Why I'm considering not going to Trials Comps.

[lemur]

You only missed one small point, I host events in support of out TdN (Trial des Nations) team effort.  Any small amount of proceeds collected here go to support our TdN team and I build events to replicate TdN competitions as closely as possible, for example 'no stop' rule has prompted me to build sections that can be ridden no stop.  

Five lines of difficulty still exist here except the Novice line is in the entrance and out the exit with no requirement to observe gates within the section, Junior, Intermediate, Advanced (former Expert) and then for National events I add a Pro line.  Pro line is the Champion class and to determine how difficult the Pro line is I have a GP (Guinea Pig) rider, if JoshJosh can ride it I include it in the Pro line event.  Sections are completely enclosed with tape, occasionally we add a Novice exit gate within that boundary tape to exit the Novice riders and avoid the hardest part.

Practicing the sections is indeed against the rules, 2 weeks prior to the event the sections remain untouched as per the rules.  You can't have the sections tracked up and trashed minutes before the real event starts.  If you just want to lower all the scores then don't include as many loops (Novice only do 3 loops) or go with best 3 out of 4 loops if you wish but that certainly doesn't make the event results any easier to tabulate.  

At one event some two decades ago I set out 2 complete Trial event loops of 12 sections each,  at that time it was 3 lines of difficulty for modern bikes and skilled riders plus 3 lines of Vintage and Novice friendly sections.  Absolutely nobody rode any of the Vintage sections, it was a total waste of my time to set out the 12 additional sections, but after the event concluded I did field complaints about the modern sections being too difficult for some.  When I asked why they elected to ride the more difficult sections and not the event sections that were specifically tailored for their riding they responded 'we wanted to ride the same sections as everybody else' which was basically stupid because that was why the sections were above their skill or twin-shock bike reality.  I will never do that again.

Note on cheating; we know who the cheaters are and we know how and when they cheat, generally we just accept that as par for the course.  I recall one event where I placed 3rd. and when I confronted the first and second place winners with 'how did you guys do so well in the hardest section' and then determined they were partner checking and both missed the hardest gates in the hardest section, their response was not to own up to the 5's in that section it was 'it's a shame we didn't all ride the same event' 🤔 

[lemur]

There is one more group of riders that should not go over-looked, there are some riders that absolutely insist on riding above their ability, they literally insist they are advanced riders and then complain that the advanced line is too hard.  We try to convince them they should ride the line that they never championed in (Intermediate) but it falls on deaf ears and they just bad mouth &/or stop attending our events.  As the event organizer I have no time for that nonsense, ride the line that is appropriate and set out for your skill level, you are not that good, if you bump yourself up 2 lines and fail that is on you.

[lineaway]

 I know that sounds crazy. But my son rode his first trials at 30 months old on a gas powered bike. The next decade he got many different bikes as he grew. He was a big kid, so his mom had him playing basketball all the time. 

 Finally at 13 he just decided be had some balls. After all he was very athletic and over 6 foot tall. It just snowballed that day. Started off on 4 foot ledges and finished off riding all the expert and Master sections I could remember. It was awesome for me as I hate basketball and hardly went to watch him play. LOL.

 

[bikerpet]

Some interesting insights in there @lemur.

A complete aside - does anyone know of an international grading comparison table? It does my head in trying to figure if "Advanced" is equivalent to "B Grade", or "Trial 2" or some other nomenclature from another part of the world! In most of Australia we've more recently settled on using Trial 5 to Trial 1, in line with FIM. It's not as inherently descriptive perhaps, but at least it's dead easy to understand where things sit within the scale.

I'll play devils advocate here - exactly why can't you, "have the sections tracked up and trashed minutes before the real event starts"?
It's going to be "tracked up and trashed" minutes after the real event starts. The last rider is not getting to ride the exact same section the first did (sometimes to their advantage and sometimes to their disadvantage). Whatever the state of the section, it remains a test of skill who can ride what's in front of them best.
I acknowledge that in some conditions (pouring rain and soft ground for instance) it might be completely inappropriate to allow any more wheels on the section than absolutely necessary. But that can be determined on a case-by-case basis.
I'll return to a common theme - if people aren't interested in riding the events as they presently run, then something has to change else there'll be no event to ride at all.
Our numbers are dwindling, and I know for fact that many other clubs around the world are finding the same.

Your comment about 'we wanted to ride the same sections as everybody else' is quite illuminating I think. It reflects a fundamental nature of those who attend competition at all. They (we) all go at least in part to test ourselves against our peers. Even though I really truly don't care about my overall result, I do like to gauge how I'm going compared to a few others who are around my level. So what you saw makes sense from that perspective - why would I ride sections that my peers aren't riding?
Still, as you say, it does reflect a rather self destructive approach. Lemmings spring to mind.

Some people cheat. That's just the way it is. As far as I'm concerned I try not to let it bother me. They're cheating themselves more than me.
Heck, sometimes I cheat - I've had observers give me a 1 when it should have been 2 and gone along with it. Conversely they've sometimes given me 2 when it really should have been 1 and I've gone along with it, not a murmur of complaint. They do their best and I appreciate their efforts for what they are.
Maybe if I was in it for my financial security I might get a bit more vocal.
But I maintain that if you're not in the scoring competition it is by definition impossible to cheat. Cheat is variously defined as to deceive or to violate rules. Competition is defined by rules so therefore if you're not in competition how can you cheat, except perhaps your own rules? Similarly if you are quite up front that you are practicing a section before taking a score you are not deceiving anyone, ergo not cheating.

Finally, I object!
I strongly resemble your comment about, "some riders that absolutely insist on riding above their ability"! 🙂 The irony is not lost on me.

@lineaway I was totally (almost totally) poking fun. I figured something like that was the case - a sudden "ahah" moment over those couple of hours.
But I can never resist taking people to task whenever I hear anything that in any way overlooks the effort and commitment that inevitably precedes any "sudden breakthrough". Those sudden breakthroughs never, ever happen without hours of work preceding it, so they're never, ever really a sudden breakthrough. Just the eventual culmination of hours of application. In his case that sudden breakthrough took 10 years. Far more admirable to me than any sudden miraculous development.
A good coach can help pull those moments together a little sooner, or a little more noticeably, but if the athlete hasn't put in the hard yards it's not going to happen.

I used to go watch my son play football (Aussie Rules) and basketball. I also breathed a sigh of relief when he stopped!
Balls are anathema to me, and team invasion sports leave me absolutely bored & uninterested. Spectator driven versions of invasion sports leave me downright appalled. Conflict for spectacle - about as attractive to me as Ukraine v Russia or Israel v Hamas.

[lemur]

15 hours ago, lineaway said:

 I know that sounds crazy. But my son rode his first trials at 30 months old on a gas powered bike. The next decade he got many different bikes as he grew. He was a big kid, so his mom had him playing basketball all the time. 

 Finally at 13 he just decided be had some balls. After all he was very athletic and over 6 foot tall. It just snowballed that day. Started off on 4 foot ledges and finished off riding all the expert and Master sections I could remember. It was awesome for me as I hate basketball and hardly went to watch him play. LOL.

 

Not so crazy, when I was 6 years old I taught a chimpanzee to play hide and seek and to ride my tricycle.

[faussy]

@bikerpet in my opinion you need to take @lemurs and @lineaways comments with a pinch of salt. Their views on how trials are or should be, are afterall unique to them. Hearing @lineawaysay he taught his son how to ride expert and move up two grades in two hours... well... thats all i need to know. People pay hundreds of pounds for one to one sessions with world champions!!! and they are barely any better afterwards because of it.

Riding the sections before the trial was common practice for years! In the british championship of all places! You had an hour to ride every section once, you werent scored and you could ride just the one or all of them. Then there was a break, and then you started the trial for real. And no, it wasnt cheating. Just because something isnt done in america, dont mean it doesnt, nor hasnt been tried before. I think you describe something a little more casual, but it worked well in the british championship for years. My problem was, my best rides were always on the practice lap 😕

On 10/27/2023 at 3:04 PM, lemur said:

 'All on public or other people's private land', is extremely unlikely to work, been there done that, if you don't 100% control a venue with challenging natural terrain it will not end up being a long-term sustainable Trials group.  

In the UK, 99% of trials are run on public and privately owned land. It has been sustainable for the history of trials in the UK. And some of the best trials do not have great challenging terrain. It always comes down the to ability of the coure markers and their vision to make a good section from what they have.

On 10/27/2023 at 3:04 PM, lemur said:

You can't make Observed Trials Competition any more attractive to new riders by structuring the events specifically towards novice riders, been there, done that

This... well i cant do anything but disagree. In our clubs the riders get to know the tough venues from the easier ones. The lower level riders just dont turn up to the tough venues. And the clubs suffer greatly, because across the 4 grades, 50% of the entry is the bottom grade. A tough championship trial you can get 50, and at some lower level trial around some farmers land, ie a few fields with a few rocky outcrops and really basic streams, ive seen an entry of over 180 once.

On 10/27/2023 at 3:04 PM, lemur said:

You get no sympathy from me about your age because I am older than you and intend to continue riding to at least 80 assuming I'm still vertical by then.

Sorry, that is an absolutely terrible attitude to have. You maybe dont realise it, but you are undenibaly driving people away from trials with an attitude like that.

Edited October 31, 2023 by faussy

[b40rt]

6 minutes ago, faussy said:

@bikerpet in my opinion you need to take @lemurs and @lineaways comments with a pinch of salt. Their views on how trials are or should be, are afterall unique to them. Hearing @lineawaysay he taught his son how to ride expert and move up two grades in two hours... well... thats all i need to know. People pay hundreds of pounds for one to one sessions with world champions!!! and they are barely any better afterwards because of it.

Riding the sections before the trial was common practice for years! In the british championship of all places! You had an hour to ride every section once, you werent scored and you could ride just the one or all of them. Then there was a break, and then you started the trial for real. And no, it wasnt cheating. Just because something isnt done in america, dont mean it doesnt, nor hasnt been tried before. I think you describe something a little more casual, but it worked well in the british championship for years. My problem was, my best rides were always on the practice lap 😕

In the UK, 99% of trials are run on public and privately owned land. It has been sustainable for the history of trials in the UK. And some of the best trials do not have great challenging terrain. It always comes down the to ability of the coure markers and their vision to make a good section from what they have.

This... well i cant do anything but disagree. In our clubs the riders get to know the tough venues from the easier ones. The lower level riders just dont turn up to the tough venues. And the clubs suffer greatly, because across the 4 grades, 50% of the entry is the bottom grade. A tough championship trial you can get 50, and at some lower level trial around some farmers land, ie a few fields with a few rocky outcrops and really basic streams, ive seen an entry of over 180 once.

Sorry, that is an absolutely terrible attitude to have. You maybe dont realise it, but you are undenibaly driving people away from trials with an attitude like that.

Behave, he's Merican .......

[lemur]

Canadian here.  And our CMA rule book states the following:  

Q-141 Conduct.  (a) No riding on the course within ten (10) days prior to the event. 

Q-140 Scoring (section d Other Penalties) #3 - Practising on the course within 10 days prior to the event, and/or on the day of the event = Disqualification.

Not saying it's a good rule but it is the rule if we want to host a CMA sanctioned event.  @faussy yes, indeed my considerable experience with building trials events are unique to me and holy talk about attitude 🙄 I sure hope you do more then just show up to ride at events.

 

[faussy]

14 hours ago, lemur said:

I sure hope you do more then just show up to ride at events.

 

I do, since i was about 10 helping my dad, and i agree its very hard to cater for every grade, especially if you have a trial that tries to cater for every grade. Championship trials with only expert riders are hard to sustain because youre alienating half your entry, (even though club riders want to turn up because they think theyre missing something, and then complain that its too hard) while club trials will never have an expert rider turn up. Most centres have seperate expert and club trials because of this but ours cant really sustain this and most of our trials are aimed at every level of rider. Sometimes you get expert right and they love it and sportsman hate it, and sometimes vice versa. But our expert class has <10 riders, while clubmen and sportsman has on average over 30 each, so you have to be careful who you prioritise. They are the class who largely funds trials and are the pathway to people entering the sport. Yes, its nice to have dramatic trials and think that this attracts new people into the sport, but in reality, everyone enters at the bottom, and if they dont enjoy it they wont return.

If an expert drops less than 20 marks he feels its been a rubbish trial, if a sportsman drops more than 10 he thinks it too hard, he would much rather drop 1 and think hes toni bou even though he finsihed 20th becaue there was 19 other guys on clean. Trials riders are weird, each grade is in the sport for different reasons.

In saying all that, i do appreciate your enthusiasm for marking out a testing and exciting trial for the expert rider. There were days in the past i was frustrated that nobody put the effort into our top grade while i was riding it. All im saying is, you have to mark out the lower grades with a totally different mindset.

Edited November 1, 2023 by faussy

[lemur]

16 hours ago, faussy said:

In the UK, 99% of trials are run on public and privately owned land.

And from your salty post, curious where the other 1% of your trials events are held, do you have a really big boat?

[faussy]

1 hour ago, lemur said:

And from your salty post, curious where the other 1% of your trials events are held, do you have a really big boat?

By private i meant land owned by people not invested in trials i.e. farmers or quarry owners. Land owned privately by trials clubs or a person who does trials are few and far between. Im not being salty, im just stating how trials are done in this country. or from a viewpoint other than your own

Edited November 1, 2023 by faussy

[lemur]

19 hours ago, faussy said:

@bikerpet in my opinion you need to take @lemurs and @lineaways comments with a pinch of salt.

That part was very salty and this part "Sorry, that is an absolutely terrible attitude to have. You maybe dont realise it, but you are undenibaly driving people away from trials with an attitude like that."  <-  wtf

 

[faussy]

I dont think thats salty at all. Stating your opinion as fact and then getting annoyed when someone has a different view is salty.

[bikerpet]

@lemur a small sample I know, but out of the maybe half dozen who've commented on this post two have said they'd probably not return to an event set with the hardest obstacle first as you do. So perhaps ask yourself this, "Has anyone ever come to an event I've set and never come back?" If the answer is "Yes", maybe question why. So I think @faussy is probably quite correct making the assertion you're driving people away. The value judgement on that is entirely up to the individual and the club involved.

I feel pity for you if you are truly so constrained by those rules and whatever requirements force you to stick strictly to them. That must be incredibly frustrating.
But many places have the ability to run events other than strictly under national rules. Our National Champs are run to stricter rules than our club events but both are run under Motorcycling Australia auspicing. Indeed, I don't believe gate trials are even mentioned in our National level rule book (not sure on that, don't care that much), yet I recently rode and enjoyed one. When the sub-juniors are in a section they are often not held to the letter of the rules, in order to encourage them and give them a sense of enjoyment and success that might keep them coming back.
You can disagree, but for the most part rules are guidelines that need some sensible interpretation from time to time. It would be willfully destructive if we all took our National Rules, which are often in line with FIM rules, and applied them to our local events as strictly as at Trial GP for instance.

There is no single correct way of doing things regards trials events. It's a game we play, just a game. Like all games, we choose to play by an agreed set of rather arbitrary rules.
There's a lot of scope to what those rules can look like, and for the most part the hierarchy providing the insurance (let's not pretend that there's any other reason clubs nearly all run events under the auspices of our respective national bodies) don't really care which particular rules are used as long as those concerning safety are implemented effectively, or in the case of Title events that lead to national or international ranking. Are they going to get upset if your club runs a club event where you get to ride an unscored lap? I doubt it, unless they get complaints they have to waste time on. If you make it clear before entry what the rules for a particular event are then people get to decide if they want to ride it under those rules or not. Choice is a marvelous thing.

@faussy Your observations around Experts vs the rest of us are interesting.
Where I am we have far less than 10 Experts - usually only 2 or 3. But at our series events they always get a complete ride on sections set to their ability. Our sections typically have 5 routes, sometimes gates overlap and sometimes they are totally different. Experts typically start a little later and do one less lap than everyone else. There were no gates set that were "expert only" level at our recent gate trial, and no experts rode.
I feel like our setters do a great job devising sections with routes that cater to everyone. Obviously sometimes there's obstacles, sections or even whole events that somewhat miss the mark and are a bit hard or a bit easy, but it's rare.
For what they are, I think they're good. Based on little experience.

But what they are only has limited appeal to me - I enjoy them for sure, but there's something missing in the whole format for me, and I really wonder if that same missing factor isn't similar for many others.

A brief history: I rode a TY175 in the mid-late 70's, mostly on the farm just mucking about, but I did go to a few trials - I have no recollection of ever taking note of my result, maybe I did, it would have been very far down the list.
By the end of the 70's I'd discovered other pursuits and didn't look at motorcycles for years, to become decades.
In the late 80's I was sharing with a bloke in NZ who had a trials bike back in the UK. Having lived with him and chatted a little about trials I considered if I could fit a bike into my life again. I watched a video of indoors trials and immediately decided that was not something I was remotely able to aspire to and completely dropped the idea of a trials bike. In hindsight that was unrepresentative of club trials, but I didn't recognise that at the time.
Fast forward another 30 odd years and I steered my son toward trials bikes when he started riding with his mates (all on MX or Enduro bikes riding in the forest). He lost interest in bikes but I became hooked again.
Now I'm loving getting better on my bike. I spend way too much time learning how to hop, splat, rear-wheel gap, floaters, flick turns etc. All the young kid tricks that are mostly useless to me at an event, but that are just so much fun. I try to show some discipline and do all the basics of turns, balance and smooth control, but I admit not enough.

My take-away from this is a couple of things:

• All these videos of Trial GP and the elite riders may well be scaring off a whole lot of people, just as the contemporary video I watched in the 80's did me. At the very least they may well be creating people like me who want to do all the cool tricks, even though we have absolutely zero practical use of them. Not productive for developing low-intermediate competition riders!
• Traditional comps are perhaps losing some relevance to riders who really just want to have an opportunity to try out their useless human tricks at an event with others.

I look at bicycle trials and see some similarities, but they currently do much better.
How many street trials bikes sell for every comp trials bike? 10? 20? Lots anyway. There are street trials riders & groups all over the place - not big, but relatively common.
Yes, they still hold UCI style comps, but they are almost an irrelevance compared to street trials numbers. I was quite involved with a few national championships a few years ago and we were getting about 10 riders! But there are hundreds of street trials riders out there.
I'm inclined to think Moto Trials comps might be headed the same way - the only people who will attend them after the current crop of 50-70 year olds move on will be the handful of youngsters striving to make it into the European events, which will themselves be a relatively small number of competition-obsessed youngsters. Not a recipe for long term viability!
We need the equivalent of Street Trials and maybe Street Trials bikes to revitalise the sport.
Electric could make quite an impact on this too - I really enjoy taking my little electric trials bike out into public spaces and playing on boulders on the edges of car parks etc - no way I could ride there on my TRS!

So far possibly the most interesting suggestion I've heard has been a class where you are excluded from results, but you choose what you want to ride from the menu on offer in each section. Pick the obstacles that provide the level of challenge you seek, have a fun day. Ride with your mates, or go it alone. I reckon I could really enjoy that.

I was given a quote the other day that tickled my fancy, and seems quite apt for the ageing demographic in trials - "Nostalgia is like heroin to old people."
Get off the crack!

[lemur]

You don't know me from Adam.  

Y'all should lay off the Booze before posting!