Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

to ride it and admire the guys who do it, but it's getting so expensive to be competitive. It may eventually come down to a choice of quitting altogether or taking up trials as a cheaper go-forit-sport. :l So they have to realize that they can go for it in motocross and spend a bunch of money or go for it in trials and get by on a marginal amount of money. I can do an entire national championship schedule on $4,000 including buying the bike. Maybe a new set of rings once a year and a clutch lever now and then. In motocross you really have to pump out the bucks to do the nationals. But, of coune, motocross always has the financial carrot at the top. Lane: Unless you're a top guy you're not going to make money in either spon. There's more earnings potential in motocross, but it costs much more to get to the top because the initial investment is so much greater. They're' both great sports, really hard sports, but most people don't realize trials is so difficult. Anybody who thinks they're going to come out to trials and whip on everybody right away is mistaken. Actually trials is harder because in motocross you can slow down, ride a gear lower and jump less distance on a race track. But in trials you have to do it. You either get up the ledge or you don't. Debbie: Part of the problem with the genenl public has been because of motocross bikes. They're loud, the knobby tires tear up the ground and you get riders who don't respect the rights of others. Lane: I can't help it. I get on a motocross bike and I'm just as big a squirrel as any I4-year-old kid. I love to go sideways. It's the nature of the bike. It brings the animal out. But you can go crazy on a trials bike and not bother anybody. Do you see a younger rider gaining experience and attention in trials and then making the switch to motoCI'OII if he thiJib he has a professional potential? Lane: It's definitely a feather in your hat. Anybody good in motocross with a year of hard practice could probably bust into the top 10 in the national trials championship and then they could go smoke in some local motocrosses. How much would a year of tough trials training help a younger rider in.terested in a motocross career? Lane: It would really make him go a 'lot faster, a lot quicker. Trials and motocross are exactly the same. The only difference is the physical conditioning. The motocrosser uses long endurance muscles and the trials rider uses short strength muscles. With motocross you go as fast as you can without crashing or going off the course. If you go too slow, you get passed. If you go too fast, you go endover-end. In trials, if you go too slow you fall into all-rhe holes. If you go too fast you can't make the turns. So you go as fast as you can go in a trials section without losing control. On a motocross track you go as fast as you can without losing control. The only way you can learn to be a good rider is to be right on the edge of crashing all the time. And in a trials section a crash, virtually, is putting your foot down. You've lost control. In motocross you're not on the edge of control nearly as much as you are in trials, so you pick up techniques faster because you're pushing yourself harder. Marland, Bernie or I could hop on a motocrOss bike and go a couple of laps. with almost any local Pro racer' and 'be competitive" But his conditioning would get us because it's endurance type. But put him on a trials bike and he wouldn't be conditioned for the quick brutal bursts. But as for riding I ability, we're using the same tech· niques. What about the great trials boom of the early 70s that never happened. Why? Lane: Oh, the Japanese came to America with their understanding of the sport and tried to sell it as some· thing it wasn't. Number two, Honda built the TLl25 and sold out. The factories saw that and figured they didn't have to build bikes that were really competitive with .the Spanish bikes. And each manufacture.r brought in what Bultaco and Montesa had been selling for the entire year. It quadrupled the amount of bikes available. Debbie: Also, the dealers didn't sell them as trail bikes even though the market was saturated. They could have sold them as wife bikes, kid bikes or trail bikes, but they didn't. If they had, maybe we wouldn't have as much land closure pressure as we have now. Lane: The whole thing was unfortunate. Japan came. with the same initiative as they did with professional motocross and this was an amateur sport with no means of providing for the needs of significant growth. NQw there is more potential for that, especially as the costs of motocross increase. I'm optimistic about the way the sport is going to go in the future. Now we have a world champion. We met our goal. We've put our man on the moon before the end of the decade. Lane: Now we can concentrate on building enthusiasm through the ranks. Like these bicycle nationals. Clubs across the nation will be setting up trials to train their local riders. The goal of every club will be to have a national champion because the manon-the-moon now for every local club is a national champion in one of the classes: bicyclo-, high school, national, sportsman, senior, super senior. We didn't have that seven years ago" Southern California wanted a national champion and then a world champion, not 10,000 riders. The motoeross community was the reverse. They wanted 10,000 riders and didn't care about the world championship. How do the top motoerolilCn and trials riders compare as athletes.? Lane: People aren't giving the trials riders like Bernie and Marland what's due them as great athletes. I think, if we had a challenge meet, the trials riders would ride motocross better than the motocross guys could ride trials. The trials riders would give a decent showing in the motocross but if you put on a trials demonstration at a stadium motocross, the motocross guys would barely be able to ride the bikes through the sections. Bernie could ride a national motocross and do good. Just sbow up, get on the bike and ride it. I doubt Bob Hannah could show up at a national trial and do as well, Debbie: We're trying to get rid of the trials riders are sissies attitude, because it's not true. Lane: That's what hurt the sport the last time. Debbie: The sissies came out and they got killed. Lane: Trials is a tough sport while motocross is a grueling sport. With 'trials it's just brute force and it flogs you. Debbie: They think the whole thing is so slow. They don't realize you really go for it on the loop. Lane: And the sections. It's speed for motocross or trials. If you go too slow in the sections you dab or don't make it and cr,!sh. Debbie and I have done enduros and ISDT qualifiers and motocross, and .trials is hardest. The motocross guys don't realize how hard and go·for-it trials is. It's a nothing· . can-stop-me sport, but you crash-andbum all the time. That's the attitude you have to take for trials: nothing can stop me. • I . GUESS WHO MADE A MISTAKE?!! The post office had the wrong name on our P.O. Box! All of your orders from our last ad were returned. Please send them back and we will rocess our order prom tl . . '\ COMPAC T •M • EXPANDABLE MOTORCYCLE TANK BAG MADE WITH DUPONT. CORDURA. • TWo separate companments • Attaches securely • High quaUty materials throughout • conveniently detachable • TWo way nylon zippers • AvaUablelnsix colors and two sizes. compecexpandable umk bags are aV8Uabie In twornodets. Model 750hasover750cubk:: Inches of carrytng capacity and is recommended fO" wk:ler tover 8 lnChes) profUe tanks. 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