FIM is it a joke or ?

[on it]

Well im  so glad to see the FIM  putting the death nail into GP trials  and will the ACU follow ? why you ask well if you dont know FIM are going back in time to a time when trials nearly died off by bringing in stop reverse rules in,  with only 10 riders in the GP class and world trials rounds having to go to multi class !! to get the numbers to make it worth while to run ,HOW will this help to get riders to these events its just making the gap even bigger , I Ask will the ACU follow as british championship class only 7 and out of 7, 1 rider only rode 1 event so really 6 riders, and before you say we want see riders tested ! with but who really benefits from this it will be the 1or2 riders who can do it now with ease   while the rest all play catch up . So is it  reverse rules or paint a door and watch it dry ? as trials die again

[faussy]

I agree. We are two of the few. The majority online and other riders i talk to seem to favour the return to no stop. I dont think they remember how dire GP trials were 10 years ago. Toni Bou pushing to go back to non stop is all you need to know. The guys only lookin after himself and reading a recent interview of his showed me how out of touch he was with trials at a lower level. I expect trials to get much more severe as a result of this. The trial 2 rider will have absolutely no chance now of ever moving up.

The reverse argument is that it will make it easier on the observers. But do we now expect the observer to observe and time the rider as well? Or do we need another oberver just to hold the stop watch? And should we all be looking for minders now so we can get time updates through the section.

IMO no stop was the solution, but it was half baked because the FIM wouldnt stand by the observer to give a stop for a stop. And rather than argue about whether it was a stop or not, all we will get now are time arguments. I was out in time, no you werent my stop watch says 1 min 1 sec, yes i was my minders watch says 59 secs.

Edited January 18 by faussy

[Tr1AL]

in my opinion if you have dwindling numbers at the top level then for the governing body to do nothing would be strange , they cannot change the bikes or the tyres as at present all manufacturers of those have invested too much to risk change in the current economic climate. No stop as it is now to me is a joke as the riders stop and go backwards about 10 times a section yet are awarded cleans. if riders have been expected to ride stop allowed type sections under no stop allowed rules as they had been doing for years using flick turns and hopping on the back wheel etc then it will take riders 5 mins to learn to reverse well etc and i personally think that will help riders across the board  to have a better chance of success. To keep it as it has been is killing the sport so allowing the riders more thinking time in a section and allowing them to get out of trouble can only be a good thing from my point of view, as long as there is a suitable time limit for a section then i cannot see how it could damage top level trials anymore than it has already been damaged by the evolution ot the sport that has naturally occurred via  Eddy Lejeune , bicycle trials and Jordi Tarres bringing trick riding techniques with them. The biggest cause of decline in numbers at the top of the sport is probably all the riding around on the back wheel that is done which only a handful of riders can do to the level necessary to compete at a high level. The only problem is it has arrived ,  how could it be banned or incur a penalty for using it as a technique Trial at the top level is dying because there are not enough riders that can find the funds to allow them to travel around Europe and just concentrate on riding their bikes I guess the 6 riders in the UK  and the 5 at the top in the WTC have the time and money that allow them that luxury. Perhaps it is just lack of sufficient money that is killing Trials not the rules and regulations.

[faussy]

The numbers were dwindling well before no stop was brought in. That was the main reason it was brought in, to lower the level to allow more riders to be able to ride trialgp as well as the lower classes without getting seriously injured. Allowing more time in a section comes with the consequence that the section severity will undoubtedly iincrease. No stop worked for one year, until bou and raga started berating oberservers every week and then stop went to 1 then 2 then 3 seconds. Theres nothing fundamentally wrong with the rules IMO, but i agree the current no stop ruling is a joke. The FIM were never able to enforce it sufficiently by supporting the observers and penalising riders who argued against the stop. For that reason it is possibly destined to always fall short. I wonder how many trial2 riders were consulted in this decision making process.

I also disgree regarding funding. Trial 2 and 125 are quite well populated, money doesnt seem to be a massive barrier for all those riders. But yes, maybe trials is incapable of attracting more numbers into it, all we are arguing about is how they are distributed amongst the classes. Other sports try to narrow the gap between to the top and bottom competitors, this i believe is going against that

The stop dab was the perfect compromise, why it only lasted for a year or two i just dont know

Edited January 18 by faussy

[on it]

If they want to use stop  reverse rules why not do away with 3s  so 0,1,2,5 makes sense as they can stop and balance move the bike to were they want it  .& Change the name from world trials to world tricks  Strange I always thought trials was about skill and precision  nope get it wrong reverse have another go . If world trials wants to grow  it needs to encourage riders to enter and NOT make it even more of a elitist sport .Yes funds plays a very big part in it but if all eyes are on the top GP riders  what happens to the rest ? will a sponsor  look at the top riders or  the also rans ? so making it even more elitist ,  Here is a real novel thought do away with GP class everyone rides trial 2 course  what would the results show then makes you think   (why do i say that  well any little mistake will be very costly )

Edited January 18 by on it
add

[Tr1AL]

@faussy hi there , regarding the funding bit I was only thinking of the TR1 group and the British Championship entries that on it spoke of., TR2 and 125 riders are riding a less challenging course and so that probably explains why it has a more healthy level of support the same as at club level where the main support comes from the middle and starter routes. 

[faussy]

10 minutes ago, on it said:

Here is a real novel thought do away with GP class everyone rides trial 2 course  what would the results show then makes you think  bet the GP teams and GP riders wont want that idea will they 

Thats kind of what the goal of non stop was. Except it never really lowered the level that much, and after a very short period of time we were back to brief stop allowed. As for the results, they would still be bou busto raga 1,2,3 🤣

Edited January 18 by faussy

[Tr1AL]

@on it I think you may have the answer with a TR2 type course as all the current top riders would retire and the overall skill  level would be lowered for some time into the future.

[on it]

11 minutes ago, faussy said:

Thats kind of what the goal of non stop was. Except it never really lowered the level that much, and after a very short period of time we were back to brief stop allowed. As for the results, they would still be bou busto raga 1,2,3 🤣

as i say any little mistake would be very costly to any one of them three &  with young guns snapping at there heals who knows. Its strange when world round riders come to the SSDT they dont do as well as they expect  and the sections are not as hard as world round ones !

[lemur]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I figure FIM, CMA and the lot of them are just fancy insurance brokers that happen to keep record of their own sanctioned competition events.  Rules of how you play their game are in the interest of spectators and growth of the sport is viewed as increasing viewership.  Rules FIM make for the rider are all in the interest of equipment safety & last I read FIM want to become yet another standards organization to make rules that will promote sale of their label.  It's no joke how much money that will net them and how much it will impact the cost of riding.

[Tr1AL]

https://www.trialscentral.com/news-archive/world-trials/world-outdoor-trials-championship/14344-stop-no-stop

[baldilocks]

For any sport to have a rule which is not applied is ridiculous. If you want no stop trials you need observers and the clerk of the course signed up to no stop observing and no stop sections. 

No stop is a farce at anything above a club trial. Generally obsevrs are not strict as you end up giving fives to the majority of riders.  So at one section the observer counts to three before giving a five, another may just say as long as the bike doesn't go backwards and another might count to 1. No consistency at all and we should expect better.

 

No stop has not increased the numbers participating at world level, it hasn't produced better sections and it hasn't actually been observed. Why keep it ? It's a dream for older riders who think the good old days will return but its been tested and doesn't work.

Timed sections, stop permitted will give consistency at least. Make the sections longer and less dangerous and you might keep everyone happy

Edited February 8 by baldilocks

[bikerpet]

Rules for sports are completely arbitrary however you look at them. Why do we not put our feet down? Because we all agree that might be a fun little game to play. Why do golfers hit balls into little holes in the ground? Because they think that's a fun challenge.

So really what's the big deal if one group of players decide they agree to stop and go backwards for a bit? The best rider will still win if they compete according to the current (arbitrary) rules - that's the nature of competition.

It's also complete fantasy land to think that any form of non-stop or non-reverse is going to be able to be effectively judged. If they hop the front wheel, then the back, then the front, have they stopped? If they are headed generally right and they hop the front wheel left, then the rear left have they gone backwards? If you can hop a wheel away from an obstacle or barrier it's trivial to sequence the hops so you effectively give yourself room without a wheel ever turning backwards.
You'd have to be dreaming to think any observer is ever going to assess that accurately, consistently and fairly throughout two days of riding! Get real.

However ... the issue about the top of the sport not fostering a good pathway is real. I've got no trials experience outside my very limited local club riding world, but it's not hard to see that the current TrialGP and support class setup isn't proving to be a big winner for the sport overall. Fiddling with the rules here & there wont make a jot of difference to that.
It must cost a fair whack to ride a full season in any of the international classes - travel, entry, inability to work, bikes, minder, ...
So who's going to spend all that money? Most likely Mum's and Dad's who are supporting their kids in their passion.
Then those kids get bigger and the Bank of Mum & Dad starts to dry up.
Now they need to make some sort of living and still find time to train and compete. That living is extremely unlikely to come from the sport itself! So what happens? They ride for a couple of seasons and then say, "Man, this is way too hard! I'm sick of struggling to pay for the next meal or to fill the van to get to the next event. I quit."
So the already small field shrinks until finally there are half a dozen riders who command the lion's share of whatever money is available within the sport and can actually afford to dedicate their lives to a riding "career". In reality there's probably well less than a handful really making a worthwhile living out of it. Just guessing.
These riders who have the ability to spend years focused on developing their skills get good - really good. So the up & coming have no hope of really competing with them. The doorway to the dollars really only opens up when one of the true elite riders retires or falls off the pedestal.
That career is what? 10 - 15 years for most of them at the top? That's pretty good in sporting terms, so the relatively rubbish income (compared to tennis, golf, running, cycling ... any number of other sports) isn't a complete disaster.

That's never going to work!

The heyday of trials was when the top riders were really not much different from the run-of-the-mill riders. From what I understand most of them held down "real" jobs, travelled around on the smell of an oily rag and squeezed practice in between. Gradually the sport "professionalised" and concurrently went into decline. I could be wrong on that timing, I'm no student of trials history. If I'm more or less correct, there's the trigger for the disconnect between the elite and the grass-roots, not changes in rules.

Follow the money!

You might argue that most sports have gone a similar way and most of them remain successful. I'd suggest that trials just doesn't have the same mass appeal as "most sports". Speed is an easy sell to a lot of the population. Kicking, throwing or hitting balls is eminently accessible to a huge % of the population.
Trials is fundamentally a harder 'sell'. Where's the fun in riding really slowly? What do you mean I'll basically be rubbish for a good 5+ years? It's not like any number of sports where you can acquire the basic skill then hone it. How many years does it take most people to learn to get any real vertical lift off a horizontal surface? Or even to learn to hop front & rear, let alone hop ON the rear! I could go out and race around an MX track, albeit crazy slowly, and probably demonstrate all the fundamental skills of the pros - wheelie out from the start, get some air, perhaps even step the back of the bike a little bit sideways. No way known I can demonstrate a majority of the skills of the riders at TrialGP in any shape or form!

Dicking about with the details of the rules is irrelevant if you actually want to grow numbers, and I don't think that's on FIM's agenda at all frankly. They may give it lip service, but that's not what directly pays the bills. Follow the money.

The single biggest change to the rules that would make a difference would be to cap sponsorship to something fairly insignifcant. The full-time, fully supported pro's would evaporate, the skill level would come back down slightly and appear more achievable (even if it's not really) and you'd have a whole lot more people who felt they could have a decent crack at international level comps based on skill not money.
Perhaps even people who aren't Spanish!
I laugh at the way the term 'Pro' is bandied about for riders who are really as amateur as it comes. Not saying they are poor riders, just that in the true sense of the word they are not pro's because they aren't paid just to ride. That's a Pro in my mind. I don't see any "professional" engineers who work a second job so they can do engineering in exchange for a new PC every year!

So go for it I say. Let the tip of the elites play whatever game they agree to. All good. They'll still be spectacular to watch and be just as far removed from anything I'm going to be doing on my bike.