Trials Australia Forums

Hi All, I agree with both George and Roger,sort of, Just going PRE 70 solves a lot of eligibility issues but makes it almost 'anything goes' in a lot of ways. I certainly agree with restricting gearboxes to original number of gears. ie if fitted with five speed or four pre 70 then no more than that. Is the M27 five ? I don't agree with not being allowed to have electronic ignitions as this alone won't improve performance only maintenance. No ported barrels! That's half the fun! And George the Ceriani fork was copied from CZ . Please do not make people add things under original frames to reduce ground clearance. It caused so much trouble in Vic. Just stop people cutting and shutting to aid ground clearance and restrict frame mods to those which were commonplace in the era.
Regards Geoff.

Roger ,Geoff and others. My idea is still to call it pre65 but allow bikes of similar technology into the class. As for the light weight Bantam, I don't think we should let in the modern replica's. Any off the run on type of models would be restricted to using their original frames with only minor mods allowed(steering angle but not any sort of lowering, including seat rails). We must try and keep the cost of a competitve bike to a minimum and not let the class morf into English scene with $12000+ bikes. On the porting and elec ignnitions, it is only meant for the M10 Bultaco as a way to allow other machine to come up to it's standard. There seems to be a distorted idea out there that because Bultaco's are all the same you can use 1980 model parts in them, this idea is completely wrong. So if it helps get Spanish back in I'm sure anyone with an M10 would be happy to leave it stock.
Someone asked about M27, it is 5 speed. Not much different other than that but we need to draw a line somewhere to the technonlogy that available at end of 64. Most if not all the Pommy bikes hadn't advanced in years so as long as they look pre65ish let them in. Other spanish should be allowed as well but I'm not up to speed on what was available, I do know that Montesa didn't make a trials model until 68 but there was plenty of road models dating back to the 40's. Ossa also had road models well before 65. Anyone with intimate knowlege of spanish should chime in. If we are to let in spanish forks we can't keep the bike out now can we?
On the bantam gears, yes the newer ones are 4 speed but I don't think that would make any difference to it's trials performance. The 4 speed Bantams are a bit more reliable in the gearbox though. Should help Peter Samson to not need a replacment box every season.

There was a comment made to seperate twinshock from classic. I feel all of what we need to do is to leave the the rule as they are just remove the no Spanish bit and add sub classes to override areas that we want to change.

Just a few more ideas. Roger I think it's more important to get things changed than to panic about the 2014 cut off date, but if we can great.
I also think we need to get it correct and somehow lock in any changes good or bad for 5 years then review. This give people a chance to build something knowing it won't be outlawed before they can ride it.

Morning All
If my comments seem a bit late in the day over there its because UK is 10 hours behind you guys, I will be back on your time zone March 14th.
George, we have the opportunity here to, as you rightly say, set the rules for the next five years, OK take out the "No Spanish" bit but the purpose of this exercise is to grow the grade and make the rules clearer for everyone to understand.

Most of us regular commentors here have a particular interest in one thing or another, I believe both you and David were building Spanish trials bikes, I push the issue for Tiger Cubs, Geoff loves his CZ's and I'm not sure about some others but we have to look at the bigger picture and either allow some new bikes in by some major changes to the eligibility rules or continue year after year with constant sniping.
There are some good suggestions coming forward, I like the max stanchion dimension, max ground clearance, min seat height, perhaps max distance from centre of spindle to top of stanchion but overall these requirements are not going to increase the numbers of Classic bikes competing.

Again I strongly suggest going to Pre 70 with all of the above constraints coming into the rule book. Nobody can really say that I have anything to gain by pushing Pre 70, it will allow some superior technology bikes into the class to compete against fairly standard bikes but will take out the arguments over the well defined "Pre 65" definitions we currently have. Some will argue that it will also start a what is "Pre 70" debate but we will have that whatever we put together.
I think the most positive comments we have so far Is David offering to do the website work and Paulm acting as a moderator, thanks guys.
Finally I still think we have plenty of time to put this together for the 2014 MOMS if we can, it will save the debate fizzling out if we have a deadline to stick to, does anyone know when submissions have to be in.
Cheers
Galps

Hi all i am all for pre 65 class .Now at the moment i get my MA licence they send me the rule book and we go from there.How hard is it .It sounds like some one wants a pre 70 class, may be there should be a class just for talking about trials. tony bax

I think Tony might be onto something here. If Galps has accepted any round carbs and George accepted square barrels (which is how this debate started), I personally think there is fundamentally nothing wrong with the present Classic pre 65 MOMS. Over specified bikes ride Twin Shock, or as I will when I have the Yamaha forks on my cub, Non Competitive. If we all get on our bikes we can all ride and numbers will increase

OSC

Thats not a fair comment Tony, I have nothing to gain by pushing Pre 70, it will simply allow more borderline bikes into a slowly dying class which therefore provides more competition for all of us.
I do not have a $10,000 bike stashed away ready to slip into the "new" Pre 70 class, the only thing I continue to argue about is the fact that as an ex Pom riding in the UK in the era of Pre 65 bikes I know for a fact that many of the works bikes in late 64 were fitted with square barrels and in production to appear in retail sales in January 1965. Mike Estall only has the records of despatched bikes from the various factories ie. Meriden & Small Heath but I spoke to two ex works riders recently at the Telford Clasic bike show and they confirmed this.
Chris Leighfield also confirmed this to me in the many conversations we had on this subject prior to his departure.
I have a pretty special Cub that I ride regularly in the UK and I will bring it back to Aus but, like Shane Barnes, I will ride it in Twinshock to comply with the regs in Aus

My Aus Cub is bog standard apart from elec ign. and I will be riding it at Easter ,,,,,,, if I can get it going after two years, did you still want to buy it look forward to catching up if you are down at any of the SE Qld trials over the next 7 weeks.
Maybe oldslowcoach has a good point about over specified bikes riding Twinshock, but why not simply leave them in Classic, "Pre 65 Specials" its another thought which might appeal to some of the other guys
Cheers
Galps

oldslowcoach wrote:I think Tony might be onto something here. If Galps has accepted any round carbs and George accepted square barrels (which is how this debate started), I personally think there is fundamentally nothing wrong with the present Classic pre 65 MOMS. Over specified bikes ride Twin Shock, or as I will when I have the Yamaha forks on my cub, Non Competitive. If we all get on our bikes we can all ride and numbers will increase

OSC

Peter you wanting to fit Yamaha forks to me is telling us that there is a problem with the current rules. To opt out and ride non-competitive because the stock forks are no good. If we can free up the rules somewhat you could fit up a better type of fork and be counted as a classic again.
It's not only you I'm sure that would benefit form this type of change.

Tony. Don't think we have met but as you are fairly new to classics and your bike probably complies with the rules, ask yourself how you would feel if next year there is a rule change snuck through that make your bike ineligable. Would you then think it is worth talking about changes.

If we are going to get anything down we need to descide on which way to go.
Do we push for the pre70?
Do we stick with the pre65 and free it up with a few later models and parts?
Do we do nothing and hope to get more riders back?

Personaly I think the pre70 will push away some of the current pre65 riders but bring in some new guy's with pre70 machines. I would not bother with the Cub anymore but build up a M49 Bultaco or a DT1 Yamaha both of which would be a lot easier to ride all day.

The freed up pre65 wouldn't make any difference to my bike as I'm happy with the performance of the forks and brakes as they are. Might try and track down some square finned parts to help with the overheating the motor get on some of the hilly properties around. If I knew the rules wouldn't change again and assuming Spanish were let back in I could put together a little Bultaco.

If we do nothing, I can now ride my bike again as the carb is ok again.

Feed back is needed or nothing will happen.

To put you in the picture George, Tony would be the new Chris Leighfield of Classic in the next few years,, thats a compliment Tony.

My thoughts or preferences are pretty well documented but I will list them here;

1. We open Pre 65 out to go Pre 70 to encourage in those bikes just outside the Dec 64 cut off date, this will allow in the first of the genuine Bultaco trials
bikes, the M10 and numerous others including Pommie and European, This would obviously alter the dates for eligible Twinshock bikes in their own
grade, they would have to start at Jan 1st 1971.
I do not have an alterior motif for wanting this, on the contrary most people know my thoughts on the M10 being allowed into Classic in 2009, I simply
want to see the grade grow and develop.

2. Again, open Classic out to Pre 70 but include classes within it, separate heavyweight bikes, British, European, Japanese, it would introduce some
healthy competition within the Classic grade.

3. Leave Pre 65 rules as they are but bring in a Pre 65 "Specials" class within it to allow modified frames, engines, forks, hubs etc etc. This would not
please the early Bultaco enthusiasts as it still leaves them in the cold with bikes not really competitive enough for Twinshock grade unless they are in
the right hands.

4. Change Pre 65 to Pre 66 or Pre 67, this would please quite a few riders

5. We sit on our hands, do nothing and this topic comes up again in 12 months time

These are just my suggestions, no axe to grind, no pommie vested interest, no $10,000 special sitting in the shed, just a retiree, but still competing, trials rider who still loves the sport.
Cheers
Galps