[DGC]

Now that you are all looking, here are some pictures from today's.........spectator friendly event. I went to a national trials event here near tahoe at Donner Summit. Sorry no Turner bikes in these pictures, but there were mostly Gas Gas and Montesa trials bikes everywhere. Very impressive sporting event.

 

[Monte]

Did the guy in the first picture pull it off? Looks a little back on the bike. I watched a video of an indoors meet, cool stuff. Launching up onto 6 foot table tops with vertical walls.

 

[DGC]

Oh yes

Did the guy in the first picture pull it off? Looks a little back on the bike. I watched a video of an indoors meet, cool stuff. Launching up onto 6 foot table tops with vertical walls.

The first picture, this was the national champ I believe. Made a lot of it look much easier than the other riders. In that first picture, he actually leaped from in front of the spectator to the far right but in front of me. So he leaped over to that point and had plenty of momentum to make it, and make it look easy. The second guy however did not make it. In this shot, I took this just a split before he lost traction, tipped over on his left, and he and the bike were grabbed just in time before they both almost tumbled back down. But it was very close, he was most of the way out of their hands and nearly fell 15 feet to slick rock slabs below not in the picture.

Here are 2 more pix, the fallen guy is the same in my original post, the one who didnt make it. Here is just seconds after the first picture, they dragged/pulled him and the bike up. Afterwards he was thanking those guys and clearly shaken from what could have been.
You guys think we all concentrate on the mountain bike trails we ride, these guys were so tunnel vision like focused on the sections, at times they looked totally exhausted just from the effort of concentration. If you have never seen an event, go, it will show a new meaning for 2 wheeled handling skills and balance.

 

[Bikezilla]

Man, that's some sick stuff.

I had just seen an "King of the Hill" contest on OLN, y'know the kind of motorbikes with slightly elongated chainstays (not the super long types) trying to get up some sketchy steep 400' climb. Near the top, standing over the hardest trench, were two lines of guys with helmets and hooks. If a rider got thrown (and many did) these psycho volunteers would dive into the trench head first and throw one hand on the rider and hook the bike with the other. The elite class were attacking with up to 1100cc. It's scary to see one of those things fly 10' past the rider.

Puts MTBing into perspective, eh?

 

[Cary]

Those picts bring back memories. I rode trials back in the early 1980's when I was growing up. The bikes have changed a lot, back then I was on a Honda TL125 and Kawasaki had a good trials 250, with Bultaco being the good bikes. They were nothing compared to the current bikes, which are much lighter.