rabie

we use a variety of stuff at work, including some real evil stuff (when its not on plastics) - i'ld try IPA (isopropyl alcohol) or maybe just rubbing petrol. other idea might be to remove tank form bike and keep it indoors in the warm - lots of glues, vinyls, etc get really brittle and firm below room temp.

nice work by birdie and the crew

why are you waiting for rugby to issue the permit? i know the TEC are shockingly slow compared to centres or MX (taking weeks not hours) to issue permits. the ACU permit should not rest upon MSA or other approval. the key test in my mind is are you (the C Of C, club, riders, etc) happy and confident you have fulfilled all your legal duties ??? it would appear that many clubs haven't been since 1969, yet nothing has arisen because of this (but since the chance exists, people are making their best efforts to meet the criteria). what ever you do, good luck!

meths still leaves a residue, IPA (isopropyl alcohol) is best. as using washing up liquid (or other soap) as an application fluid will also leave a residue (applciation fluid is avaliable from the major sign maker suppliers). you can get away with it but your not meant too.

i pretty sure you don't need a licence from the local council, as motorsport isn't on the list of things that need a licence (such as live music, selling alcohol, boxing, etc) - ie you can have 100,000 at brands hatch for WSB but you a licence for 10 people and a guitar in the pub. otherwise every motorsport event would need a licence (and we would all know about it)

***something*** happened that rocked the boat and somehow the MSA found out about the scale of events that should be subject to their "approval" / "oversight". I have heard speculation / a plausible theory about what event may have caused this (but its conjecture). as best as i can tell, we should have done more back in 1969, but we didn't - we are now lumbered with this and the ACU don't want to rock the boat for fear of either bring a tonne of bricks down upon us and/or there is some new legislation that both the ACU and MSA want to go through to allow road racing on public roads (like Ireland and IOM). one would have thought that if every event that used road work did so legally the MSA would be faced with a crisis of being snowed under with their own paperwork....

Pete is you want to ring our Pete (Peter Burrell on 020 8300 5572 (after 4:00pm) or email pj.burrell@btinternet.com) who has done all this for over 10+ years to talk over any of this. to my knowledge the only issues are the known local problem lanes, or if there events using the same lane on the same days, etc as to fighting the MSA, as i understand the issue, the ACU have looked at it, taken advice, looks like the law dates back to the 1960s and we've no leg to stand on trying to fight it because the ship has sailed so long ago. advice from insurers and legal is concerning because it may expose the organiser and the rider to legal issues because of the exclusion clauses in respective policies (ie one would be conducting an illegal event).

The 2013 Sidcup Sixty Trial will now be run on SUNDAY 17th FEBRUARY. All riders who were entered for the 20th January will be sent an email or phone call asking if you want your entry transferred to 17th February or cancelled. There will be spaces for some new riders - please phone Sec. of Meeting, Peter Burrell on 020 8300 5572 (after 4:00pm) or email pj.burrell@btinternet.com This is the only free data this side of august in the centre calendar, and it does clash with (at least) Thames, OWLS and Bexleyheath club trials, which we realise will mean several riders and observers will be committed to these events.

most people bodge the tubless rims with silicon, and multiple runs of duct tape to make the spoke attachments air tight (this area tends to be why tubless tyres go down, with no other obvious air leak). some of the older bike (such as early techno, 315's, etc) had the spoke attachments away from the rim and thus no air leaks.

stupidly we've been doing this for the 10+ years of running our LDTs ie a) posting a note at start and end of each byway and posting said note at every household on route. we end up doing multiple "green lane runs" of our green laneing crew, plus several people in cars doing these leaflet drops. i think (i would have to check) that they only leaflet the houses on the green lanes rather than the main road through the centre of town.

Regretfully we have to announce tomorrow's Sidcup Sixty Trial has been cancelled. Whilst the snow is not too bad at Swanley at the moment the forecast for tomorrow is for heavy snow allday and we felt it would not be fair to ask observers to stand out allday in those sort of conditions. No doubt it would be difficult to find out where the sections are as well !! Not sure just yet if we will be running on another date - we have a busy schedule coming up and it will be for the Committee to decide at their meeting tomorrow night. Please share this so that we can get the word out quickly. Thanks everyone - Jamie Clarke (aka rabie) CofC - Sidcup & DMCC Photo : Taking down the 11 sections already laid out.

any sign writer can do it, its really easy, so just ask around locally obviously it will be a show plate, as you need to take a v5 and passport to get a kosher one made (ie for MOT)

several people (inc my sister) have done LDT on 50cc trail bikes, but taking a existing 50cc trials bike would be an SVA (single vehicle approval) ???

IMHO any modern~ish bike (1995 onwards) is OK (the newer they are the lighter they get) from any manufacture - they all have their pros and cons but are roughly the same (just like saying which 450 mx bike is best, any from the big 5 are OK) Montesa went fourstroke with the 4rt in 2005, stopped making the 315. other have made four stroke trials bikes, not really caught on like in mx or even enduro plenty of club and events about, most trials have a novice route but look out for ones with beginners (or something like that) routes

remember everyone who passed after 1997 needs another licence to tow more than 750kg and/or more than one axle. i just passed my B+E over xmas but i think they are changing something about it in late jan

when you say "tyre clamps" are you talking about a security bolt ?

as above trials is (when compared to other motorsport) very cheap that said the costs must be justified - i have no problem in explaining how every fee is arrived at and where the money goes - we (clubs, acu, etc) are all "non profit" organisation. that is to say we do make profits but they are reinvested, no money is returned to any shareholders, etc. BTW - If you trade with members then its "mutual trading" which is exempt from corporation tax (check with an accountant first!)

its the same in enduro, mx and trials - your always waiting for some other bigger event to be announced or not, which then affects something else, something else, then you. the ACU sat (???) on the BTC dates for ages leaving a lot of stuff up in the air, i'm sure they had their reasons, but these events will affect other that affect sammy millers. at the same time i bet hese club had to have their dates in and sorted well in advance of publication, some bits of land can only be used in narrow windows, while neighbouring events, etc also play a part. it seams you can't win....

general feedback has been that they are better, but the wear rate is greater (some report very quick), plus as above, the construction seams to be less strong (as the key factor is they are lighter). but we are mostly on mud and roots, you might find it different on mostly rocks.

dunlops are horrifically unpopular in the south - for their price (in the IRC & Michelin league) they don't sell at all, if you want cheap you buy budgets like vee rubbers, etc or if you want road work then go pirelli.

it is in the handbook, but briefly - as solos but, sidecars are always TSR22B (non stop) and if the passenger "foots" (ie any part of body touches anything ie ground, trees, etc). other obvisou stuff like the sidecar wheel can't be driven, the sidecar must comply with the basic shape in the handbook.

the other way to think about this is that many club have fixed dates, eg the 2nd sunday in december, etc, and this year we have 5 sundays in december, ie an extra trials date, that combined with the seasonal festivities hasn't been exploited by clubs

here is a stab at the ones i know about; sunday 16/12/12 - Worthing & DMCC (AMCA) - club trial at Holmbush Farm sunday 16/12/12 - Bexleyheath & DMCC - club trial at Wainscott sunday 16/12/12 - KYTC - club trial at Offham quarry sunday 30/12/12 - Thames MCC - the Mike Kemp trial at Hungry Hill (P65, maybe twinshock) sunday 30/12/12 - OWLS MCC - club trial at Penshurst tuesday 01/01/13 - Bognor & DMCC (AMCA) - club trial at Halnaker Pit sunday 06/01/13 - Folkestone & DMCC - charity trial at Harbledown sunday 06/01/13 - Horsham Riders (AMCA) - club trial at Rome Woods yes relatively speaking its sparse, especially given the way the weekends fall this year, but often people have got family commitments over the festive period. i think the 3rd weekend of December used to be the late Windlesham Cup by Windlesham & DMCC at Bagshot (i remember riding it xmas 2003 or 2004) - but Windlesham packed up soon after. i know for my club its our longest gap between events (6 to 7 weeks) that we do, but we'll still be doing stuff to our site.

gasgasjamie - thanks for the well written analysis of the season, especially the comments on our trial (which was the first). it's really rare to hear a rider thoughts so well put and thought out especially with perspective. we suffered really badly with queues and lack of observers the previous year (finishing in the dark!!!), hence we looked forward to non-stop. again terrain isn't scotland/debyshire/elsewhere but we gave it a go and it appeared to work (we went home in daylight). thus we at Sidcup were disappointed with the move to stop-permitted for 2013, hence we've dropped the centre championship status to allow us to run non-stop. now as the guy who co-ordinates the observes (and observes) i totally understand you thought on observing, giving a five for stopping is a though decision. we as a club are trying to run a large trial with a motley collection of observers who are not modern trials specialist who are fully conversant on the niceties of what is and isn't a stop. when ever this has been talked about this year i refer to the excellent posts on this forum, discussing this, especially the videos of North Berks' Wallace Cup. It is clear the problem is threefold; 1) how the CofC (and team) lay out the section - terrain helps, but some sections aren't laid out to be ridden non stop easily/if at all 2) how the observer observes - lots of style; wait 3 for a stop, really tough, etc 3) how the rider rides the section - as the video showed, the same observer in the same condition with the same section saw riders ride "non stop" while other rode a "stop permitted" style the explanation of "stop with penalties" given on here, does in my personal opinion, demonstrate the best method for modern trials, but as we then acknowledged the observer has to be very bold to penalise the rider that one for stopping. so we are back with what gasgasjamie says about deciding what a stop is, under what ever system, the observer has to make a tough choice. in theory one could make a brief tutorial for observing complete with demonstration video showing how and why you would give what marks to riders in sections, but in reality this is a completely impractical concept - if you short of observers you'll use anyone with a very quick explanation of the rules - ie for every foot you put down you get a one - no chance for subtly, nuances, etc.

ask for on the "tech talk" forum on TBM, some of the welsh guy might know