Time Trials

 

An intro to what might happen soon!

A while back in 2013 we were talking at club meetings about running a time trial. The idea cropped up as most of us could potentially ride one with the bikes we have now, Trials, Trail or Enduro. Gavin Bailey rides them regularly and raves about them. BenF has been there, even Goff and Colin have done a sidecar one!

Anyway. We realised we don't know enough so plan to visit one to: pick up ideas, experience the reality and generally stop ourselves re-inventing the wheel.

The assembled faces were thinking we'd never run one before. Well, that appears to be total rubbish. I accidentally found some slides I'd taken and labeled as 'Time Trial - Jerk's Rough'. (Ok, I should have remembered, but...)

The three shots here show, from the top, Pete Remnant observing at the top of the patch near the wall with an unknown on a Bully 250 circa 1973. And number 5 on what might be a Beamish Suzuki and 9 on a TY175 powering out of Frank Luther's section, plus a retired rider in yellow who is either Ralph Young or Dave Higgs.

How do these events work then?

To cover myself, I'll say 'we think' they are an hour's ride where you ride a marked course through about 6 sections which are wide enough to pass stopped riders. Riders start at intervals and aim to complete as many laps as the fastest rider but dropping less marks. Riders have to average less than 18 or 20mph. And only 2 classes, Trials tyres or Motocross/Enduro tyres. Skill levels seem to be taken from trials grading so Expert/Intermediate/Novice for all Trials class and just one for Knobbly class.

Goff and Colin at an even earlier Scars Wood Bristol TT

My concern is that observers will have a busy time trying not to laugh and remember which number had the 3 and which the 5, when you can't stop them entering a section you could be inundated. I'm thinking we need 2 people on each section. One idea is to recruit well before the start time and if not enough then split the entry into 2 sessions and get riders to observe.

Here is an extract of typical rules applied over in Bristol land.

Finishing procedure: Drivers remaining after fastest rider has finished will be allowed a further 10 minutes to complete the given number of laps.
Penalties: Observation - Clean 0, Footing 3, Stop or fail 5. Time - 1 mark lost for every 30 seconds after fastest rider, allowing for starting time differential. Up to a Max penalty of 20 marks lost.
Ties: Will be decided by (a) fastest overall time. then (b) most cleans.

As spotting rider numbers is crucial, we will use Bibs with pockets for numbers. Bibs may be purchased or hired from the Club. All numbers must be returned immediately after the trial – penalty £5.

It seems that riders have to engage their brains and assess, for instance, if a rider in front is blocking your favourite line that will give you a clean, then it is 1 mark for every 30 seconds you wait until they've gone (or, another rider overtakes you and fives!) or ride another line and possibly suffer a 3 but not lose time?

I will knock up an example of results here soon. I think this might help entrants see what they need to do.

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Notes and examples

Here is some footage ace Somerset photograher Jack Stringer took a while back at a typical section. Clearly he hasn't edited much time out so we can see it is pretty relentless for the observer. You can also see the variety of bikes.

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The Micro Time Trial

This is about one we've tried during the easy trial at Rockfield.

Matt pressurised me into trying a test event after one of the Novice trials down at Roy's. So we offered the short event as an option to decide ties only. We kept everything as simple as possible and explained the basic rules in a short rider briefing before sending 10 test pilots off.

We needed to learn some lessons and experience the reality of observing and the problems associated with sorting results without cheesing too many people off.

Things we learned: (Yes, some of this is obvious and we did know but didn't have enough time to sort, so worth documenting anyway.)

• Decide lap distance and test lap time beforehand to work out riders starting interval.
• Find best ratio for Time Penalties
• Easier to observe if 2 people per section
• Rider numbers need to be bigger and on back and maybe sides too.
• Need laptop to ease lap scoring and identify when riders have completed enough laps or 3 people running finish.
• Use bigger more robust section markers and or tape as no one has time to replace damaged ones.
• Emphasize safety advice in pre-race talk.
• Identify what would cause exclusion.
• Get better clock and possibly a digital one as well as analogue.
• Blue tape area for lap scoring.
• Observer sheets need instructions printed on them.
• Organise course opener and closer to check marshals ready and definitely finished.
• Tape course for obvious passing places wherever possible.
• Kick Colin's arse to get new software finished - ouch!

What else should we put on the list? (admin@wgdfmcc.org.uk)

Here is a Vid we took on the day that includes Viv Jones' headcam of the TT part.