Andy

Over the next couple of days I'll be launching a revamp to the TC front page, finally making it mobile device friendly. As part of that I'll be switching the entire site to use secure sockets (SSL). This means the site address will change from http://trialscentral.com to https://trialscentral.com The redirection to the secure site should happen automatically and be seamless, but ONLY if there are any problems accessing any part of the site, check bookmarks and URL in the address bar is set to https://

@wetfeet - you appear to be in my periphery

The only person who overturned the observer's decision was himself: 1. The Observer blows his whistle and gives Marcelli a five. 2. The crowd know that five means Martyn wins the Championship and not Italian, Grattarola and they go wild. 3. The Observer, under pressure from the crowd, reverses his decision, Grattarola is champion and the Observer doesn't find a horse's head in his bed.

I've emailed him on his forum registered address directing him to this topic.

You are correct in saying he SHOULD be of no interest to them, but now with people having the ability to follow results live, as they happen, the crowd would have been only too aware that if the five for Marcelli stood then Toby would have finished second on the day and won the Championship, pushing out their own Grattarola.

Statement from Sport7: As a result of events that occurred during the closing stages of TrialGP Italy last Sunday, Sport7 as the promoters of the FIM Trial World Championship has made the following statement: Sport7 is fully aware of the events that unfolded at section fifteen on the second and final lap of the TrialGP Italy event held at the Metzeler Offroad Park at Pietramurata Di Dro last Sunday 16th September and that have been widely reported post event. Sport7 is also aware of the consequences of this event that ultimately determined the outcome of the 2018 FIM Trial2 World Championship. Having now fully reviewed the circumstances that surrounded these events and supporting evidence, Sport7 have referred the matter back to the FIM for urgent and further investigation to ensure that the correct processes were duly followed. Sport7 would like to clarify that members of their staff who witnessed the incident first hand along with many other bystanders, are in no doubt that an event official was subjected to external influences As a direct result of unauthorised interventions the official latterly decided to alter what was originally a proper and correct sporting decision that was consistent with his previous decisions throughout the event, without real reason to do so. Sport7 can in no way excuse or ignore what has occurred and it is clear that outside influencing of an event official is one of the most serious matters that can take place inside any sporting event. Whilst Sport7 is not directly responsible for sporting matters, they will not tolerate such behaviour as it has put the overall integrity of the series in question and tarnished the image of the same, despite having worked tirelessly over the last two seasons to deliver a professional and unprejudiced championship. Sport7 is totally committed to supporting the FIM in their investigation, and therefore will not make any further comment until this process has been completed.

Multiple topics merged

There's home advantage and there's Italian home advantage...

He didn't. Mair pish. Best result is 9 championship points which equals 7th.

I don't have the answer, I'm afraid. At one point it was the factories who didn't want two day competitions, but I don't know if that's still the case. I don't think the qualification part is going away so two days of competition would mean having to move qualification to the Friday with few spectators.

With regard to the parking, this was mentioned a few times and the price was down to the farmer, not the organisers. Not a lot of choice except to accept what he wanted to charge as there was nowhere else. I noticed the rip-off food fluctuating prices too. £4.00 for a roll and sausage on Saturday morning which jumped to £5.00 at lunchtime. Sunday I spotted the legend Mick Wren with a sausage and bacon roll and thought "ooh, I fancy one of them" till they tried to charge me £8.00 for it. Told them they could do one at that price and it suddenly came down to £5.00. I was skeptical (though not vocal about it) about the ability of Addingham to host a large event like that, but it worked. Enjoyed the weekend though I've been there before when it's been pissing down and blowing a gale and it would have been a different story had we not been lucky with the weather.

There you go. Full details and pics here

It's guaranteed. Seen it myself too many times and the Italians (and the French) are the worst for cheating Observers. However, if Matteo wins he'll finish on 147 so as long as Toby comes second he'll be on 149.

Providing nobody breaks the embargo, the full details with pics will be announced tomorrow.

Apparently ran out of fuel.

There will no doubt be the usual wagons selling food and drink so only the Yorkshire mob will bring their own Addingham is tiny compared to most venues. You could walk all the sections in under 15 minutes.

Other countries get a lot of support from their national federations, local government, tourism offices etc. The nature of many of the events abroad makes it impossible to charge people - can you imagine trying to police what could be a 10-15km loop making sure everyone had passes? (Some of them do charge for passes to take a bike round, but that's another story). All UK events - Hawkstone, Fort William, Nord Vue, Tong and now Addingham have been closed circuit, compact venues. Easy for spectators to move around, but also make charging for the privilege possible. They don't have all the red tape/bureaucracy/health and safety bollocks hoops that have to be jumped through in the UK. All that said, the World round at Tong last year was free to ACU Members and it was hardly bursting at the seams. In fact spectator numbers were surprisingly low given how much Trials folk like free stuff.

One of the better newspaper corrections

I've had a bit of a clearout so you may find other topics like that.

Charly retired when Kim Jong Jake took over. He was supposed to have a new role as archivist, but I don't know what happened with that.

Vertigo have released the following: Vertigo Motors regrets to announce that, exclusively for industrial reasons, it has decided to end its contract with trials young prospect Arnau Farré. From the Factory, we want to state clearly that Vertigo has no doubt about Farré’s talent and projection to become one of the best trials rider worldwide, and so, this isn’t the reason for such a decision. The deal with Farré was specifically linked to the development of the Vandal model, which because of promotional goals, was meant to compete in several international Championships during the season. However, following product development issues, Vertigo has decided to stop temporally its launch, and with that, also all the activity and presence of the bike in competition, what means the Vandal won’t be competing neither in the Spanish Championship or in the TrialGP Series from now on. We want to state as well, the fact that the rider has received the entire economic compensation of the contract in force, giving him the chance to find new opportunities and challenges in other brands or structures as soon as possible. We wish Arnau Farré all the best, as well as good luck on continuing with his meteoric progression as a professional trials rider.

Until I get fed up of your blatant trolling...

Don't know if things have changed in the last couple of years, but when I was going it was done at random post-competition. I recall podiums and press conferences being delayed because riders were off peeing in cups.

Doping control already happens. http://www.trialgp-noticeboard.com/images/pdfs/2018-Anti-Doping-Code.pdf

Ahh, thought it was this weekend. Maybe. Motohome hasn't had it's post-winter clean yet. That's on the cards for this weekend. If I get it cleaned up, take it out for a run and all is okay then I might appear.