As many of you will know, we had to cancel the Retro65 2 day trial due to be held near Welshpool a few weeks ago.

60 entries were needed to make running the event financially viable and at the closing date we had only received 26.

On the same weekend the Scarborough club ran a two day, Westmoreland club held a round of the Sammy Miller series and then there was the Euro Trial in Gloucestershire.

Are there too many events or should we have followed the trend and opened the trial to Twin Shocks, Air cooled Mono's, Trail bikes etc. and had two routes instead of trying to run a genuine classic bike trial with a single route?

Don't mean to change the subject, but I wish I had your problem. It's difficult to find a trials event in New England, and you can forget about Vintage events. AHRMA, to my knowledge, doesn't have any trials in New England. I ride a 73 Ossa here, but have to ride the Modern B Line. Certainly not designed, with vintage bikes in mind. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have to decide which trials to go to on the weekend. You are very lucky, although I understand the financial end of your concern.

same problem every july.. scarborough have run a two day p65 for a considerable time and all the yorkies and lancs lads ride there. the lake district sammy miller trial has been run for 4/5 years now and its mainly twin shocks ( tlrs..) they had no side cars and only one trailbike entry

there is'nt room for both never mind others on the same weekend

sadly this has been the problem for many years. clubs that run classic events do not seem to comunicate with each other to let them know when they are running events. some like scarborough, scottish, exmoor & sun inn have run on the same weekends for years.

maybe this sort of communication would prevent future clashes?

I dont think there are too many events in the summer,for the last 6 years our little Derbyshire travelling trialing circus complete with caravans start at easter in Exmoor and carry on via Scotland , Richmond Blue bar, Scarborough, Billsdale, Manx{if you can get in} and The lakes and some times dartmoor 2 day {if it doesn't clash with the Lakes}. Thats approx one a month. Throw in a northern bike round and a Sammy Miller a month still leaves quite a few week ends to put on another quality 2dayer in the summer. Couple of my mates have done the welsh 2 day when it hasn't clashed with Scarborough and said it was an exellent weekend but they wouldnt sacrifice scarborough for it. {due to logistics}. My opinion is late July early August would be an ideal time the retro 2 day as not every one wants to travel to the Nostalger to do a one day trial and watch all the other fun and games and theres not alot else on other than club trials around that time. 6 or 7 of us would definately do another 2 dayer around this time. Half a dozen phone calls to other clubs to find out dates would stop the clash of events and then we could look forward to another event that could get itself as established as the older events.

Been thinking about this one,how hard would it be to have a separate bit of the forum for club officials to organise dates on to avoid clashes ? It would also help if ALL the clubs were a bit more web friendly and used this forums calender.As for keeping a trial to rigid pre65 only,well thats fine but how long will it last ? The twin routes of the clubs that I ride,(Bath,Somerton,Golden Valley and SWCTA.) seem to manage to cater for everything from girder/rigid to over 50's on A/C mono's. We all share a common interest and ride at different levels,so as long as the sections are sensibly marked out I cant see how it can be any better.I currently ride twinshock,but in the next couple of years I have every intention of building a rigid pre65 to ride on some of the easier trials.Having a trial to ride is better than no trial at all,and if there are bikes of different types even better - half the enjoyment for me is looking at other riders bikes,their individual mods and often the very high standard of workmanship.

Hi Jerryhatrick

It's not that there are too many quality trials in the calendar, it's just that they are not well spread out.

I too have heard good reports about your event and would love to do it.

The pre-65 riders are out there but it's not a good idea clashing with Scarborough, the Bonanza, Kendal Nostalgia, any Sammy or Northern British round.

Plus as a single route event, you would not get the 20 to 30% of pre65 riders who normally ride the easy route.

Add to this that I for one never saw your event's regs advertised but maybe I wasn't looking in the right place.

As for inviting twinshocks, in every trial I have ridden where they were a major part of the entry, C of Cs feel the need the set the sections to take marks from these '80s twinshocks who generally have riders in their 40's or so. This of course puts off the big bike riders and even the Cubs and James etc in lesser riders hands (often in their 50's and 60's) struggle on the tight turns and bigger steps needed to take marks from their younger counterparts.

Yes the TShocks are coming back in greater numbers. But mixing them will only discourage pre65s especially on a single route course.

So please give it another go. How about trying the 3rd weekend in July. No big pre65 events today I think. Good luck.

What seems clear to me from the above posts is that it just lacks co-ordination and communication. The organisations to help are there aren't they? - ACU / AMCA / Trials Central? I think it just needs someone to take the lead to maintain, collate and promulgate an events diary (there is one here on TC of course) and maybe contact some of those events organisers who don't currently use the internet but do stage large events.

Is a diary organised by type of event needed?

The other thing to bear in mind of course is that many of the riders in the target audience have more than one bike covering more than one class.

I know the problem with clashing dates, I triad to organise a Beamish Trial for early June and only had 4 entries, partly because it clashed with a Sammy Miller round.

Just stumbled upon this thread looking for anything re Somerton club. Anyway surely a mix of different bikes as Jon V8 says is a good thing.Let them all in, if it's too easy for some they won't be back. (may be glad of a ride one weekend) I rode the Hawks trial last week there was a mix there of everything, and those O 50 a/c monos are not in huge numbers and it all works well. Just my 2p worth.

Edited August 11, 200917 yr by bo drinker

Just stumbled upon this thread looking for anything re Somerton club. Anyway surely a mix of different bikes as Jon V8 says is a good thing.Let them all in, if it's too easy for some they won't be back. (may be glad of a ride one weekend) I rode the Hawks trial last week there was a mix there of everything, and those O 50 a/c monos are not in huge numbers and it all works well. Just my 2p worth.

Which one Bo ? There are 2 Somerton clubs,Somerton Classic - which is AMCA. And Somerton DMCLCC which is ACU. Caught me out once as I normally ride Bath,GV,SWCTA and the Somerton Classic - I turned up at one of the other club's with no ACU licence - Oops....

Which one Bo ? There are 2 Somerton clubs,Somerton Classic - which is AMCA. And Somerton DMCLCC which is ACU. Caught me out once as I normally ride Bath,GV,SWCTA and the Somerton Classic - I turned up at one of the other club's with no ACU licence - Oops....

Hi Jon. Somerton classic, is the venue Emborough ponds ?(not sure). , pre 65/ t shock club. All from memory as I am too tight to buy tmx.(get regs in asda)

Yep,Emborough ponds -Aug 23rd at 11am. Signposted off the B3139 + A37. Hopefully I'll be there ,if I get back from Devon in time. It is the AMCA club too.