scotty Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 how come theres been a pre 65 class for so long yet no classes for 76/82 machines etc , im refering to these years as IMHO these years were the years that trials bikes evolved taking gaint leaps in design/function etc! , i know theres a twinshock class/route! but these seem to be few and far between? isn't it time the ACU etc brought in the above cut off years (or similiar) there must be hundreds of twinshock/spanish bikes out there being done up ready to go!!! some local trial's ive competed in do a modern,pre 65 and novice easy route! but it seem's twinshock bike's sit in no mans land, ive posted this after reading nearly the same comment in trail bike magazine! your views please gentleman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old trials fanatic Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 Can only speak from personal experience locally and the simple answer is too much hassle. One of my local clubs has just announced that next year they are combining the Pre 70 British Bike 4 strokes and 2 strokes due to lack of entries. If they started subdividing the Twinshocks into the classes you suggest then often ther would be no entries or only sometimes one entry per class. The other club at which i ride grudgingly allows "Pre 72" Spanish twinshocks. Now Pre 72 is a bit of a weird choice anyway and is almost impossible to police as so many parts are interchangeable on Spanish twinshocks that you can mix and match to make the best of the components look like they are from a Pre 72. The same thing would apply to the Pre 76 and Pre 82 parts of your suggestion. It becomes too complicated if too many classes are introduced. My own preference would be British Bike Pre 70 4 stroke, Pre 70 2 stroke, Pre unit 4 stroke, pre unit 2 stroke, Rigid, Spanish twinshock, all other twinshocks 2 and 4 strokes, aircooled monoshocks pre 95, others. Plus Novice, Intermediate, Expert, over 50, youth, TY 80. You see how complicated it becomes? Which ones do you combine / amalgamate / drop altogether. Same thing happens if you introduce too many alternative routes. A section becomes a sea of flags and a nightmare for rider and observer if you are not too careful. Me i find most times two routes are enough with the recent adoption of a 50/50 route at one of my clubs working well also. You have a valid point but until we get back to large varied entrys, around 100 ish, then it results in an award for everybody which would be far too costly for the organising club. Here's one for ya. Who is going to police the scrutineering of the bikes to decide if they are "legal" for the class they are being ridden in? What mods are and are not allowed within that class? (see comments re the Scottish pre 65 trial ) Interesting discussion point though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabie Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 firstly it appears from your post that you greatly misunderstand how the "system" works the ACU has bugger all (for all intents and purposes) to do with it, its down to the promoting club they decide what classes / routes to run back in the good old days when beer was cheap, British made bikes, etc, etc there was one route and maybe two classes obviously today we have more classes than you or I have fingers. you may have three or four routes (and thats difficult) but the entries are only 50 to 100. thus classes barley have the usual number (6) to count for awards so who want to run them even them in my experience the twinshock field is wide and diverse, divided between those who should be ridding the red route (ie easy route, the novice route) or those riders who are truly skilled and want a challenged and they ride the blue route (intermediate). thus the twinshock field is divided. thats not to say there is anything stopping any organiser from putting on any such event, but there appears ,in my very humble opinion, to be little demand from the riders out there (they either have modern bikes, or pre 65 bikes - leaving the twinshocks or early "modern" monos to the wobblers) and the enthusiasts seams to enjoy the world of British bikes (ie pre65) in a way the groups you mention fail to ..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spud Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 Rabie, have you seen the minutes from this months NKTC?....quickly, we have a new Intermediate B class!! This is for a novice rider who is a little to good to ride novice route, but not good enough to ride Intermediate route. if i had my way there would be less classes. a little bit of my history: started riding in 2000 as novice never won a trial but moved up to Intermediate route and was losing 150marks per trial - a couple of years on I won the class. moved up to expert b but seemed a waste of time so mid-season went to experts and am now losing 100+ marks per trial. i've size some way to go with where i want to be but as the saying goes "i'm getting there" Had a good practise ride up the heights, well done with the sections Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john collins Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 Think there may be a miss- aprehension here. As stated Clubs can put in any classes they want - up to them. As far as tghen National scene is concerned: Samy Miller Championship - Class 8 - Any Twinshock - Next rd Greensmith this weekend. Classic Championship - Class B - Any Twinshock The real question is - while everyone talks about te large number of Twinshocks etc out there - which is true - this does not necessarily turn into entries for Clubs that atempt to put events on for them. We organised a Welsh Twinshock Championship a few years ago - and at one event - which had a superb course - the entry was 6 - the twinshocks were out there - I had sold over 20 s/hand Bultaco's in that area that year. I have never really been able to work it out. Generally many of the Twinshocks are very reliable and easy to fettle, the spares are still quite reasonable and the bikes - by and large are still quite competative and easy to ride - and not too heavy etc. You can still pick quite reasonable twinshocks up for around Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabie Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 The Classis/Twinshock MX scene gets big entries - why not twinshock Trials? IMHO the twinshock mx scene is ridden by the ridders who rode the machines the first time round, it also helps the event are easy to enter, cheap, and involve no hassle (and a hell of a lot of ) classic mx has got to the point now where it is the offspring riding the bikes their fathers rode, but there is still a large intrest in british iron and its very popular to watch / be involved with Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 (edited) Perhaps the best argument for not having such a multitude of classes is simply the fact that there's just very little point. If you're seriously competitive and out to win then you'll probably be wanting to ride modern machinery to know you're achieving the very best performance you can. If you're not competitive and just enjoy riding the older machines then you can simply enter whichever class allows you to ride the course appropriate to you and not worry about what position you finish in! The Classis/Twinshock MX scene gets big entries - why not twinshock Trials? Perhaps the other key thing here is that for everyone on the MX track you are competing against the other people on the track in a very direct manner, whereas for the majority of trials riders the competition isn't so much against the other people but against the terrain. For MX then it doesn't matter so much how old your machine is if everyone is on a level(ish) playing field, whereas in trials an older machine will almost certainly mean less capability in beating a bit of terrain. Edited October 18, 2006 by dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabie Posted October 19, 2006 Report Share Posted October 19, 2006 Rabie, have you seen the minutes from this months NKTC?....quickly, we have a new Intermediate B class!! This is for a novice rider who is a little to good to ride novice route, but not good enough to ride Intermediate route.if i had my way there would be less classes. On one level the combine are right, there is a desperate need for more classes, the standard 3 class system is woefully inadequate. On the other it isn't, last i herd we've got one expert entered for our combine trial - why bother setting the route out ??? (OK there are expert B's). there are people like derek baker who ride novice yet are too good but enjoy the ride but don't want to go up (ie they are clubman). i don't pretend to know the answer, there are so many permutations its really impossible to work out really and strike any real balance a little bit of my history: started riding in 2000 as novice never won a trial but moved up to Intermediate route and was losing 150marks per trial - a couple of years on I won the class. moved up to expert b but seemed a waste of time so mid-season went to experts and am now losing 100+ marks per trial. i've size some way to go with where i want to be but as the saying goes "i'm getting there"Had a good practise ride up the heights, well done with the sections cheers - lot of work goes into it and im glad it paid off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boofont Posted October 19, 2006 Report Share Posted October 19, 2006 Intresting topic this one. There's a Twinshock class up here in Scotland for Nationals and I know Bon Accord in Aberdeen have a Twinshock class in their championship. I believe some clubs/centers have an Air Colled class in ACU trials down South? A good idea in principle, a TY Mono against a modern bike is no real comparison. Problem is where does the 125/175 Scorpa fit in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotty Posted October 19, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2006 Sorry chap's im relativey new to trials competitions , although been riding the bikes for years! the way i see it if i enter say my ossa at example WDMC trial i could ride the easy/novice route but its to easy(for me!) then if i enter'd the clubman route which is full of modern bikes i would be uncompetive on a 30 year old bike, i know what your going to suggest buy a newish bike! but i love the bikes from my youth! ie beamish's,majesty's, bultaco's etc!!! seem to be in no mans land on this one, maybe get the pinky out and ride the clubman route and be done with it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy m Posted October 19, 2006 Report Share Posted October 19, 2006 Going back to Boofonts question re the Scorpa 125/ 175. Last time I looked at my 125 it had an aircooled motor which is housed in a monoshock chassis.= Aircooled mono. There are a few out there whining about this bike as it has the geometry etc that others want etc etc. Surely get feet on pegs and riders out there enjoying them selves. Things always get complicated and people get bored or tired and walk away from the hobby whatever it is because of this. It is what it is. And if cut off dates for a/c monos are brought in that causes allienation obviously. Is that what you want coz thats what'll happen (Harry Enfield) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spud Posted October 19, 2006 Report Share Posted October 19, 2006 Rabie, have you seen the minutes from this months NKTC?....quickly, we have a new Intermediate B class!! This is for a novice rider who is a little to good to ride novice route, but not good enough to ride Intermediate route. if i had my way there would be less classes. On one level the combine are right, there is a desperate need for more classes, the standard 3 class system is woefully inadequate. On the other it isn't, last i herd we've got one expert entered for our combine trial - why bother setting the route out ??? (OK there are expert B's). there are people like derek baker who ride novice yet are too good but enjoy the ride but don't want to go up (ie they are clubman). i don't pretend to know the answer, there are so many permutations its really impossible to work out really and strike any real balance a little bit of my history: started riding in 2000 as novice never won a trial but moved up to Intermediate route and was losing 150marks per trial - a couple of years on I won the class. moved up to expert b but seemed a waste of time so mid-season went to experts and am now losing 100+ marks per trial. i've size some way to go with where i want to be but as the saying goes "i'm getting there"Had a good practise ride up the heights, well done with the sections cheers - lot of work goes into it and im glad it paid off Last NKTC event the largest number of riders in a given class was Experts....not that i'm moaning its just last year every bugger rode inter or exp b (say as me) and now ever bugger is riding expert whats that all about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabie Posted October 20, 2006 Report Share Posted October 20, 2006 nat fair enough, just the secretary of that meeting was moaning at our committee meting that we only had about 50 entires and only 1 expert, so what would be the point of setting the route out ??? (he didn't say how many expert B's we had) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spud Posted October 21, 2006 Report Share Posted October 21, 2006 (edited) The norm of how many expert riders an event attracts can sometimes be gauged by a clubs previous years events. As far as i'm aware Sidcup MC is not a club for dangerous sections, but the sections can be very difficult. (hard for me that is). My best advice for the forthcoming Simmons Cup is make the expert route similar to that of the Sidcup 30 expert route. The experts are out there, so its up to the clubs to not go OTT with the sections. I know of one expert who is riding the Simmons apologises to readers this conversation is not encompassing the subject Edited October 21, 2006 by spud Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabie Posted October 21, 2006 Report Share Posted October 21, 2006 actually thats a very fair comment, we have two huge problems, one our trials tend to be laid out by different teams so consistency between our events is a weak point. I know certain riders won't ride our events if x is laying the trial out but will if y is .... Secondly the land/weather militates against us; the land is tight in places and sand wares away easily, if its wet grip disappears and transforms a section from too easy to impossible (just spent the day planning sections for the sidecar trials, its completely different for the dry wobbler trial!) apologises to readers this conversation is not encompassing the subject sorry we have drifted far off topic...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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