Sammy Miller Series 2017 - Proposed Changes

[floydbassman]

Reading all this with interest.I am a 56 year old novice to riding trials events, all my previous riding has been on old waste ground back in the 70s and 80s on a 247 Cota, 250 Gripper, and, my first bike, bought in 72 for 20 quid and which I am presently riding, a Greeves TFS. I started riding in local club trials last september after putting the Greeves back together after it being in boxes for the last 35 odd years, (Eastbourne Club). Quite an experience riding sections laid out for modern bikes, but the easy routes for the most part are doable. The only limitation is my riding skill. There are quite a few who ride on twinshock bikes of all types, TYs, Spanish 70s bikes, Beamish, Fantics, and a few British bikes. One trial that I did last Feburary whichI thought was a great trial for classic bikes of all classes was the Red Tape trial, helld at Deepcut near Bagshot, Surrey. They seemed to have got it right with 2 routes, yellow and the harder red route. I rode the red route because I misread the entry form, not realising I could have done the yellow route, the weak link being me, the rider. The bike performed as it should. I ended up retiring after 3 laps due to running out of time, (spent looking at some amazing bikes..). This is one event I am definitely riding next year. It catered for practically all classes from 50s rigid up to a few modern bikes with everything else in between including specials, my favourite being the Ariel Arrow 250 twin engined bike. ( i cant remember if there was any sidecars there).. My bike's mods are basic, like Domino slow action throttle, modern plastic mudguards instead of the original Butler ones as I tend to break em a lot.. Renthal bars,folding footrests to comply with modern regs,  chain tensioner and external ignition coil and condenser, and alloy rims with stainless spokes. Still using points ignition, it starts 3rd kick from cold no problem.( I will put a pic up tomorow.). Dont know if anyone else on here was at the Red Tape, but it ticked all the boxes for me with suitably challenging sections for the experienced riders and yellow for the novices and less agile older bikes.

[cub200]

I am a 70 year old veteran whose first road trial was the B'ham Clubs James Trophy trial in 1964 where I won the novice award and have been riding in events ever since so I have seen a few changes.

 

My interest these days and for the last 20 years has been Pre 65 or Classic bikes, whatever you want to call them, I rode in the IoM Classic International trial last year and plan to do it again in 2017, I have been living in Australia since 1980.

There have been loads of dribble and nonsense written on this thread about the SM series but the one guy who hit it on the head was "on It" about 4 comments ago.

I totally agree about the section severity dictating how much money and engineering has to go into the bikes for those with the desire to win trophies.

When you work it out, around 70% of all trial entries are average riders and by making the sections more and more difficult to take marks off the best riders then its no wonder that entry levels are falling and guys drop out of the sport because they don't want to make the financial commitment to improving their bike, damage their bike or themselves knowing they are only there to make money for the organising club or the ACU.

 

Who cares if 4/5 riders have an easy day and don't loose a mark, and if those riders do care and want the massive challenge all the time then let them go and organise their own events and take all the "Specials" with them.

As "on it" said, the oldest rider wins the ties which would encourage old farts like me to keep giving it a go.

 

Lastly, nothing gets sorted out on these forums, they're just outlets for the usual windbags to let off steam and there's been a few on this topic.

The only way to bring about change is to do it through your club officials, get a few clubs together, get the centres agreeing after a meeting somewhere and then put it to the ACU committees.

Now I wait to be shot down

 

Galps   

[collyolly]

Well I have been away for a couple of days and now find the Weido has removed all of his posts, so this thread now does not make much sense.

Perhaps my idea of being the co-ordinator of 'The Originals' of the sport scared him s---less, what a waste of space, the sport really does need his help (not)

[old trials fanatic]

As a matter of interest does anybody know if there is going to be a series next year and what it will be called ?

 

[turbo]

As a matter of interest does anybody know if there is going to be a series next year and what it will be called ?2017 

2017 acu classic trials championship ?

[ttspud]

Hi collyolly,

 

Look, the whole thing always gets silly as your post proves.  I believe that you can't have a pre65 sport which allows cheating, you ride a highly modified bike and so that upsets you, others here fabricate parts and so on, fair enough.  Woody does not want a british bike series because he rides a Spanish twinshock in the current series, which ironically was a core reason to create pre65 to begin with, fair enough.  I apologise for that and you get abusive.  I call that getting silly.

 

As someone who knows pointed out, you must have accurate classes or the sport will not be fair and will fail, as has been comprehensively proven by the complete loss of pre65 bikes from the pre65 series, and since I can help with drafting some decent rules and regulations catering for todays situation, I have. I would be just as happy with Deryk's original rules which deals with modifieds very well, it is just that I think all the modifieds being lumped together into one all-encompassing Specials class would be worse for them, but if that is what happens, so be it.

 

As for my posts, it has all been said before and that is the only way to prevent the silliness getting out of hand.  It is a small sport, everyone knows each other, so perhaps try to be polite, we need all the riders we have.

 

All the best, TTSpud 

Edited September 14, 2016 by ttspud

[trialsrfun]

Well said Woody.

I know well the small team at Dales Classic who work hard to organise many events throughout the year, if one of these events was cancelled due to low entries probably because it was in the main holiday season better that than put all that work in for not a lot.

Ttspud though on his own admission has never organised a trial so has no comprehension of the forward planning, course laying, on the day problem solving with only the results to work out afterwards.

Ttspud show us pictures of your bike so that we may get some idea of what you are saying, post the pictures.

What do you mean by 'highly modified' please explain,

which period in trials history do you regard as being definitive,

Pictures of your machine which you claim to be of that era you refer to might help us better understand your point of view.

[woody]

Spud, I object to you stating what I do or don't want and why, as you have no idea. And if you actually took part you'd know I've ridden my BSA in Miller rounds on many occassions as well as my twinshocks

 

I don't want to lose the twinshock class as twinshock has bugger all else in terms of a road based series. As I've said before the KIA is not a twinshock only series and it isn't road based. Pre65 has the Miller, NBB Championship, Pre65 Scottish as well as other Pre65 only events. Does it need another.

 

And yet again you're dragging the topic away from its intended purpose which was ro ask people involved with the series whether they think there is a problem with the current format and if so what. You aren't offering any solutions.

[steve_earle]

I started reading then skimmed through the rest. Sorry if any of this has been covered.

For what it's worth coming from someone who is yet to ride classic trials.

Road work could lessen entries if there are many machines not road registered or riders with full licences.

With a range of machines from Air cooled monos to big old pre units, 3 routes will give a better range on the severity of sections.

Each class needs a standard and specials sub class as majority of older bikes I see are highly modified.

 

Just my opinion as I'm not a rider in the classic scene but hope to have a bike built for next season.

 

As it stands so far I will not be able to ride the series under these rules but I will be riding plenty of other trials so it's no big deal. 

 

[collyolly]

The 2017 series classes are now listed on the ACU website, any comments ?

[woody]

Too many classes, some too confusing and not consistent across all routes

 

What's a Pre85 British twinshock?  Armstrong Hiro or Rotax?  Well that's a foreign engine with foreign components in a British frame - same as a Beamish, TL Highboy, Bultaco highboy, Godden Majesty, Whitehawk etc etc.  So do you have Yamaha framed Majesty in class 3 and Godden framed Majesty in class 4?  It's already causing confusion and debate amongst organisers and riders.

 

I don't understand what purpose the twinshock split between Spanish/British and Japanese/Italian serves. In the latter a TY175, or KT250 still has to go against a Fantic 240/300 and in the former a 1970 Bultaco or Montesa still goes up against the latest Cota 330 or 350 or Bultaco 340 or a Merlin (maybe an Armstrong) so where is the incentive to enter them. People seem to have been brainwashed by some of the drivel written on forums over the years that the sections in the Miller series are 'modern classic' sections suitable only for cut and chopped Hondas or Fantics and they think that an older twinshock is not up to it. They are, they are perfectly capable of being used in these trials. They're harder work than the much more capable later twinshocks obviously but they can still do it. Sadly I think too many believe what's been written, on many occassions by people who don't even ride the series, and think the bikes can't cope.

 

I think if the twinshock class was to be split, a better split would have been post and pre-77, giving older bikes a chance to compete against machines from the same era and maybe then more riders would bring them out. There must be hundreds lying unused.

 

This isn't 'having a go' in a negative way, it's based upon my own opinion and discussions that we had after today's Miller round with both organisers and riders, and also upon the suggestions I sent into the ACU in response to their survey.

 

All that was wrong with the current format was the omission of unit / pre-unit class split for the British bikes class over the last few years. The rest of the classes were fine, although I'd still like to see a Pre77 class in twinshock

 

Another possible issue with the current series was maybe with the same clubs running the events every year for the last eight or nine years, some riders feel it has gone a bit stale and just don't want to ride the same sections / groups every year, but if other clubs don't come forward to stage a round then there isn't anything anyone can do about that.

 

There was also the severity of some events that were not testing enough on occassion. The trials need to be challenging enough to take around 10 marks from class winners. Having several riders going clean or losing just a few marks isn't challenging enough for a national series and riders won't travel 2 to 3 hours if the challenge isn't enough when they can find it at a local event.

 

Anyway, thanks to South Birmingham MCC today for an enjoyable trial with their round of the current series. Overnight and early morning rain to spice up the sections, sunshine for most of the trial, nice variety of sections with some good old fashioned mud and a nice ride around the Lower Clee Hill. It was a good event with about 60 riders entered.

Edited October 16, 2016 by woody

[metisse]

Most of the major Spanish classic trials run a similar format as described above.  They run pre 65, 75, 80 classes and then everybody else .. It works fantastically well and now there are more and more early and mid seventies bikes making a return and not every other bike is Fantic or Honda. It really isn t difficult and brings the cost of being competitive down.

 

[nigel dabster]

why pre 75 and pre 80?

[metisse]

I don t know really. I guess so all the early Montesa's  Bultaco's  Yamaha 434 etc etc all  play together on an easy route,  and then the first SWM, later Bultaco's Montesa's Green Ossa's and a few I have forgotton can play together on a harder route.  Of course you can always enter your pre 75 in the harder class if you wish and play with the later bikes. What it has done has brought out a lot of inexpensive  early to mid seventies bikes, and has levelled the playing field so to speak.  I mentioned it to add to what Woody had said and to show it can work. 

[metisse]

Or just to complicate things you could do what they do here in France at one big trial introduce a handicap

With twinshocks, Pre 80 every mark you lose stays as such, Post 80 every mark you lose costs  1 1/2 marks , the last two posts are just examples how other countries do things.. I let those reading make there own judgement on both.