Recently I have been thinking that it would be a good idea to start a UK street and trials league. At the moment this is purely an idea and has not had a huge ammount of thought put into it, but let me go on (riders from outside the UK, please read on as I would like your opinion on this too):
The proposal is, that once a month for 8 months a year, we hold Street and Trials events across the country. Riders would ride as part of a team, at first no doubt these will be sponsor teams which will be encouraged to grow but independant teams would also be legitimate, so that if Team A’s main rider can not make the rides due to injury or otherwise, another rider can be selected to represent. Points would be given in order of placement e.g. 1st 5 points, 2nd 4 points 3rd 3 points etc. After the year is out, the team with the highest points would be the winners of the league.
Logistically, each team would have to hold an event, so that no one is put out by distance but also so that no one team has home advantage all of the time, realistically, you are looking at organising one comp a year and going to eight. The courses would be designed by the home team but would have to be able to be riden by riders of all skill and ability.
The reasons I want this to happen are:
In the UK, riders don’t ride together enough, or have enough time to practise together because we are so far away from each other. This would bring all the riders together once a month.
It will encourage riders of all abilities to take part. Even if you are not one of the 5 or 6 people who will ride at BUC in Street and Trials, this is your chance to ride at a monthly event against people of your own ability.
It will encourage riders to practise/ride more and hopefully will increase not only the skill levels of UK riders but also the participation of UK rider, which I see are rather low.
It’ll be fun and a chance to meet up with people I only see once or twice a year, to share something we all have in common.
Please tell me what you think. If I can a positive response from this I will email round all the sponsor teams and see if they would be happy putting forward a team each. For those not sponsored, you are more than welcome to put together an independant team and send them to me. I would be more than happy to organise the first event if no one else is, but it would be wise to organise all dates at the start of the season rather than as we go along.
This is in no one a substitute for BUC, I see this as a quite different thing altogether. Less social and more competitive, a chance for those who want to ride in competition more, to do so.
For those outside the UK, tell me what you think, all comments and suggestions will be taken on board, maybe this is something that could happen in a few countries.
Thanks for listening and hope to hear from you all soon,
It would be interesting to see what others think.
How would you score it etc?
Also, its a big commitment, as it would have to happen regularly.
The UK hockey league is working as there is enough people to organise it - most people interested in street or trails would most likely attend an event, but not hold one themselves, mainly due to the fact they are usually younger. Thats what I think, but there is always NUTS if people want to ride street/trials around the country with other riders.
You’re right, I don’t think this is something that is going to be simple. It will take dedication from all the people involved. However, I am hoping that the sponsor teams will help out some what with this, giving there teams a helping hand when it comes to holding an event. It doesn’t need to be extremely fancy, all it needs is a course, in terms of street it could be a local skatepark in which an independant team will host their event.
As for scoring, I would image we would score it the same as UNICON/BUC rules. Getting judges would be hard, Connie would be a saving grace as she has experience and a great understanding of the rules but is also impartial.
It is similar to NUTS in the sense that it is UK trials and street riders coming together, but I’m hoping this will attract the interest of those who are interested in competiting but may not have the cofidence to ride at big events. I also hope that it attracts the unicycle companies, not only the chance to promote their products but maybe give some unknown riders a bit of exposure.
Thanks for your imput Joe, if this does happen, it would be criminal for you not to be a part of it.
in my opinion this would ruin the whole fun of meets… Why try commercialise our sport more by having sponsor teams and all… ? But I guess riding with team members could be kinda fun… It all depends how many a year there are, I don’t think there should be all that many since it will one be really hard to organise and also for everyone to make it it will need to be infrequent. Last of all if it’s too frequent there will be no more city rides which are great fun.
Do you plan on getting a venue with a trials/street park? or would this be a normal city like ride?
I’m up for more uk riding events so this could prove interesting. Cheers for the heads up PM !
Im sort of with Brendan on this one. The current Trials and street rides that have been organised, namely NUTS, are great. I think that if they were made more frequent it might become a chore to attend so often. Also, im not keen on adding a competition element to it. I don’t really like competing and like the relaxed atmosphere of the Uk trials rides.
Having said that it would be cool to have something like this to attend and meet up with everyone every now and again. I would be up for it, not so much to compete but just to see people and ride casually.
I love competing. But I don’t see this catching on in the future. Sounds more like it would be better to just have more meets and have laid back competitions for the serious riders.
Not a bad idea. It would be great if there were more meets but maybe not that many. I know I could definatly not make one a month. I also think that I would rather more social rides than a competition, I mainly ride on my own, for me just being with other riders is great and I like the laid back social feel of the rides I have been to. I think it would be very hard to judge, especialy if you just riding in town and it would probably be more enjoyable if it was more laid back. I definatly look forward to more rides and stuff and meeting more of the UK riders.
The only problems i see with it are there really isnt enough riders on a similar level to have 8 competitions or teams,
i don’t really know who you are talking about when you say sponsor teams as there is only – me with qu-ax, joes with koxx one, and you with udc, oh and amanda with KH, so thats only 4 people let alone 4 teams,
i like the idea, the other thing to do would just be to casually organise competitions, like south west trials weekend, that was really good fun, also Calstock Unicycle club have lots of funding to hold a competition and this is scheduled for September im sure there will be news of it soon.
So maybe if people feel like it they can commit to organising impromteu competitions which could be like regional titles or what ever
Ok guys, I can see so far that no one is a massive fan of the idea. Maybe I can answer some questions or tell you what I’m feeling and it may make some of you feel a bit more positive…
Brendan, I don’t wanna commercialise the sport, infact, sponsors don’t have to be involved at all, it was just a way of designating teams. Perhaps by having sponsors there it would make it more worthwhile for some people e.g. if they know they might get sponsored or if they know that sponsors would be putting up prizes, it may provide motivation for them.
Lucas, your point about there only being about 4 of us, yes at the moment you’re right, but the idea was that sponsors would try and get a team to represent them at these comps, if no sponsors are involved, which is entirely possible, then independant teams are just as good and perhaps more likely to provide a fair spread of talented riders. I think you are right about skill levels, well it seems atleast that there are few people who are interested in competing on a regular basis.
This was never designed to replace any social meets, the whole idea was to get more people together more often, so replacing meets would be pointless. As most of you have pointed out, it pretty much is aimed at those who want to compete regularly, not only to improve those who are already great riders but to give those riders who aren’t as confident or experienced, the chance to compete in teams.
I think we have the numbers. Part of the reason I wanted to start this, to encourage more competition riders, seems to be the main reason it won’t get off the ground. Maybe if it was introduced as a European league, there would be more serious riders and the few riders from the UK would be part of a bigger league, but again this would only attract the riders who are already competitive and therefore not achieve something I originally set out to do.
Anyway, thanks for your feedback guys, please keep it coming and sorry for the short novel I’ve written on both counts.
If it involves meeting new riders and going somewhere different to ride, then that’s good, but us riders in south-east don’t really have money to spend on uni-trips atm! Maybe when we get a bit older and get jobs, we’ll be at all these UK events that are already in place.
Instead of organising a league, maybe it would be better to just try and organise rides around the UK regularly, and see if people are up for it.
fair enough, some people do want to compete, but why would a company want to sponsor a competition with only a few entrants, and no other exposure for them?
I find it hard enough making it to NUTS meets, and the main reason I go is to meet up with mates, and make new ones, oh and some unicycling. I work full time monday to friday, weekends are presious to me, by all means I love spending them unicycling,but there is other things I have to do.
The price of fuel at these days doesnt make it a cheap weekend away either, especially if theres a fair bit of traveling, and considering most riders are younger and dont have access to their own car, getting to different venues/cities can be hard.
I agree that maybe street and trials events, with optional comps may work, but a league possibly too hard…
i personally think it would be an awesome idea, but it may be hard to organise.
i think too many events might (as has well been said by a number of others) be to the detriment of the easygoing vibe of some meets, but i think it would be good to have a greater element of competition throughout the year for those who want it.
SWUTW had a trials comp and a couple of others, but it was still enjoyable.
so i dont think a competitive element is bad for unicycling and unicycle meets on a whole, but to make the competitive element the sole purpose of a meets would turn me off. although we have a few meets at present scattered around the country, if we were to say have a set of eight held separately from the ones currently in place, i think that would be far too many for those of limited means or punishing work schedules to attend on top of social/noncompetitive meets.
nevertheless i think it is a good idea, if it could be developed.
i like the idea of teams, but perhaps the structure of the competition could be arranged so as to make it fairer for those who can’t travel so far.
i haven’t given this a great deal of thought, but perhaps there could be a number of set meets (basically whoever can organise one) agreed at a specific time in the year for the upcoming year. i think there would need to be only a few teams to begin with as it would be advantageous for each team to have a rider near to one of the set location. then points could be totted up. the important thing would be that the teams have the chance to play against each other frequently enough.
i’m not sure how to work it out properly but if people want to be serious i think it would be nice to have a structure for their seriousness.
riding as a team would be good encouragement and i think might prevent individuals from thinking ‘oh, i’m the worst rider in the uk’ and other such negative thoughts…
Are there enough riders? Looking at the hockey league, it is hassle to organise, and there are 13 teams in the league, meaning at least 65 riders, realistically there are probably 100 or more hockey players out there, as several of the clubs only send 5 players to tournaments, but have 10 or more regular players (we almost always have 5 a side), that’s surely a massive number compared to the numbers of competitive trials riders.
Hockey only got big enough to have a league because of the regular teams building up. Maybe a first step if you’re interested in supporting trials competitions is to organise regular practices for your local riders, get a group of people together in your local area, then once you have a team together locally, you can start challenging other teams in competitions. It worked well for hockey because there are a small number of very good organisers out there who found pitches and sorted out regular meets.
Joe B, can’t argue with that at all. Maybe it is something that just plain won’t work in the UK, whether it be expenses or just general interest.
AJ, good to hear you’re enthuastic about it, would have you on any team that we eventually end up having.
Joe M, that is probably the best idea I’ve heard from all this. Yes, you’re probably right, numbers of riders are low, those who want to compete regularly even lower, so perhaps a we could get a couple of teams together and hold a one off comp. Then if that works out, a league might come from it.
So taking this into consideration, would anyone be interested in getting a few teams together and having a team trials and street comp? I would be happy to try and organise a venue and reckon I could get a semi-good team together, if you guys can be bothered travelling all the way up here. May get prizes if it would help motivate you to take part.
Proper event with a fully nice, fenced off trials course. Held in Ashridge forest on a nice day in august.
Would want a decent amount of interest before I book anything.
Sorry no street, but its a start.
Can provide a few beds for people that are traveling far.
Ok guys, just realised that the 16th is the first day of Crawley Convention, so wouldn’t be a good date. We can hold this before or after Unicon, which would be better?