But most events tend to be "Regional Restricted" or "Open" so joining a trials club around there gets you in
obviously will depend on bike storage and transport and how far they are willing to travel but on the bright side its been estimated that the 4 London/south east centres account for well over a 1/3 of ACU events and all have very healthy trials scene
you lot think you have it alright debating this here, when i go home i have to placated my mother (motoxmarge) about the fundamentals of TSR22A,B, etc!!! (both are qualified CofCs as well as my Dad!)
IMHO once you've warned them its down to them, they sign on to say they've practically signed their life away its down to them. at the end of the day the people who sunk the mineshaft are responsible in a way. as for a cliff that is nature, your riding off road.
if you believe you need to go the full hog, fill out the forestry form in its amazing detail
but *fundamentally* two different risk assessors are going to identify different risks and when they concur on the same risk they may rate it differently and chose responses to that differently.
IMHO the key is to do any form of RA, the extent is the next step
As far as i know (AFAIK), the ACU insurers will pay out in that example but if it has gone to court it probable will have taken up some of your time.
for example, a kid at one of our MX's went into a prohibited area, a bike went from the track and some mud hit the kid. the event was filmed on tape. the kid sued. despite us being in the right, we (the ACU insurers) settled out of court as it wasn't worth fighting (ie cost us more to fight, even though we're right). my point being is that no matter what you do some **** will try it on - that 21st century Britain
the "go kart system" - ie transponders is what we use in MX, hare and hounds and grass track (enduro is much more complex) - I've worked one several times
you put a co-ax loop in the ground at the start and a separate on at the end - to get 1/100th of a second you would need a laser light beam (doable but yet more expense).
having just sat the national clerk of the course seminar (trials and enduro) given by TEC chairman John Collins - I'll say its all included
in my pack i got there, there were three example forms
mk1 - very simple, 5 minutes jobby (covers your a*** in the fact you've done one)
mk2 - by Stratford club, bit more complex with a funky graph
mk3 - super complex foresty style form
the other bit of key advice John dispensed (IMHO anyway) was that risk we are judging are the one we "import" (ie the mountain was there, you can't change that, but building a grandstand is importing so RA must be done)
John did say that its a job for 2006, to further refine the RA issue
as for your last paragraph
a) the insurance covers you anyway
the act of filling one in at the very lest the most basic version on the most simplistic level is ***A step in the right direction***. i wouldn't worry to much about what your putting down
c) i don't AMCA trials people doing this
d) this is trial ! - nothing happens, its intrinsically a very "safe" form of motorsport compared to the MX and Enduros my club also puts on
so chill, do the basic version with some common sense and you're covered
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)
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)
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
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!
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
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
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
The Which Bike test was held at Golding Barn in Sussex which was owned by Graham Beamish. Bernie Schrieber was seen to be doing some outragous things on the bikes for that time!
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
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.
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
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)
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
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)
Talmag
in Pre-65 Bikes
Posted
finally got my act together and put photos online - a lot of the chairs, a handful of solos (mostly rigids)
http://www.sidcupmotorcycleclub.co.uk/phot..._trial_2006.htm
the attached photo was the most intresting bike i saw
rabie