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3 Questions And Neil T's Career In Comps


Phil H

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1. How many people approximately ride trials world wide?

2. Has anyone ever died trials riding?

3. Does Neil Tunicliffe compete in competition? (apparently he was at the london bike show last year competing- but don't remember seeing him)

cheers. Phil

Edited by Phil_Onza
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1. How many people approximately ride trials world wide?

2. Has anyone ever died trials riding?

3. Does Neil Tunicliffe compete in competition? (apparently he was at the london bike show last year competing- but don't remember seeing him)

cheers. Phil

1) no idea, but its gotta be 100,000 plus(altho depends on wat u class as trials,most people aged 10-14 who have decent bikes, tend to do what a bit of everything, but mainly street trials and jumps, in there own way, thats riding trials.) but if you mean actively own maggies,long low bikes, or properly set up trials rigs, probably 20 thousand ish, tops..

2) seem to remember a story of a bloke dieing when out practising riding, and was only hopping up a kurb, gave a big"always where your helmet, " point to a lot of things when it happened. so id say, yes.

3) no idea.

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1) No idea. But its loads. You would have to contact each country's organising body an find out how many enter the comps, plus then you have your non comp riders. So who knows how many!

2) I remember (not sure how true) of a story about a guy riding in Japan who died at a world comp. This was many years ago, before I started competing at world level.

3) Havent seen Neil at a comp for ages. Last time I saw him was Tech 04 I think!

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2) seem to remember a story of a bloke dieing when out practising riding, and was only hopping up a kurb, gave a big"always where your helmet, " point to a lot of things when it happened. so id say, yes.

Nah, That was a guy in europe somewhere, but he wasnt a trials rider, he was a street rider, like free-ridey stuff. Everyone said "should have been wherering a helmet", bu he also broke his neck and had internal bleeding, so even with a lid he would of only had a slim chance. Poor guy. :

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10 times less maybe? :rolleyes: It's only popular in Spain France England and maybe Estonia. I can't see there being more than say 20 riders per major city in other countries.

yea, your right on the fact, of proper maggie using,heatsink pad wearing, koxx framed riders(or other trials specific brands). but when i was like 11-14, and used to ride, we wer just kids, so we all had small hard tails, there was about 8 of us in my year who rode. some said they wer dirt, or dh, or xc riders, i said i was a trials rider, cos i didnt like dirt much, and xc seemed jay at the time, but the point is, we all had small tough hardtails, we all used to do drop offs,wheelies, have bunny hop comps, couple of us had backhops nailed.almost all of us ran a bash. in that respect, made all 8 of us trials riders, about 5 of us had net access, but none of us used trials forums.and wernt members on the mbuk site, we just watched any vids we could download.

should imagine its much the same today,although there not trials riders in the true comp sense, they ride trials. also, youll be suprised at just how many people ive met through the car scene, who have da bombs and cheap onzas, or saracen frames, with 22t+ bash, an rigid forks. probably only know a couple of hundred people through cars, about 100 of them in the 17-20 male category,and at least 5 of them i can think of still own trials bikes,yet none were registed on TF. should imagine its the same in other walks of life,possibly even higher, * dont shout me down for stereotypes here as i know its bullplop" but the whole modified car scene is seen as chav. but if you spoke to a group of people who were 17-20 and more part of the rock culture, i bet the numbers who owned trials bikes, or small hardtails with bashes etc is higher, because biking is still most probably seen as a "greebo" sport in school.

and weve got 6097 members on here, to suggest theres any less than 12,000 people with trials bikes or enjoy a dabble of trials on there street/dirt/hardcore hardtail, would be stupid. although its not as popular in the us, theres still likely to be similar numbers, due to the vastly higher population.

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Cheers guys I think most of my questions have been answered (Y)

I reacon it would be brilliant if Neil was competing however I can see he is pushing Trials to the limits on the streets and maybe there is no place for his style at competitions - someone in the know want to reveal what they think? Discuss :)

I could imagine a few people have had near fatal accidents by falling on their back awkwardly.

But in conclusion I think trials is a safe sport COMPARED to other mountain biking types such as freeride, downhill and dirt jumping. Maybe wrong what do you think?

Someone I know recently moved to trials after they broke their back in some manner dirt jumping.

Phil

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Cheers guys I think most of my questions have been answered (Y)

I reacon it would be brilliant if Neil was competing however I can see he is pushing Trials to the limits on the streets and maybe there is no place for his style at competitions - someone in the know want to reveal what they think? Discuss :)

I could imagine a few people have had near fatal accidents by falling on their back awkwardly.

But in conclusion I think trials is a safe sport COMPARED to other mountain biking types such as freeride, downhill and dirt jumping. Maybe wrong what do you think?

Someone I know recently moved to trials after they broke their back in some manner dirt jumping.

Phil

apparently neil sucks at natural.

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hahahaha that's funny. I don't know if it's true or not, but it's funny!!!

haha I cannot see how he does. Allthough he does look like abit of a robot when street riding and pulls off all the moves perfectly I don't see any like 'flow' that maybe is needed for natural?

(or am I talking sh*t? Don;t hate me :) )

Phil

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the skill for natural far excides that of street. i know people who are awesome at natural but nothing like tunni on street. just because he can gap and sidehop huge doesnt mean he can balance consistantly on awkward rocks in a precise and efficient way. and yeh its true from what ive heard off various people who are good at comps/ natural. hes probably better than average though.

ps i believe damons much the same. (not disputing there awesome street riding though)

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the skill for natural far excides that of street. i know people who are awesome at natural but nothing like tunni on street. just because he can gap and sidehop huge doesnt mean he can balance consistantly on awkward rocks in a precise and efficient way. and yeh its true from what ive heard off various people who are good at comps/ natural. hes probably better than average though.

ps i believe damons much the same. (not disputing there awesome street riding though)

Aha put what I was trying to say correctly - cheers. I agree with that.

Pgil

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the skill for natural far excides that of street. i know people who are awesome at natural but nothing like tunni on street. just because he can gap and sidehop huge doesnt mean he can balance consistantly on awkward rocks in a precise and efficient way. and yeh its true from what ive heard off various people who are good at comps/ natural. hes probably better than average though.

ps i believe damons much the same. (not disputing there awesome street riding though)

Tunni is ment to be orite at natty.

Damon is stupidly good though, bt he hardly rides it. And if he does, it tends to be street stuff ont rocks.

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...although its not as popular in the us, theres still likely to be similar numbers, due to the vastly higher population...

Incorrect , surprisingly . I recently opened a topic on the U.S forum ( Observed Trials . net ) and their own estimation of participants at all levels in the U.S was around 1000 ( ! )

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when people say damon and tunni are good at natural.

yes at big sidehops and gaps on natural.

but in a scenario where you need to observe what your doing and be a bit more precise its a totally different ball game. natural is much more precise and accurate, street is for anyone and everyone, its not hard its all about who has the biggest balls to go big then bigger!!!!!

iv done more natural in the last 2 years and feel much better for it, find that my balance is far superior to when i was purely just street riding all the time. but hey thats only my opinion on it, its probably biased to most as i mainly ride natural now, altho i would say i ride 50/50, but i ride street totally different to natural.

Waynio.............................

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I wasn't saying it wasn't true or anything, just found it funny how it was put, kinda brings an end to the 'is street easier than natural' debate thoguh doesn't it? I'd imagine someone who can go hug at comps, can still go huge on street..... anyway ignore that I don't want to start an arguement.

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when people say damon and tunni are good at natural.

yes at big sidehops and gaps on natural.

etc..

have you ever ridden with/competed against them on natural?

if so, fine

if not - how do you know ?

I mean you're probaly right but i don't doubt they could both beat the piss out of most of the riders on here on any terrain.

that's not directed entirely at wayne btw. he just wrote the most and as such made himself the natural target for quoting :P

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yeh, but where someone would make 2 or three move's getting up something in a technical manner they (neil damon) would probobly just sidehop it all in one go.

I'd say that they'd be able to keep up with some of the top rider's on street, comas, hermance etc, but as soon as natural/not straight edges come into it the differance would become immediately apparent.....

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