rabie

whatever you decide, or how you decide to interpret the rule you chose it still rests upon one fundamental how does the observer interpret a stop the fact observers are currently under *BOTH* TSR-22-A and TSR-22-B not penalising stopping (and sidewards and even back-wards motion) means the TSR-22-A or B debate is academic until all observers are singing form the same hymn sheets consistently then you can move forward and make a decision about whether you want to create a TSR-22-C (ie hopping an bopping allowed) rabie

seam to be plenty of event son in your end of the world http://www.easternacu.info/html/trialsfixtures.html just go along and ride the easiest route running an event is technically / legally a lot easier than running practise rabie

in my end of the world (same as spud - SEC) we're spoilt for events really also our centre is still very active in all four sports (Trials, enduro, MX, grass track) and some clubs cover more than one sport for example my club is huge - we finished last year with 400+ members, while other clubs in our Centre are inactive and some active clubs have only a handful of members even with "members" not all member organise anything / help out in anyway. on one hand you can go "AMCA MX" style and have a rigid group system with controlled membership to events ratio and forcing everyone to work. alternatively you can go to the Tony Ford / SMX extreme and run it as a business - charge a lot, put on a not very high standard event but the riders are happy in the knowledge they don't have to help out in any way at all what is the answer ? well that is really the $64,000 question..... anyway back to AtomAnt's original point - the new permit system for 2006 is designed so that yes you can enter any open event as a member of any ACU club - so i should be able to turn up to one of your trials as a Sidcup member, no problem. some places are going to more strict, by running events as group trials, LEPs, Restricted invitation, centre restricted, etc, etc --> IMHO this is unnecessary but the bureaucracy of some centres actively discourages some trials from being big (ie club have to pay for permits, pay for stewards, etc) - we silly southern fairies just pay a levy on each rider and get a free steward and permit, thus encouraging clubs to "think big" the system has been running unofficially in MX, Grass Track and LDTs for some time and should work well for trials as to how to build a club atmosphere, that is also a difficult question - in our opinion it does help to run the odd small club trial just for your members. we also run a club championship and have an awards do in a pub in the off season to award the prizes. a local enduro/trials club has all its members (at enduros anyway) wearing a club shirt. recently we've run training days with British enduro champions for our club members. riders want benefits beyond the club card, and with that you create (to an extent) an community and hopefully gain a few more volunteers. practically we're never going to get all 400+ of our members to work for the club but we do get a little bit which in our opinion makes it worth while. it doesn't stop some club stalwarts from getting upset and saying we need an AMCA MX type system (ie force everyone to work) a lot of tough questions, no real answers rabie

board all the time at out two big trials (two laps of around 20 section), we go round pick up the card and enter it into the computer but at others we write 3 or 4 laps on the same card (we make the cards) our land is really unsuitable for punches we could do with waterproof card although we normally use a variety of see through plastic bags rabie

its a very tough cookie in our group trials each club riders aren't allowed to ride their own round (and each club puts on a round) and thus in theory there are enough not riding riders to cover the event - doesn't work perfectly. the idea is also used by local enduros. the logical next step is to be like (modern) AMCA MX - you have to help your club or no licences - it seams to really work. also the club has to put on something like two events if it has 40 members - any surplus members must go to another club or start a new one. then clubs are moved about by then AMCA from each centre (group) so that each group has enough clubs and everyone is virtually guaranteed a ride every weekend - lots of problems with this as there in no encouragement / reason to run a good event because your entry is guaranteed. also you can't / its very hard to ride elsewhere when a crap round is on in your good. or at the other extreme find 10 or 20 people (whatever) and pay them. a) there isn't the money in trials to do it and we in MX can't find the people even though we have the money! IMHO there is no answer but ....... rabie

we southern fairies are also in confusion mainly dues to a) the observers don't know/don't enforce it consistently - section to section, trial to trial. how the sections are laid out, its the CofC / club who lay the trial out. the fundamental different between TSR 22 A and B is that when you "cease forward motion" on either A or B you get penalised. its just under "Stop with penalties" that you can continue. the confusion comes from the intrinsic difficulties with trials observation (under TSR 22 A or . we personally in the SEC ACU will go ape**** if we can't run both, any decision by the T&EC has got to be acceptable to almost all trials clubs in all 20+ centres (which all run trials). while a change in one way or the other may be desired and even desirable, BUT you need to carry everyone or it will be a repeat of the helmets fiasco with clubs doing a UDI and going AMCA or ORPA - which in the bigger picture is an even worse case scenario rabie

earthworks on your own land (ie no imported dirt) is OK~ish (bar no national aprk, ssci, etc) depends on what you think your neighbours will let you get away with rabie

its an evil rule to enforce some times the sections aren't set out (esp on the expert route) to allow it to be truly non stop able the rest of the time the observer give the benefit of the doubt or are a)unaware b)not at all confident in the rule i, in light of the recent debate on the subject, enforced it at out centre championship trial. i upset a lot of experts BUT they all knew how to ride "non-stop" (ie stop with penalties) once they realised i was going to give penalties for stopping its observer inconsistency that leads to riders being unsure of how to ride the sections (and thus opting for the easier option of stopping assuming, no penalty). however its observer lack of knowledge/confidence/unwillingness to change /or confront that means this is the case. coupled with the occasional section not laid out to make non-stop a possibility tough cookie! rabie

the Beamish family still own it - see goldingbranraceway (.co.uk or .com), probalbe the best mx practice track in the south east. rabie

as long as the land isn't in a national park then you can use it 28 days a year for trials also if the earthworks you do aren't huge (like some of the biggest MX table top of ski jump) and most importantly you don't bring in external soil then you should be OK. you can even get grants to plant trees (often the trees are free) - once you have trees covertly importing rocks, concrete, proper logs / tree stumps should be achievable see laragb.org (i think thats the URL) for lots of details on planning law rabie

while John Collins has cleared this up in response to Atom Ant's suggestion that i think of something, all i suggest is that it is up to each club to decide in light of the current status (as outlined by John Collins above) what system they want to introduce. rabie

well you can actually to a "Twinshock look" with an open face helmet with one of those face masks that attach to the helmet and goggles (there is one guy from the eastern centre who those this). thus the normal trials helmet is a no no for MX & enduro on its own rabie

you suppose the club / secretary has much control over the report that appears in TMX ??? the reporter may not be anything to do with the club, and even when it is some hard pressed club official trying to another troubling, challenging and difficult job, its yet another burden to locate the prefix of the machine (if the include such data anyway) rabie (playing devils advocate)

merci beaucoup pardon, je ne parle francais (un peau) rabie

there is something like 25+ active trials clubs in the south eastern centre (Kent, Sussex and surrey) and at a rough guess 15 or so clubs in Kent there is normally at least one centre event on, while on groups Sunday (2nd Sunday of the month) 4 or 5 of the 5 combines have a trial on (slightly easier than a centre one). then there are club trials, and wobbler trials, etc ie there are so many events on you don't really need one. give us an idea of where abouts in Kent you are and i recommend some local clubs to you rabie

cracking trial, bitterly cold but thankfully dry which makes all the difference. some interesting "new" sections. my sidecar team lost a few marks but we reckon one of the crews may have managed to clean the trial got a load of photos on my new camera (mostly chairs and some of the rigids) I'll sort some out later rabie

a) trials doesn't require an ACU Sticker to be on the helmet silver and gold mean OK for MX and they ban open face (ie most trails) helmets for exact details find a Scrutineer who's been to an ACU technical seminar compulsory helmets way back in the day either we (the ACU) or the insurance company of the time decided to introduce it as it was a good idea (but no legal requirement) - similarly we in MX introduced a no riding in the paddock rule (at all) when trials and road race still ride in the paddock anyway this really p****d off a lot of trials people to the nth level. this coupled with some other issues lead to (in my end of the world) a significant chunk of our centre trials clubs going AMCA (who use the same insurance company!!!) - who have a much more laizze faire attitude to "governing" trials. now for better of for worse we latter found out our insurer will let us do trials without helmets but having gone through the helmets pain and as you've all pointed out "no helmets" is so ridiculous in the current litigious era that we haven't gone back........ anyway these lad want to ride without helmets and the insurance company underwriting it all accepts this - i don't get it myself at all but c'est la vie......... rabie

OK you've got several issues here and some have become confused a few years ago upon joining a club part of your club membership fee was sent to the ACU HQ under the membership reform package by Geoff Wilson (wow that must be over 5 years ago now) this was abolished. so a member of a club isn't automatically an ACU member now to compete in any motorcycle form you need a licence (OK trials affiliation) which require membership of an ACU club to start with. this leaves the black hole of officials (who presumably are club members) who are now not ACU members. for an obscure insurance reason i never quiet understood the ACU advised that "senior administrative officials" (there is a list in the national sporting code - basically CofC, etc - not observers) really should be members of the ACU (cheapest option being a trials licence) now some officials were obviously rightly upset as they didn't compete, volunteer (at significant expense) and were now being asked to stump up a tenner (IIRC initially a fiver) now some clubs AND/OR centres have offered to pay this tenner on a variety of conditions. my club pays for its ***non competitive*** "senior administrative officials". now my club is big, across 3 areas of the sport but has the money to afford this. IIRC our centre (SEC) line is somewhat different because the centre treasurer has a different opinion (somewhat like AtomAnt's) the advice from the ACU over senior administrative officials has recently changed - but i would check with them (IIRC they would like you to join the ACU). as for your club membership fees, well thats up to your club. most of our non competitive organiser are either on our (huge) committee or are honorary members (ie free) its a though and thorny issue, as whatever you do for trials would have to be expanded across the whole ACU, and the other sports are quiet often structured very differently - including some professional promoters, etc, etc - who may not see the case for this personally even though i "compete" VERY rarely (a handful) and spend most weekends of the year "organising" in some capacity don't think i should be having that as a freebie. as for honorariums, these aren't universal and are a way of some clubs (and/or centres) of reimbursing some of their officials. its is by no means a professional operation and realistically these payments barley cover fuel, stationary and phone bills. the "labour" part of the charge of all the sports officials would be astronomically high and make the sport uneconomical rabie

the latter of course! , however it ignores valid words which i meant to be somthing else! rabie

pah I'm illiterate !!! actually I've got much better since I've found IeSpell.com, a lovely little programme that spell checks in Internet Explorer rabie

we ain't got no rocks down here - wet or slippery just mud, sand and trees! rocks, really what are they ? rabie

its twofold a) under the CROW act of 2002 (?) where the bobblies (sorry ramblers) have the right to trespass (sorry roam) through your back garden (sorry specific open bits of land - coloured yellow on new OS maps). anyway the forestry commission woods are all classed as open so you now have to apply miles in advance (like 6 months) so they can notify someone/somewhere that they are using one of their 28 days (under the CROW act you can shut a piece of land from right to roam for up to 28 individual separate days, etc) anyway its eminently sensible but bloody hassle the ACU have negotiated some sort of new deal with forestry which means we have to send a from through rugby to hire forestry land. I'm not too sure on the details but all our clubs/centre officials aren't that pleased about it as it suddenly appeared with no covering note. lots of (awkward) questions have been asked and I'm sure we'll get an answer. BTW we have been getting on excellently with the Forestry commission locally and they want us to use their land more (because motorcyclists are one of the few people who actually want to hire a forest) anyway without wanting to knock what the ACU / Trials and Enduro Committee / whoever has done this we just haven't had enough info communicated to us to make us amenable to it (considering we didn't have a problem before) we tend to hire big forests for our enduros, i don't think we use any for trials IIRC (we do use several bits of MOD land for trials buts thats something else) so yes Monty python jokes ....... rabie

exactly "Europe" to everyone else on the planet (but us) ie a geographical construct that stretches from the Atlantic to the Urals, north cape to the Mediterranean. however to Brits "Europe" has political connotation and is more often used to mean the EU; thus the confusion and double meaning - ahh what a great language we have (this was an actual lecture for my first year International Relations course!) rabie

first of all the ACU insurance for road trials is available to under 21 and other people with excluded under the basic conditions if they ask for it we down here in the south east have been running mulitlap events for donkeys years because as you say we don't have moors (what is a moor? or for that matter what are rocks?) or forests or anything for that matter! on the other hand trials did traditionally down here run between various bits of land (eg our recent centre championship trial owes its name - the Sidcup Sixty - to its original 60 mile lap), the only one i recall like that recently down here was the pre65 inter centre. thus other than a few pre65s and sidecars who do nationals no one's bikes are on the road on the other hand we're started running a few of these long distance trials for the pre65s but mostly trail riders (serrows, alps, etc plus the enduro lot), there are 3 of them running down here and they are very popular. fundamentally if the event has a big entry / is oversubscribed then you (the organiser) are doing something right. where you are right to question it is if someone is being put at a disadvantaged say if the event was part of the "normal" championship - ie people who would be winning off road who can't do road are unfairly disadvantaged rabie

Results on club website (Breakdown and by class in PDF) A report will *probable* appear on Trialsinfo soon Photos will probable appear on Trialsinfo.com soon, I'm told they may be some soon on Southend & DMCC and very soon they'll be on Reflex Digital's site I'm also due a DVD full from a contact but that will be a few days. rabie