Can I have a trials update?

[eskimo]

Hello new and old, mostly old, and some of those are f**king old, are there even new users here? 

What happened trials? Can I have the last 10yrs squished into a paragraph or two? 

I was on the look out to buy a new mod or a 2nd hand one last year or two, but never could find anything. How many brands are left, or is no one just bringing anything in to the country?

I did ride my Triton last year a few times, and I rode a modest bit of trials around those covid times, but no furlough for me. I have been riding more in the past few years than other times, but it's mostly been solo. Life got more overwhelming as each year went on so I disconnected from everyone, so apologies if I've just kinda avoided anyone on here.

Did the IMGUR issue affect the TF locals? It's a sad state of affairs and has affected many forums. I generally don't social media anything and haven't for years, but I do miss that era and sense of community. FB has always been shit for me, and yet there seems to be some community there, though I haven't followed it.  

 

[aener]

Numbers of riders really dropped off - especially in the north.
Reduced numbers and social media made a fragmented scene even more so. People are still about, but in their own friend groups. More like it was before mass internet adoption.
Now, if you're not in some horrendous, giagantic group chat you may as well not exist.
The number of brands reduced, and even ones that stuck around produce less stock. From what I gather, not by choice. Increasing costs and decreasing market, and those that remain have less to spend.
Some companies started selling direct to customers instead of through shops.
Comp riders went off-the-charts absolutely bat-shit f**king nuts.

I'm down and out now and I was in your position before anyway so not a reliable source, but yeah - it seems like it's still around but you have to have an "in". It's not as public as it once was.

[La Bourde]

Hi!

 

Just add that street/trials boosted a lot the market first but at the end split even more a small community: comp bikes are a pity to ride but amazing to sidehops, up to front, etc. while street/trials are so short, they spin almost like BMXs but are difficult on natural playgrounds.

I think you saw the premises of all of these, but the consequences are that comp trial  seems unreachable for a mortal (dedicated bike, unbelievable skills, small group of weird passionates) while street/trials is no longer appreciated as its value: too many edits were so cheesy, it feels it is no longer a sport but an entertainment for the whole family (that is not the case for all edits thankfully)

At least the bikes are amazing now for what they were designed for!

[Revolver]

I'm curious as to what the IMGUR issue is/was

 

[Alex Dark]

Steady decline since about 2009 or so. Street trials divided a lot of the riders , even more so than the comp vs street contingent. Seemed a lot moved over to street, then couldn’t find the same long term enjoyment out of it. Lots of new riders ( seemingly) got frustrated quickly when starting out on street bikes and didn’t carry it on. 
 

There was a flurry of innovation up to about 2016 or so, notably the echo 2011 range, crewkerz jealousy / cleeps and the first clean bikes.  Most of the Chinese brands dropped out notably Deng / echo leaving only the competition brands remaining.
 

Koxx overreached and went bankrupt, Hashtagg was their sequel but went almost entirely the same way ( only selling brake clamps and pedals etc now ). Monty seemed to take too long to adopt modern frame construction, when they bought out the m5 carbon not enough people bought them and they went down too. Onza bought out arguably their best parts / bikes then promptly went bust too. Ozonys got swallowed by crewkerz, Jitsie seems to be pulling back from biketrials steadily over the last few years leaving the two big C’s in competition trials to be the only options.

Inspired seems to be doing well in street trials but its sister company trialtech isn’t bringing a huge amount of new parts out. Less people are buying frames to build… largely because they cant buy them anymore. 

There are less riders , but those that remain are the core people who really love it IMO. We also have 4 of the best riders in the world here that also actually for the most part, get out and ride and socialise with the mere mortals. There are group rides happening and a few have really tried to do a lot to further trials in the UK. It’s a mixed bag… but there’s still a strong , albeit considerably smaller populous scene in the UK.
 

 

[Alex Dark]

9 hours ago, Revolver said:

I'm curious as to what the IMGUR issue is/was

 

I believe the image hosting site went down / was bought leaving a lot of the forums devoid of pictures… so how-to guides and galleries were useless.

[Revolver]

Ah, that would indeed be a shame.