New Zealand Bike Trials Comp '04

General
1

This last weekend was host to the NZ National Bike Trials Competition, held in Rotorua, in which myself, Pete Marchant (pete66) and Tony Melton all competed, and were lucky enough to be given our own unicycle category.

Since the bicyclists were using U.C.I rules (if anything that isnt tyre touches an obstacle, its a dab) we decided to adopt a new method, the free trials rules created by Kris Holm. I have to say, that these rules made the competition a lot more fun, and definitely more interesting, and we certainly got a few strange looks from the bikers. The sections were made of boxes, cable reels and demo gear all carefully arranged to challenge even the most experienced riders.

The highlight of the competition would probably have been an outstanding effort by Tony to complete an ‘expert’ section, with flying pedal grabs and a nice 2m drop-to-flat to end, it was very impressive indeed.

The result standing for the first day being :
1st - Tony
2nd - Me
3rd - Pete

The 2nd day held the North Island Outdoor Comp, which was a very rugged (in parts) collection of muddy trails, rock sections and log-skinnys. We all cracked off to a fine start, once again applying the free trials rules, Tony leading the way by clearing all the sections he tried, and Pete not far behind. I ended up having a few nasty bails, and removal of some skin due to sloppy tire placement on a rock section, which hampered my efforts for the rest of the day.

Results for outdoor
1st - Tony
2nd - Pete
3rd - Me

Nevertheless, it was a great weekend, and a good test run of the free-trials rules, and im looking forward to more competitions that make use of this new system.

P.S - i’ll upload some photos once i get a chance to sort them out.

2

Sounds great, I’m looking forward to seeing photos. Congratulations Tony!

Andrew

3

The trials obstacles had three different courses marked on them - novice, intermediate and expert. On Saturday (Indoors) I cleared all the novice and intermediate sections and one expert section, getting 9 points. On Sunday (outdoors) I cleaned 6 out of 7 novice sections and two intermediate ones, scoring 10 points. I found the indoor sections a lot easier than the outdoor ones.

I’ll upload a video clip of me doing the Expert section soon. Its 18MB so I’ll wait til I’m using a computer with a fast connection.

Yeah, it was definitely better using the unicycle trials rules than previous BikeTrials comps where I was the only unicyclist and had to ride by the bike rules. Plenty of the bike trialers thought that the unicycle rules would work well for them, but they had to stick to the UCI rules as that’s what will be used at the World Championship MTB and Trials event at the same venue in 2006.
Rotorua 2006 World site

4

Re: New Zealand Bike Trials Comp '04

joebail.jpg

5

Its me accepting my award of 2nd best… you can see Joe and Tony in the background, notice how much Joe really does look like his avatar!

awardceremony.jpg

6

We also stopped by at Rotorua skatepark and I tried to jump onto a chain…

chainbail1.jpg

7

I actually didn’t bail the first few times I tried this. These are all frames from a video by the way.

chainbail2.jpg

8

while i was shooting stills for the “SPACED OUT” unicycle video i asked Ryan Atkins if he would attempt to stall on a chain a bit higher then the one in the picture above. Ryans responce to my request was:

“No Good Can Come of the Chain”

The image above illistrates that point pretty clearly.

9

note for pete’s chain hop he did indeed land it a few times, before getting cocky with the remark ‘what could go wrong?’.

10

Here’s the video of me riding the expert section.

Its a minute of video and is 18MB - dialup users beware!

11

Ouch!

12

An idea just hit me :astonished:

Tony, have you thought of contacting the organisers for the 2006 Rotorua MTB worlds to see fi they are keen for some unicycle trials at the World Champs? That would be cool to watch. I wonder if we could use the MTB course for a MUNi race? They usually have a citizens race- but I have a feeling that this will be held at Whakarewarewa instead of the Worlds venue.

Ken

13

video doesn’t work for me…anyone else having problems?

-grant

14

Re: New Zealand Bike Trials Comp '04

So who is Wellingtons best unicyclist? It would seem Joe and Pete are equal. Avatar change?

15

I was unable to download the movie…it’s as if it doesn’t exist. I’m really keen to see it too.

Andrew

16

Ken - yes I’ve been thinking along those lines, too. Somehow we gotta get unis at the Worlds and show those two-wheelers what we can do! We can talk about it more this weekend.

I am uploading the video again now. This will be my fourth attempt.

17

Darn it! no joy with uploading the video. Is the gallery working OK? Any help here?

18

I think the gallery must not be working properly. I tried to upload some trials and muni videos I shot today with no success.

Andrew

19

I think it might be due to video file size restrictions? I’ve had the same problems as Tonys videos have but eventually got it to work with files under ~12meg. I just kept compressing the video more and more until it finally worked. Made for some pretty grainy video :slight_smile:

20

Which video compression software did you use, James? Is it free to download?