old trials fanatic Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 (edited) Look this is just a suggestion and i know it is, or if you are so inclined could be, fraught with problems but when you play golf you observe yourself and or your fellow player on your score card. What if groups of say 3 or 4 went round together scoring each others cards ? Ok arguement is it's open to cheating but is it anymore open to cheating than a wife / girlfriend / parent etc is observing ? I dont know but perhaps we need to brainstorm this one as it's not getting any easier and i thought it was just our club that was suffering but it seems many more are in the same boat. I think asking riders to pay more in entry fees, some have suggested £25 to £50 is a non starter as most are complaining about the cost of entry fees already. Trials riders are a tight a***d bunch and the fact that a day out competing or watching other sports is well in excess of the pittance we charge to compete in a trial is largely irrelevant because the riders by and large just dont get it. So i think we have to find someway of accepting the fact we are never going to get all sections observed all day by knowledgeable observers and find a way of making the best of the resourse we have got i.e. the riders who are already there. Now getting them to get involved will be a mammouth task of re education but not as gigantic a task as finding enough observers on a regular basis to man all sections you have struggled all the previous day to lay out. Edited March 24, 2012 by Old trials fanatic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyboxer Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 Look this is just a suggestion and i know it is, or if you are so inclined could be, fraught with problems but when you play golf you observe yourself and or your fellow player on your score card. What if groups of say 3 or 4 went round together scoring each others cards ? Ok arguement is it's open to cheating but is it anymore open to cheating than a wife / girlfriend / parent etc is observing ? I dont know but perhaps we need to brainstorm this one as it's not getting any easier and i thought it was just our club that was suffering but it seems many more are in the same boat. I think asking riders to pay more in entry fees, some have suggested £25 to £50 is a non starter as most are complaining about the cost of entry fees already. Trials riders are a tight a***d bunch and the fact that a day out competing or watching other sports is well in excess of the pittance we charge to compete in a trial is largely irrelevant because the riders by and large just dont get it. So i think we have to find someway of accepting the fact we are never going to get all sections observed all day by knowledgeable observers and find a way of making the best of the resourse we have got i.e. the riders who are already there. Now getting them to get involved will be a mammouth task of re education but not as gigantic a task as finding enough observers on a regular basis to man all sections you have struggled all the previous day to lay out. For me riding and observing, is a non starter It spoils the rhythm and causes as distraction Plus it's open to abuse I'd sooner pay another £5 on my entry for observers Funny some trials, do ok for Observers and some don't - queer really I think it's more down to CofC and how approachable they are, some CofC's never seem to have a problem Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizza5 Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Hate to bring it up again! But maybe the rules put people off, I am off to a trial today and I would have to ask what rules we are riding under? That coupled with little Johny's Dad argueing with said obsevers about his precious Son's score being different to what the observer has marked, touching flags, missing flags, flags laid down ''that wasn't me''!! Yeh give us a board I will give up my spare time................. By the way I have obsevered. set out and help organise so I am not saying I wouldn't do it, I can maybe see why people don't want to? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdmc Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 It is not the riders who are going to see off the sport it is lack of observers This problem is nation wide. At our Club over the years we have tried all sorts. Payment from £5 to £20. All names go into a hat and the first drawn out gets £50. Reduced or free entry if they bring an observer. They work for a couple of weeks then it rains and they sit in the cars. Some say make the sections easier and attract more riders. More riders = more observers. I can tell you stood at a section giving clean after clean or being very lenient because he/or she has only ridden a couple of trials is not my idea of watching/observing trials. OK a couple of times but not every time.As an observer I want to have a bit of a challenge watching and marking a section where the rider has to think a bit. I dont know the answer but making the courses any easier may attract a couple of extra riders but it aint going to attract observers. Yes E Class may be the future of the sport but not the future of observing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pindie Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 How about self marking in a good old honest way? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old trials fanatic Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 We had round 2 of our 2012 / 2013 season today and we had just 26 riders and 1 yes 1 observer. Now i'm very grateful to the one observer that came but this is a bit depressing and i really dont know what to do. With only 26 riders and land plus insurance etc to pay for we just cant even think of offering £20 per observer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete_scorpa3 Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 We had round 2 of our 2012 / 2013 season today and we had just 26 riders and 1 yes 1 observer. Now i'm very grateful to the one observer that came but this is a bit depressing and i really dont know what to do. With only 26 riders and land plus insurance etc to pay for we just cant even think of offering £20 per observer. You've got little choice but to put the boards out. You can hardly ask nine riders to give up their ride to observe when you've only got 26 there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old trials fanatic Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 You've got little choice but to put the boards out. You can hardly ask nine riders to give up their ride to observe when you've only got 26 there. Agreed which is basically what we did. We actually split the day into riding 6 sections 4 times with just the one section observed then a short break in the sunshine. The afternoon was 5 sections 4 times but by now with a retirement and i managed to cajole a spectator into observing we had 3 observers so just two sections observed by riders. I hope the riders understood as i didnt get any complaints. Just have to pray things improve for the next round Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosey Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 .......The days when a rider came with a couple of mates or wives / girlfriends seems to be long gone. ........................... Yep we need to get a trials marketing campaign aimed at the Mormons ! P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old trials fanatic Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Yep we need to get a trials marketing campaign aimed at the Mormons ! P Good job you spelt that correctly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
02-apr Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Nearly forty years ago I arranged that a scout troop local to our big trial would observe in exchange for a motorcycle filmshow at their clubrooms. We even had a training day beforehand. Now, all our club trials are observe yourself in small groups. Fine, it's a day out on the bike, but anyone who thinks the results are anywhere near what they would be with competent observers is kidding themselves. I'm not bothered as I'm too old to worry about results - I won't say there's cheating going on but benefit of the doubt is given where there's no doubt, cards gradually get further apart, there's no consistency with 20 entrants meaning 20 interpretations of the rules. One guy even ran back in to a section to remove the rock his wheel had moved before it could inconvenience following riders! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ridgrunr Posted March 27, 2012 Report Share Posted March 27, 2012 We've fought the observer war here for years and finally gave up. We tried about everything and finally have gone to group scoring, where the class goes out and score each other. We group score in classes and personally I'm not a fan of class group scoring, mostly because you end up with riders scoring riders who they are competing against. You also tend to get a "good ole boy" thing going after awhile. A better way to group score is to mix the scoring groups. It's fairly easy to do, simply determine which class has the most riders and use that as your base. For instance, if your largest class is 8 Advanced riders, you'll have 8 scoring groups. You simply put their names on a paper and line up the rest of the riders beneath them with no two riders of the same class in a scoring group. I like it because it requires riders to actually think and choose lines, instead of playing follow the leader, or waiting to ride till everyone else in the class has ridden to determine which is the best line. I like this too, because no one knows how anyone else they are competing against is doing till it's all over, so the incentive to keep trying is greater. Also, no one is riding with, scoring, or being scored by anyone who they are competing against. The riders scoring each other are from different classes so the scoring is more likely to be accurate. It also puts lower class riders riders out there with upper class riders where maybe they can learn from the experience of riding with better riders. I agree having dedicated observers for each section is the way to go, but that seems to get harder and harder to get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinshocknut Posted March 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2012 (edited) well folk's iv'e been sat back for a few days now reading all the reply's with interest, fair enough with low entry events there is not the number of family/friends to cover sections but one club that i belong to ran a 7 round summer easy/beginners series last year and i think had an average entry of 91 riders with one trial at 161 riders, down here most club events are between 40-80 and championship rounds are around 70-100+ riders so events are well supported but still struggle to cover sections. just to open another can of worms i think that no-stop events will help reduce the time length of a trial which means observers wont be stood out for so long which may encourage more people to pick up a board , i'm not knocking the clubman/expert riders doing all their hopping/balancing cos that's how sections are set out for them but as a novice rider i could sometimes ride a section twice in the time its takes them, no-stop keeps the trial moving (my opinion) keep the thread going it's interesting reading Edited March 27, 2012 by twinshocknut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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