briefly from my perspective (a very long way south) why does your "centre" (from my perspective and the above documents it's what the SACU appears to be) need to hire 4 full time members of staff if it is only a "centre". worst ways a 40 hour week is £12.3K per year so you have to clear a lot of money. also out lot down here have stopped send stewards to trials (what happens? results posted afterwards so no protests) so more costs cut. each "centre" gets to chose its own funding method, we've picked a per rider basis so if you have a trial with just 6 riders you haven't got to clear any fixed overhead.
obviously there a certain differences for scots law compared to what the ACU covers (but then again there must be diffrences for channel island and IOM, hey the IOM is a centre)
NB these are my own personally observations, not the views of the SEC ACU, Sidcup, or anyone else
might be an issue if you was involved in a crash on the road, especially with tyre failure, but as above who is doing that amount of road work with them ???
it would probably be an issue with the tyre fitter's insurance unless he added a disclaimer to the bill so he had paperwork to cover his a***
we got paper boy bags, old army nap sack (because we cards rather than pegs) and a few royal mail bags. royal mail one are undoubtedly the best by a long way but how you (or we) acquire them i don't know
on the several CofC seminars i've attended this issue (being able to inspect sections, ask for a five, etc) has come up. the thinking had been explained that riders must not be forced to do something they don't feel capable of on safety grounds (duty of care, etc)
I have had riders that have recently moved up a class tell me after the event "That (insert crazyish obstacle here) in that section was gnarly, but I never would have thought I could ride that if it wasn't put in a section"
that's ***my*** whole problem with "practice", i'll never do anything hard enough to test/push me, i'll only do stuff i've done before. if a section is laid out, you walk it and then see others ride it, see it can be done (hopefully) and then i'll atempt it and improve upon it.
i'm under the impression that the AMCA head office in Cannock has a library of all copies of tmx and maybe other things (ie MCN, etc when they did off road news). obviously British library will have mcn and the two rival magazine (whose name escapes me who were the main news sources). doesn't mortons media (publishers of old bike mart, etc) own the archive of one/both of these?
there are three "tiers" of trials tyres and pricing reflects this;
top tier are the x-light, x11, dunlop and IRC --> dunlops don't sell down south (presumably better on rock?), IRC sell really well down south due to performance on mud. x11 sell everywhere and x-lights cost a bit more and wear quicker but if you've the money to spend....
middle tier are Pirellis --> good for roadwork and enduros (some insist on trials tyres). anecdotally good on snow/ice (but i've not tried)
bottom tier --> anything cheap (mitas, vee rubber, etc) not really used for competition trials, maybe the odd pre65 rider, etc
not seen or heard of anyone using a golden tyre yet, could be very interesting. bridgestone tw24 has long since been discontinued.
how much land/decent section on the land have you?
how many observers have you?
how much day light have you?
what classes are you running (expert to beginers, pre 67, rigid, sidecar, pre 67 sidecar, trail bikes, etc)
on our bit of land we can put out 15 to 20 really good sections for good modern solos, while there are another 15+ sections avliable that would be too easy for good solos, however others have no where for sidecars, rigids, trail bikes, etc, etc
we run two big (100 to 130) trials in the winter - 20 sections, two laps - limiting factors being the land, number of observers and daylight. we've tried playing with the formula but queues with that number of riders and observing in the dark (4pm in mid winter is really dark!)
as to points, if the weather co-operates, then the class winner should be loosing a few marks (3 to 10) but depending on the size and ability range in the class the last person in that class could be a long way back. one of the things as a CofC I study is the "spread" of marks - how far from 1st in class to last in class. i also study whether certain sections for certain classes were possible (ie did everyone go though for 3 or 5's - signs that that section/route in that section was too hard). riders do enjoy a low scoring trial, but it makes discerning results harder, cryptically a higher scoring trial (say winner on 30) can be much more satisfying as there is opportunity to drop a 5 and still win/be competitive.
with enter in advance you have some idea of who / how many will turn up and this helps you plan, but as above don't get too fixated on one person in a class who is too good or too bad (eg if Raga turned up tomorrow, are you trying to take a mark off him?)
long answer - there is a national deal on price and conditions but i know many details can/do vary locally. price down here is per rider (one rate for trials, another for enduro) above a set minimum (i think its 50 but i might be getting mixed up with the MOD land deal). Forestry want at least 6 months notice of date, and you have to consider stuff like SSSI (some might forbid bikes, other might just be during bird nesting). forestry are also hot on paddock mats so oil & fuel isn't spilt. going to need a good & decent risk assessment, probably need to have loos. often even is national and local forestry commission offices are OK, the decision will be passed along to the warden for that forest who will say what areas can/can't be used. obviously they don't speak our lingo (at beast they might know what an enduro is, but not a trial) so there will be communication issues over what you want to do.
once you were/are signed up as a member, you then get a search box where you can enter parts numbers
they had a page somewhere with rev3 and later parts diagrams but for my techno i got a parts diagram from here and punching in these old numbers still gets results
SSSI and national parks have been about for a long time (national parks since the late 1940s).
Planning law in England and Wales allows us to run trials on land *without planning permission* for 14/28days a year (the General Permitted Development Order - GPDO) ~ this has been about since the late 1940s. There is an exception to the GPDO is for national parks and SSSI, ie we need to apply for planning permission to run events on land inside national parks and SSSI.
just like the MSA saga for road trials (again an old - 1960s - law) we are still being caught out on old laws we have never got our heads around/chose to ignore until we've been caught.
now of course some SSSI down here on MOD land are just for nesting birds so the land is avaliable outside the nesting season, so without looking up what the SSSI is for i wouldn't judge it yet.
story out of the ACU is they are lobbying government, progress might be possible, but in the mean time we have to do it by the book.
down here, since the only 3 events with road work (all LDTs - no other trials or enduros use roadwork) were already jumping through the MSA hoops i can't say its changed anything
it takes longer but its more fun to ride as a group
you always get some riders who manage to complete the trial (say 2x20 or 4x10) before others have even completed one lap (esepcailly if its easier novice route by skilled riders versus hard section for experts)
we buy arrows for route marking (as we also run enduros) from the MWTRA (i think?) - available in day glo orange and green on a plasticised material
re castrol arrows - we used to have some (lent them to a major magazine for a photo shoot and they lost them .....) - they were on correx, day glo orange.
looking around my work (sign supplies) day glo orange vinyl is very short life span (6 month???) , while correx would be no problem - did you print straight to correx or printable vinyl or ???
the location of the sidecar wheel in relation to solo. this location is governed by the competition rules (ie re width of the outfit) and practicalities (re toe in and how far forward) to make the outfit work!
a UHD tube (michelin 4mm thick other up to 6mm thick) is over the top for trials. a standard mx reinforced is normally unnecessary. more to do with your fitting technique i'm afraid.
sometimes there can be a issue with how the tyre was store/shipped - ie the sidewalls compress, so what i've seen guys do is put a tube in the tyre to get it to normal shape....
never yet herd of anyone who uses them, my dad runs a major tyre depot here in Kent (just outside London) and sells lots of trials tyres (Michelin, IRC, Pirelli, Vee Rubber and very rarely Dunlop). I'm sure it wouldn't be insurmountable to mail order some tyres to you (i think several of the online shops in the UK also offer tyres), but it might depend upon international couriers...
the next practice trial at Canada Heights is Wednesday 10th July
check out here on the NKTC site for other such events
also look at OWLS, GEST, Bexleyheath, etc club trials (i've done several bexleyheath ones, just like practice trials, mark yourself, many routes, etc). there are other clubs that do club trials further afield.
i think Hook Woods club do B&W on the 4th Saturday.
Technically against the rules doing it 3 times and not once per lap.
technically yes, but in practice it might not be best to enforce this one in this case to rigidly.
obviously is such cases one section is a "problem" that in future the CofC/club/etc would seek to remedy but on the day there is little else you can do (I suppose it varies between a multi-lap small piece of ground event versus a large 1 or 2 lap event). You might find that if the section was one that became easier as more people rode it (eg sand) than a rider who had to wait might feel they had legitimate ground for a protest putting the CofC in a tricky position ...
but having a 140 riders and a good trial, etc is a nice position to be in ...
we don't use that name down here so one has to guess what level your talking about, also helps when you let on how many routes there are (in an effort to make cross regional comparisons)
i on the other hand will keep on collecting the wooden spoon at the back of the novice (easy) route with my infrequent and irregular rides
The Trials Reform Group (Scotland)
in UK Trials Talk
Posted
briefly from my perspective (a very long way south) why does your "centre" (from my perspective and the above documents it's what the SACU appears to be) need to hire 4 full time members of staff if it is only a "centre". worst ways a 40 hour week is £12.3K per year so you have to clear a lot of money. also out lot down here have stopped send stewards to trials (what happens? results posted afterwards so no protests) so more costs cut. each "centre" gets to chose its own funding method, we've picked a per rider basis so if you have a trial with just 6 riders you haven't got to clear any fixed overhead.
obviously there a certain differences for scots law compared to what the ACU covers (but then again there must be diffrences for channel island and IOM, hey the IOM is a centre)
NB these are my own personally observations, not the views of the SEC ACU, Sidcup, or anyone else