How I got into Observed Bike Trials
Perhaps you wanted the SHORT VERSION?
Well, it all started at a very young age... ;-p
Ok, not really, but I'd really pinpoint it with beginning to ride cross-country on my rigid (no suspension) hybrid bike around summer of 96, I guess. I only ever rode cross-country on that bike during our summer vacations to Catalina Island for two weeks (annual family trip), the rest of the time, I just rode road. Suffice it to say, my humble hybrid bike (Trek 720) was NOT built for off-road... Narrow tires, somewhat weak brakes, lack of suspension, big road-ratio gears... Did I mention it's 30 pounds? So on my first trip to Catalina with the bike, I got to ride with my dad and uncle through the interior. Of course, as the young, strong-legged one, I wanted to go much faster than the old guys, so I was looking for opportunities to do more during the ride. An opportunity presented itself as we stopped for a break at the base of a mountain that we were passing by. Mount Orizaba... "No bikes" the sign said... Heh heh heh... My dad let me ride up by myself. This was my initiation into technical riding. It was the steepest mountain I ever tried to get up (I'm guessing it was a little over a mile to the top). For part of it, the trail was about 3 feet wide, cut out of the side of a mountain, with sure death promised to anyone to lose their balance to the right. It was so extremely steep, that with my big gears, each pedal was sheer agony (and my front wheel wanted to lift off the ground at points). This tested my balance. Higher up, it got a little less steep, but I had to worry about uneven ground (hey, gimme a break, all I'd ever been on was concrete or fireroad!). It got very rocky, so I had to work my way through without losing my balance or momentum (oh, slight tangent... we have a family saying: "Maeders never quit." I'd NEVER walked my bike up a hill, never even STOPPED while going up a hill, and I wasn't about to let this challenge get the best of me. It's probably this iron-willed determination to defeat the trail that drew me to trials later on...). Well, after a lot of determination and sweat and pain, I made it to the top - highest point on Catalina Island - you can see practically the whole island... Great view, very satisfying. Then the ride down... Nice, tight, rocky, and fast! Without suspension and narrow tires, I had to pick my lines carefully. It was this kind of challenging technical riding that put me on the path to trials.
Of course, the problem was, I didn't know bike trials existed! Anyway, interested in mountain biking, and with some cash burning a hole in my pocket from my summer of 97 job, I bought a mountain bike late October 1997, midway through my first quarter at UCLA. Shortly after, I joined the UCLA Cycling Club, which changed everything...
(Short version starts here)
I attended a Monday club meeting, and this guy Daisuke Koya was talking about trials, and invited me to come watch him ride on Wednesday at 10 pm, meeting at the Bear. I was interested from the very start, and sure enough, that Wednesday night, I was there, with my mountain bike (which has clipless pedals (your shoes are stuck to your pedals, you can only get out by twisting your heels out)). Dasiuke told me the first thing I needed to learn was the "trackstand" - balancing on the bike moving forward as little as possible. He asked me which foot I liked forward (I like my left out front), told me to keep my pedals level with the ground, turn my front wheel 45 degrees to the right, lock my front leg and arms, and rock back and forth on a slight hill by pushing on the pedals (no brakes). I sucked. But it was ok because Daisuke said I was doing well, and that it took him forever to learn.
Christmas Break cut my lessons short, and I had an entire month off for Christmas Break, so I got my job at UCLA's URL Library Information Systems department back, and worked full-time again. I did it mainly because I had been saving up for rims for my Volvo and knew I didn't have quite enough. Little did I know then that I'd be spending some of my earnings on a mod trials bike...
Anyway, come January and Winter quarter, I started getting more into trials, still going to the Wednesday rides and practicing on my own. It took me forever to learn trackstanding decently (uh, maybe a month to be ok at it on level ground), but it was worth it. I learned to move my front wheel pivoting on my rear wheel (locking rear brake), and my rear wheel by pivoting on the front (locking front brake). Of course, at first, I accomplished this by falling to the right or left, and then pulling the bike with me, which is wrong, but eventually I learned to "make a suspension with your body" as Ot Pi (uh, if you don't know, like 11 time world champion) says in his "School" videos. I slowly learned to bunnyhop (I couldn't get the rear off the ground without those clipless pedals, which I swapped out with platform pedals (normal) for trials riding (after a fall or two stuck in those clipless pedals, and incessant demanding from Daisuke). After a while I could hop up a stair or two sideways, then I'd lose my balance, or miss and put a foot down. When I look back, I can't believe it was ever that hard for me! Well, I pretty much practiced a little bit every other day or so, while riding to or from class, I'd stop and practice hopping or trackstanding, and I kept on going to wednesday night rides.
By April, I knew I was serious about trials and made a big commitment to the sport... I bought a 98 Ross 164 cromo trials bike with 97 Magura Tomacs from Goatwheels (east-coast trials mail-order store). As soon as it came in the mail (in a rather large box), I pulled it out and put it back together (it came almost completely assembled), and went riding immediately! I found the bike a lot easier to move around, and I started hopping on the rear wheel right away (I was having a little trouble on my mountain bike). Very slowly started learning pedal-kicking and correction hopping (I had a pretty good grip on these by September), and started to work on my "bad" side - my right side. It was impossible for me to bunnyhop to my right, and hard to swing my rear to the right, so I worked on it, and now it's pretty natural to me. Around July I was starting to pick up surging (using a pedal-kick to jump up onto an object). While I was learning, I ran into a picnic table a couple times with my front wheel locked, and stressed out my left wrist pretty bad (which I didn't notice until the next day), but it was ok, I'm still now (late September) working on strengthening my left wrist. A lot of the problem was improper bike setup. My stem was way too high in the beginning, so I switched to a lower one, which turned out to be too low, and now I'm looking for a stem right inbetween the two, which should be perfect.
So there you have it, pretty much everything about me and trials. Oh wait, did I mention I got first place in beginner mod at Cook Brothers? So much to learn...
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