Learning To Ride Trials

[JT!]

It seems like a long time since we had a topic we can get our teeth into, and then everyone argues, people fall out, and then the topic gets closed. What am I saying. Anyway...

When someone asks how they should start trials, we usually tell them to start by learning to trackstand, and then backhopping, and then maybe small sidehopping, and / or small gapping and dropping.

However, in the days when people used to start learning with slightly modified BMX's and MTB's, people generally learnt trials by riding up steps, riding up walls (front wheel then back wheel method), and things like riding along walls and maybe wheelying off them.

I think this was because trials was more competition based a few years ago. I mean when I rode novice at tyke trials in 2004 there was only one time in one section out of all the dozens of sections I rode that actually required the ability to bounce around on the back wheel. And that was a small drop (which was ridden down by some suicidal guy on a stock ). I think this is the reason why a lot of people go to comps and are flabbergasted by how difficult the sections are when they look so piss easy, because it’s a different type of riding that we are suggested to learn. I know I did.

So what are peoples opinions on learning to ride, do you think that by saying people should learn backwheeling / gapping are sort of being inclined to ride street. Rather than learning the more balance oriented riding of riding over obstacles etc.

Do you think that this new method of learning is going to produce much more street riders and less comp riders in the future?

Might be an interesting discussion, or might die of death.

Edited March 26, 2006 by JT!

[Sponge]

I've been thinking about this exact thing recently, I was always thinking about what trials really was back years ago, like trying to ride as far as you can without resting, and trying to ride along thin stuff as long as poss etc.. Now with the modern streety approach everyone does seem to wanna learn backhops and 'cool moves'... The original trials seems to have some what died a little when you look at most novices and people, the sad thing is that some people care a lot about high how you can hop or how far you can gap... Whereas trials is really more about how smooth/controlled you can do a technical line, going back to the comp thing JT was on about..

Not too much to say at this exact moment, but its a good topic to discuss certainly.. Does hopping around on the backwheel beat the traditional style when learning?

Oh well, I guess I'm one of 'those' backhop first people, I guess its still possible to become good at the real trials if you set tasks like going for as long as you can over walls/etc(creating lines for yourself). I am a victim of the typical 'street disease' where I don't have that great a stamina when hopping around for ages, and struggle to string several lines together.. Too much of urban riding involves like one move then drop. I think someone like Jeff Lenosky said that it was 'killing the purpose of trials' or something similar, but I may be wrong...

Edited March 27, 2006 by Sponge

[Lee Cable]

I started riding streety stuff, before i actually started trials. It was on my old Dr Jekyll, o the memories. I started getting onto walls, front wheel first then throwing the back up. This is what got me interested in trials. I enjoyed "streety" stuff so much that i thought.

"hmm, if im only going to ride street, i might aswell go the full way and ride trials"

So i started the old way, I suppose. And before you ask, how long have you been riding. I can honestly answer that I have been riding trials 3 weeks. But i started "streety" stuff on my old bike about 6 months ago.

From Lee

[Brian Bleech]

people seem to learn so fast these days, i think the fact at cheap bikes nowadays are better than high end bikes of 5/6 years ago helps and that they are more good riders to learn off as well.

but that said you a lot of new/younger riders can often struggle when thing become a bit more technical and on natural, because that sort of riding experience is important and flat surfaces are easy in comparison.

Mike

[Greetings]

Great topic Maybe what I write won't exactly answer the question but it is a good example of 2 different types of newbies and the skills they aquire.

First guy: This was back in 2004, on a spot where there were lots of logs. My friend, Tomek Wozniak (vice world champion in 1998) was riding with a friend who he knew from uni. That chap bought a semi-trials bike from him. Tom was basically teaching him how to ride trials. And he wasnt concentrating on pedalkicks, pedalups, japslaps or whatever you name. He was concentrating on teaching this chap how to get over obstacles (in this case - logs) with minimum effort. And this newbie would be able to literally ride onto a quite large log without even knowing how to bunnyhop, pedalup, and then ride down. At the time I was already riding trials for about 3 years and couldn't do what he did, however hard I tried. I could however sidehop onto the log and drop at the other end. The real art of comp trials IMO is not to jump onto an object with all your might - it's to find the easiest way up using as little effort as possible. Now this is what this newbie could do. Obviously he would loose all ammateur competitions, but would do very well say 5 years ago.

Yet the remaining "urban" newbies will go on the rocks and try back-wheeling them. They'll struggle more than they would on a normal wall, although getting up a basic rock of the same size is often much easier. An urban-specific newbie will learn a pedalkick pretty fast, will have a powerfull bunnyhop but will probably have problems with rear wheel balance and/or basic balance when sidehopping.

Trials is definately evolving. Newbies are learning new moves extremely quickly and are progressing at a greater rate than either me or any of my friends were in the past. Personally I'm a bit unhappy that I was tought by the urban-specific trialser. We've got some really good natural riders in our city who have no match on rocks and logs and if they were training me from the very beginning, I'd be a better rider than I am now.

[Mark W]

Might be an interesting discussion, or might die of death.

No waaaaaaaaaaayz.

When I'm not tired I'll drop the hammers in this thread

[ogre]

When i first started trials on my mtb which was a long way from a trial bike i was just rolling things etc but then when i got a proper trial bike (t-bird ) i started trying backhops etc the minute i got it, and in all ohnesty i prefer the whole hop-over-it-even-though-you-don't-need-to aproach since in my oppinion it's more pleaseing visualy and i thing theres a greater sence of acheivement that rolling something.

[TrashZen]

Yep, it is truly amazing how bad I felt the first time I entered a comp, and realized I couldn't ride 2m without a dab . But then, this is the most exciting thing about trials, trying to stay on the bike, no matter what is the line, and not wasting all your energy in fancy moves when you can just get over smoothly. Take an obvious example, Cesar (ultra smooth) versus Benito (plain brutal). Then you get to think much more about strategy etc.. and it becomes really more fun than just gapping stuff on the real wheel (which is what I intended to do at the beginning )

Now, a lot of newbies want to show their skills, and it is true that natural trials is not an obvious choice (with the hops and small steps and bouncing), so they look at the urban/bmx style approach... (also if you live in a city, what' you gonna do about it?)

But I reckon after some time riding, you just don't care anymore about showing off, you just ride for yourself and get the best of trials, which is just challenging yourself, on even minor lines, without the "go big" factor, but purely on the basis that you try lines that you are not sure of, with different angles to see how you can handle it. Well that's my new approach (or at least a lame excuse not to go for the big moves )

Edited March 27, 2006 by TrashZen

[nafan]

I started riding streety stuff, before i actually started trials. It was on my old Dr Jekyll, o the memories. I started getting onto walls, front wheel first then throwing the back up. This is what got me interested in trials. I enjoyed "streety" stuff so much that i thought.

"hmm, if im only going to ride street, i might aswell go the full way and ride trials"

So i started the old way, I suppose. And before you ask, how long have you been riding. I can honestly answer that I have been riding trials 3 weeks. But i started "streety" stuff on my old bike about 6 months ago.

From Lee

That's exactly what I did, and as soon as I got a decent trials setup I realised perhaps I should do something that it like 'real' trials...

That's why when I tell people I've been riding for 2 years they think I'm shit, but I only really started just before Christmas...

Nathan