Where are all the entries????

[baldilocks]

I think it's a great thread  by the way,  as a sport we need ideas. I've had nearly 40 years riding and I'd be very sad if in 5 /10 years it's finished.

[timp]

Fisrt thing is there are too many national championships. People can't be at club trials if they are at nationals.

Commiting to ride a national championship is an expensive job. £25 entry fee. Hotel and travel fees. Keeping a bike in a condition for the series.

 

[timp]

Trial severity is another problem. 50/50 routes have messed things up.

Instead of a steady hard route with suitable sections now we have half the sections too easy for the  majority of decent riders. And then some silly hard sections get put in to take marks off the best riders. 

So then good centre riders decide to do the 50/50 all the time as they don't want silly hard sections.

Most club trials only need 3 routes. Beginners. Dead easy for anyone to wobble round.

Clubman. Suits a lot of the entry who want a challenge.

Hard route. For good riders.

It's all messed up nowadays and you don't know what route to ride.

[baldilocks]

Has the White rose got enough entries , I've seen a couple of reminders for entries ?

[maco]

Personally the main factory is section severity. I'm a bang average rider & could still be classed as a beginner.

In the NE club trials you normally have Easy, clubman & expert course but I don't know how you can call the easy course easy. I've managed to drag a few mates along to try out trials & they've all said the same thing, an easy course should be for beginners & learners who want to turn up to there first trial and get round for a finish without killing themselves & never wanting to return.   Sometimes you get to a 'easy' section and theres been no thought gone into it at all. 

The worse thing is you've got people riding the easy course & winning it on 0 marks then going to national trials where there's no Easy course & riding clubman level. Then coming back to a club trial marking the easy out more difficult because they don't want to ride the clubman & not win it. 

Some sort of ranking needs to be in place, forcing the better riders onto the clubman so the easy can actually stay easy for people wanting to get into the sport & learn. No one wants to turn up and kill themselves, be absolutely shattered & not enjoy it when they could probably go practising for £10 or even free. Which by the way is what a lot of my mates do because of exactly what I've just said. 

 

One other major factor is I think trials could be branded as a 'older man sport'. Youngsters would rather be on a Ktm flying around a track flat out instead of tickling a bike through a stream. I don't know how you go about conquering that one though. 

[timp]

The S3 championship is now too hard. It was supposed to be for reasonable standard centre riders. There was the option to put an elite route on for the top lads but this is rarely used.

Instead they have some sections needing catchers. That is for the British championship. This championship is supposed to cater for 0ver 40s and 125 riders on the main route.

Putting a championship class on the easy route has messed the job up. Good centre riders are riding that route instead of the main route. The easy route should be for clubmen just to make the numbers up.

[timp]

Why would a parent nowadays encourage their child to do trials? Bikes are £5k plus. They get very dirty and need maintaining. You cant ride about in the garden or street on one. They get stolen a lot! Hardly anywhere for them to go and practice. If you take them to a trial you may end up observing. Wife doesn't want to go to a trial or she may end up observing.

Compared to letting them mess about on a bmx or mountain bike its just too much hassle and expense. Or just get them an x box!

[baldilocks]

7 hours ago, maco said:

Personally the main factory is section severity. I'm a bang average rider & could still be classed as a beginner.

In the NE club trials you normally have Easy, clubman & expert course but I don't know how you can call the easy course easy. I've managed to drag a few mates along to try out trials & they've all said the same thing, an easy course should be for beginners & learners who want to turn up to there first trial and get round for a finish without killing themselves & never wanting to return.   Sometimes you get to a 'easy' section and theres been no thought gone into it at all. 

The worse thing is you've got people riding the easy course & winning it on 0 marks then going to national trials where there's no Easy course & riding clubman level. Then coming back to a club trial marking the easy out more difficult because they don't want to ride the clubman & not win it. 

Some sort of ranking needs to be in place, forcing the better riders onto the clubman so the easy can actually stay easy for people wanting to get into the sport & learn. No one wants to turn up and kill themselves, be absolutely shattered & not enjoy it when they could probably go practising for £10 or even free. Which by the way is what a lot of my mates do because of exactly what I've just said. 

 

One other major factor is I think trials could be branded as a 'older man sport'. Youngsters would rather be on a Ktm flying around a track flat out instead of tickling a bike through a stream. I don't know how you go about conquering that one though. 

The North East Centre may be hijacking this thread but it's a good case to look at in order to answer the original question.

Trying to set an acceptable course for the range of ability in the North East is difficult. 

The easy course wasn't planned as such, it started as a white route back in the 90s so that a growing number of people who had bought twin shocks and pre65 bikes could ride a centre trial. Within a couple of years lesser riders went onto this course on modern bikes. But this course itself now has a massive range of ability.

When setting a trial, for a number of years now, we have good natural sections for middle and hard course riders that we often can't use as the easy course can't have a section there. This group are driving the location of sections for the other two or three routes. People correctly state easy course is 50% of the entry.

We now sometimes have expert sections which are made in easy course locations, not good sections and often just tight corners. I could say no thought goes into them at all but actually it's a compromise.

I genuinely didn't realise how big the ability gap was until setting out Alwinton 2 day the first year it ran. Some easy course riders only did a lap (it was three laps on day 1 the first year) as they couldn't get round the course, riding up and down the hills round alwinton was harder than their typical section.

One bloke went home having lost 8 marks in a lap of 15 sections as he said it was too hard, he was riding a cub, I still cant believe that actually happened. Someone else on the same course didn't come back for three years as he thought the easy course was a waste of time. He wanted to ride the gullies not along the bank side. This rider was in his 60s on a acm. Impossible to please everyone even with three courses.

So at one end of our ability range you have Maco asking why the easy course isn't easier still. But at its current level it's a barrier to the other routes in terms of where you can have a section and just getting round the course. And then theres the uncomfortable truth , the centres harder bigger trials get the best entries !

Yes I know some venues are too much according to some, Macos friends will go practicing instead some weeks. But at the other end we have experts doing the same thing, venues which aren't suitable for them so they practice elsewhere or ride in Yorkshire / Scotland or the lakes.

We actually have two clubs running beginners championships on weds nights and sat afternoons which is great but is this isnt enough for the easy course riders ? Wheres the series for just the middle course and expert riders to have sections specifically for them ? 

The jumps between the routes need to be manageable for people wanting to progress but there is quite a gulf and this differs week to week club to club.

Some on here will know I'm Glen Quinn but for those that don't know I've been kicking round national trials finishing absolutely nowhere in terms of results for years. I'm still riding Exp in the north east centre most of the time at 49 years of age. I'm often finishing as high in North East Centre trials now as I  ever have. For me the whole things gone backwards. If the sport was progressing i should be losing 30 marks, an enjoyable day out for me, on the middle course but I don't lose much more than that riding Exp in all but a couple of trials. We have another rider in his 50s riding an air cooled Yam who can ride and win an Exp course on less than 5 marks. We had one of our experts win the easy course at the Reeth 3 day recently,  he lost over 50 marks. Centre to centre the variation is enormous. So I wasn't trying to boast,  I'm just pointing out that our trials are no harder now for me and others in terms of marks lost than they were 20 years ago. Sections might be harder in some cases but bikes are much better. Our trials can be much easier than other centres.

Then most of our trials are 4x 10 sections. So a section that's two hard or easy is a material proportion of the day. Get two or three and people are off home. One or two lap trials nobody minds a couple of sections which don't suit them. But bigger trials need more helpers / land / observers. As a centre we can do that but it's a lot of effort.

So after all that I think the more we have tried to please the more problems we have actually created. This is the same across the country. Despite all the courses and championships theres still lots of unhappy riders and even more who have quit.

As a sport our ability range has always required different events local, regional,  national etc. Our problem is that we no longer have enough riders to make it all viable. Back to new riders then......

Edited August 31, 2017 by baldilocks

[timp]

On an interesting note Manchester 17 had nearly 100 riders at a dead easy trial last week!

Obviously riders are out there but are selective with the trials they ride. I often find nowadays club trials are far too easy and are getting boring. But the club's are trying to attract the riders who like these easy trials. One club near us run three routes with 50/50 on each!  

But they get good entries for their trials.

Most poor entries for trials tend to have a good reason for it. Usually a clash with other events. A poor venue. A Saturday afternoon trial on the day before. Various nationals on the same day.

[perce]

10 hours ago, timp said:

Why would a parent nowadays encourage their child to do trials? Bikes are £5k plus. They get very dirty and need maintaining. You cant ride about in the garden or street on one. They get stolen a lot! Hardly anywhere for them to go and practice. If you take them to a trial you may end up observing. Wife doesn't want to go to a trial or she may end up observing.

Compared to letting them mess about on a bmx or mountain bike its just too much hassle and expense. Or just get them an x box!

Funny but I was on the moor last Saturday talking to someone who's done a few miles marking Trials out. We were discussing the route taken by the ArdRock, I'd be fairly certain one of their stages was in an Ancient Monument, it was certainly in a SSSI, I doubt they've been made to jump through the hoops that locally organised Motorcycle Trials has. Not knocking what they're doing as it's bringing tourists into the Dales but Trials has been persecuted almost to the point of extinction.

[on it]

its a really good topic this more you read the more you think , Is the problem clubs are trying to hard to get big numbers of riders ie class for that /a course for them and in doing so pleasing no one, Its very hard to make 3 or 4 sections for each class out of 1  wed night /sat trials set for beginners novice riders ONLY sundays hard/clubman trial only  no trial should have more than 2 course that  way you know what your going to get to ride Another problem is the expert riders have wanted t hard courses now they have got them they can not ride them drop a course then want that course made harder !

[maco]

6 hours ago, baldilocks said:

The North East Centre may be hijacking this thread but it's a good case to look at in order to answer the original question.

Trying to set an acceptable course for the range of ability in the North East is difficult. 

The easy course wasn't planned as such, it started as a white route back in the 90s so that a growing number of people who had bought twin shocks and pre65 bikes could ride a centre trial. Within a couple of years lesser riders went onto this course on modern bikes. But this course itself now has a massive range of ability.

When setting a trial, for a number of years now, we have good natural sections for middle and hard course riders that we often can't use as the easy course can't have a section there. This group are driving the location of sections for the other two or three routes. People correctly state easy course is 50% of the entry.

We now sometimes have expert sections which are made in easy course locations, not good sections and often just tight corners. I could say no thought goes into them at all but actually it's a compromise.

I genuinely didn't realise how big the ability gap was until setting out Alwinton 2 day the first year it ran. Some easy course riders only did a lap (it was three laps on day 1 the first year) as they couldn't get round the course, riding up and down the hills round alwinton was harder than their typical section.

One bloke went home having lost 8 marks in a lap of 15 sections as he said it was too hard, he was riding a cub, I still cant believe that actually happened. Someone else on the same course didn't come back for three years as he thought the easy course was a waste of time. He wanted to ride the gullies not along the bank side. This rider was in his 60s on a acm. Impossible to please everyone even with three courses.

So at one end of our ability range you have Maco asking why the easy course isn't easier still. But at its current level it's a barrier to the other routes in terms of where you can have a section and just getting round the course. And then theres the uncomfortable truth , the centres harder bigger trials get the best entries !

Yes I know some venues are too much according to some, Macos friends will go practicing instead some weeks. But at the other end we have experts doing the same thing, venues which aren't suitable for them so they practice elsewhere or ride in Yorkshire / Scotland or the lakes.

We actually have two clubs running beginners championships on weds nights and sat afternoons which is great but is this isnt enough for the easy course riders ? Wheres the series for just the middle course and expert riders to have sections specifically for them ? 

The jumps between the routes need to be manageable for people wanting to progress but there is quite a gulf and this differs week to week club to club.

Some on here will know I'm Glen Quinn but for those that don't know I've been kicking round national trials finishing absolutely nowhere in terms of results for years. I'm still riding Exp in the north east centre most of the time at 49 years of age. I'm often finishing as high in North East Centre trials now as I  ever have. For me the whole things gone backwards. If the sport was progressing i should be losing 30 marks, an enjoyable day out for me, on the middle course but I don't lose much more than that riding Exp in all but a couple of trials. We have another rider in his 50s riding an air cooled Yam who can ride and win an Exp course on less than 5 marks. We had one of our experts win the easy course at the Reeth 3 day recently,  he lost over 50 marks. Centre to centre the variation is enormous. So I wasn't trying to boast,  I'm just pointing out that our trials are no harder now for me and others in terms of marks lost than they were 20 years ago. Sections might be harder in some cases but bikes are much better. Our trials can be much easier than other centres.

Then most of our trials are 4x 10 sections. So a section that's two hard or easy is a material proportion of the day. Get two or three and people are off home. One or two lap trials nobody minds a couple of sections which don't suit them. But bigger trials need more helpers / land / observers. As a centre we can do that but it's a lot of effort.

So after all that I think the more we have tried to please the more problems we have actually created. This is the same across the country. Despite all the courses and championships theres still lots of unhappy riders and even more who have quit.

As a sport our ability range has always required different events local, regional,  national etc. Our problem is that we no longer have enough riders to make it all viable. Back to new riders then......

 

To me the easy course is fine as it is, I can go to weardale & lose probably 30+ marks but still enjoy myself and at the other end of the scale I can go to Stanley/consett & lose less than 10 marks and be in with a chance of winning. I just understand where the learners are coming from because it's friggin hard!! 

Like you said though Glen, the gap between Easy & clubman is vast. If a ranking scheme was in place would I be forced to ride clubman because I've had a good few rides on the easy course? I probably wouldn't turn up to a few certain clubs because I know there would be no chance of me doing most of the sections.

At the end of the day it's impossible to please everyone, you'll still get clubman riders on the easy course complaining it's to easy & learners complaining that it's to hard. I'm just focusing on the easy course because i can't comment on the clubman or expert courses. 

Also like you said Glen, it's very much down to the clubs. Entries vary from club to club, we all know Weardale gets less than half the entries of Consett/Stanley & we also know that the latters sections are much easier. Coincidence? 

[baldilocks]

Maco we all know there's a few urban myths about too. It's always handy to go back and check. Thrunton Woods , a great trial,  difficult by NE standards but gets an entry of almost 100 and it's pre enter. Bollihope a great trial over the years also gets very high entries. Both feature riders from other centres.

Sat / weds easy or beginner trials recently less than 30 entries. It's not always the case that easy trials get more entries.

Equally we have AlWinton last weekend getting 23 and Butsfield at Christmas getting 100. Both due I would suggest to events in other centres or a lack of events in other centres.

I think On It above has the right idea, we need separate trials but for that we need more entries across the board.

It's interesting you can't comment on clubman or expert, we are all part of the same sport. Unless we have separate events then everyones needs have to be accommodated. So whilst the easy course is fine for you by your own admission it's too much for others and from my point of view it's limiting the scope for the other courses. The ability range therefore seems too great ? 

Trials schools would help but some are quite open to saying they have no desire to improve. Hard to accommodate this attitude with others who do want to progress and this drives an even bigger ability gap and a gap in expectations. 

Edited August 31, 2017 by baldilocks

[haysy]

Its difficult this but surely as a beginner people cant be expecting to lose under 10 in a trial? When I started in the early eighties there was only one route that everyone rode and my scores were usually in treble figures (still are ), but I loved it!!

Trials is not an easy sport and it takes time to get better at it, having said that it should never be dangerous to rider or machine at club level.

When marking out events the most discussions are always over the "easy" route, "that's too easy, Id want to be riding something that is going to challenge me" or "your joking, you cant send them up there!" 

As has been said earlier there are a broad range of abilities in the easy/sportsman class. A lot of older good riders who have dropped down as they dont want to be throwing themselves at big steps any more and also people who are just starting out in the sport and they all have to be catered for.

Personally when I ride a trial I want to be challenged but I also dont want to be risking smashing my £6K bike or myself.

[turbofurball]

1 hour ago, baldilocks said:

Trials schools would help but some are quite open to saying they have no desire to improve. Hard to accommodate this attitude with others who do want to progress and this drives an even bigger ability gap and a gap in expectations. 

Trials schools seem to be very expensive and out of my price range, which is reasonable considering it's the instructors' livelihood and they usually have bikes and gear to buy / maintain.  My small friendly local club has been a huge help in learning, and I count myself lucky in that!
 

27 minutes ago, haysy said:

Its difficult this but surely as a beginner people cant be expecting to lose under 10 in a trial? When I started in the early eighties there was only one route that everyone rode and my scores were usually in treble figures (still are ), but I loved it!!

I don't understand that, either ... I average about 3000 points per trial, but love it.  Perhaps that's a case of people with unrealistic expectations and being over competitive (?) in which case the last thing needed for the sport is for them to be pandered to.