turbo Posted April 10, 2015 Report Share Posted April 10, 2015 well perce ,rest assured most of us are grateful for this so your obvious hard work is not in vain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevbowden Posted April 10, 2015 Report Share Posted April 10, 2015 I set out the sections for the recent Powys s3 trial and was secretary of the event and I do sympathise with those riders who are are at the front as the streams are slippery even though we had scrubbed a few of the harder sections whilst we laid out the course. I however feel the lads who are genuinely going for the championships enter early to avoid this problem and the feedback I had from people who rode the event said they still enjoyed it even at the front. We only have a finite amount of time on weekends to put on these events and rely on people giving up their weekends. It is usually the same lads every year for last few years who do all the work for the love of the sport to give the riders a great trial 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigel dabster Posted April 11, 2015 Report Share Posted April 11, 2015 I have scrubbed sections with perce so can vouch for the fact. Coincidentally a well known yorkshire centre expert was riding the same Trial as me in Ripon on the Sunday and i was surprised to see him as a non starter at the s3 round, so maybe what mike says is true, I certainly know of people who no show due to an early number. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmyl Posted April 11, 2015 Report Share Posted April 11, 2015 Be interesting if expert above had permission from S3 organiser to ride elsewhere - I'm sure that is definitely against the rules Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigel dabster Posted April 12, 2015 Report Share Posted April 12, 2015 happy to provide details Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
popty bing Posted April 12, 2015 Report Share Posted April 12, 2015 Same Trials every year, complete waste of time riding an early number as you're only there to scrub the sections. Forget the riders being in the wrong, organisers take responsibility and mark an event out that suits #1 as well as #120 In the last 2 years that I have been involved with the Lomax, we ( Llangollen club) started 8 weeks before the event scouting out sections, clearing fallen trees and planning sections. In every case where a stream was used, we took great care to walk each one, turning over as many stones as we could (slimy side down!), wire brushing particularly slimy sections and have teams of riders from the organising clubs to go up and down them in the 2 weeks before the event to ensure that the streams were in as best a condition as possible so that the early riders were not at too much of a disadvantage. This is, as you may expect very time consuming! However, we felt that it needed doing to give the early riders at least a chance of finishing the section. For this years Lomax, we even put a blog onto the website telling anyone interested that we were doing this to discourage early numbers from pulling out as they were not there just to clean the slippy streams! We also took care to set sections that would favour early numbers. But even with all that work and information published, we still had 35 no-shows out of 118 entered riders! It was disappointing to say the least about this high number, especially as we had to turn late entries away in the 2 weeks before the event. I feel that if you enter an event and then decide not to come as you have a poor number (or whatever), then it would be common courtesy to at least let the organisers know promptly in order to give others the chance to ride! Maybe having your number drawn out of a hat at the start of the event would prevent this, or being reported to the governing body (if they decided to take punitive action), but at the end of the day, all those riders that failed to turn up did pay their entry fee so the club was not out of pocket. It would have just been nice to be able to give other riders the chance to take a number that had become open. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perce Posted April 12, 2015 Report Share Posted April 12, 2015 I feel sorry for you, perhaps it's the S3 format that can't sustain a full 120 entry. Are there 120 riders capable of riding / enjoying the required level of sections regardless of what they might think of their number? Look at what the Colonial was, run at a not particularly good time of year, the first 20 sections are so were always slippery as sin, yet there were courses set to a level that it was nigh on impossible to get a ride & the no show rate was minimal. I don't think an on the day ballot could work. All that happens when the good lads get an early draw is they sit around on the river bank like herons. Queues start, then 3/4 of the entry end up at the last group all needing to finish within the next ten minutes. We all know who's to blame that they all get time faults, it's the C of C for not setting the correct running time. Unless of course he's weak & commits the cardinal sin of scrubbing time but then all those that didn't get time faults start whinging. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
popty bing Posted April 12, 2015 Report Share Posted April 12, 2015 (edited) Perce, you could be right about the S3 format. On looking at the entry list for the Lomax, there were 54 riders that were riding for no championship points - i.e. just for 'fun'. But saying that, the Lomax has been run for 65 odd years, so there will be a lot of riders wanting to just 'have a go' (I was one of them!) I assume that other S3 rounds are similar? The other S3 event in mid Wales the day before may account for some of the no-shows, I have not checked. I don't believe that there were anywhere near 120 riders signed up for it..... I also think you are correct in that people would be standing around for up to 2 hours on an open ballot system. It would not be beneficial for anyone. So in that case we are back round to the original question - What can be done? We tried our best by publishing information showing that we had scrubbed the streams in as best we could but it seemed to make matters worse, there were more no-shows this year than last year by a fair margin. Edited April 12, 2015 by popty bing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigel dabster Posted April 13, 2015 Report Share Posted April 13, 2015 Were the no shows at the front of the entry? Is a figure of 8 possible? Half go one way etc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevbowden Posted April 13, 2015 Report Share Posted April 13, 2015 Perce, you could be right about the S3 format. On looking at the entry list for the Lomax, there were 54 riders that were riding for no championship points - i.e. just for 'fun'. But saying that, the Lomax has been run for 65 odd years, so there will be a lot of riders wanting to just 'have a go' (I was one of them!) I assume that other S3 rounds are similar? The other S3 event in mid Wales the day before may account for some of the no-shows, I have not checked. I don't believe that there were anywhere near 120 riders signed up for it..... I also think you are correct in that people would be standing around for up to 2 hours on an open ballot system. It would not be beneficial for anyone. So in that case we are back round to the original question - What can be done? We tried our best by publishing information showing that we had scrubbed the streams in as best we could but it seemed to make matters worse, there were more no-shows this year than last year by a fair margin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevbowden Posted April 13, 2015 Report Share Posted April 13, 2015 Maybe the answer for the lomax no shows is to refuse entry to those who didn't call to say they wouldn't be coming. If your lucky enough to be over subscribed I'm sure you could afford to do so. We at the powys trophy were dissapointed with the no shows but no one lost a ride due to them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dadof2 Posted April 14, 2015 Report Share Posted April 14, 2015 This has been going on for years, used to happen at the Allan (CCMCC) and Travers (NDMCC) in the 1970s. I know of some riders who won't enter the Allan as they feel they always get early numbers. It is an unfortunate fact that in many trials where the sections are predominantly streams the first 30 or so riders are severely disadvantaged. For most riders affected its just unpleasant but for championship hopefuls its worse. Some suggestions to ease the problem or its consequences 1) Repeatedly ride the sections when setting out the trial 2) Start 1/2 the entry 1/2 way round the course 3) Fully refund the entry fee of the first 20 starters and 50% of the fee for the next 10. 4) Put the championship riders in championship order immediately after the first 30, keeping the late numbers for the least able non championship riders. 5) Ballot the starting order at the start. 6) Have a mass start then section "closing" times on later sections and penalise riders so many marks per minute after those times Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigel dabster Posted April 15, 2015 Report Share Posted April 15, 2015 Are you for real? A mass start, on easter sunday? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pa. Posted April 28, 2015 Report Share Posted April 28, 2015 Are you for real? A mass start, on easter sunday? What if you are not Catholic? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dadof2 Posted April 28, 2015 Report Share Posted April 28, 2015 I have been to plenty of trials with a mass start. You sign on then can set off any time after the car horn sounds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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