ringo Posted January 3, 2006 Report Share Posted January 3, 2006 Dan, Thanks to you and Kathy for your hospitality! It was worth the extra 1000 miles. I would've stayed longer but the depression of not being able to ride or even hike to watch anyone else was killing me. Good news for you as you don't have to fix anything I might've destroyed. It was also a pleasure to meet Steve, Louise, Will and Bruce as well. Fine representatives of our trials community. As seen on these boards, many people are quick to offer an opinion, idea and or solution but what most of us [the people who actually DO stuff] know, it's all talk. As Ishy stated, I don't see a huge change happening in this sport, at least not for many many years. However, I will continue to promote the sport and rally the troups to get involved for a very simple reason. If more people don't get involved the sport is going to fade. Keep in mind that 'trials fading' in my area is far less detrimental than it is to our friends in areas such as Wyoming, Montana, etc. We could loose 50% of the trials riders in California and still have plenty of people to ride and host events. Some areas across the country only have clubs with 10 riders or less. You can see how important it is to have everyone involved. By broadening the overall view of the sport and getting more people involved, you bring more help into the overall picture. The ATA has decided not to host a National event or El Trial this year due to lack of support from within. Quite frankly, we [the same small % of people who create it year after year] are fed up with having to spend incredible amounts of money out of our own pockets and donating incredible amounts of our own time with less than favorable results. The idea is to get more people involved so that the few who have been doing all the work for all these years can take a break and ride a little bit more. Happy New Year y'all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbrown Posted January 8, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2006 Ringo, contact me offline about El Trial for 2006. If you don't have my email you can use the contact us link from the www.trialstrainingcenter.com dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sendero Posted January 9, 2006 Report Share Posted January 9, 2006 Ridge! It's good to see you on the boards again. You are right on the money as always. I would imagine very few, if any of you on these boards, have ridden a Ridge event. I have had the priveledge several times, and hope to do as many as possible into the future. With all this talk about growth of our sport, the guy with the answer (IMHO) is here amongst us once again. Ridgerunner. I've ridden scads of events with Arizona, California and Utah. The Utah stuff I've done was laid out by Ridge. At a Ridgerunner event, you will go big. Not dangerous big, FUN big. How can big be fun and not dangerous you might querry? Cuz it's big and wide. Real wide. Lotsa room. So wide that you will be able to select from multiple lines to get to the next split card. So wide that you will be able to lay out your own line for the section. Choose your poison, so to speak, within the same class/line. So wide that your buddy that you competed against for the day, has ridden in the same class as you, but did not ride the same exact lines as you. That makes for fantastic Bench Racin' Seshes after the event. Therefore line selection and related strategery becomes an added factor in the days competition. This also opens it up for one of my favorite games... the Phsyc Game. I spot a line that looks like the best for my style. I need to keep Bagg off his game and off my cool lines... "Hey Bagger... you goin' up that dude?" pointing to some ridiculous line. "Ballsy! I gotta see this. There aint no way I would go up that. I see nothin' but hospital bills stapled to that card. I'm goin' this way." All BS of course, but SOOO much fun! Did I say big? Yea, big. We've all heard this one... "Ya can't send Beginners up that kind of stuff till they learn how to ride. Here, make 'em turn real sharp in this sand. That'll teach 'em." Ridge blows that one out of the water. His Beginners are gonna ride on rock. Period. He's not scared of the whiners. He knows how to get a Beginner up on rock, as we all should, cuz we have ridden for years. Wide. Real wide, and multiple line chioces. The Beginners love it cuz they get to ride on big rocks TODAY. Not just after years of turning tight in sand. Allow me to describe the absolute BEST Intermediate section I have ever ridden in my life, laid out by the master himself... It was a big rock face about 15 feet high. Nice round approach, nice vert face, about 5 feet of it was near vert, and a clean, easy round top to recover on. Real wide. Everybody from Intermediate and up was gonna do this one. I looked at it and was definately challenged. It was bigger than I had ever gone before, but people were watchin' and I had to do it. Period. The approach was just freeway flat dirt. plenty wide with no jumble, no nothin'. Now here was something I had never seen before and have not seen since... Everybody had a 90 degree turn before the step. After the turn, the Champs had a six foot run at the step, the Experts had about a ten foot run at it, Advanced had about 20 feet, and Intermediate had about 40 feet. AWESOME!!! I popped up on the top of that slab three times that day, and I still suffer from Post Dramatic Perma-grin Disorder when I think about that step. The ridin' is what we're sellin'. Not World Champions and all that drivel. We have to make it fun. We should lay out the section for SUCCESS, not dirty tricks to humiliate and intimidate. When a rider goes home with a sense of accomplishment and memories of triumph, he will return. When he is told and/or shown that it will be years before he is good enough to ride up here with us Great Ones, he will not return. Simple as that. Thanks for the memories Ridge! Sendero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kinell Posted January 9, 2006 Report Share Posted January 9, 2006 Post Dramatic Perma-grin Disorder<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ridgrunr Posted January 9, 2006 Report Share Posted January 9, 2006 Aw geeze Sendero! Now I'm going to have to live up to that hype when I set the meet here for September 23. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.