Mark W

166mph in this:

Think it was mainly because of the perceived advantage of them, back when it was basically "UK vs US" in dirt jump comps. Most of the UK riders were riding 24" bikes, but the US dudes 26", so they just went in favour of them. Presumably because most of the US manufacturers were using them, so held a bit more sway over DMR & co. This was a long, long time ago now though - we're talking the era when you found things out through the news in MBUK rather than online

@Dman - Bolton video was cool Think I rode those very rocks a while back when Jack showed us some spots round there. Need to head back again, seem to remember some fun stuff by a college/uni of some sort?

Didn't know if they might want to avoid everyone else showing up to rinse the free coffee and buffet there Main thing though is that it's sort of supposed to be a representative of the individual clubs that go there, chat about what's been proposed then vote on whatever the decisions are. I guess you could have other people go there but not be able to vote.

Looks like a cool bike Only thing that jumps out at me are those bars. Gone for some pretty tough, durable parts on there, but then some super light carbon bars... Just seems a little sketchy to me in a way. Not sure I'd like those sweeps either, but I guess that's always a personal preference thing.

Can't remember what the requirements are for going to the AGM, but with the fairly significant change that's being made by Barbara stepping down, and with George being less involved too (from memory?) it would probably benefit everyone if some riders were able to get involved to have their say too. EDIT: Also, sorry for the triple post, multi quote was raging.

The left/right/20"/26" perceived bias at comps has been going on for years and years. As it's usually rider's parents setting comps out, there seems to always be people sniping about who they're setting them out to favour. That particular example surprised me simply because it's not like Jack needs to have sections set out to favour him, and as we found/heard prefers them to be harder. You also get it at international level too. When I was at the Antwerp World Cup there were people complaining about sections favouring Kenny, and it was the same at one of the Worlds from a year or two ago where there were loads of kickers involved.

Not attending comps is different to not knowing what's going on with comps. I used to chat to Ben Swales all the time about what was going on behind the scenes, and regularly spoke to riders at several different levels about it. Also chatted to Robin about it a lot too. That was also why I went to the biketrial AGM. You seem to be again not getting where I was going with my post: You keep skirting around the issue of who you're talking about, and won't name names but just leave big hints. Why not just say who you mean?

He was indeed, yeah, think that was the V2 prototype.

Went to a British round and a Tyketrial round a couple of years ago. If it makes any difference, I rode comps in 2005 and 2006, and even got temporarily banned from riding in a series so I've had experiences with both sides of the coin. I can think of a few reasons why things dropped off regionally and nationally, but it doesn't seem like there's any prospect of change on the horizon so it's not really worth going into it all again. You seem to have missed my point. You were talking about cliques being an issue, but then you basically calling what appeared to be Robin Morewood out but without actually committing to it (and instead just putting forward a relatively bitchy looking post which all but said who it was without actually doing it fully) is doing exactly the same thing. My comment about the politics in the comp scene not having changed in well over a decade wasn't specifically about the Tyketrial club at all, it was about all the clubs in the UK in general. You only need to look back to a couple of years ago where there was a split and two generically titled governing bodies sprung up to see that it's much bigger than just a local club issue. The sniping and infighting in the comp scene has been going on for ages, with people lining up behind who they think is 'right' in any given argument. This whole thing about preferential treatment for riders is a bit of a weak reed too. In the past, in person I've seen someone who's involved in the running of the comp scene try making a point that a comp had been deliberately set out to benefit Jack and it had been done by Mick, but Mick had had no involvement in it, and when Jack saw the sections he was disappointed that they were all essentially favouring a left foot forward 26" rider. The tone/accusation levelled at Mick and Jack didn't reflect that at all, and under scrutiny completely vanished - yet the "he said/she said" thing means that kind of false accusation propagates, especially when people are chatting about things and don't actually name names, but just try and skirt around things being vague/imprecise (despite them basically as good as naming the person they're implicating anyway). For the riders who are out there pushing themselves a lot, having an 'easy' comp because things are set to favour you doesn't make any sense because when you get to the world stage you're going to get blown out of the water. If Robin just wanted to set easy sections for Adam, why would they bother going out practising what seems to be every day to some random set of rocks in Derbyshire somewhere?

From the rest of your post it appears you have already? Calling someone out but not having enough courage of conviction to say their name, but then saying that someone else would do a better job? Throughout the comp scene it's always seemed to just be little groups having pops at each other, especially with all that "I heard..." she says/he says stuff. Can even remember reading stuff about it in MBUKs back in the late 90's - nothing has changed. There have been a couple of occasions where if people had put aside their differences then things could have been amalgamated and made better, but that never seems to happen...

So this came up as a "4 years ago today..." thing on FB. Hadn't watched it since it came out, I'd forgotten how good the riding is in it!

That's kind of implying that the comp scene makes up the bulk of the participation of trials in the UK, where in reality it's got pretty much nothing to do with it. Average attendances at the nationals were ~25 last year if memory serves, and you or I could probably name the majority of people going to them off the top of our heads. However, we could both name many more people who don't compete/have no intention of competing, and who wouldn't be affected by whether are/aren't comps. I don't think it's much of a route in to trials any more either, what with Youtube/here/social media platforms playing a much bigger role in exposing trials to people. That said, Tyketrial has been going for a long time so it'd be cool if it kept going. Not too sure what that guise would be, but it seems like it might be time for riders themselves to get more involved in the behind the scenes aspects of comps if they want to keep them going. Relying on riders parents is all well and good, but ultimately if people who ride comps want them to go more in the direction they'd like, there's only really one way to do that. I don't think anyone involved currently in organising them would complain about extra help being offered, in that it's usually a pretty thankless task.

I filmed these clips a while back, but they never found a suitable home - rather than lying around on a hard drive I decided to post them up as some raw footage. It's 2~ years old now, but still got some pretty hefty stuff in it...

Can't seem to find the one I was looking at now. Was planning on doing the same thing to my car, found one with a bunch of good reviews that was ~£30. The one I saw was pretty small and mega stripped out so it didn't have any 'nice' facia or anything like that, but even a fancy looking one like this is only 250g~, which I assume will be lighter than your radio? Also, it'll be great for powering your left sperker and your right sperker.

Told you Wales was good One conversion from this thread now. Need to go rip around there again before I get rid of my Mazda. For the radio, do you listen to the actual radio radio or is it just stuff being played by your phone/MP3 player of choice? If it's the latter, could you not bin the radio itself off and just get one of those dinky amps to play whatever you're playing music from through your speakers?

Nice work dude Fair play for blowing almost every other "trials rider on a mountain bike" video out of the water too. Big moves, smooth, nice style - all good.

Same here - I got a pair of Spitfires in a UK9 off a friend as they were too big for him. I usually use a UK10 and they were kind of manageable, but I reckon a UK9.5 would have been dreamy. That's compared to the usual shoes I wear which tends to be Vans or similar. Places like Wiggle offer free delivery and free returns, so you could just order a pair (or two if you wanted to spread the sizing to make life easier) from them, get them shipped for free, then if they don't fit send them back for free? Those dudes own CRC now, I'm sure they can take the hit of a couple of £ for you being unsure on shoe sizes

Sounds like an ENO to me.

270 nosepick to bars was dreamy.

Probably 2016's most accurate video title? That was really good. Considering that bike looks super long, you make it look like it's way shorter (in a good way). Super poppy/flicky. Sideways/downward boon to gap to log to up line was a treat. Blue bike dude's got the skills too, that other video euljeune linked to above is worth a watch too for the commitment on the bunnyhop to front at the end!

Nice work dude! You're progressing at an impressive rate, but keeping it all smooth/stylish which is great to watch. Nice to see some rocks, but also see things like that 270 pivot to tyre tap (done really well!) and the bigger moves like that rail backwheel too. Good shit

If that measurement is 3mm or less you're fine.

That was cool Good to see people out messing around/having fun. That spot does look really well suited to it too!

Yeah, I guess this is hard to read.