Happy New Year. It’s January 3rd, the year seems to be flying by, where do all the days go?
Even though it’s a New Year, resolutions are not my thing. I’ve made them in the past and only ever stuck to one, once. In 1988 I decided to lose some weight. I was 12stone 10lbs at the time and had plans to ride the ISDE that year. I also knew that I was not fit enough and decided the easiest way to get fit was to lose some weight. I went to WeightWatchers religiously and managed to get down to 11stone 7lbs by the time the enduro was upon me.
It was in France, the temperature was incredibly hot and I sweated my way through a tough six days. And when I returned home I was three pounds heavier! So much for resolutions, I’ve not made one since and am unlikely to make any in the future – and I’m not telling you my weight now, because I don’t get on the scales.
But there is a resolution I would like YOU to keep. Since I first discovered Trials Central, it has been of huge interest to me. Over the years I have learned much from the various forums and discussions that take place within these internet pages, and I’m honoured to be the main columnist following Andy’s approach to me some 150 odd weeks ago.
But what I most find lacking on this site are the results from a huge number of clubs. Back in the days when I was a full-time journalist on TMX, and I’m talking the 'eighties now, it was our aim then to get into the paper a report and results from every single event that took place each weekend, on the Friday. Whilst I’m not pretending that we managed to get every event covered, it would be fair to say that we did a pretty good job and attracted results from the vast majority of clubs throughout the UK. We had a network of freelance journalists who covered events and filed their reports to us and clubs without a local freelance did the same. The result was that TMX was the bible.
Unfortunately times have changed. Many of those freelances are no longer with us or have moved on and TMX as a newspaper has changed dramatically. They don’t have the staff to handle vast quantities of reports and the editorial policy has changed. Once it was a private company, owned and run by enthusiasts, now it’s part of a big national group, driven entirely for the bottom line. Advertising is the Great God and whilst the staff there do the best they can within their very restricted constraints, it simply can’t be what it once was.
But Trials Central can be the Trials News replacement. It is probably more than 60% there already but now needs every club to make full use of this site. I well know many clubs have their own websites and possibly consider there is no need to make use of Trials Central, but I consider that to be wrong. I no longer buy TMX on a regular basis – and judging by the comments made to me by many other trials riders, I’m not alone, but I do miss my fix of results from all over the country. At one time I knew who were the stars in many areas, but these days I’ve no idea who is top dog in say Norfolk, Devon and East South Wales.
Most trials organisers make use of a computer in some form or another to finalise their results. Many will use a spread sheet, others may well just type out a Word document. Either way it’s dead easy to put them onto Trials Central once you are set up with the necessary password and instructions from Andy, in fact I know he’s looking to make it even easier. So that’s the New Year resolution I am asking for. Will EVERY trials organising club post their forthcoming trial details, followed by the results onto Trials Central. When you know how it’s done, the whole process takes less than two minutes, it really is as simple as that.
I’m not writing this plug at Andy’s request, he knows nothing about it until he receives the e-mail with this as an attachment in a few minutes time. Together we can make Trials Central the trials riders’ bible where all enthusiasts can find the details of forthcoming events and the results from their most recent trial. After all, we don’t want to wait until the end of the week to find out the results and we all want to know what is on next weekend.
Promise me you’ll do it.