chris12

Although slightly off topic, I feel it relevant to post on this thread regarding people's suggestions toward changing the championship. There are several championship's already on the British scene that cater for what people are suggesting on here. The Normandale and Sammy Miller series cater for Twin Shock, Pre 65 etc. The S3 series already caters for non-stop so in my opinion, why make the British Championship non-stop too? In the S3 series, riders like James, Michael, Alexz, Dan, Ricky etc cant score points as it's a "Clubman Series" which is nonsense as I'm a Clubman and I ride the 50-50 route as not good enough to even tackle the harder sections so it's not really a Clubman series. All they have done here is allowed the top riders to score points as the top S3 riders all compete in the "New" British series. Going back to lower quality tyres is also a massive step backwards. Why develop something as good as we have now to throw it away? If people want to compete on lower quality machinery, ride in a lower quality series! The question must be "what are the ACU trying to achieve"? If it's producing a new World Champion then this is surely the wrong way to go. Back in the 90's when Doug was taking the world by storm, even he was dropping more at a British round than at a World round. OK, you can say that maybe only Steve Colley and Graham Jarvis could cope and the likes of Crawford, Shirty, Braybrook et al were merely making up the numbers so we had a scenario similar to what we have now but, I think, Doug would say having a comparable National scene helped on the World stage. As people have already said on here, the numbers to last year are comparable, there's just fewer classes. All this has done has allowed good A Class riders to ride the Championship route. If Dabill and Brown have ambitions of becoming World Champion, this series isn't going to do them any favours at all. They need to be riding to the FIM rules to prepare them for it. If we are going back to non-stop, then surely the top riders should be crying out for a Series encompassing Trials such as the North Berks Super Trial. The only way our top riders will ever compete with Bou, Raga etc is to ride the hardest terrain possible. The British Championship, in my opinion, should be a spectacle, something that showcases the talent that these riders have. It's not about bike sales, people by what they do through personal preferences, all bikes have their pro's and con's and everyone would be on a Montesa if it was!!! For me, and this is personal opinion, British and World Trials is about the spectacle, having the hair stand up on your neck, having your breathe taken away, not caring that it is pouring with rain because what you have just witnessed is unfathomable, unbelievable, completely incredible! Rant over.

I believe that GGUK prefer that you buy from your nearest dealer so as to share the business around. My experience of using dealers compared to GGUK is a complete no brainer. I have not come across a dealer with as much knowledge, experience and time for their customers, that go out of their way to talk to you at a trial, to phone you up when they hear you've been injured at a trial to check you're ok etc etc, as the people who work for Shirty.I know everyone's experience of dealers/main dealers is different and this is just my experience but, I have friends who ride other marques and have never heard them talking of great experiences with dealers etc.