Are You A Comp Rider?

[walker]

In July, there was a street ride in London that over 100 people turned up to. It was free to ride there, you just had to pay travel costs. There was no pressure to perform. It was insanely easy to get to, as there are several railway stations next to the 'venue' and there was plenty of parking. It was also very well signposted. There was no need to pay an annual membership fee.

Ok, so on the street side its definitely improved.

You've just told me that you class it as a sport, but where's the sport if theres no competition? The competition scene should be the pinnacle of the sport, and there are some amazingly talented riders in this country, but not enough of them ride competitions, so its never going to improve. A bigger competition scene would make the sport better know in the public eye and the street side would grow even more.

Or do people want trials to be an "underground" sport that is relatively unheard of, with the boundaries being limited by internet videos and forums??

Andrew

Edited October 10, 2008 by walker

[NVWOCI WVS]

A sport can still be a sport without being competitive. A lot of people enjoy sport just for the fitness/social reasons. Trials is also about pushing your own limits and improving. I'd say it was a skill-oriented sport.

[Bearded Midget]

there will be no 2012 olympics for us if we dont improve the competition scene basically. everyone use that for inspiration. now go ride comps....

Edited October 10, 2008 by Bearded Midget

[Adrian]

Want to ride comps, but there are none near me

i also dont drive and cant afford the train... something iv always wanted to do in trials though..

[Ali C]

I love comps! There's nothing I like more than a roadtrip up and down the country or abroad, meeting up with old friends and making new ones along the way. All the best/funniest/most embarrasing stories I have are from going away to compete. In 2006 I got the oppertunity to travel the world because of comps, without them I would have never have gone to Singapore or Japan.

The best highlight of my life so far has got to be on the top of the podium at the French round of the world champs, that feeling alone, knowing that on that day you were untouchable is what brings me back.

Street is cool too and to most under 17 year olds is obviously cheaper and easier, but who wants things easy? I love a challenge! sure you can challenge yourself out riding street but seeing how high you can go up a wall sideways has its limits. A nice technical rock line is what gets me going.

I am lucky in that I live where there's lots of rocks and my parents took me to comps when I couldn't drive. I have been competing for 10 years now, I have lost track of how many comps I have been to (hundreds) but I know I wouldn't be riding if I didn't compete.

[Captain Scarlet]

I ride all of the Essex Bike Trial competitions, when I started I tried riding it like I rode street (its all I had practiced), and then I got stressed because my terrible brake set-up wouldn't work in muddy or wet conditions.

But now whenever I go, I just think that every new section I ride is a way of improving my riding, when checking the section before I ride I might see a part which looks dodgy/sketchy to me, but I know it is only so because I can't do it, so physically having to do that in competition is a good way to improve riding.

Its also good for stamina, times in competition when I'm going round a route and think "damn I'm knackered now!", before I've even finished the section knowing that I have to push myself to finish, whereas if I was just practicing I would just give up at that point.

Weather conditions also force me to ride different to how I normally would (with my brake being on a smooth rim), I can't just hop everywhere on the backwheel, so I have to find ways of manouvering about without being so brake intensive.

And finally its applying trials techniques in different situations, a real trials rider should be able to ride to the best of their abilites whatever the conditions, anyone can ride nice even walls in dry weather, but when it comes to competition you have varied inclined terrain, weather conditions which you have to ride in etc.

To sum it all up, its fun and a good way to progress as a rider.

[Mark W]

You've just told me that you class it as a sport, but where's the sport if theres no competition?

I suppose so,

I thought that might've suggested how I felt about trials being a 'sport'

A bigger competition scene would make the sport better know in the public eye

How? It'd have to be significantly bigger, and the locations would have to change pretty drastically to even get more people to just think about possibly going. Even as a trials rider, watching people who aren't particularly good at riding dabbing through a section isn't all that much fun? I'm not having a go at 'worse' riders or anything like that, but I mean someone dabbing through novice for 2 minutes isn't going to quite be the same as someone riding in elite doing bigger moves and lines, is it? Not to mention that I doubt a lot of people would really want to go anyway - look at demos and stuff like that. People are more impressed by nose hops and taking your front wheel off and backhopping around the place - or even the faithful sidehop-o-meter - than people doing tech stuff, just because the general public want to be easily entertained and interested, which isn't going to happen. Going back to what I and a few others were saying before - simply getting to venues can be a b*****d. Some of the YMSAs I went to before had virtually no signage, and if, as a rider, I'm finding it hard to get to a venue, what are people who are just going there to stand around think? The format of a comp's also not going to be that interesting for a lot of people, as spectating at a trial and having any kind of real idea about what's going on is pretty hard. Notice how the top-level UCI comps have a pretty good audience wherever they're held - the sections tend to be more compact/confined, and there are fewer sections and fewer laps, and they generally tend to be more 'street' courses as they're more impressive. There are obviously more natural based ones too, but the ones with the massive crowds seem to be the big, dramatic man-made sections, so unless that sort of thing is replicated in the UK for more comps, I can't see that happening.

Equally, if you look on Youtube videos and other similar video sites, the most popular videos tend to be big, flashy street vids like the Trialskings vids or CLS/Tunni vids. People are still claiming the ancient video of Danny Holroyd gapping rails is 'fake', yet you don't see that many views on the comp vids that are up there, even from the worlds rounds? I just genuinely don't agree that natural is going to lead trials into the public eye, at all. I'm willing to bet that the 10 minute demos at The Cycle Show would probably get more people in the public interested in trials than all the other comps in the UK put together, apart from maybe special, one-off comps like the UCI Fort William comp.

Street is cool too and to most under 17 year olds is obviously cheaper and easier, but who wants things easy? ... I am lucky in that I live where there's lots of rocks and my parents took me to comps when I couldn't drive.

If you live in an area that's good for natural, and have supportive parents, then you are "having things easy" compared to someone who lives in a city, miles and miles away from the nearest venue? It's purely down to location for the most part. I love riding natural, but to ride natural back home in Wales, it was a case of at least an hours drive when my Mum wanted to go somewhere for me to get a chance to ride it, apart from some crappy stuff nearer to me. As a result, although I loved riding it, I was pretty much completely unable to practise much. The people I was competing against tended to have a pretty good home advantage in that a lot of the people in my classes lived - compared to me - relatively near the venues and had generally ridden there before.

Speaking of venues:

Or do people want trials to be an "underground" sport that is relatively unheard of, with the boundaries being limited by internet videos and forums??

I'd argue that using the same venues for comps year in, year out would probably have a pretty significant limiting effect compared to constantly developing architecture in most towns and cities? There are plenty of ways of riding over rocks, but most of the comps I went to ran routes that were pretty similar each year, and the actual skills they tested were basically the same (I even saw one person get through an entire section by just locking their brakes, then just hopping their bike forward on two wheels in several different sections. Bearing in mind I saw people who were considerably better at riding picking up dabs on the same sorts of sections despite having way more bike control and finesse, it does seem like comps are geared more towards a certain kind of rider, not least because the comps themselves tend to be put on by people who either ride comps, or have family/relatives who ride them, or have been involved in the scene for a while meaning they're not drastically varied?). Only getting to ride sections two or three times, for two minutes a pop, isn't really going to push you much, either? Just riding natural as a session similar to riding street as a session would obviously be pretty sweet, and your bike control would get better, but a natural riding session isn't the same as a comp, at all.

[Ali C]

If you live in an area that's good for natural, and have supportive parents, then you are "having things easy" compared to someone who lives in a city, miles and miles away from the nearest venue? I

Speaking of venues:

Very good point! I am annoyed at you for pointing out my stupidity

Still, street is just outside my house and natural is up some of the steepest hills around, so street is still the easier option for me, but I find natural more challenging, thats what I meant.

The other side to the argument is that you can make street challenging too, Rowan is a perfect example, I doubt I could do half the stuff he does. I think the best comprimise would be a comp but in the streets, man made stuff with normal UCI rules, or maybe add a "no strato dab" rule so that everyone has to at least attepmt to ride their bikes up stuff.

[Luke Rainbird]

You've just told me that you class it as a sport, but where's the sport if theres no competition?

That's where you shot yourself in the foot with the argument

The majority of people who seem to fit in to a more 'anti-comp' sort of genre aren't necessarily saying eliminate the comps, just that the way they are done needs a serious rethink

Most comp organisers are pretty unwilling to change the locations, sections, style, terrain etc of their comps and until that changes the competition side of trials will continue to remain smaller than the other aspects that seem to be about - instead of trying to convert other people's views to fit the competition, competitions need to be altered to fit the peoples' views

[Mark W]

maybe add a "no strato dab" rule so that everyone has to at least attepmt to ride their bikes up stuff.

Good luck enforcing that rule

To be honest, I think everyone's looking at it the wrong way. The whole "We need to bring in the general public!" thing seems to have a lot of backing, yet relatively little purpose? If you ask most of the people who went to the Tech05 comp/weekend, they all really enjoyed it and had a good time, yet there wasn't a massive 'general public' interest in it. Riders were happy, and surely that's the key thing rather than just trying to get outside interest?

[Revolver]

"no strato dab"

Haha, so there's a name for jumping off and climbing up the obstacle.

Comps would be good, but I'd much rather just be at a place where there are lots of obstacles, so I could make my own lines up. Like at sabadell, there's infinite lines.

Also, I'm not good enough haha.

[Jason222]

Would like to try riding a comp but time and money constraints are the limiting factor for me

Same! I wanted to go to one this weekend, but it's a far drive, and university is killing me right now...

[MattB]

Very good point! I am annoyed at you for pointing out my stupidity

Still, street is just outside my house and natural is up some of the steepest hills around, so street is still the easier option for me, but I find natural more challenging, thats what I meant.

The other side to the argument is that you can make street challenging too, Rowan is a perfect example, I doubt I could do half the stuff he does. I think the best comprimise would be a comp but in the streets, man made stuff with normal UCI rules, or maybe add a "no strato dab" rule so that everyone has to at least attepmt to ride their bikes up stuff.

The EBTC Brentwood demo was pretty much that part from it was BIU rules.

Lot of spectators and such a good day. Maybe organise a few more comps like that.

[walker]

To be honest, I think everyone's looking at it the wrong way. The whole "We need to bring in the general public!" thing seems to have a lot of backing, yet relatively little purpose? If you ask most of the people who went to the Tech05 comp/weekend, they all really enjoyed it and had a good time, yet there wasn't a massive 'general public' interest in it. Riders were happy, and surely that's the key thing rather than just trying to get outside interest?

Its a bit of a circle really, to get bigger ie. more prestigous venues, more spectators, your going to need bigger sponsors, but they're not going to put there money in unless there are a lot of riders and therefore more competition and a higher standard of riding and a high general interest. But the riders aren't interested in being involved unless the comps become like this. So nothing is ever going to change!

[basher]

One thing that i do hate about competitions and proberly always will do, is people dabbing. Sounds stupid ino but let me explain.

I hate technical dabbing i would much rather attempt a section and go for the challengeing move and risk things than stick my foot down. Im fed up of being beat by some 10year old who sticks there foot down and doesnt even attempt the hard bits, where as i go for it and sometimes pull it off other times and five it.

[munkee]

I've ridden a couple, and have no desire to again.

Distance, cost, shit atmosphere from a lot of people there - no thanks.

Have to say never met a shit atmosphere at my 2 ymsa's (would have been a 3rd in same season if i didnt get major food poisoning). Had my first comp at dudwood last year? or year before in stupidly hot conditions and loved every minute of it. Went round with maher and was a right laugh id do them again if i wasnt so busy with gf/job stuff but when i move up to newcastle ill come down for as many as i can. They really made me want to progress in riding, not just the extra inches you get with street but just getting through sections is an achievement, especially when you walk the routes and see stuff you think you stand no chance at doing and then you manage it somehow. Also was a real eye opener to watch people doing black route so well

Edited October 11, 2008 by munkee

[Captain Scarlet]

I guess the main factor as to whether people ride competitions or not is whether they can reguarly attend to them, I myself am quite lucky that my parents will both give up their own sundays that competitions usually occur on, and drive quite a few miles, to somewhere that gives no personal benefit or entertainment to themselves what so ever, only to see the joy and satisfaction that I get from it.

Edited October 11, 2008 by Albino Slig

[Bearded Midget]

and im lucky i know tom ^^

[Dannoo]

"i have no desire to ride competitions "

I have tried many hobbies/sports and every time it has ended the same way... Quitting!

When I was little it was first soccer, then table tennis and golf.

I got good at all of them and started getting more serious. But when becoming more focused on the seriousness and results, It lost the "fun".. Atleast for me.

So I started Skateboarding, bmx'ing, aggressive inlining, stuff I could do just to improve my skills.. without competitions and regular practice sessions.

This is the way I love my hobbies I just wanna have fun whenever i want. For me trials riding is a way of getting away from my every day life. Just me and my bike, wherever I choose to ride.

I am pretty sure that joining a club, going to practice, and do comps now and then, would make me quit riding!

I started riding trials (a.k.a. buying my first stock bike) last year, And found a biketrial club close to where I live, but after all my experience, I'll stay away and just ride with friends.. Anytime.. anywhere.. Anyhow

Well this is how I feel and motivate my answer in the little poll!

[PaRtZ]

I think its definitly possible to attend comps with shit atmosphere, and that all does depend on which groups of people turn up. But you're guaranteed those people that are more well known on the streets for example, fat mike, matt burrows, matt staples and andrew chai, they'll provide oodles of fun

I think this topic's been discussed about 3 times now so im not going to say anymore. I defend the comp scene from accusations of poor organisation and poor atmosphere because the british rounds ive been to (and to be fair, the only comps i've been to) neither have been present.