page 2 2014 Interview with FIM Trials Director Thierry Michaud about FIM strategy
Are these changes that you bring in, including no stop and the increased weight designed and try and make trials less spectacular and less intense so that there is an opportunity for other riders to come up and ride at the top sections?
No. Less spectacular is not our wish. I think that the trial is still very spectacular in my mind. Perhaps for trial riders and trials fans they always want Tony Bou to ride a step always bigger. Perhaps that there are some person who want them to climb 4 meter step, next year 5 metre step and the year after 6 metre step. Trial fan always want more incredible obstacles. We realise, I tell you before, the trial is still more show but less practical for riders. It is very easy. The starting point of view is from the manufacturer’s, more than from the FIM. They tell the FIM. “We are spending a lot of money in the trial sport to make a show. At the end we make a show. Everyone think trial is fantastic, it is a fantastic and incredible show, but nobody wants to buy a bike, because it is to hard.” For example “Why don't you try trials? “. “Are you crazy, it’s too difficult. My son will never ride in trial. Have you seen what they have to do“.
No. Less spectacular is not our wish. I think that the trial is still very spectacular in my mind. Perhaps for trial riders and trials fans they always want Tony Bou to ride a step always bigger. Perhaps that there are some person who want them to climb 4 meter step, next year 5 metre step and the year after 6 metre step. Trial fan always want more incredible obstacles. We realise, I tell you before, the trial is still more show but less practical for riders. It is very easy. The starting point of view is from the manufacturer’s, more than from the FIM. They tell the FIM. “We are spending a lot of money in the trial sport to make a show. At the end we make a show. Everyone think trial is fantastic, it is a fantastic and incredible show, but nobody wants to buy a bike, because it is to hard.” For example “Why don't you try trials? “. “Are you crazy, it’s too difficult. My son will never ride in trial. Have you seen what they have to do“.
So today with the non-stop the rider is making incredible things but we would like the sport riding by Toni Bou that it is a little more similar than the sport riding by a basic person or a young rider. Then we want to have less incredible obstacles and more riding sport.
I mean trials its a motorcycle sport with wheels. When you are excited by a motorcycle sport. What do you want ? You want to open the throttle and go forward. When you have wheels the wheels are good to ride. The trials bike is a little jewel that you have between you legs and you want to ride, jump, right left and jumping back . It’s no more a motorcycle sport. Do you understand what I mean? It was really going in a direction of an acrobatic and artificial sport, but always more far than a motorcycle sport. This has been the vision of the person outside of the trial because inside the trial everyone wants to have more light bike, more incredible things, bigger steps, always more incredible athletic, jumping always more so after we realise that the people are able to do that are always lower and lower and lower.
For ecology problems, for economic reasons for sure, these are the problems for sure. The capacity to find places to ride. This is the main problem and the FIM know that. We try to fight against and work with the institutions to have a better condition for that but we have to look inside our sport. The main problem when you speak with a boy from 13 of 14. “Why you ride Enduro or other type of sport? Why don’t you ride trial?”. “Because I’m not enjoying, because it’s too hard, because it’s not firm, it’s too hard to pull on the handle bar and move and pull on the bike and to jump and to make tricky things. It’s not fun”. I have met a lot of riders who say this. I understand the rider.
I mean trials its a motorcycle sport with wheels. When you are excited by a motorcycle sport. What do you want ? You want to open the throttle and go forward. When you have wheels the wheels are good to ride. The trials bike is a little jewel that you have between you legs and you want to ride, jump, right left and jumping back . It’s no more a motorcycle sport. Do you understand what I mean? It was really going in a direction of an acrobatic and artificial sport, but always more far than a motorcycle sport. This has been the vision of the person outside of the trial because inside the trial everyone wants to have more light bike, more incredible things, bigger steps, always more incredible athletic, jumping always more so after we realise that the people are able to do that are always lower and lower and lower.
For ecology problems, for economic reasons for sure, these are the problems for sure. The capacity to find places to ride. This is the main problem and the FIM know that. We try to fight against and work with the institutions to have a better condition for that but we have to look inside our sport. The main problem when you speak with a boy from 13 of 14. “Why you ride Enduro or other type of sport? Why don’t you ride trial?”. “Because I’m not enjoying, because it’s too hard, because it’s not firm, it’s too hard to pull on the handle bar and move and pull on the bike and to jump and to make tricky things. It’s not fun”. I have met a lot of riders who say this. I understand the rider.
When you are born riding a trial like that, I totally agree with the rider who are not happy. I totally agree that in the short time this will create some problem but the FIM need to have a longer view to have. I am 100% convinced but it is not possible to be 100% sure. We have to many things and we are 100% sure then it is a good way to try. My main concern at the moment is the lobbying against this will and wish from the FIM and the manufacturers to try something. What is dangerous is to do nothing, that is dangerous.
People worry because about the consistency of observing in no stop. In some of the World Trial people stop for one moment, then they go and then people say “hey, he should get five”, but he does not. Then other people like some top riders are lovely and smooth, they no stop at all. They think he is the better rider. The other rider sometimes stop and he no get five. It is very difficult for the observer and they need better training maybe.
Yes yes. This is our main concern but as I answer every time when have spoken about the marshals. Is it true that this type of situation has been growing the new rules? It is not because of the rules, it is because the marshals need practise, like the riders, they need time. For more than one century that he trial has exist. I remember for example in Scotland, it is a human judgement of course. It could be understood that this is not a fair judgement when you are a rider and you had a five, but the human is not a computer and it is a good thing. This has always been the case. As I told you before when you are a rider you always think it is not justice, it is not correct or not fair when the marshal is giving you five, it’s never fair, when you are a rider. The rule of the no-stop is much more hard. It is not the marshal job that is harder. It is not more difficult to see if the rider is stopping or to look at the rider going back. How many years did we see many riders go back without a five? It’s exactly the same situation today with stopping. It’s just that the rule is more hard, it’s not the marshal. It’s a rule. It’s much harder to ride in a section without stopping. The eyes of marshals need to practise, to understand what is really stopping and what is not.
The other main thing is for our trials society to ask do we accept that when you stop in the section its because you are not in the situation to clean the section. If you stop in the section it is because you don’t ride as good as is necessary. Today the trial sport is to ride the section without putting a foot on the ground and without stopping.
These days, all of the trials are in the dry. When you ride in the Championship you ride in the mud and you have some rain and maybe even some snow. These days the trial is always in the dry. The France trial is the same conditions as the Spain trial. The Spain trial is the same conditions as the English trial. Some people would like to have the mud come back and see the big hills. There are no big hills any more, it is just jumping from one rock to the next rock to the next rock.
People worry because about the consistency of observing in no stop. In some of the World Trial people stop for one moment, then they go and then people say “hey, he should get five”, but he does not. Then other people like some top riders are lovely and smooth, they no stop at all. They think he is the better rider. The other rider sometimes stop and he no get five. It is very difficult for the observer and they need better training maybe.
Yes yes. This is our main concern but as I answer every time when have spoken about the marshals. Is it true that this type of situation has been growing the new rules? It is not because of the rules, it is because the marshals need practise, like the riders, they need time. For more than one century that he trial has exist. I remember for example in Scotland, it is a human judgement of course. It could be understood that this is not a fair judgement when you are a rider and you had a five, but the human is not a computer and it is a good thing. This has always been the case. As I told you before when you are a rider you always think it is not justice, it is not correct or not fair when the marshal is giving you five, it’s never fair, when you are a rider. The rule of the no-stop is much more hard. It is not the marshal job that is harder. It is not more difficult to see if the rider is stopping or to look at the rider going back. How many years did we see many riders go back without a five? It’s exactly the same situation today with stopping. It’s just that the rule is more hard, it’s not the marshal. It’s a rule. It’s much harder to ride in a section without stopping. The eyes of marshals need to practise, to understand what is really stopping and what is not.
The other main thing is for our trials society to ask do we accept that when you stop in the section its because you are not in the situation to clean the section. If you stop in the section it is because you don’t ride as good as is necessary. Today the trial sport is to ride the section without putting a foot on the ground and without stopping.
These days, all of the trials are in the dry. When you ride in the Championship you ride in the mud and you have some rain and maybe even some snow. These days the trial is always in the dry. The France trial is the same conditions as the Spain trial. The Spain trial is the same conditions as the English trial. Some people would like to have the mud come back and see the big hills. There are no big hills any more, it is just jumping from one rock to the next rock to the next rock.
Yes, I totally agree. This is very easy to understand. It depends on your point of view. If you are a trial specialist. If you have a technical point of view you are totally right. You want to have some different trial or section. A section in the river, in the debris and the rock, the climbing, mud, descents so and so. It was much more different 25 years from now. Why now? The trials sport has gone more, to where we have to do a show. When the first target you have to reach to have a good show, you need and want to have the Sun. I can tell you today as the CTR director, most of the organisers want to have an even in June of July. Why? Because they want to have the Sun for the spectators. They want to have the Sun to sell beers and sandwiches. No no its clear because it’s a more, a better event when the Sun is shining. You can understand that. After this from the technical point of view of the sections are in the second plan and part. This is a pity for the sport but this is the new vision of our society, because now perhaps not in England because England is the only country for that. If it’s raining there is no spectators in many country. Perhaps only in England there is some spectators. It’s disaster for the club and from an economical point of view a disaster, but your right.
Do you think in the future the trials tyres might change?
I don’t know. This is something we get approached about. I don’t know, but when its dry and the tyre is on the rock you can have a very very big grip. After what happened with the Michelin 30 years ago. It made the difference between the dry and the wet conditions, there is less difference. If you have a very bad tyre, this tyre could be very good on the rock in the dry and could be a disaster when its wet. I mean when it’s raining sure the trial or the day before the trial there is a totally big reason between the two conditions. Its difficult to find a tyre which is less good in every condition, you understand ?
It is true that if you reduce the grip of the tyre the sections do not have to be as difficult?
Yes, or course. The only concern that we have is that in the very dry condition it is difficult to find a tyre with less grip on the rock. It’s something that we can discuss with the manufactures. Not at the moment but it will be one of the solutions.
Does the FIM have more plans for the future or are you busy enough with what you are doing?
No, as I told you, we have to make some choices and we cannot do everything in one or two years. We are thinking to develop the Urban X-trial. If you prefer, you have the natural World Championship trial that we speak about for many minutes and there is X-Trial, but X Trial today is only 8 or 10 riders in the World in the stadium. It’s a show. It’s 100% show. It’s the World Championship but it is really a show. We are looking at what they have done in France, like France have already done and like some individual organisations are doing. It’s to look at X- Trial extreme with artificial obstacles. We are looking to develop X - Trial competition which is open to more riders perhaps not 100 riders, but to more riders and if possible in some cities. Like you have in Manchester but more open. We would like to open the X – Trial. Its like Motocross and Super cross. We can have Trial and X-trial and we are thinking to look and see if we can get this open to more riders and have some more opportunities to do that. It will be one way we are thinking about but we need time to do that.
Some people say to me that trials would have a good future in the stadium and involving some sort of race, where the riders would go fast, over obstacles. Maybe 4 riders they need to line up and go fast across the course.
I think that trial is not motocross. Every time we think about changes we decide that we do not want to change the fundamental things about trials. It’s a balance sport. The rhythm has to be more fast. The rhythm. This is one of the ideas about the no stop. Sure the no stop make it faster but not so much. All the sport for the last 20, 30 years. Absolutely all of the sport is going faster. Tennis is faster, football is faster. All the sport is faster. Trials is the only sport that is not going faster. The obstacles are going bigger, sometimes more dangerous, but not faster. We are always more stopping. With the non-stop trial it is not a speed sport, but it’s going faster in its evolution. It must stay as a trial sport, as a balance sport.
As you can see in the X-Trial we make one big section with a double end section. We try to give some Oxygen and something a little faster to push and give a faster format. Trials sport is not a speed sport. Just to finish with the race. Have you seen with the X Trial, we make races by pairs to make competition between two riders. So we tried to create a modern format but it must stay a trial sport and not speed sport.
Do you think in the future the trials tyres might change?
I don’t know. This is something we get approached about. I don’t know, but when its dry and the tyre is on the rock you can have a very very big grip. After what happened with the Michelin 30 years ago. It made the difference between the dry and the wet conditions, there is less difference. If you have a very bad tyre, this tyre could be very good on the rock in the dry and could be a disaster when its wet. I mean when it’s raining sure the trial or the day before the trial there is a totally big reason between the two conditions. Its difficult to find a tyre which is less good in every condition, you understand ?
It is true that if you reduce the grip of the tyre the sections do not have to be as difficult?
Yes, or course. The only concern that we have is that in the very dry condition it is difficult to find a tyre with less grip on the rock. It’s something that we can discuss with the manufactures. Not at the moment but it will be one of the solutions.
Does the FIM have more plans for the future or are you busy enough with what you are doing?
No, as I told you, we have to make some choices and we cannot do everything in one or two years. We are thinking to develop the Urban X-trial. If you prefer, you have the natural World Championship trial that we speak about for many minutes and there is X-Trial, but X Trial today is only 8 or 10 riders in the World in the stadium. It’s a show. It’s 100% show. It’s the World Championship but it is really a show. We are looking at what they have done in France, like France have already done and like some individual organisations are doing. It’s to look at X- Trial extreme with artificial obstacles. We are looking to develop X - Trial competition which is open to more riders perhaps not 100 riders, but to more riders and if possible in some cities. Like you have in Manchester but more open. We would like to open the X – Trial. Its like Motocross and Super cross. We can have Trial and X-trial and we are thinking to look and see if we can get this open to more riders and have some more opportunities to do that. It will be one way we are thinking about but we need time to do that.
Some people say to me that trials would have a good future in the stadium and involving some sort of race, where the riders would go fast, over obstacles. Maybe 4 riders they need to line up and go fast across the course.
I think that trial is not motocross. Every time we think about changes we decide that we do not want to change the fundamental things about trials. It’s a balance sport. The rhythm has to be more fast. The rhythm. This is one of the ideas about the no stop. Sure the no stop make it faster but not so much. All the sport for the last 20, 30 years. Absolutely all of the sport is going faster. Tennis is faster, football is faster. All the sport is faster. Trials is the only sport that is not going faster. The obstacles are going bigger, sometimes more dangerous, but not faster. We are always more stopping. With the non-stop trial it is not a speed sport, but it’s going faster in its evolution. It must stay as a trial sport, as a balance sport.
As you can see in the X-Trial we make one big section with a double end section. We try to give some Oxygen and something a little faster to push and give a faster format. Trials sport is not a speed sport. Just to finish with the race. Have you seen with the X Trial, we make races by pairs to make competition between two riders. So we tried to create a modern format but it must stay a trial sport and not speed sport.