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Another Blow To Super Cub Trials Projects.


charlie prescott
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I'm a regular contributor to this website and writer of the Centrally Speaking column and with 52 years of trials experience, consider that i have a good idea of what's right and more importantly what is not right. I'm also on the Trials and Enduro Committee but a newcomer this year and I'm just finding my feet. Let me tell you that it's amazing the number of e-mails that have circulated about the Sammy Miller series and the eventual introduction of the Non Championship class and more recently a protest following the Golden Valley event.

 

The Non Championship class was intended to allow anyone with a bike that was so obviously NOT at the real heart of the series to have a class in which to compete. So when Jon chose to enter in the class he thought he should be in, rather than the class created specifically for the style of machine that he choses to ride, it should be obvious that he would be moved out of his chosen class into the correct one. If there was no Non Championship class, then in my opinion an organiser would have been perfectly in the right to refuse him a start as the machine did not comply with the spirit of the regulations. That there is now a class - allbeit Non Championship - gives Jon and others an event to ride, in which they can compare their performance with the results of others on machines that are to the spirit of the regulations.

 

As John Collins has said, there is an intention to review the whole set of Sammy Miller regulations for 2016, and whilst I can't even begin to think or say what form those regulations will take, I do know that when they are drafted in committee, the intention will be to satisfy everybody's opinions, though inevitably somebody will have a different view.

 

Perhaps this is a good time to point out that the Trials and Enduro Committee is not a group of 8 persons with no knowledge of the sport. Three of us are current trials riders, three of us have been competitive enduro riders, four of us currently organise major events and all eight at some time or another have been event secretaries or otherwise have been involved in the organisation of the sport. So it's not a bunch of dummies trying their best to formulate rules and run the sport. And also bear in mind that the current Chairman of the ACU as a whole, has been a factory supported trials rider, a multiple centre trials champion, a national trial winner, a member of the British ISDE team and a very respected organiser of centre trials, British Championship enduros and British Championship motocross.

 

I think the trials and enduro side of the sport is in good hands. It's easy to knock the ACU but as a whole the organisation does very well to manage such a diverse sport.

 

Mike Rapley

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  • 2 weeks later...

The sport is fortunate to have a Trials and Enduro Committee comprised of people who are - and have been - ACTIVELY involved as riders, observers, organisers in more than one aspect of the sport for a combined length of time that GUARANTEES that each and every one of them is likely to have been involved - in one way or another - in the resolution of motorcycling or sporting or land access problems, all of which need to be considered in the formulation of rules to govern a series of events that could well be an active branch of the sport for many years to come.

 

Couple to that the concerns that need to be considered in terms of the ever more limiting regulations covering health and safety, etc., etc., ad nauseum...............

 

When the original series rules were created, for the events that spawned the Sammy Miller series, the governing bodies of the sport comprised people who were well qualified at getting themselves on to committees, all too often with scant regard to any form of qualifying experience, thankfully those days are long gone.

 

I can offer one crumb of experience.  In the original rules I specifically created a 'Specials' class to enable people whose machines could not comply - but who still wanted to participate in the sport - to have a ride.  But to prevent the series being overcome by an influx of such machines I removed the 'glory' of being able to 'win' on such a machine, so their marks were recorded, to comply with all the legal insurance, etc., requirements - BUT NOT TNCLUDED IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS.  So they were welcome to come along for the ride and 'compete' in their own minds - but never to the detriment of the riders of qualifying machines.  Remember, machines from any of the other classes that could not comply in any particular respect with the rules for that class were offered the choice of ride it as a special - or ride somewhere else - and also told that would always be the case until the machine was brought to the complying standard.................

 

I realise that the only way that can work is that a reliable person - or persons - have to be nominated as series coordinators that will be present and arbitrate on the spot - much in the way of the Stewards - at every event.  There may be expenses involved but that is the way it worked previously and the classic sport grew and flourished, in my experience, directly as a result of that active control.

 

Finally, good luck to the Committee - and please, don't be slow to ask 'why' or 'how' we created the series initially.

 

Deryk Wylde

Edited by laird387
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  • 2 weeks later...

Regs are available for the Sam Cooper Union Jack round of the Sammy Miller Classic series from the Stratford-Upon-Avon MCC webs site.

 

http://www.stratford-upon-avonmcc.org.uk/

 

Riders of specials, trail bikes, aircooled monos and even modern machines are most welcome to enter in the non championship class.

 

The route covers 30 sections around a 26 mile route on the Cotswold Hills above the Vale of Evesham and has a new start venue at the Cotswold Farm shop and Cafe.

 

Pete

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  • 1 month later...

So, how come Dougie Lampkin's Vertigo can enter the Scottish 6 day, and the World Championship etc etc when it is only now going into production?

 

Not sure I understand this at all, why at the top of the sport you can ride a bike not yet in production but Cotswold Cubs are banned from the Sammy Miller championship.

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Hi Guy's.

 

Hi Ken,

 

It is the old adage, that If you have a name like DL or SM at the time you make your own rules in the sport. and no one takes a hoot,

 

Because it is good for the sport to have these names caring???? and they are not doing it for financial gain?

 

The big mistake with my "MiniOtter" SCT, was that I did not have a life sized poster of these two made and place it behind my bike when I brought it to light. and first photographed it.

 

There would have been NO problem then. and we would have had a cheap little Classic style bike to have fun on.

 

Regards Charlie.

 

Edited by charlie prescott
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Hi Guy's.

 

Hi Ken,

 

It is the old adage, that If you have a name like DL or SM at the time you make your own rules in the sport. and know one takes a hout,

 

Because it is good for the sport to have these names caring???? and they are not doing it for financial gain?

 

The big mistake with my "MiniOtter" SCT, was that I did not have a life sized poster of these two made and place it behind my bike when I brought it to light. and first photographed it.

 

There would have been NO problem then. and we would have had a cheap little Classic bike to have fun on.

 

Regards Charlie.

Doubt very much SM would been seen dead on a bike made from Chinese bits :unsure: 

 

And as pointed out it’s not really a cheap bike, when a decent twinshock could be purchased for less!

 

And who gave it classic status?

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Hi Guy's,

 

 I can take all of the knocks.

 

 And I have built this bike, and have been working with everything Chinese for quite a while.

 

All top end bikes and the ones ridden my most teams are built in China.

 

All the stuff we use in the event game, has to come from there has no one else can supply it in the time scale we need.

 

Mock all you like,

 

But until you have ridden a SCT bike, and know how good they are ,you really have no comment!!!

 

China is the next India??? PS the last of my post's was tongue in cheek, but I stand by what I have said.

 

 

Regards Charlie.

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