The fun way to clean out the goo on a two stroke trials bike

[David Lahey]

At one of the properties where we run trials there is a steep road to a phone tower and that road is brilliant for burning the goo out of two stroke trials bikes. I finally found a spot today where I could get a photo of the hill that illustrates how steep it is. If you open the photo and zoom your eyes in you will see a concrete road that runs right to left up the ridge to the left of the phone tower

[Twinshock200]

Great shot David, what fun it would be to have that hill in your back yard.

[David Lahey]

Yes it would be great Roger. We have a phone tower behind our place but the road to it is very tame compared with the one in the photo. That property in the photo with the tower access road has some fantastic terrain. Last year we ran a hill climb that went in a single climb from a gully to the left of that road and finished when it intersected the road. It was steep and the ground was loose earth full of fist sized rocks. I rode my son's small wheel TY80 up it just to prove it was possible to do, and was so stuffed at the top I couldn't speak, or even hold the bike up. It was about 30 seconds on a modern trials bike and 5 minutes on the TY80!

[Twinshock200]

I have always wanted to lay out a section in Aus like we used to have in the 60's/70's on a really steep hillside with a graded marking system, ie. the further up the hill you got the less marks lost, 5 at the lower parts, 3 towards the middle, 2 a bit further up, 1 nearly at the top, 0 for getting all the way up.
You probably had the same thing many years ago but I didn't see it used in the 33 years I have been riding there.

In a recent Sammy Miller championship round trial I rode here in the UK they had a timed and observed section for sorting out ties, it wasn't too hard so most people cleaned it but the faster you went the more likely you were to loose marks, same start and finish point so only one person doing the timing and most people did it in around 23 - 30 seconds, great fun.
I guess with all the safety issues these days organisers might be worried about the insurance repercussions to do either of these nowadays

I'll be back permanently in Aus mid October so I should be around for Conondale, thats an event I've really missed
Cheers

[David Lahey]

At some trials I have ridden, some sections have lent themselves to trying different variations to add interest (not officially sanctioned), with variations included cleaning the section the highest gear and yes of course the fastest time. Another section lent itself to riders challenging each other to achieving the most air at the top of a bank.
That hill climb I mentioned in an earlier post was part of an end-of-year trial and had an award for the fastest time, and the trick was that there was no mention of an award for fastest time until after the riding had finished. Judged on video evidence and group acknowledgement, Don J on a Scorpa SY250 was fastest, using third or fourth gear. Second fastest was judged to be Mark C on an SWMTL320, also cruising up in a high gear. A knobby tyred KTM enduro bike had multiple attempts with two different riders but could not achieve the summit, or anywhere near the summit, mainly due to the prevalence of loose stones causing havoc with the rear end.