rabie

there is an old saying ; "real men ride 500's" - so err ... good luck!

roughly speaking in the uk a

it was the toughest section of the event that i saw (i only missed two). they came across that route from behind the guy's hat, going up a steep uphill. if you look closely in front is a huge hole for the wheel to drop in. most guys got the bike to there then for a very gnerearous three (or so) were manhandling the bike forward to stop it falling off the route. in front was a further steep clay uphill with not a lot of grip and a sharp 90 degree right hander. on lap 1 i think i only saw gravis get through it cleen

i would guess the FIM system is set up that each FMN (eg ACU, AMA, etc) funds their efforts at the respect team competitions. how they do it is not specified. as a watcher of the US MX scene from afar I'm well aware of how they've self funded the team effort by sourcing their own sponsors (did well this year but previously it was event organisers chipping in) .... i know the our antipodean cousins have however been able to persuade their respective governemnt's for some help (elite sport or something they call in in NZ)

for a certain Ross Danby fan

Went along to the Southern Experts (Sunbeam, Sittingbourne and Barham clubs) at the weekend down at Combe Valley, Dover Was a bit cold, but dry. Good ride from Jarvis!!! (see front page story here) and a lot of the others seamed to struggle with the tough sections Some pics (i took a few more so ask if your after a particular rider)

stupidly (or not ) we pay for it (and for enduro the ISDE and MX the MXDN) out of each sports relevenat budget each sport's budget comes from a central pot which is an allocation of all the licence fees from all riders (and thankfully trials is a big sport and circa 90% of riders maybe 95% are ACU members) thus for smallish sports that cost a lot of money (like enduro and the ISDE; two teams, 10 riders, 6 days often a long way overseas) in MX we do a retail deal with a shirt company to sell team shirts, but i don't think that makes very much money (compared to the costs). enduro do lots of extra fund-raising things because is is so expensive (like

Data protection - if i remember correctly it is not as onerous as Christoff implies. a) your not collecting it electronically, your collecting it for a one time purpose (ie not using it to create a mailing list), c) there is some opt out/something or other for volunteer run sports clubs we had someone in our club look into this very carefully when we put our membership database onto a PC and it was explained to our committee who were satisfied with the the research (as some were very worried about it)

this issue has come up in some AMCA MX groups in 2007 and 2006, leading some to **** themselves and stopped scrutinering in some groups for a period of time (i'm led to believe these groups concerned have resumed this). ok the phrase "checking for championship compliance", is what you say to the lawyers, etc asking. thus the rider is fundamentally responsible for a safe machine rather than the organiser. how we do it, (and we could be wrong), is at the start the machine examiner as you say checks the spokes, the throttle snaps back, etc of all bikes as they go to the starter. in mx/enduro we do some time before the start (at the same time a signing on), but there is a lot more scope for failure. i couldn't really talk about how we record this as i'm not a technical officer, but as i say there is the form the the technical officer (machine examiner) fills in. i guess in trials we don't require the machine examiner to sit a technical seminar (they do in MX & Enduro) think of some different examples of key areas beyond safety we check - the rider has a proper helmet ie not a cycle helmet (in MX & enduro we check it has a gold/silver current ACU sticker), are they the right tyres (very crucial in enduro, but conceivably someone might run mx tyres in a trial), sound (we have a sound limit you can test - we do in MX & Enduro) in a sport like trials where often riders are competent and buying newish bikes built to a standard the only real issues is the sprocket guard looking at it from the risk assessment point of view is a relativity new way of looking at it - yes we should perhaps acknowledge we look for the most glaring safety errors, but we must caveat that the bike is the riders responsibility. also the riders can't claim is injured by another riders bike, while punters/joe public are explicitly covered by our insurance (public liability and third party). re 2 day+ event, esp the SSDT, what i remember from my CofC seminar is that part of the parc ferme thing is that the bikes have been unable to work on. in MX for sound testing top teams bring wheelbarrows of pipes to be tested and they are all marked, and someone checks this when they go to the start line. often at our cnetre MX & enduro events people use little stickers on the number plates of coloured little cable ties (which again are checked at start) .... its probably best someone who has done a technical seminar answer some of these questions (its not my area at all!) or someone from the Trials and Enduro Committee or Technical Panel

as part of your event pack of paper work from your permit issuing authority (centre/rugby) (IIRC) you should have a yellow form for the technical officer to fill in, where they can list all those who failed technical inspection and what action was taken. our guys generally tick riders off in the programme then fill in the above form at the end of the the examination peroid

ok lets be very clear here (and this question popos up also in mx and enduros under ACU and other "sanctioning bodies") TSR8 - the person doing this is checking for *** Championship Compliance, NOT SAFTEY *** now you know, i know, and everyone else knows the checklists madated has got very little to do with championship complaince, and a lot to do with what looks like saftey, but offcially its not saftey. its down to the rider to ensure their machine is safe similarly for events (trials or enduro) with roadwork, its not the organisers job to ensure the bike is road legal (or the rider has a road lsicene, MOT, insurance, etc) - however many organisers make competitors take out the extra RTA insurance (because riders policies exclude this), but they don't have to the onus is really upon the rider for safety but we (organisers) do this technical examination to double check if you will (and some riders, like me, don't know anything about maintenance at all!!!) if as in this example the official doing this wants some back up/qualification then he can go on a "technical officers" (formerly scrutiner) course (regional level is the entry level) re sprocket covers, as bikespace points out in the link to Xispa, (and as i understand the rules) there does need to be a cover over the sprocket there, and many rider make their own covers. some clubs are really hot on this, and some riders don't like it (esp in muddy events), but AFAIK its a really good idea

my key question really is could either of you explain the basics of the it all first. i really don't grasp the database bit - i mean i've used access and apreciate how powerful they are but don't understand how one makes one (or whatever) to allow one to get to the CMS stage, where i presume lots of trial (dab pun) and error get me the a site looking like i want it secondly the actual CMS bit (beyond the webmaster) editing component isn't so central as i've only a handful of users in mind (rather than any tom, dick or harry), what i'm more concerned about is trying to streamline the content delivery and bring it into the 21st century (delivery and graphically), as i think/hope the content is already there just very labour intensive and possibly not as accessible enough to joe public editing graphics is not my field at all (ie i can do paint buts that's about it!) so i might have to really beg, borrow and (hopefully not) steal for that one I guess this would require a complete new site from the ground up so anyone's thoughts and comments about how to design and present a club site (we're a large club putting on a lot of events across 3/4 disciplines) would also be nice (learn from the others before i repeat your mistakes - i hope!) thanks guys

Hi all, technical question for you all Been running my clubs website (http://www.sidcupmotorcycleclub.co.uk/) for ages - March 2000 i think. I'm by now somewhat confident with html and have some basic understanding of css and am using a (old) WYSIWYG editor. I'm still using framesets (i know its evil) as i want to show some of the same data across the thousands of pages i've got. I would really like to modernise the site, and as i look around at other clubs sites, many have taken advantage of stuff like PHP, mySQL, jamoola, etc, etc - but for my sins i really don't understand how all this database driven stuff works. even some reading of various products manuals, wikipedia, etc doesn't really inform me enough to know whether this is something i could do or even where to begin. A quick nose around reveals that several of you out there run club websites that have utilised this sort of stuff and some pointers about this subject (and what pitfulls to avoid) would be really useful as i understand it, i have sufficient webspace and database support from my hosting company but beyond that i'm rather clueless the idea of CMS appeals to me as we run a lot of events across several disciplines (ie Trials, MX, LDT and Enduro) and now have several computer literate members who would be capable of doing some work themselves. not sure how related this is, but i would love to work out how to do some sort of automated gallery so that photos could be uploaded a lot easier than they are now (creating pages of photos using a WYSIWYG editor) i don't think i want anything too clever (like feedback forms or e-commerce shops of anything like that) and am somewhat ambilivant about adding a forum (web is full of underused and underpopulated forums) hope that gives you some indication about what i'm on about, please ask any questions if that would help thanks in advance rabie (aka Jamie Clarke of Sidcup & DMCC)

no where near crazy enough (yet) !!! that and your way to far north rabie - son of a sidecar driver and passanger

hi Matt Jamie

"the desert" is illegal i'm afrid see this long thread over on mxtrax - http://www.adrenalintrip.net/mansfield-des...ys=10000&58 and notably this picture

a few people in my club (Sidcup) go down to Dorset to ride youth & adult hare and hound with "track n trail" (http://www.trackntrail.biz/) herd good reports of their events so give it a look

i presume your in the UK ACU don't do youth (ie under 16) enduros AMCA (onyl 2 enduros clubs) don't either there are a few ORPA clubs about that do, notable track n trail around Dorset and someone else around Gloucestershire way (various classes various ages) have a google around, but very dependant upon where you are

ROFLOL :banana2:

John Collins makes some very valid points and of course the guy this thread is about is in Northern Ireland and is thus outside the ACU ... as i understand what the paranoia is about is watercourse contamination by cleaning products and waste oil, etc us silly MX'ers (we are a MX, Enduro and Trials club at the same venue, all ACU) have a different take on the rule. you can wash your bike at venues but if a proper washing bay is built it must have a proper oil catching trap - thus no track (that i know of) has ever built one (even the permanent circuits) and all mx just wash their bikes by their vans .... (and thus vans get stuck ). most of them use a plastic oli drum which lots of people can get you for free (there is a thread about sourcing them on mxtrax's "mx pits" forum)

woods4sale and some other similar sites (http://www.woodlands.co.uk/) are all about buying larger woodlands and selling them in small (sub 10 acres) parcels to townies mainly we (the SEC ACU) have looked at a few sites that have come up in the past, sites like http://www.johnclegg.co.uk/ show some bigger woods up for sale. the problem is as we (the local ACU) perceive it is that it would be better to buy a site already in use and then (if needed to) develop it. going to a "green field" could risk a quick injunction and make your purchase worthless (ie watch SSSI, national parks, etc) also at the same time there is still a lot of land out there (esp MOD and Forestry land, but also large landowners) that can be used but you've got to actually pay for it (ie trials is too cheap and most organisers aren't charging enough to pay enough)

as far as i know there is no where that is fully legal in the south there are some light grey places, where you pay and no one really has investigated planning and insurance (ie you get away with it), but that might be further afield (Sussex/Surrey way) there are some almost black places like you mention where you ride illegally and its semi tolerated generally speaking however there are so many trials clubs down here in the south east (kent, sussex and surrey) - circa 20+ that there are events every weekend. clubs trials, group trials and "beginner and wobbler" trials are ideal for beginners wanting to get to grips with trials (it worked for me!) there are six clubs in the east kent area that make up the East Kent Trials combine, but only a few have websites; http://www.fmcctrials.co.uk/ (Folkestone), http://www.gest-club.co.uk/ (Hastings) and http://www.tenterdenanddistrictmcc.co.uk/ (Tenterden) there is also the Ashford club, Barham club, Sittingbourne club you might also want to check out ; http://nktc.org.uk/ (trials in west kent) http://www.southeasttrialscombine.org.uk/ (all ACU trials in Kent, Sussex and Surrey) http://www.acu.org.uk/directory/centre.aspx?id=13 (another directory page for the Southeastern centre)

lookingat a handook helemt stickers are only for speed events (inc enduro). gold covers everything (inc road race), silver just off road and white 50cc youth MX

for our pre65 trial the big award (for 1 year) is a lorry engine piston mounted on wood

ohhh thanks