there allready). We'd like to show the fun, family side of our Trials events and show prospective riders what to expect. The video could help a new rider come to their first event more prepared and not fearfull that they will be expected to ride up a 6 foot wall. I'm not sure our little club will have the wherewithall to produce such a video. I wonder if it's allready been done or if anone else out there would like to cooperate (or take the lead) on such a project. Any ideas?

Ridg If you go to our home page, My link you will find some informational documents that are aimed at new marshals. Parts of them have been lifted (stolen) off of other clubs websites. Feel free to do the same.

Which is why it's critical to have the gaps between classes evenly spaced. That was the point I was trying to make.

You really should ride a gate Trial. If you post your location you might get some invitations. You are correct that a gate Trial tends to favor the conservative rider. I generally ride one gate Trial a year and I generally finish poorly because, like you, I like to attempt things I'm not sure I can do. I'm an old guy, not results driven, so at the end of the day I've had as much fun as a conventional event. So you can still make the hard attempts, but your score may suffer. That can be minimized by tweaking the rules, as you've mentioned. None the less I can't recall any gate Trial that the overall high score wasn't achieved by the best rider at the event.

Excellent post, very much appreciated. Two variations we've used are allowing the crossing of your line and a time limit on the sections. I suppose it would be good to have a nationwide standard for a gate Trial and try it out. I think that anything that can be done to simplify scoring and minimize observing will help.

Good point, and I have done so, as well as advocated it for others. But I don't enjoy riding a Trial that can only take a few points from me.

Back to the original post. I believe I've just learned something that opened my eyes. While meeting with some friends in a neighboring Trials club I was very skeptical when they told me that every time they've quit mailing printed flyers to their members,and relied primarily on e mail and published flyers on their website, attendance dropped. As doubtfull as I was I decided to poll our riders at our annual banquet last night. We have always kept a list of people who have asked for printed flyers and dutifully mailed to them whether they have computer access or not. Otherwise we've been relying on e mail and our website for event advertising. I asked the riders in the room to raise their hands if they thought that receiving a printed flyer in the mail was preferable to an e mail and if they thought that it could make a difference in rider turnout and event promotion. NEARLY HALF OF THE RIDERS IN THE ROOM RAISED THEIR HANDS! I was shocked. These were mostly professional men who use a computer every day of the week! I explained how the print button on their computers worked, they were not impressed. I told them that they could simply tell our club secretary, who was seated next to me, that they would like to receive mailed copies,and he would accommodate them. At the end of the evening I checked with said secretary to see how many had asked to be added to our mailing list, the answer was zero! So the guys who won't hit the print button on their computer also won't take four steps across the room to ask us to send them the printed copies that they believe are important to both themselves and the club! I cannot explain this phenomenon but apparently it's real. So tomorrow I will call my copy shop and inquire about mailing flyers in quantity for us.

COMMENTS FOR RIDGRUNR As to your scenario of the beginning rider(s). One thing I have used successfully is to send out 1 or 2 upper level riders with each group of lower level riders. The upper level riders are scorers, guides and coaches for their group. Normally this is done in the morning then in the afternoon the upper level riders compete. They may be scored by observers from the morning groups or self scored in their own groups. There is the possibility of having a morning rider ride with an afternoon group and scoring for them but a lower level rider may hve trouble keeping up with experienced riders on a tough loop. As to your low target scores for lower classes proposal I believe it can only apply to your lowest class. The ones with nowhere to drop down to. It is vital to have evenly spaced, moderate steps between classes! If not you will have riders reluctant to move up due to the big jump in section difficulty they are facing. They may move up too soon and injure or discourage themselves or stay so long in the lower class that they get bored and discourage the lower class riders by dominating the class. You need to also consider riders that need to move down the ladder due to age or injury. For example if I ride an advanced class and take scores in the 70s or 80s then move down to an intermediate class and win easily with a single digit score I'm left with a choice of beating myself up or riding boring sections and stealing trophies from lower level classes. Neither scenario is appealing to me, although I swear I will never resort to quad riding. Big gaps between classes Is something I've long seen as a serious problem in our sport at the club level, and the only riders that should complain about sections being too easy or too hard are the top and bottom classes (although they need consistency between events so they know what class to ride).

When we've offered a free one time ride for any reason that's what we've got. One ride and they go away. Now we are offering a free club membership when they pay for their first ride. That way they have to be interested enough to come up with a few bucks and are more likely to return.

At the last event I rode my 199a started backwards twice. It hasn't done that anwhere else. Timing is set at 2.5mm BTDC and the bike runs well. Would you reccomend advancing the timing further or just consider it an occasional quirk?

This seems to be a common theme across north America. Lets all throw out some ideas to improve the situation. Our club offers $30.00 annual membership and $10.00 entry fee. We give nice awards and serve free lunch. It doesn't get much cheaper than that, and our rider turnouts are shrinking. So the fees aren't the whole story. The cost of traveling to events is a bigger expense. For the past several years I've been promoting a trail bike class at our events so that folks who don't want to invest in a Trials bike can come ride. I've had very little success. In fact I see far more people who want to buy Trials bikes than want to compete in Trials. A lot of our used bikes (and several new) are sold to "cross trainers", trail riders and back yard riders, never to be seen at an event again. If you go to one of the large internet motorcycle forums with a Trials category, you will quickly realize that many, if not most, posts are made by people who don't compete at Trials events. I still think the trail bike class has merit, but perhaps needs more widespread promotion. What do you think?

So when they move into stadiums will it be Super Moto Trials?

Can you supply a link to the Pocket Fast? My search engine can't find it.

I went to the above link and am comparing maps. I assume that "TH" is throttle opening expressed as a percentage, is that correct? What about the colors? do they have a significance? I don't see a legend for them. If anyone can give a short course in reading these maps it would be greatly appreciated.

If you run your shifter up high, as most seem to, there's no need to move the shift lever to the left to install a right side brake. I've often thought the ultimate setup might be brake pedals on both sides. I wonder if it's been done. Hey Steve could you post a photo of the rear frame/fender mounts of your 199B? I want to convert my 199A and I've never seen a 199B in person.

I want to remove the rear frame loop on my 199A. Can anyone post closeup photos of the rear fender mounts on a 199B, or of a similar modification, that I can look at?