I'm not necessarily a proponent of no-stop as much as I just don't like the idea of watching a guy sit still for an eternity, especially when he's dragging his bike around while doing it. I posted the video because it shows hope for those riders ready to quit over no-stop that trials can still be fun and exciting to watch. For me, get rid of the foot down while stopped = 1 and find a way to keep things moving and I'm happy. Stop, backwards, sideways, whatever... if the feet are on the pegs I'd call it good. I'm curious to see what other rules might be in the pipeline. I watched a video online yesterday where a rider was stopping and hopping for every direction change. He was clearly a much better rider than me in that he could do all the hopping, but it looked to me that the turns were perfectly doable in a traditional way. Looked like he'd never really learned to turn, instead learning to hop. Not necessarily right, wrong, good or bad - it just struck me as interesting. Seemed like he was making it a lot harder than it should have been.
Yes, my whole beef is the all day dab! Take that away and maybe impose a fast time limit. But I`m sure we`ll end up the same rules as FIM. But also the FIM will actually have two sets of rules for trials.
There would NOT be a whole afternoon dab, if the sections were not overly difficult for the class. That is the rub, with stop allowed, that we give people opportunity to get ready to take on injury risking obstacles. When you go no-stop, you just make them go without any pause, guaranteed to make them move down, or crash... I believe all the no stop proponents have forgotten that freaking amatures ride what I used to ride in EXPERT or above, on the old bikes on the OLD rules. The question has always been, how hard do you have to make the sections? combined with, who do you base it on? the sandbaggers? how do you account for guys falling back through the ranks due to age and other problems? The answer has always festered or ended up as, how big of a bottleneck do you see.
Adam won again today. I did predict this would end Bou`s dominance of this sport. Right or wrong it is happening.
NATC Round 1. Clubman line makes up over 30% of the entry. 96 Riders total. Time for no stop? Time for sportsman and senior sportsman? It would eliminate 7 class awards.
The idea behind the manufacturers forcing the FIM to adopt no-stop rules for WTC events, was I think to increase the chances of attracting new riders into the sport. I guess there is something in that, as WTC is obviously very high profile and maybe looks a little less daunting to those who might be thinking of taking up trials, now its run under no-stop rules? For lower level events no-stop seems to be the way to go, as the learning curve for a new rider is obviously a lot less steep if there is no need to learn and practice the techniques used in stop allowed events.
Gosh I hope not. It's a shame when rules are written to address perceived problems that aren't some true big problem. If there is a concern about an overly long dab (how many times has someone just sat there minutes, really?) I Haven't seen that. Killing the pause to swat at the phantoms of world economic problems and high fuel prices (read: participation and attendance) changes the game, a lot, and not in a good way. I don't pause often, but I do when I NEED to get my wits about me and ride safer. Don't take that away from me. It'll really piss me off. And that whole bit of needing to do hops by letting off the brakes to make it look like the bike is falling forward. That's just silly. Try pooping on a toilet when it's forbidden for your butt to pause on the seat. It ain't natural!
Well, I`ve heard the Ute Cup and maybe the El Trial De Espana is going No- Stop as American test for the new rules.
Sometimes more than one person at every section! There's a little logic in seeing if Sammy and Nathan can ride sportsmen lines no-stop. Make them steer instead of hopping, too! For us mortals, as my friend Gordy says, go ahead and five me I guess.
