mich lin

Look at the high quality of the posters on this tred! The unoffical president of the ATA, a leader in the PNTA, a major player from STRA, an importers rep and a long winded hasbeen. Not a bad croud!

Ishy, I agree with you that the local clubs should not be tapped for funds to support national or regional competition unless they volenteer to do so. Their main focus like you pointed out needs to be local events that are really fun to ride. Your also right about big entries in the past. Looking at some old ATA results from the 70s there was 35 or 40 riders in the kids class, over 100 riders in the Novice class. I also agree with you that trials has become a hidden sport. Little or no dealers that you can walk into and sit on a bike. Little information about local events! Little or no coverage of the sport in Cycle News or the major magazines.

Ringo, your point is very valid. Local enthusiasm or grass roots involvement of any sport is the foundation. Be it football, soccer or NASCAR. Local enthusiasm or the grass roots is the bottom of the pyramid, which is successful local trials,something really fun for the clubman, pop Warner or high school football for that sport is the foundation of football. College ball would be the next level for football, regional championships or state championships for NASCAR. Which we simply don't have for trials would be our next step, we go strait to the sportsmen age nationals for trials which are all over the country. So we have no interm step for our sport to build from. The top of the pyramid is a Tiger Woods, a Jeff Gorden, Raga or Bernie. The Guys who live the dream! Without those super star players living the dream, you cannot create the grass roots enthusiasm that football, baseball, golf or NASCAR has. American Trials has nobody living the dream anymore, your right in saying the trials demos have created simply a sideshow of our best riders. They are busy booking shows instead of chasing the dream of beating Raga and the other best riders in the world. That's a distinct change from the atmosphere of the 70s. Yes Bernie, Marland and Debbie did shows but they where exhibitions before 10s of thousands at the half time of Supercross races. I really don't think they were paid, they did it to bring trials before the motocross public. That's really differnt.

Alan Perhaps your right that Chris, Geoff and Bruce make about the same saleries that I did for riding. I'm not sure what they are paid! Bultaco was also kind enough to let me ride in Europe and pay for those trips as well. Including several Scottish Six Days. With gas and Hotels paid for I also was able to travel around the country and compete and train with other riders throughout the nation. I would often go to the Northeast, Michigan, Pacific Northwest, Southern Califorina, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and other areas to compete and train with the locals. I would also follow the tours of European riders who came to the USA to promote the sport. It seemed to me that I got around more than todays riders do. That's what I see as being a little differnt. Why don't todays top riders get out and around more? The other thing that is differnt, is that the importers in the 70s always had European stars coming to America for schools, Demos and competition tours. Why don't we see Raga, Doug, Albert and others coming to America and showing us their stuff. Promoting their brand, amazing us mortals and giving our best riders a chance to rub shoulders with them a little? That was very common in the 70s. In fact when a European rider came I'd follow them accross the nation. Which gave me several trials to compete agaisnt them,learn and often a win over them. This Pro trials series concept would be the perfect venue for a Raga or a Lampkin to come to.

Wayne, I think your pointing out if we had a series of events just like the one at the Oklahoma Oktoberfest, organized accross the country. That we would have something really good. The Cycle News coverage of that event was perhaps the best for a Trials event in years. Your saying I believe that it would give incentive to our better riders to get out to these events and get together more often. Maybe even provide a Pro series for them? Is that a correct understanding of your proposal?

Alan, for 5 years riding trials for the factory was all I did 1972-77. I didn't get rich doing it but it gave me the skills I needed to do well in my own business later in life. What Bultaco paid me was this. The loan of a Dodge Maxi Van with a company gas card for all my fill ups for 5 years. A company expense account that paid for all my hotels, food and entry fees for the events I did. The salery I recieved was not huge but I did manage to buy my own place in Rescue Califorina which is where a lot of the pictures in my book are taken of me riding. My only source of income beside my Bultaco paycheck was doing some trials schools, or organizing trials for the fun of it. Bultaco paid for my boots, helmets and riding gear but most of the time it was free from somebody anyway. They gave me bikes, parts and tires but again most of the time my tires where provided by Dunlap for free. Foxshox paid me 2 dollars per pair later in my career but that was after my Bultaco contract expired. They sold a ton of those Fox trials shox, they where the biggest selling trials shocks in the world for a few years. The book I did with Len Weed also paid a little until it sold out. But both the book and the FoxShox deal was when I was a privateer still contesting the Pro class, which I did as long as I could afford it. To this day I believe I'm the only privateer who ever won the US national championship. 1978 but that's a very long story I'm not going to get into.

Ishy, I agree with you that trials is not a spectator friendly sport, neither is off road racing. That's what's so cool about areacross, it allows us to see these guys ride for the first time. The same can be said for world indoor trials, it's a good TV show. To be honest bike racing cross country is not a very good spectator sport either but Wayne has shown us that it pays. We have to admit that the NATC does eat up a lot of the entry fees for a national. For good or bad!

Most of the young riders do, us old farts need a motor.

Charlie Two things are differnt now than in the 70s. First more trials bikes were sold in the USA, a lot more back then. Which meant that the importers had more cash to spred around. Second we didn't have all the age groups at the nationals, each of these 16 plus classes have riders with some degree of support from the importers. So insted of all the money going to the top Pro class like it was in Bernie's day. It's devided into 16 tiny little pieces giving a tiny little bit of support to each age class. Today we have importer supported riders in the 30 year old, 35, 40,45,50,55,60,65,70 year old age groups, plus Expert, Expert Sportsmen, Highschool, ladies and now we have added a grade school class and women's B class. Each class is hotly contested by the importers and they all recieve importer support. So the pie is sliced 16 differnt ways today. Todays smaller sport simply cannot support all these sponsored riders in all the age classes with the same level of suppport that Bernie, Marland or myself had. In the 70's only the top few pros recieved factory or importer support, riders in the senior classes were club riders and did it for fun without importer sponsorship. Think about it, the pie was bigger and the slices were also. The slices always went to the countries very best pros, today the pie is also cut up to feed the senior and club level riders who contest the age group championships of the NATC nationals. That's what's differnt!

Bernie and his rivals, were on payroll from the US importers to ride trials. There never was a purse trials event that I remember. We did get bonus money for winning from our sponsors if that can be counted. Being paid to ride we simply didn't have to hold down a regular job. We just traveled, practiced and rode trials.

Of course Ringo is right, money is always the fertilizer of top flight sport. Bernie, Marland, Myself and a host of other Americans were paid to ride during the last push to the top by American riders. The other factor was desire, there was a national desire for US roadracers, MX, speedway, enduro riders and yes trials riders to beat the world. Today our US riders in every motorcycle discipline still have that drive. Except in trials. Win, lose or draw, you don't know what you can do until you try. You also can't learn the game if you don't play it, Americans are simply not playing the world championship game today. The only way to improve is to jump in and play! If you skin you knee, if you get beat so what! Simply don't give up, work on the weak points, learn, observe and try your best. Do better every event if you can, pick off your compeditors one by one until you reach your best. Then sit back and enjoy the journey you just had. It's far better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all. Having been on the field or in the stadium as a player a few times in life is better than never having been one at all.

You don't need to do the nationals Ringo,there they only ride the easy line, won't help you get ready for the Wagner cup World line or the TDN. Just jump right in like you did at Endurocross. That's really the best path for success. Look how well your world championship sponsorshop program is going already! Your now the highest paid American rider in the world championship and your just getting started. Picture you and me as this years TDN team! Hey, if enough Euros are No shows at the Wagner cup. We are going to score world championship points, shouldn't the top two world championship points scorers for the USA be the TDN team?

So it's still up in the air if your riding a 2T or 4T at the world round?

It was NOT John Wayne it was Steve McQueen! Get the facts strait. My last good ride against Bernie was in 1979 at the first round of the ATA championship. I spanked both Bernie and Marland that Sunday, they both jetted off to Spain for the Spanish world round the following week. Bernie won that year in Spain and Marland finished 3rd, that's two Americans on the world podium at the same time. Both these men were great riders and we all pushed each other a great deal for years! I went back to work at the airplane factory Monday and started making myself useful to society, insted of being a motorcycle bum. Hey, now I even pay taxes! Bernie went onto be world champion and marry a rich French girl. Marland races mountain bikes and builds houses in Montana. I think Marland was really a better rider than Bernie, he just didn't like living in Europe. No McDonalds or surfing! Our coverage of the event from inside the tapes will be fantastic for sure. We will scoop all the other journalists. Have you got your entry back yet? I'm still waiting on my FIM licence.

Good one, forgot about that movie! Any pictures?

Any other major movies that feature trials bikes?

Ringo, it looks like we have to ride as the only Americans in the World Championship this year and also do the story for everyone. Are you riding 4T or 2T?

The rider was Speedway champion Mike Bast, Doubling for James Cann. The movie was indeed Freebie and the bean. That was way before I was in the movie business. Mike is a great guy, who won a bunch of Speedway championships. He told me the story years later of going out in the desert to practice for the job where he found an old wrecked car that he proceeded to start riding over. As he was practicing a man came up and claimed that was HIS car and make Mike pay for the damages. I believe it was Mike's only movie job!

Alan, good stuff, I rode on the same team with Bernie and on the same sections for years. So I know exactly how he came to be successful. He came along like any other rider way back in the pack and didn't show much promise but then recieved some great mentoring from Steve's Bultaco's Boyd Bernard. Bernie's bike prep was junk until Boyd helped him out with his bike prep problem. That's when he began to move up the leaderboard a little. After that the Bultaco factory took an interest in him and began to mentor him. Bultaco always believed it was good for the sport to have an American in the World Championship, that's also why they supported Jim Pomeroy for MX GPs. So they began to bring Bernie to Europe for seasoning. His unique style grew from where he practiced, Big Tujunga Wash which has huge bolders with sand and gravel in between. In that area it's easier to ride over the rocks than between, so he became adept at riding onto them insted of turning around them. This style became known as the Schriberline, it was either a clean or a crash, so it had mixed results in national competition. We trained together there a bunch, in fact I've taken other riders there like Florida's Brock Saddlemyer. Ask him about it! The gravel and sand force you to build a ryhthm you will not have training on normal sections. In fact I call this area the "Schrieberzone." You take someone there who thinks they are good and put them in the simplist sections and they fall all over themselves. At this years US world round I suggest you watch and lisen to the speed and rhythm of the best world championship riders compared to the US riders. They move and flow at a very precise rhythm which in missing from todays top Americans.

One comment that was heard spoken about our best riders was they don't. They don't know when to go fast and when to go slow, they are always riding the wrong speed. That was overheard by one American spectator in Deluth, the father of an up and coming US riding star. Learning the correct rhythm is perhaps the hardest thing to pick up, unless your riding with riders who have it already. When you don't ride with the best, chances are you never will learn it. By the way, I was not in Deluth!

Bottom line Dan, if you don't compete with the BIG DOGS you can't score any world championship points. To have them step down from the world championship line at their one shot per year with the best, loses a good dress rehersal for next years A class TDN debut. O'Well another lost oppertunity. Remember that one US rider and one US based rider not with an American passport scored world championship points last year in Deluth, the first time since the mid-80s by our male riders. I was very happy for these men even though there was only 13 WCT compeditors. Which made it impossible for them not to score world championship points. They still made the record books and that's a big deal breaking a twenty year dry spell of no US world championship points. To take the course of action which makes it impossible for our best riders to compete without losing national championship points is indeed a difficult position for them. This has been business as usual for the NATC for the past 25 years, placing our best riders in a no win position. When will this madness stop? Only by riding with the best, in the same sections, seeing it done right and then doing it yourself will our riders ever get back to a WCT level again.

Have no fear! Ringo and I will fly the US flag and enter the world round with Doug, Raga, Fugi and the rest. In fact it will make for better reading for you guys if we enter than if the two of us just stand in the press/minder zone and report on the event. Hey, we may even score world championship points if only 10 Euros show up!

Neonsurge, thanks for your candid response. I can't tell you how often I've done the exact same thing. It's been a lot! The double points idea is simply to encourage riders to make the trip to far away rounds and reward them for the extra ordinary effort and expense.

Ringo, the reason we don't go to the world round together is because they would have to toss both of us out. Don't worry, I've got our press passes all ready for this years event! Now, do you do the pictures and I do the story or the other way around? Beave

This BMX idea to draw entries to under supported events, is a benifit to Europeans as much as it would be to non-European riders. Everyone would be equal! If someone is going to absorb the expense of travel all the way from Europe for a non-European world round. They would recieve a bigger benifit for their efforts than someone who only travels a few hours from one European country to another. If you like a good bet, I'll give you odds that the Europeans will dominate a double points events organized outside of Europe. A double points event is simply organized to attract more entries. Not give someone an unfair advantage.