alan bechard

OK Nigel, your right, let me turn this around. I think all riders under 18 should ride an 80, why, I know they are capable, I have seen Ray Peters ride an 80 through Champ level section. Damn impressive, the bikes don't hold you back, you would have been impressed had you seen Ray on those rocks in Sequatchie wringing that little 80 out for all it is worth. Yep, by god, teaches them to be a better rider it does. If you UK guys want to have a world champ again, by god, best get them on an 80. And hey, it is easy to implement, no problem. Just force them all onto 80's and do not have a class for those 125's, after all, they all will buy bikes, you know, and those guys will all get better because they are on 80's. So, how quick are you guys going to switch over? What do you think will happen to the attendance in the 80 class? We get to meet in a month right Nigel, Wiggy coming? I am honestly and sincerly looking forward too it. Even if you do talk funny.

NSAGM,,, You need to go back and read Ishy's credits that Jack Betty wrote up on his post to you, I think you will relook at your post maybe and go,,, Oooopppps. As to the tail end of your post, if you would review old posts, and have some more experience in Trials, you may find that those of us that you are so actively "slamming" Have done, and are doing, the very things that you mentioned. As a for instance. I organized an event last year.... I found a sponsorhip angel that printed, did all the work and mailed apporximately 2000 flyers to everyone that is on the Mid South Hare Scramble series mailing list. I held a seperate class for them. I set sections with the needs of their bikes in mind, I borrowed an enduro bike and preroad the event for them. Doug dedicated his day to working with those riders that showed (5) and taking them around and showing them trials and allowing them to experience it with the bikes they had then secured them rides on Trials bikes for the ones that were interested. I guess I am just not communicating with you, and the tone of your last post just sums it up. I will cheer when your kid is at the top of the podium of the WR. You think you got it figured out how to get there, knock yourself out. I for one will look around at the folks that are doing the work and learn from them. I will try and assist them, and if I think something should be done different or better, I will approach that person, make my suggestion, then implement it myself if possible. If not possible, I will still support that guy and not tell him he is not doing it right. Pointed question. Have you spoken to your NATC Rep and asked what his position on the 125 class proposal is / was? I would imagine it was Steve, but maybe there is a different club rep? Anyway, you want to do something to get this going, there is the place to start. It is pretty dang insulting to come on here and tell us what we are not doing when you really do not know, much less tell us we are not doing it when it has been pointed out too you that it was done.

Shhhhhhh,,,, Ishy, you were'nt supposed to tell him yet.....

NSAGM, the way you approach this is the way my county government does taxes, First, they stand up and say that the schools need new buildings. Then they stand up and say that they need to raise my taxes to pay for these new schools. Then when I say that I do not want to pay these new taxes, and point out that last time they raised my taxes it was to pay for the new schools but somehow the money got diverted and somehow never made it to the schools they then say, I am Unamerican and dont love Children. Said another way, Yes, I think it would be great to have another American world Champion. Just because I do not support THIS particular plan because I believe it to be a boondoggle and a waste of the limited resources that we have in the US Trials community does not mean I do not want the US trials community to succeed. At some point, I wish I would get a little credit, in that I have kids in this hunt, they are on the bikes that we are discussing, I have been there the last several years supporting, working with others and doing my best to help the American Trials program progress. Maybe, just maybe, that gives me a touch of insight that you may be missing. Add to this that I would be amazed if I have done 10% of the effort that Ishy and many others have done to make this sport advanced. I will quit whining now, I think Ishy hit the nail on the head, as I was told by an NATC rep, If you want to see standardized classes, go out and make it happen. In the FWIW category, if you want to do something positive for Trials, I would suggest looking no further then your backyard and getting that club going in Duluth you were speaking of. Last word I heard there may be some difficulties with the Spirit Mt. Venue, keep that open and accessible and that will positively impact the sport, I guarantee that one. (If there are no issue's with Spirit Mt. I apologize, I heard it second hand) I guess the point I would want to drive home, is get 5 youths actively riding and competing in the existing NATC series that are available, and that will help the US progress more then anything. And please, sidebar, quit saying Un-American if someone disagrees with you. I hold my own in the patriotism department and just find it offensive as all get out.

Love it Mark, We are going to make you an Airframe Mechanic before it is all over. We had alternating shop logo's that I think you would appreciate. Airframe shop,,, Beat it to fit, paint it to match. Or, Airframe shop, we may not be good, but man are we slow. then of course we have the home shop for profit saying. I offer three things, high quality, low prices, fast service, you may pick any two.... So do you know what the HK stands for? Oh, and added on edit on a more serious note for the guy doing this if they are still reading and have not said, man, this dude is an idiot, well, they probably said that anyway and kept reading. RYP has the driver set available to do these bushings, they work slick. Double edit, sorry Kevin did not realize it was you asking, yep the number sounds right, as said before the HK numbers are in the parts manual available online.

Any possibility of a gang of you getting together and buying property as a club or group and having a riding area? It will more then likely have to involve other disciplines of motorcyle riding to make it work such as HS and MX but there are several successful models. The two that I look at all the time are Stoney lonesome Motorcycle Club in IN and Saddleback east in KY. I have thought and looked at many times to try and do something similar to that here, but have not pulled it off. We have been blessed with having more riding area's open to us (trials guys) then we can even use, right here around town. Even when we have lost some of the ones we had, there are still plenty. (here) I have a certain distrust of the MX side of the house after they caused us to lose the last riding area I had open to us here on post.

Hmmmm, From ME (I am in the Northern part of the STRA zone) This year to go ride my LOCAL (not National) series TTC 3 hours drive Newnan GA 6 hours Cornelia 6 hours TTC 3 hours Gadsden 4 hours Hattiesburg 8 hours These are one way drives. (in other words, double them to count round trip's) This does not get me to the Nationals (much less something like the European championships) I think (one of you CA guys help me out) it was a 3+ day solid drive for the CA guys to come to TN It is about a 13 hour drive each way for me to the Florida events (depends where they are having them) and that is to relatively the middle of the state. So, trying to get back a little on track, and maybe I just need to let the train go, it really does not matter what is said here, it is what is put forward to the NATC reps, what is put forward at the NATC meeting, then what is decided at the NATC meeting and then as Bulsher I believe said, what the NATC actually does after the meeting, that counts in so far as a 125 class. My point here attempting to be, we do not have the support in the US to support a 125 class, not to mention the fact that I think you will rapidly come up with multiple 125 classes if that is the direction you go. If in a geographic area, similar to what the UK rides in their European championship (No, not the same, but similar) we can only count a handfull of bikes. NSAGM What line do you think the 125 would ride. For reference, Lane put forth that they should ride the sportsman line. I believe Ron put forth he would like to see them on the Expert line. That leaves Expert Support and Pro still open. My question back to the UK guys, particularly experienced Trialmasters / club secerataries, Just how long would you guys run a class that has 4 participants in it? I guess that is moot, we already do that for classes that have less...

Oh, yeah.

NSAGM, I am going to go out on a limb here, and someone prove me wrong, but I bet there are 10 or less modern 125's in the STRA area. And just for reference, we need to get out a globe, but I will again hang out on a limb and say if you overlaid a map of the STRA area, I bet it covers the vast bulk of western Europe, and I am certain it would cover the UK and Spain (which is who we are primarily referring too when we say Europe) Don't be deluded into thinking that Germany or France has the Trials bug like Spain and the UK. Now I got to go look at Mapquest and see if I can figure out how to check what I just said. Probably a handful more 80's. About the same modern 50's. I am not counting the various bikes that folks like TTC and BetaUSA have except what they are actually riding. You know, I was typing more, but at some point I guess I mean you need to go ride a couple of events, and count the bikes there. These things are not going to magically appear. If you think Trials riders are going to run out and whoop a bunch of money on their dealers and distributors so that they can compete this class, I just suggest you hang around trials a bit and see how readily everyone parts with their money.

It is too cool the effort that you CA guys put into coming over, sometimes I think that is one of the things that folks from the other side of the pond miss is what an undertaking you guys are doing. You guys are out there doing what it takes to make that happen, and it is definetely showing. I hope we can get out there some later this year for a weekend or such and see what you guys have going on, but I think it is mostly the people, and their belief in their kids that make you guys so great.

Those are certainly three of my very favorites. Thanks Andy.

Chris, yes, in our system a younger child can ride. Dean rode the 6 year old class three years (and no, I am not kidding) OK you UK guys here is the next question. How many entries do you have in these classes? And you American guys, go to your club and count how many of these bikes are physically there.

Now come on Andy,,,, You know me a little better then that

Yep Lane,,, Don't want to misquote you here but did you say you were working with Mr. Bill on making the left coast nationals go? Sounds like you could implement it there, and let us know how it works out. So you are not going to let kids that are of that age ride a bike outside those requirements? I bet that will shoot your attendance way up. Or are you going to let a child that has a bike outside those requirements ride as exhibition only and not fall into the scoring? Perce, (or other UK riders knowledgable for that matter) what do you do with the younger riders? Do you let them ride in the bottom class? (say a 5 year old) How about if you have a particularly talented larger child that is riding a bigger machine then what your formulae allows, is he refused entry? allowed to ride a higher class? allowed to ride his class on a exhibition ride only (no points?) Does this ever come up for you guys?

Bad deal and sure sorry to hear about that. It is going to get nothing but tighter and you guys in California are on the sharp point of the stick when it comes to idiotic environmental regulations and the like. Sounds to me like even private ownership of land is not even a guaranty of right to ride over there in your area when they can ban folks from riding on their own land. Are there alternates available?

Ya, the press always get's stuff screwed up,,, yeah, that's the ticket. Oh Hey Craig, what was it you did for work again sounds like it got your point across and worked......

I was reading a quote from the nationals in a piece that CJ wrote and started laughing so hard I thought I would share it. I guess it was so descriptive, I could just immediately see it in my mind. Who do you think it was? "And those young ones! One minder yelled at a young man about to splatter a big wall, "It's all in the balls, baby, let her rip!" EEeeeeeeeeeeyaup( (thud) berup bup and he was up!" God I love it And I will have the coffee on at Cabin 5 for the Nat and World Round. Come on by.

I believe (as nsagm says) that T/S is twinshock. They have a substantial number of folks over there in the UK I believe that still have the TY80's. I believe they imported them there for a substantially longer time, and just flat out have more, and as you cannot kill those things, there are still a lot of them out there competing.

And I am adding to Lanes post... Did I just say that? Pointed question Does the UK and the Spanish youth (I guess I mean youth, I may mean 125) classes work the same way? And let me throw this ringer in the ring as well. Where the 125 and smaller displacement classes implemented in Europe to improve their riders, or where they implemented to comply with vehicle licensing and Insurance regulations. (Or if neither, what reason were they implemented.)

I think you will find a lot of answers to that one Chris. There are just so many variables, so many different riders, and as I said, at least here we can go from Too easy too unrideable with a 30 minute rain shower, been there done that. If I had to give firm guidance, I would like to think that the winning rider in a class had over 10 points, and the tail of the class was still in double digits. Sometimes that get's blown out of the water though by who shows and what class they sandbag,,, uh,,, I mean ride in. Dean dropped 9 points last event in Intermediate, Came in 5th. I think that is what Ish is getting at on a smaller scale. One time Christina (my daughter, did you meet her?) came in last at an event riding Intermediate with like 130 points and some damn terrible scary crashes,,, and my daughter can crash with the best of them. Dropped the bike 15 to 20 vertical in one crash. Convinced her to ride novice A the next day and won the class with like 3 points. Something missed there. I guess I am wandering, but trying to say that I would not measure my success of an event I held based upon how many points folks dropped. I usually hope I did not loose money, that folks say nice things about it afterward, and that folks say they will be back next year. And these things happen more for me on an easier then a harder trials.

Well, Ish, as I was grabbing it, you cited it. http://www.natctrials.org/documents/2006%2...pl.%20Rules.pdf Rule 1A That really covers it, but in the soap opera of things that have been said before, and as we argue along parrallel lines that will never intersect, now if they would just clarify what an advanced or expert is, the rule would have teeth. As I go back on the soapbox again, that is why we need standardized classes and at least agree to call the darn things by the same names. Then we need to enforce rule 1B.... Boy won't that be fun for an unpaid volunteer to have to do. Going along, section difficulty is something I struggle with greatly as Trial master. Seldom due to weather, riders or something do I feel like I hit it spot on. I will also add though something that I was told a while back, and have seen to be true more often then not. The MAJORITY of competing riders will be happier if the trials is too easy rather then too hard, and will be far more likely to return to your event the next year. I can also assure you, and I would expect your experiences have been similar, that when I set an event too hard, man they wore me out telling me about it, but when I missed and set it too easy, I would hear the odd, yeah, it was a bit easy, but I had a great time.

Absolutely, but travel time starts when we leave here. When would you like us to start. The wife, otherwise known as the boss, does all that, I just get to be the owner of the equipment when it breaks..... I owned a tractor and two lawnmowers last night I do not think I own anything today at least till I get home, I think there are three mowers and two truck's running today That adds up to at least one flat tire, and something will break. I was actually invited to come out that way by a trials freind (believe it or not, not Lane) to come out and ride etc. I think in the fall if it works for them, Dean and I may head out that way. I have some Airline credit I can use or may have to speak awful nicely to underdog again to get out there, but I would love to see what is going on in the CA trials scene. www.awomanstouch.net is G rated, my wife has a lawncare / landscaping business. I came up with the name to capitalize on it and one of our initial niche markets was the ladies that were uncomfortable having men work around their houses.

http://www.campbell.army.mil/envdiv/PPOC.htm My real job, (shut up Brian) www.awomanstouch.net My "fun" job, just so I have something to fill my time....

I guess I would mean then did the UMTA membership increase being the host of multiple World rounds? Mike O' do you know? Or anyone else in that club? I left the STRA area just prior to our having our last WR so did not get to see the effect on membership. Shhhhhhhh!!!!! I am working on procedures......... You may really laugh at this, but I HATE writing ISO procedures.... God I hate it. If it was not for living in a house and eating food I would quit my job and play trials.