About Trials

Trials MTB is a form of tricks and stunts that are practiced and mastered on a bike. The bike itself has to be small so such manevours can be accomplished. A bigger frame would get in the way. Trials is all about trial and error. We exaggerate the word "error" because it's always the factor between a full on shit hack and a full on professional. The full on shit hack will fall, cut, bruise and break bones more than a full on professional. But it's all worth the scars and the brain damage anyway.

Gman- The Ancient Trials Artist.

Trials all started off in the ancient times where a man called "GMAN" who designed himself a thing called "matumbo". He named his matumbo "Trials", thats how trials got the name. Obviously Matumbo as we know it now is called a trials bike. Well Gman started riding when a snake approached him. It struck with great power and speed. Suddenly Gman manevours himself into a "backhop" and gets away from the snake. Then the snake came from behind and then did a "foward hop"and landed on the snake. Then doing a 180 degree "front pivot" moved away from the snake. He saw it's eyes it was looking at him. Gman knew if he moved he would have been bitten. So Gman did a "trackstand" till the snake moved away. After 5 minutes of trackstanding the snake goes. Gman follows it and rolls over the snake with a "stopie". With the momentum he still had Jeff did an "endo" and laned the back wheel on it's head. The snake dies. But Gman being the type to take advantage. He takes the snakes dead body and lays it on the ground in a line. He puts his bike parallel to the snake and does a "parallel bunny hop" back and forth till all the guts came out.

Well that story was just about the first know trials rider. As you probably know trials has come very popular in many coutries. People like Hans Rey, Martyn Ashton, Steve Marsh and others started off with some average bike then in the long run gradually got better components frames and got much better. They all competed in competions, locally, nationally and internationally. We say if your dedicated to trials and work hard, there's nothing stopping you to become another Hans Rey or your favourite trials rider. So all you people who like trials and have been doing it for a while, stick to it.

"I remember one of team members Jeff who used to mountain bike with us at Church hill and around the city and other places. It was fun. But then he started getting into trials and bought a LX group set, Mavic 517 CD rims, a rock ring and a new frame. We hated it all that trials crap and always gave him shit about how crap he was and that he wouldn't go anywhere with it. But now he's a state champion trials gun. Frankly we don't even know him anymore."

Quote- Chris.

There you go although we lost a good friend. I think it was the best for him, because he became a state champion. Jeff was more dedicted to trials then his friends.

Well trials requires more thinking before hand. When you have thought your way around the obstacle the physical part comes in where you manevour the bike and get around it. You can't just go up to something and just jump it and then your over. it requires thinking and a lot of mental power. First you plan the obstacle in your head. Then you picture yourself over the obstacle and how you are going to attack the obstacle. Even though some don't require thinking at all, thats becasue they are either small or just straight perfect edges. But when you get around to the big and funny looking shapes you have to think how you are going to get over it. Also one obstacle may requuire more than one move. If you think this is all crap try going to the beach where there are alot of big rocks and big dropoffs and try just riding through it. In ten pedal strokes I gurantee you that you are injured.

So what is trials. Well trials is a sport that is know to have many different moves and tricks. It's a great challenge and very hard. The most important thing when doing trials is learning how to balance. Trackstanding is a method used to balance when on two wheels. When you backhop, forward hop, wheelie, stopie, endo , front pivot or even when dropping off, it all requires balance so that you don't fall to one side or backwards.

Technique is also very important. Whether your technique is diffeent or the same to some elses it dosen't matter. Do the technique that suits you and that you fell comfortable with. There is nothing better than following yourself and beleiving in yourself. This only gains confidence and less fear. I remember trying to drop off a small yet not tiny step. I couldn't do it because I was using someelses technique. But then i did it myself and I've followed my technique ever since.

Some Samples

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