I’m not a trial champion and I never have been. But since I was nine years old, I’ve been doing trials, and a lot. Forty-three years in a row in which there have always been trial bikes in my house.
In these years I have done thousands of kilometres of inter-zone and thousands of sections, on my own or in federated trials in several countries, especially in the south of England where I studied and where I grew up as an amateur trial rider.
I admit that the techniques of modern trial surpassed me and I stayed away from competition for almost ten years, although I have never cornered my old Sherpa, the Cota, or left the sections; I’m one of those who, wherever I am, when I see a river, a hillside or a ravine, I look curious to see if good areas could be marked there, and when I see a steep and twisty road I don’t see a simple road, I see an interzone and imagine the perfect line to climb with my bike. [LEER MÁS]
When I accepted Trialworld’s proposal to collaborate on this website I did so with two conditions; The first one, my collaboration would be for a single season. The second is that I wouldn’t follow any editorial line, I’m here to write about trials; bikes, riders, competitions, regulations… as I see it, so let’s get to the point because I have a lot of topics that I’d like to comment on.
PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE ROOF
It is assumed that if there is no foundation first, it will not be possible to build the roof of a house. Although, as it is said, there are always exceptions that prove the rule; and As an example of exceptions, we have our RFME that shows us how the opposite can be achieved. As without foundations, without walls or even pillars, the tallest tower can be crowned, leaving the most skeptical architects speechless.
Let me explain.
According to the Consejo Superior de Deportes (CSD), Spanish motorcycling won a whopping 22 medals in 2012. It should be explained that in the CSD they understand “medals” as the first, second and third places in the world championships of the specialty. Spanish motorcycling with these 22 medals has been seen surpassed only by Olympic shooting and sailing.
These 22 two-wheeled medals are divided into 10 world championships; 8 runners-up and 4 third places, of which the Spanish trial has won 12 of these 22 medals divided into 5 absolute championships (men’s indoor and outdoor with Toni Bou, women’s with Laia Sainz, men’s and women’s teams in the trial of nations), 4 sub-championships (Raga outdoor, Cabestani indoors and Moret in open and junior) and 3 third places with Fajardo in outdoor, Raga indoors and Sandra Gómez in women).
This is a triumph that has been repeated year after year within Spanish motorcycling for some time now, specifically The resounding and unquestionable success of a sporting discipline of Spanish sport such as trial, fThis is something that the federations of the RFME, the CSD and our politicians should be very proud of.
The truth is that it’s no wonder. Congratulations to all these champions, I’m proud of you too.
Those of you who know me know that I spend time in the UK where I have some work and a lot of friends. Some of these friends who are very close to the sport of trial ask me curiously when they see our trial potential: “Spain must be a trial paradise, right?”
To which, frankly, I have a hard time answering.
You have to see their incredulous faces when I tell them things like, “Well, not so paradise…”
“In reality, there are far fewer than a thousand trial licenses in the entire Spanish territory… “.
“In places like Madrid there is not a single place where doing trials is not a crime punishable by excessively high fines…”.
“In Madrid or Castile we are discriminated against in such a way that we are denied the right to do trials even on private land and we are persecuted even in helicopters with a tenacity and viciousness that is difficult to explain in words…”.
“There are very few trials in Spain; and very few clubs…” “The initiation trial within the clubs is practically non-existent…” “Throughout Spain, training trials outside of an official training session with a minor is a criminal offence for which you can lose even custody of your child…”
Hard to believe, but not so much when you look at the CSD’s statistics about the world of motorcycling within the global context of Spanish sport. According to the successes of our motorcycling and trial in particular, it would seem that the RFME must have many thousands of federated members.
Not again, only 14,187 associates in 2012 according to the CSD, a figure of r
In England alone, not even counting Scotland, there are more trial licenses than in Spain of all motorcycling modalities combined.
The In 2012, motorcycling in Spain occupied the 31st position within the federated sport with its only 14,187 licenses. This figure is similar to the noble sport of greyhounds with 13,789 licenses and below other very noble sports such as pelota (15,064), orienteering (18,869), pigeon farming (23,278), petanque (25,018), surfing (23,089) and light years away from very minority sports such as Olympic shooting (59,083) or sailing (59,703).
And don’t let anyone tell me that a trial bike is more expensive than a rifle or an Olympic shooting pistol or a competition sailboat since their prices are similar and even the price of a trial bike is lower in many cases. Just one box of precision ammunition for a 20-round Olympic pistol can cost more than €300.
I don’t know what the secret of the RFME is to build our trial house starting from the roof, but I can’t help but congratulate them for their skill and for the results obtained. One world medal for every 80 federated trialists, while England need 4,000 federated trialists and organize more than 40 trials every weekend to obtain each of their four medals in trial. Poor devils, let’s see when they learn.
But as a grassroots practitioner, I would like the RFME to know that I feel divided inside. On the one hand, proud of the success achieved by the highest level Spanish trial , but on the other hand sincerely abandoned, discriminated against and forgotten by my federation; without places where I can train, with few or almost no trials for my level, with expensive licenses, with abusive starting permits to be able to race where there are trials to suit me, without trials for children or promotion for them…
I hope that once that roof has been built and consolidated, work will now be done to lay the foundations, pillars and walls that our sport needs. Because it is urgently needed, if there are those who have not realized it yet.
And therefore to remind everyone that these foundations and free access to the desired sport and its promotion are the ultimate goal of the existence of federations according to our constitution. Not the achievement of titles.
It wouldn’t hurt to remember it from time to time.
Text: Javier Cruz
