Trials setting the standards
By TMX Archives on 25th Sep 08
With Gas Gas having set the pace with their all-new 2009 model, Beta are right behind with the revolutionary EVO...
BETA certainly got everyone's attention when the Italian factory unveiled its new EVO trials model at the Spanish World round last weekend! Following hot on the heels of their Gas Gas rivals, who upped the ante with their exciting new tubular steel, super-lightweight 2009 models that they unleashed in the summer, Beta have promptly weighed-in with their latest development on the aluminium chassis theme.
If nothing else, Beta proved the "waiting for a bus” theory. You wait for an hour and then three come along all at once. Well two have definitely arrived - maybe we'll get a third shortly! I'll leave you to fill in the blank!
What is heartening is that in trials at least there is still some genuine innovative development work going on. In MX, it is basically impossible to distinguish between one twin-spar ally chassis and the next. But Gas Gas really went back to basics with their latest steel-tube baby. It is an object lesson in minimalism and proved that ally isn't everything. So good on Beta for hitting back so fast with a new take on the aluminium chassis – a single beam against the twin-spar norm.
The four-stroke boom apart, trials development – just like in motocross – has been pretty stagnant for well over a decade. Sure, designs have been tweaked, updated and pushed around while claimed weights have been lowered at the same time as strength and rigidity increased (according to the press releases) until you would think there really was nowhere else to go – apart from adapting the very latest in hot new graphics. And then up pops Gas Gas and Beta to take us to a whole new level with some genuine design innovation.
Innovation may actually be too strong a word. When all's said and done there is actually nothing new under the sun. What happens is that new, stronger, lighter materials arrive which often allow thinking designers to revisit the past and make an idea that wasn't practical in the past a reality. That is certainly what happened with the steel-tube Gas Gas and to a point with the Beta. Aluminium technology is streets ahead of what it was just a few years ago and the factories are now putting this to good use.
WELL, Mick Wren's heart-felt letter printed on page 4 of last week's issue certainly got the phones ringing last Friday. And from talking to Mick on Monday this week he has been totally overwhelmed by the amount of people who have contacted him – all offering 100 per cent support.
Just a quick reminder. Mick has been on the ACU Trials and Enduro committee for 12 years and has been duly re-elected every three years – as is correct by ACU procedure. But because of an admin error, this year Mick failed to get his application returned to the ACU within the time limit in order to put himself up for re-election. When this was discovered Mick explained that he had never received the re-election forms personally, not had the matter been brought-up at his local Northern centre meeting.
That's the short version of events. The bottom line is that the ACU viewpoint is that Mick failed to seek re-election, missed the deadline. Hard cheese. End of. Goodbye Mick.
Mick admits that by the rules this is correct but feels very hard-done by in that the ACU are being totally intransigent in the matter and that they could have allowed him to seek re-election in retrospect, as he clearly wished.
The thing is (as absolutely everyone that T+MX has spoken to as have those who have contacted Mick – and these are all ACU members and in some cases officials) that we are dealing with a sport here, our sport, not a city institution.
Mick has volunteered to give-up his time to represent his sport through the organising body. As is universally recognised he does a great job, he is genuinely interested in helping the event organisers and the riders – yet because of an admin cock-up, it is game-over, goodbye. People like Mick are pretty thin on the ground.
It doesn't need me to tell you that the ACU have done a really good job of pissing him off and for Mick to come down on the organisation he has supported for 40 years shows the depth of his feeling. As I said last week, myself and Mick have had more than one disagreement regarding the ACU and believe me, no-one has defended them harder than him.
I totally agree with Mick's summing-up – if you want to take their action by the letter of the rules it is indeed the correct decision. But sometimes the correct decision isn't always the right one...