Mastering the Art of Trials: A Beginner's Guide to the Sport and Community

• Welcome to the Throttle Stop Moto Podcast, featuring hosts Justin Bethune, Jeff Griffith, and Matt Welch, with special guest Alan Shirley, an accomplished trials rider.
• In this episode, Shirley introduces the sport of trials, likening it to "parkour for motorcycles," where the focus is on navigating obstacles using a stripped-down bike, emphasizing precision and control rather than speed. While local events allow leisurely progression through sections, national competitions impose stricter timing rules. The discussion reveals trials to be a low-impact, systematic sport that is gaining popularity, particularly in Europe, and serves as an excellent training tool for improving riding skills across various motorcycle disciplines.
• Shirley highlights the community aspect of trials, noting that riders of all skill levels can benefit. With a strong emphasis on clutch and throttle control, trials riding equips participants with vital skills that enhance overall biking proficiency. The podcast also touches on local trials clubs actively promoting the sport, including the Chattanooga Trials Club, where new riders are welcomed to learn and compete.
• Listeners can expect insights into trials bike specifics, training tips, and the advantages of starting in trials, especially for younger riders. The episode culminates with an invitation to join local events and practice sessions, underscoring the sport's accessibility and camaraderie. For more information, check out local clubs and social media platforms to connect with the trials community.

https://www.pandorasmotorsports.com/

Transcript

Welcome to the Throttle Stop Moto Podcast. I am Justin Bethune.

 Jeff Griffith. Matt Welch. And we have with us today Alan Shirley.



 Trials writer extraordinaire.



 And I think for a lot of our listeners,



 I think the question is like, how does this apply to me? Like, why should I be interested in this? And I think that as we go on, you'll kind of get it. Because Trials is awesome to watch. But I want to at least turn it over to Alan for a second and say, what is trials? Like, introduce me to trials. What's the point?

 You know, if I was going to give it one sentence, I would say it's like parkour for motorcycles. But it's more than that. It's a little more nuanced than that. It's really just testing what you and the bike can do. And you're using a really stripped down bike. You've taken off everything that's not being useful. You don't need to sit down. Because that's not part of it. You're trying to figure out what you and the machine can do.



 And it's just an obstacle course for motorcycles. Time doesn't matter. It's what can you get up and can you do it prettily? Can you do it without putting your feet down?

 This time not matter at all. I thought there was kind of like a time element in case you tie, I guess.

 So long story short, it doesn't. But it does.



 So at a local event, the only time constraint you have is the overall time. In the STRA, the local southeastern series, you have 3 and 1 half hours to finish the whole event. So there's no time in the sections. You can take your time. You just want to watch a lot of the-- I'm going to call some people out here. But some of the older guys, they get closer to the 3 and 1 half hour mark. And it's like, come on, guys. Come on. But at nationals, that's where it becomes a little more critical. And that's where they're going to be timing in the sections. So every section you get to, you can take your time getting to a section. But when you get in the section, you have a minute and a half to get through it.

 And there's some no stop rule. Sorry, Jeff. There's some no stop rule rules now, right?

 That has actually been abandoned. OK, so they got rid of that. OK. Thank god, because I think that was kind of the worst thing that ever happened to Charles. But-- That's the problem with not competing for a couple years. It happened to me, too. I was watching the World Round. And it was, I think it was last year. And I was like,

 that guy stopped.

 And then I looked at him like, oh, no. And then I looked it up. They got rid of it. They allow backing up now at the World Rounds. I'm like, I've been saying for decades, why not? Why not allow backing up? If you've got that skill in your bag, why not? So it's cool to see that Charles is now heading that direction.

 Obviously, they're trying to popularize it more than it has been in the past. I mean, that's kind of been a hard thing to get over, to get introduced to everybody, at least in the US. In Europe, it's huge, especially Spain.



 It is. And I think this is just me trying to look at it and try to analyze, because I've been riding for a long time. And I've always been like, how do we make it more popular in America? And I think the big limiting factor is Europe, you have these small pieces of property. And a lot of times, the property that's not useful for anything else is great for trials. And you only need like three, five acres, and you can have a trial. But to do an enduro, to do motocross, you need land. And we've got it here. So if you tell a kid, it's like, hey, you can get on this motorcycle and ride in this one acre lot. Or hey, you can go to Windrock, and you can ride literally till you die of old age and never hit the same trail.



 It's a hard sell sometimes. But I think when you put the time to it, it's really worth it.

 So I love it. I mean, obviously, I love the hair scrambles too, but where hair scrambles almost violent. Like, you're just going 10 tents from one tree to the next. It doesn't matter how you get there. It doesn't have to be pretty. It doesn't matter how many times your feet hit the ground, whatever. And then-- You can bounce off the trees. Yeah, I mean, you can just bounce off each other. Even the ping pong your way through the woods. And if you get away with it, then you got away with it. On the trials, obviously, it's more systematic. It's kind of like golf. The point is don't get points.



 Every time you put your foot down, you dab, you get a point. You collect x amount of points throughout the event, the competition. And the one with-- it's like golf-- with the lowest points wins.



 There are some variables, but that's kind of the basics of it. And when you're going through a section-- and the section might not only-- it might be, what,



 32nd of a mile long, a 64th of a mile long. Like, very short A to B and systematic. I mean, I think the guys that ride trials bikes are very systematic,



 very-- A lot of them are. A lot of them are. Very focused on-- A lot of engineers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they'll walk the section. That's what it takes. They'll spend 30 minutes walking the section to spend--

 10 seconds in it.



 So--



 I've always been morbidly curious. I don't know why we haven't done it yet, but I want to do a survey sometime at a trial, what all the professions are. And I would say, overwhelmingly, it's got to be at least 50% are engineers. Like, it's very a thinking man's game.

 Absolutely. And so that kind of brings me to the next thing. Like, we talk about it's a thinking man's game. You talked about earlier, there's a lot of older riders in this sport. And obviously, we have an audience here, especially on the podcast. The last episode we did was on the R1300GS adventure.



 It's hard to bring those people in and kind of help them understand how trials is not just something that you have to dive deep into. It's also something you use to kind of help you develop your skill. So who is trials for?



 I've literally-- I used to teach a lot more classes than I do now. But I've had everybody from road bikers, enduro, flat trackers. I had Mike Brown come take a few pointers from me.

 Not a lot of people could say that.



 Well, he was almost as good as me as soon as he started. So I was just like, the biggest thing I gave him was like, slow down. Slow down. But literally, everybody can get something from it. That's the thing I don't think people realize, is that you can literally-- it doesn't matter how good you are at that sport. If you come on a trials bike and you give me a weekend,



 it will improve some facet of your riding.



 You may not see the benefits for a while, but you take those tricks that you learned, and you bring them home, and you work on them, and it does stuff to your riding. I've had a lot of adventure bike guys come ride with me for two, three weeks. And they're like, man, there was this trail that I used to have so much trouble on. It was easy. And I'm like, yeah, because you learned how to work the bike.

 And I hope you win the slow race at the bike night.



 Backing up just a little bit, and we kind of breezed over. So your resume, give us background and tell us why you're the right guy to teach somebody to ride a trials bike.

 I don't know that I'm necessarily the right, but-- Well, I mean,

 I've seen you. I rode with you, and I've seen you coach people. So yeah, I mean, I think you are, or at least one of. But tell people why.

 So I have taught classes.



 And I think for me, a lot of the guys that started riding trials, they started really, really young. And a lot of them, when they start really young, it's kind of like, well, how'd you do that? I don't know. I've always done that. And I started later, and I didn't have a lot of talent. I did a lot of my progress was from just hard work and stubbornness and-- Crashing stuff. A lot of crashing.



 I feel bad for whoever bought my second, third, and fourth bike, because those were absolutely destroyed. They got good deals on them, but I don't think it was good enough. But anyway,



 I just put a lot of time to it, and I got better. And it's just I've had a good career. It's been fun being able to share that with people.



 As far as, I guess, my resume, I didn't start until I was 19.



 I had never ridden a motorcycle before that, but I was in Florida, found a good deal on a bike, and I wired some money to the guy. It was $800. It was my first one.



 And got on it, liked it, and worked hard at it. And in three years, I was competing at the Nationals and got on a stunt show team that I own now on the Edge 2 Will Action shows.



 And it's just been a pill ever since. I've loved it. I've competed in four world events. I've ridden on six continents.



 That was a big bucket list item when I finally got that one. That was cool.



 Competed on every single one of them. And yeah, that's kind of the highs and the lows, I guess, of my career.



 Backing up to what we talked about, it being a good trainee, yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, I love trials. I always have.



 I've got a trials bicycle in my office



 that I'll ride around the showroom from time to time. And I always have a trial trainee that I can hop around. And it does. It transfers to everything. It transfers to the adventure bikes, to the dirt bikes.



 You just-- they're not fun to-- I think some of the problem here is they're not fun to trail ride.



 You need a place like your property, or trials training center, somewhere like that, to take full advantage of them and use them for-- I mean, they hold 8 tenths of a gallon of fuel.



 Trail ride, the fenders are what? What are they? Half an inch from the tire. They can pack-- They will pack up. Yeah, if it's muddy, they'll pack up, and the front tire just slides. So-- Check those seat-toe cuts. It's not a dirt bike. And when you buy them, you've got to-- you can't look at it like a dirt bike. It's something completely different with a different purpose.

 A lot of people who have ridden dirt bikes their whole lives end up on trials bikes later in life. And it's because it's a lower impact sport. It's something that you're not really-- if you crash, you're not going 40 miles an hour. Injuries are so rare.

 It's crazy. I've seen 80-year-old men that ride trials, and they hit the ground. You're like, oh my god, because this guy's 80. And he gets up, he looks a little confused, and he gets-- you help me start my bike, son? It's a little flooded. Yeah, yeah. Do you want to go back to pitch? No, I've got a race to finish.



 Kind of going back to what you were saying, with trials that I think is the biggest to the entry level rider is-- Charlie Roberts told me this. He was the guy that used to manage the TTC for 30 years. The one thing that he always said, and I'm like, man, that makes so much sense. The reason I think trials doesn't appeal to some people is you can get on a motocross bike or a GP bike or something, and the day you get on it, you feel like you're going fast. You feel it. And on a trials bike, it's at least several months before you feel like you're even able to comfortably ride the thing. And it's probably a year or two before you feel like you're doing something.

 It's very different.



 You watch Tony Bowe or one of the World Pro guys, and you're like, oh, man. And like I say, it takes a while for you feel like you're really doing something.

 Well, without-- It's worth it. For sure. And without a seat, you have to have good throttle and clutch control, or you just end up off the back of the thing. And the further back you get, and you whiskey throttle it, like-- It's worth it, yeah. Yeah, it escalates quickly. Because there's no seat to sit on and stabilize yourself to get back off the throttle. So yeah, and if the clutch lever is already too far away from you to get a hold of, you can't fix it.

 I've actually seen one of these become a boomerang before. It was the most impressive thing, like just--



 It's amazing what a 300 can do when it's wide open and it hits that back tire.



 We were talking about the cross-training aspects of it, and I always characterize, like, you ever talked about street racing and people who are really into sport bike racing, you--



 flat track is often a great place for them to go.



 And it teaches them to operate without traction and how to produce lack of traction in case you need to engage in the slide. But with trials, it's kind of the opposite of that. And it's-- Finding traction. Finding traction, it's using traction, it's creating traction where you need to. And I think that the seeming lack of traction is an intimidation factor for a lot of people going off-road. I mean, Justin, you talked about it before with the multi-strata.



 I think that trials could greatly benefit you in learning how to ride off-road. We've done women's training classes at Allen's Property



 for off-road riding, and having that trials focus kind of helps you understand how dirt works underneath the tire.



 But I also wanted to mention you have the Chattanooga Trials Club.

 Yes, I don't have it. I'm part of it. But yeah, it's-- we're local here. We-- on any given week, we've probably got six to a dozen people, and we ride at my house on Thursday nights. We also do events from time to time, but the big thing is, like, we just come over Thursday night, and we ride at my house. This time of year, you know, it gets dark early. One of our members, he tore down a ball field, and so he's got 50 of these giant halogen lights that we've started putting up. We've only got three up, and we've already got an acre lit.



 So this time of year, you know, we're riding in a-- we call it the arena, because it's just this spot where we've got, like, a bunch of obstacles kind of between two hills, and it's good for spectating. Like, if you don't want to ride, come watch. But we've also got our club.



 A few years ago, we made enough money off our events. We bought it a bike for the club, and there's no discrimination. Anybody can come out and try it. We want you to come use it, and it kind of gives you a feel for the event, and it's a very-- it's kind of like-- you always think about my Grand Canyon trip, and it's like, you know, they give you that old horse. It's like, yeah, that one, that there's no chance that thing's going to run on you. That's what this bike is. It's an adult 80, so it has no power. It can still hurt you, but it's not going to, like, absolutely ruin your life like one of these will,

 like mine would. 250s or 300s, like, that's a big jump.



 Especially on such a little package. You know, people like, oh, I ride a 300 Enduro. It's like, this is different. I promise, dude.

 So with that being said, can you explain to those of us who know nothing about trials, like, what is a trials bike? Like, what makes it different? Like, how is it set up?

 You know, the biggest analogy I can give is, like, you know, a sports car or a rock crawler, you're stripping down everything you don't need, and it's only the essentials. And you can see we have the dip in the frame, and the reason for that, not only to keep the center of gravity lower, but there's a lot of moves you do where you need to get your body down and into the bike, like hill climbs. You'll see the bottom of my pants will be right here above the air box. Like, you really get into it, lower that center of gravity, but also working the suspension. The suspension is a lot different than, like, an Enduro bike, where you don't want rebound on Enduros. You get it on these, and that's so you can hop, so you can compress the ports, and you can actually jump these things up onto obstacles.



 So they're really just, like I said, they're a rock crawler for the motorcycle world.

 So how is, like, the engine set up and power and weight and all that stuff?

 It's a lot more low end. You know, a gas gas, for instance, some of the bikes are different, but a gas gas, for instance, I know those pretty well. They have six speed transmissions in them, but, you know, six gear, I don't know, that I've ever actually tried to top one of these out, and I've never been clocked, but it's probably, what, maybe 30 or 40? It's not that fast.

 And no reason to serve the transfer sessions in Enduro. Get between sections.

 Well, and you're talking about a 300 with less than 20 horsepower. Yeah. It's not about the horsepower, it's about the torque.

 And it's the engine inertia and just the kinetic energy, I guess, that the engine will build. So you'll see, especially Allen, not so much me, but Allen will be at the bottom of a wall, or, you know, some sort of obstacle where he needs to go up and has, like, no run-in, no distance to that power. So clutch in, second or third gear,



 turn the motor up, let it build that energy, and then just turn loose of the clutch.



 And, you know, you kind of turn loose of the clutch and then immediately get control of the clutch back to get the bike to go as much up as forward all at the same time. And that's just from reciprocating weight in the engine that we don't have within the dirt bikes.

 So if it's more about instant torque, is this somewhere where an electric bike would be better or the same worse?



 They're getting there. I don't know that they're there yet. And that may just be an Allen Shirley opinion, actually one of my best friends from South Africa, he has won, I think it was two national championships in South Africa on an e-bike, but at the world level, they're still, they have an e-bike world championship in addition to the regular. They don't ride the same class, but they ride a level lower than the top level pros. Part of it's because the e-bike classes don't get the money, they don't get the riders that the top level does, but me personally, I don't think the bikes are quite here, but they're getting there. It's amazing when e-bikes first came out, they didn't have clutches on them.

 Yeah, that was gonna be my next question.

 They were like a light switch. You know, I got on the first offset I think in America and a lot of us were struggling, you know, of course, Pat Smoggy is our national champion, he gets on it and immediately just takes to it like nothing. But the rest of us were like, how do you make this work?



 Yeah, where clutch control is such a big part of how you train and what you're trying to master, like they take it away completely, that's a completely different thing.

 Well, and then taking the rear brake away from you on the foot, it's still on the handlebars, but I drag the rear brake on everything, dirt bikes, GSA.

 Electric motions have the foot brakes now.

 And a clutch, right, with a gearbox.

 I rode Brent's in it.



 To me, you know, and probably if I rode it, it would be closer, but even he, you know, I don't know if I should say this on air if he's watching, but like he admitted to me, he's like, he's like, it is fantastic for everything. He's like, the big stuff, it doesn't feel quite where the bike, you know, and he's been riding longer than I have, he's been riding for 40 years, you know, but he was like, he's like, the big stuff, just doesn't feel quite there yet. He's like, I just can't exactly explain it, but I mean, he still kicked my butt on one, so.

 And we've talked about it a lot,



 not just in the trials world, but, you know,



 motorcycles in general, that is the future. Like it or not, that's where it's going, and they'll get, you know, the charge time and the run time, you know, figured out where they're more.



 Already better, I mean, at the first e-bike I saw at a national, the guy had to carry batteries with him, you know, on the loop, and Brent, I think he did two laps at the South Africa National, and it was like, I think it was like a 10 mile loop, and he did two laps before he, you know, and I had to fill up every loop, so it's like, longevity's there for trials.



 It's just, you know.

 I did 24 hour period mountain two years ago, and one of the guys on the team decided to bring his old Alta,



 and, because you're only doing, you know, a couple of laps at a time,



 so he had, and then there was five other people in between his stints,

 so he had plenty of time. I haven't heard of in a while.



 Great, and you know, the starts are good.



 Yeah, instant.



 So it's coming, no doubt.

 You're talking about clutch control, you're also talking about reciprocating mass as far as the, just keeping that engine momentum up while you're engaging the clutch. You also use that in terms of, you know, balancing the bike,



 so there's a lot of it that you take away whenever you're going electric,



 but who was the gas, gas guy? Obviously gas, gas has been developing an electric trials bike, and have had some success with it so far. Who was the guy who recently was like, who won something big on the gas, gas? I can't remember.



 And like even six months ago, yeah.

 Was it Hagas Andre? I think he's riding the e-bikes worlds now. It might've been the e-bike world championship.

 I don't pay as much attention. Either way, gas, gas has been developing something, and it's had some success. We'll see if and when that comes to market. I think that there's two things that you have to think about in there. Even if it's better, does the market sustain it,



 whatever it is we're finally released? And I think that there's a lot of like question there.

 I think it's like anything, I think it's gonna be the younger generation that's gonna take it up. Cause like, you know, you got the old two smoke guys like me that just, they want everything to be two stroke. You know, it's like, I would love it if they'd start putting two strokes in cars, you know? Like, I'd like my truck to be a two stroke diesel. Like, why can't we bring that back? You know, but you watch the kids, like I was talking with you all about it earlier when you see one of these tiny little offsets here. Like it's changed the game. Cause like when I was first starting trials, the little kids bikes were still gas. And the kids had to be seven, eight, nine years old. You see kids starting as soon as they can walk now. I mean, we're talking like three year olds. And I'm very excited. I've already seen a little bit of it, but I'm really excited to see where some of these kids that started 10 years ago that are three, that are now 13. And it is a, how far they're gonna go. Like, it is.



 You see these kids get on this, and you know, there's a little thing that you shouldn't even be riding a bicycle and they're riding this. And often before they rode a bicycle.

 It's easier. They're going from a Strider bike straight to that. Yeah.

 Well, and like we've seen it on with some of the E2s, the reason, Fives on the dirt bike, where the kids are hesitant to get on a 65, which is the next step after a 65cc two-stroke gas bike, combustion bike after the E5 electric bike. So once there's a 65 equivalent that's electric, and then an 85 equivalent that's electric, and so on and so forth. Now the conversation, like we're not having this conversation anymore about what is the take rate, because it's just a natural progression, I think. You start on electric and you continue on electric because they're available now.

 You don't have to get a new bike necessarily. You can turn that power up a little bit, turn it down. That's the wild thing about, they have that little box there and you just turn that knob a little bit.

 Yeah, you can turn the thing down to where it'll barely move fast enough to balance.

 Yeah.

 And kids are all about technology. So they want everything electric. It's like kids now, they're like, "Oh, Tesla, Rivian, all they care about is electric cars."

 Getting someone on it this young only helps the sport. Oh yeah. Because we're talking 15 years down the road when we're talking about someone riding this right now, but those people are eventually gonna become riders who, they may branch off into another avenue of riding,



 but they're gonna be riding something.



 We talk about a lot of, so gas gas, obviously, when Pierre took over, they put gas gas dealers, whether it was Enduro or trials, they're all in the same dealership, right?



 We had to get 40 bikes originally to be a gas gas dealer.



 And we had, eight of those had to be trials bikes. So we had to commit, we really had to be all in if we wanted to sell trials.

 I don't know if there's eight brand new gas gases in the Southeast right now. Yeah.

 And so Matt really got into it. Matt really started going to the events, participating,



 and coming to the Chattanooga Trials Club meetings Thursday nights.

 Yes, sir.



 And so we did a lot to try to help in our community, right? Like trying to help the sport locally. Some of that we could take a little bit of credit for, but really the sports been growing on its own.



 We got to a point where we were selling those trials bikes so well that we were taking them from dealers in Florida and bringing them up here. Ironically, some of those went back to Florida.

 We sold them right back into Florida.



 Yeah.

 It really takes dealer support.



 1000%.



 And that's something that I think a lot of the trials community does lack because there's a lot of different brands that there may be a dealer, but sometimes it's just not a dealer at all



 because there's a lot of small brands involved, but this kind of helps because we've been involved and been able to support the people who are doing it locally.

 Yeah, and I swear they didn't pay me to say this, but I've never seen a dealer like Pandora. Like they're just so quick to wanna help and show up and Matt, I'll float an idea to them about an event or something that we'll do. Or like we had our Southeastern banquet at my house one time and we were gonna cater food and everything like that. And Matt's like, "You want us to pay for it?" And I'm like, "I ain't gonna say no." Like, yeah, and then I was like, "Man, that does not get better than this dealership."

 Well, and I mean, the dealer needs to support



 the community because the community has to support the dealers. Like it's-- Evolving door. Yeah, it's a two way street and we need trials riders and we need GSA riders and we need multi-strawders. Like we need everybody just like,



 I hope that they need us.



 As far as the trials bikes go, like I think it's a great training tool. And I think some of the reason why the pay grade is low on the trials bikes is once you can operate it at 50%, that next 50%-- That's the hard work. Is really, really hard.



 You gotta put time to it.

 And it's a full commitment. And if you're using it as a training tool



 beyond just learning to ride a motorcycle well, using it to get good at hard enduros or whatever,



 you're splitting time between actually riding your hard enduro bike and the trials bike and people tend to gravitate towards the hard enduro.



 So from that perspective, what really needs to happen is we need to build the trials community



 with its focus on actually trials riding, not on training.



 The training is great and there's nothing in the world that teaches you better clutch and throttle control than a trials bike.

 It's a really good bait and switch. I wanna bring you in for the training. I want you to come in for that reason, but whenever you get in, I want you to stay here.



 I've had that happen a lot. We've had people that come in for cross training, especially older guys, I think they get in and they think, oh, I'm starting to get older, I'm starting to slow down, maybe I can pick up some skills and then they get in and they're like, hey, this hurts a lot less. This is home. I'm not going fast, but it's still challenging, it's still rewarding, it's rewarding as all get out when you hit a big obstacle that you've been trying for weeks and you finally get up it clean, you're like, oh my God, that feeling doesn't get much better.

 And big obstacles relevant to your skill set, your current skill set, right? So yeah, I mean, just cleaning the section that you've,



 I don't know, I come out there on Thursday nights or when I used to, you're getting me a hard time about this, I know, but-- He does come Thursday nights. When I used to come out there and ride a lot, just getting through a section clean finally without putting your foot on the ground



 after three weeks of trying,



 it's hugely rewarding. And then you turn around and ride the section backwards



 and you suck just as bad as you ever did. And you just start over at zero.

 I've been riding my property 20 years and I still, there'll be lines that I've been working on for two years and I'll get it one night and I'll be like, oh my God, I've got it now. And then you come back like, and you cannot duplicate, you

 know, but at the same time-- But it's not the competition. Oh, definitely not.

 Yeah, when it really matters. It's about 10, 15% of your ability at competitions. Yeah.

 But speaking of like growing, supporting the community, I think that's a good segue into what we're talking about doing in Chikamauga.

 Yes, excited about this.

 And how all that's been growing.

 So yeah, I mean, not to let the cat out of the bag too soon because nothing is official or, I mean, we're dealing with city of Chikamauga, or not just Chikamauga, but government in general. And it's hard to get things like this going, especially motorized stuff.

 We're getting more support.

 Yeah, yeah.



 But we're working in the direction for the last, what? Two years, probably? We've kind of worked hand in hand with city of Chikamauga on a few projects and some events and things like that. Allen came down to the 4th of July and set up the on edge equipment last year and put on a show. The plan is to do that again this year, but hopefully this year, if not this year, the next year, there will be a trials event in downtown Chikamauga. Nice. Particulars aren't worked out yet, but I mean, just to be able to do that. Awesome. Yeah, that own government property is huge. And the biggest reason why is the trial side of it, and it's not hard on,



 we're gonna do it on the hillside down there. And really all that, when the trials event is over, they're gonna have some nice trails to use for hiking or pedaling or whatever they wanna do, because the trials bikes don't tear up the ground like a dirt bike will. Right. You run a hair scramble course on something and it takes two years for it to heal. E-deep ruts.

 Yeah. So speaking of which, how loud are these things?

 They're actually significantly quieter, especially like for the average rider. You will hear the top riders, because they're on the pipe a lot. When you're doing, there's a move called a splatter, he talked about it earlier, where you're dumping the throttle and popping the clutch. And that, yeah, you'll hear the pipe, but it's still, even in a full rev, it's not as loud as probably half throttle on an enduro.

 And it doesn't carry like the four stroke.



 So you're not gonna get a lot of complaints doing it in town.

 And we've probably talked about this, but the average rider at a local event is probably in his fifties or sixties. He's not on the pipe. He's riding around maybe 1,000, 2,000 RPMs just putting around. So it is, as far as, you look at my property as a prime example, I'm in the middle of, I've got subdivisions on all sides. I mean, I got this little 25 acre paradise, but we don't really get a lot of complaints. Every night you get that, you're always are gonna get that one neighbor,



 but they've never stopped us. They've never, the county's never given us problems over it. And we're also respectful. We try to make it, we try to be good stewards for the sport. We always try to be respectful.

 They're out there riding two or three o'clock in the morning and trying to make as much noise as possible, obviously. And so like you're saying, it's not going to cause any noise pollution. It's not going to tear up a trail like you're saying. It may help beat in a trail, but it's not gonna cause ruts. And it really comes down to, like we were talking about earlier, we're about creating traction, not spinning. You're not spinning a tire out there creating ruts. And also the tires themselves are designed to create traction. They're wide, they have a nice pad to them. It's not gonna dig in like a motocross tire would.



 Yeah, I mean, you run like four, six PSI on the rear tire and just to get it to flatten out and articulate to, if it's the rock, you want the tire to articulate to the rock just like a rock crawler. And it's not motor wicked up and owning off the clutch with the rear tire spooled up out of corners and things like that. It's a lot more controlled, a lot more systematic than that.



 So it just, it packs the dirt, but it doesn't dig trenches.

 You know, we've got sections at my house that are 20 years old. We've been using them for two decades. And other than the fact that, you know, it's nice and clean between the trees. When fall comes and the leaves hit the ground, you can't tell that we've ever ridden there. You know, it's like, and I think that's another beauty of the sport is it's very low impact.

 And if you left it alone for probably six months, if you didn't ride those sections for six months, the section basically wouldn't be there anymore.

 That's it. Grow back, especially springtime, we have to fight that sometimes. Right, yeah.

 Yeah, I remember being out there, you know, cutting everything back and riding stuff in for events and things like that. So yeah, it's easy on the environment. And I guess why this is important, one, you know, doing it on government property,



 they don't want the place tore up. They don't want erosion. Or the noise. Or the noise. But then beyond that, if you've got an acre backyard, you're not going to,



 we're doing it in the shop this week, by the way.



 (Laughing)

 You know, you brought a good point there. When I lived in Atlanta, I had a house and I had three quarters of an acre and I had three tractor tires. And you know, at that point I was still going to the nationals, going to the world events and stuff. And so it was like, I had to practice, but there was nowhere around me to ride. I literally, I put three tires in my yard and you know, yeah, there were a lot of skills I was not honing in. I wasn't doing rocky sections. I wasn't doing hill climbs, but those three tires, I could hone my skills. You know, I could keep my throttle and my clutch control cause I feel it if I'm off the bike for a week, you know, it feels a little, just a little bit off. I get it back quick, but like, you know, when I was really chasing it, it's like, you really need to be doing three, four days a week. And I couldn't, I could only do the weekends. So that's the difference is trials, you don't need, like I was saying, you don't need a wind rock. You don't need 73,000 acres. If you have log in your backyard, you can have a blast.

 And I mean, you can wear yourself out never, you know, in your garage and never start to start the motor. Yeah. Just sitting there static balancing the thing and, you know, working on that, getting your, getting your shoulder against the wall and working your way up to not having your shoulder against the wall and balancing the bike.

 I do that here a lot. Yeah, I mean, I'd. We'll just play around. So there's, I got behind him the other day and like held his tire while he couldn't see me. I felt really good about myself.

 He felt really great.



 (Laughing)

 Dang, I'm on it today.

 But then. I'm really good at this.

 Just practicing static balancing here. He's gotten to where he could do it no hands and just stay there. I can take my hands off and like kind of Pull down. There a little while.



 I got a few seconds on me, but you know, you could really gain a just balanced skill. I mean, it's, there's a lot of different ways to go.

 There's something in it for everyone. I don't think there's anybody that could not benefit from trials.

 So like someone who's coming in totally fresh, how do you get involved?



 You mean as far as me or as far as them?

 As far as me, I have never ridden a trials bike in my life. I have,



 but.

 I have never ridden a trials bike.

 He's never ridden a trials bike in his life.



 Come on down, sir. How does he get involved?

 So the easiest way, and you know, I know this is going on YouTube, so it's going across the country is find you a local club. There's tons of them.



 Can't remember the website name off the top of my head, but if you Google it, there's actually a website that's got a list of all the clubs in the country.



 Just reach out to one of them. I have yet to go to a club that isn't just awesome. What's up? Just Christ.

 (Laughing)

 I've yet to go to a club that wasn't just absolutely awesome and welcoming in that.



 (Laughing)

 He did just crash. He just ate it. Y'all missed that.

 Why did we not have that on camera?



 (Laughing)

 Somebody go check on it.

 (Laughing)

 Love it.



 This is following him with a camera. We'll have some B roll of it.



 (Laughing)



 Yeah, Thursday night, come see me.

 So y'all are probably seeing the aftermath of that right now.

 (Laughing)

 Sorry.

 No, no.

 We're out of the nation. Where were we?



 Getting you into trials. There we go. No, there isn't. I literally, I haven't, there hasn't been a club in the world that I haven't been to that isn't welcoming. That's what I love about the sport is the people are awesome. You know, any sports gonna have that occasional person that's just kinda like, "That guy's a jerk." But I would say in trials, there are a lot fewer and further between. You know, the first time I traveled internationally to compete was Australia, and I didn't know anybody there, and there was a family, I'll shout out to the wagers if y'all watch this, but they literally, I showed up and, you know, I was 24 years old, I couldn't rent a truck down there because it was too expensive, so I had a hatchback car, I'm pulling pieces of my bike out and putting it together, and the dad's like, "Hi, mate, where you staying in Oint?" And I was like, when I pointed to that hella hatchback, he's like, "The heck, you gonna sleep in there?" And I'm like, "Ugh, just gonna curl up in a ball." And he's like, "Yeah, come on." And he brought me in his house, and he let me stay with him for a week because he had this awesome place to ride, but it's like that everywhere. I don't think you're gonna find very many people in the trials community that don't wanna help you. If you just know a friend that's got a trials bike and he rides in his local cub, talk to that guy. Be like, "Hey, how do I get in?" And, you know, you, honestly, the way trials is set up, the way we do our local series at least, I can't speak for the world, but the STRA, if you come to an event and you've ridden a motorcycle once and not died, you can do the competition. Our novice class, I'm barely there. Our novice class, if you can operate a clutch, if you can stand on the trials bike, you can ride our novice class. It's designed for first, second, third time riding. Most people, they start in the novice and they don't even get halfway through the season and they move up the class, because it's like, "Oh, I got this now."

 Yeah, the novice class wouldn't be, it's not much worse than rolling through the showroom and having to make some tight turns.



 Really no obstacles, maybe a small log or a small rock, but I mean, it is definitely focused on getting people into the sport. And the rules.



 And that's one of the tough things for me coming from racing hair scrambles is you've got basically cards, gates that you have to, a piece of paper, if you will, that you have to go through and like, I may go through the same gate as Allen here and then 20 feet later, not. I may deviate from that because we run race, compete in different classes. But no, I mean, I think motorcycling in general, it doesn't matter if you're a millionaire and barely scraping by with some junky motorcycle that you've pieced together, like it brings people together. It puts people on common ground, which is what I love about motorcycles as a whole. And then the trials bikes,



 the trials competition is even more so, everybody's super welcoming. It's not,



 nobody's really trying to hide anything. Nobody, you know,



 nobody's sticking the seat on the bike if they had a seat to hide the ECU that they've got that they think is making them better than you or whatever, right? Everybody's, you know, coming over, they wanna help. You know, you walk around, what air pressure you're running, what tire you're running, everybody, you know, shares the information.

 Probably one of those things like skateboarding to where like you're doing obstacles and tricks. And so like, if there's something that you haven't done and somebody else is trying to get it, like once they get it, you know that you're gonna be like, you get that mentality. And so you probably push each other even though you're competing against each other.

 Always compared to like the running, bicycling, triathlon community, like it's always like you're competing against yourself. And really it's about your personal development. I know coming into trials, I'm not gonna get out there and win the sportsman class. Like I'm just not going to do it. So I need to start with novice and I'm just gonna continuously grow and develop my skill and not worry about, you know, what everyone else is doing. If I beat myself, I've won that day.

 You know, like when I was coming up through the ranks, it's kind of funny, I was winning a lot in the lower classes. And then it like, it's kind of one of those when I moved up into the upper classes, like at the local, it was the champ class. When I moved up, we had Alex Neder in there. One time, and don't shoot me if I get this wrong, Alex, but I think, I know he made it into the top four. I think he made it into the top three one year.



 But anyway, phenomenal rider. He's been riding since he was like nine. And it's like, there's almost no amount of training I can do to make up for that. I'd already won the expert class. And so it's like, I need to ride the champ. I want to ride the champ, but I also went in there knowing I'm never gonna win. So the mentality was like, I need to ride better than I rode yesterday.



 And it, you know, there's been a couple times where I had some good rides and I got close to them. And that was a good feeling, you know, and it's like, oh, you know, cause you've got a measuring stick you can measure against. Like how close did I get to that guy?

 Let's pretend that I show up Thursday and ride with you guys Saturday, on that Thursday night. And, you know, kind of get to where I can develop some skill and I want to compete.



 There are opportunities for that that are quickly coming up. Yes. By the time this airs, we'll have about a month to prepare.



 Oh yeah. Yeah, so we got on April 19th, you have the vintage trial going on. That's the ARMA regional Southeast vintage trials. They're gonna call it top of the rock.



 That's on Allen, sorry, not Allen and Shirley split on. Seth Cathy's property called Acres Above on Lookout Mountain.



 Very close. If they did a recap video of that, if you wanted to check that out, that was really cool. And also really beautiful. Like it was really beautiful place to ride.



 But check out Daxmoto360, that's his YouTube channel. D-A-X-Moto360.



 And then same location, September 6th and 7th. Yes. You have an opportunity to go and do the STRA trial.

 Yes, modern bikes.

 Yeah, so we got the modern bikes out there.



 This is awesome. This is Justin again.



 But he's a little more skilled.



 I didn't hit any of the-- I didn't wreck like Hunter did. Must have been on trials by practicing a little bit.

 But yeah, so you're gonna have an opportunity to September 6th and 7th up there, same location.



 Do we have anything going on at your property at the Allen Shirley International Pavilion?

 No official events this year. I purposely stayed away from events this year. One, because they were doing the Lookout Mountain trial and I was like, we don't need two events in Chattanooga in this year that are part of the STRA series. But the other was,



 as soon as they give us the green light on this Chikamaga trial, I know we're gonna have a lot of work. Because those hills, they're pretty wooly. And so I'm hoping, if they hear this like, hey, it'd be great if we could get out there before spring, before everything grows up.



 But yeah, so that was kind of my intention with that. But no events per se, but we'll definitely, we'll be riding there every Thursday. We always do. And we usually do some kind of summer event.



 We used to make it an official event. Me and Matt have different matinees. We've been talking about,



 we used to do an event every summer and the numbers just haven't been as great in the last couple of years. So we're like, let's just do a fun event. We're not gonna throw up ribbon. We're not gonna throw up markers. We'll probably just have a bunch of folks together. We'll grill out. We ride late at night in the summertime because it's hot and we've got lights. So we can ride anytime at my place.

 And so you mentioned earlier, we were kind of talking about this. You have that Thursday night thing that you have going on every single Thursday night on your property.



 You have the 80 there that you can kind of train people on. Absolutely. And this is free training. And the idea is to get you out there and get you on the bike. So hopefully the sport grows and you get more people to participate in the events.



 But you said not to just show up. Is there a way that they can contact you ahead of time and let you know that they're coming?

 Yes, definitely. The Chattanooga Trials Club has a Facebook page. Just get on Facebook and look for that.



 And yeah, just reach out to us. Maybe make a post on there or PM me. You can find me on there. And yeah, we want y'all to come ride with us. That's the whole goal. We started this thing. There was about three of us, sometimes four, if Matt ever showed up, whenever he graced us with his presence. But now we're getting 10 to 12 on Thursday nights. It's growing and I'm excited about that. Most nights we grill out. So we might feed y'all if y'all come.



 And it's a ton of fun. With a lot of support,



 everybody's willing to help. We talked about it earlier, but everybody's willing to help. Everybody's willing to coach. Everybody's willing to give pointers to get through a section. And it doesn't matter if you're just starting or you've been doing it forever. So something I did want to talk about before we got done, Ironman. Oh. A few months ago, you made the terrible to sit down.

 I agree, it was terrible.

 We love misery, both of us. So it doesn't surprise me that you decided to do that. But kind of funny story and I'll let you pick it up. But you told me that, so they canceled the swim. Was not happy about that. So it rained. And I think the same thing happened the year before where it rained, the Coli, the counts for parts for me and whatever get super high in the river. The river's running really fast. So they scrubbed the swim. Wolf Allen has practiced. He's been practicing training for months and months and months and months. And we talked about how trials riders are wired. This is a good example of them being wired that way. He gets up with a buddy of yours, I don't know his name and goes to Chickamauga Dam.



 So they scrubbed the swim. Ironman decided no swim. They're gonna start like a TT time trial type start on the bike leg, no swim.



 And this happened to my wife Carla a few years ago when she qualified for Kona.



 She didn't, they scrubbed the swim that year as well.



 But so y'all get up, you and your buddy get up, go to the dam.



 I'm guessing 3.34 o'clock in the morning because the Ironman starts at, I mean, its first light. As soon as the Coast Guard gives the green light that there's enough ambient light to put swimmers in the water, that's what they do. Obviously there's no swim. So at first light, they sent you out on the bicycles. So they get up right off the rip and go to the dam and get their swim in and then load up and go downtown to start the bike. They didn't have to, but for some reason wanted to.



 Well, he wanted to know how he was gonna perform. And I get it, you do all that training and you're not gonna miss it.

 I'm goal set for yourself.

 I didn't train for six months to do a duathlon. I wanted to do a triathlon.

 I guarantee you his swim was slower in the lake than it would have been in the river. Yes. It was probably, I'm guessing an hour and a half swim in the lake and it would have been a 40, you probably could have cut it in half in the river that day because of the flow rate of the water.

 I saw the swim times the last year was like 45 minutes or something like the slow ones were like, and I was looking at that and it took me a while to figure out that it was the river, but I was looking at those times and I'm like, I'm swimming at the pool and it's taking me like an hour and a half, sometimes close to two hours to get that two and a half miles. Like how are they doing that that fast? Am I that inadequate? And then I looked at the location, I'm like, oh, that's below the dam? Yeah, you could have floated it.

 And that's why a lot of the triathletes love the Chattanooga race. The swim's nothing. Yeah, the swim's really fast.



 It's still eight and a half miles. It's still two and a half miles and then what, 100 and it's a long bike too. So yeah, it's 116 instead of 112.



 But yeah, I mean, that's why a lot of triathletes come from all over the country world even to do the Chattanooga races because the swim's really, like they can-- Number

 one ranked swim, favorite swim, I think I saw on the website.

 But the course was an all downhill run. Yeah, for sure, yeah.



 But yeah, I mean, like,



 until you've done one, you can't, like it's hard to convey how bad it sucks, but try.



 Yeah.



 Or do you even wanna remember? Maybe you don't even wanna talk about it.

 You know, it was kinda one of those, even before the race even started, I kept getting all of these losses. You know, I was struggling, even now I'm kinda struggling through it, I've been having trouble with an Achilles and it's like it limited how much I could run in training.



 So that was a gut punch and then, you know, they got rid of the swim and this was like three days prior, but even before that, they're like, okay, we're changing the bike course. I'm like, what are you talking about? And you know, the bike course, I was really looking forward to it because it's supposed to like go down into Walker County, supposed to be real pretty, real remote isolated roads, which is what I was training. I was riding in the Chickamauga battlefield, so I was like, I just, I didn't use headphones because I'm like, they won't let you do that in the Ironman. So I was like trying to prepare for that mental of just being quiet with yourself. But what I was doing, it was nice, you're in the woods, you know, like a Chickamauga battlefield, I was like, no traffic. Kinda like what I was expecting those roads to be like, and they're like, oh no, we're just, we're gonna put it on 27 now. I'm like, what? That road is insane, like how is this gonna work? Oh yeah, we're gonna shut down one lane and y'all have the other lane. There's gonna be traffic beside us the whole time. And I mean, they didn't slow down at all. In fact, I think they sped up because they were angry with the traffic. Losing a lane, yeah. And so trucks are passing you doing like 60, and you know, you're trying to focus and--



 You're getting drafted. There was a guy that got drafted into one of the trucks. It didn't run over him, thankfully, but the wind was so strong, it pulled him into it and he bounced off of it.



 It was when Hurricane Helene came through, so it rained the entire time.



 My whole plan was to change shoes and change socks. That was in the plan from the get-go, like yeah, no big deal.



 You really make me wanna do this.



 (Laughing)

 It did not matter.



 Literally, I changed my shoes and socks, and I'm like, ah, nothing better than having wet feet for 116 miles on a bike. To then putting on dry shoes, you're just like, okay, that's a win, this feels great. Like my feet are dry.



 It wasn't even the first mile they were wet again.

 Of a marathon.

 Yeah, of a marathon.

 For those that don't know, once 116 miles on the bike, and then a marathon after that, so.

 Shows like, you talk about, you didn't get started riding trials till you're 19. Like, it really takes some mental focus. It takes some strength there, and the focus on the training. And obviously, you do that for a triathlon. It's something that you don't just wake up. If I wanna do next year's Ironman, I'm not ready. Like, I'm already behind.



 You can't prepare enough for an Ironman.



 (Laughing)

 And that just shows-- I thought I was, but I wasn't. Even from a skill standpoint with the trials, like there's a place where we can all start, we can learn something and grow as riders.



 And you're gonna grow really fast at the very beginning. Yes. But you have to keep that diligence. And if I remember correctly, you had,



 it was either right, I think it was right before we did the event in Chickamauga. You had just gotten back from Africa. And then you had done some, you had like done some triathlon related thing right before that.



 I don't remember the time. So, Africa was four months after my ACL.



 My first trial-- Did you do an Xterra or something?

 Yeah, Xterra, that was after Africa, though. That was, and then I did, after I did the Xterra one, I was like, oh, let's try Ironman. This is a great idea. That's a logical leap.

 My point is that I've seen you go through these grueling things and just having the mental, the mental capacity to,



 the mental fortitude to be able to persevere through all of it. And I don't know, just focus. Is there a lot of focus involved in that?

 I was born very stubborn. My mom said I was a hard kid to raise, but I've been a great adult. So,



 that's always been there with me my whole life. It's just kind of one of those,



 I've always been able to zero in and be like, okay, this is where I need to work on and this is what I need to do to get better. And I will stubbornly attack it until it,



 it's kind of one of those, when I go to nationals, you can tell the kids that have been riding since they were like kids, when you watch them, it's pretty. When I watch videos of myself, I'm like, oh my God, that's so ugly. I turn that off, but I get through it. I feel like, I think that's why people love watching me at shows and stuff, because it's like, oh, that is hard. When you watch Pat Smodgy, it's just like, oh, wow, that's beautiful to watch. He's got a pretty style.

 Watching the indoor trial is amazing to me. It's beautiful to watch. Because you're just jumping six feet in the air off of nothing.

 And it's easy looking at, they make it effortless. When I watch it, you watch my face, I'm like, just straining at the bars and everything like that. I have to fight for everything I've got.

 You see there's that one video out there where this guy's just jumping from obstacle to obstacle, his bars break in the middle of it. Like that just shows how much pressure you're putting on the bars. And this guy just has nothing to hold on to at that point.

 My, a really good friend of mine, the one from South Africa I went to ride with, his brother, it was actually here at the Chattanooga Hooters. They were doing a stunt show there, and they were jumping over Hooter girls, and it was like, ah, let's add one more. And I'll do that in a show. I think the most I've jumped is six in one of my shows. They were doing like 10, 11, you know, they were getting like, I think they were going for a record or something. After a certain point, I'm like, no, this isn't safe. But they're a lot better, they're phenomenal.

 And the good news is like, I've been hit by a tire. It doesn't hurt, does it? Or somebody else came over, it was either you or Alex had jumped over me.



 And yeah, it doesn't hurt. You're talking about three, five pounds of pressure.



 And it's just, I think I did that in the Chickamauga show. I had you laid down

 and I rolled over your legs. Yeah, well, you got me after jumping over, I was last in line.

 That's why you put somebody you really like at the beginning of the pile and the end of the pile.

 Yeah, yeah, so, yeah.

 You get people from the audience, but you put them in the middle.

 I got in a lot of trouble as a kid for jumping over my little brother on a bicycle.



 Yeah, I got scolded for that one.

 But did he die?

 No, he didn't. He survived. But I was smart enough to record it. And that's how mom found out about it.

 Yeah, you documented it. You can't record those things.

 Well, we had to have proof.



 We were making our version of "Jackass" back in the day.

 No one got hurt. No one got hurt.

 It's weird though, like-- My mom's a nurse.

 If somebody else is last in line when Allen's jumping on, I never hear the motors pull up. But then when I'm last in line, he always just whacks it through all while he's in there so that if he does get me, you know it.

 I was trying to really

 clear me quicker though.

 Yeah, you know.

 Just wear your helmet next time.

 It's not, yeah, it's always my stomach. Stomach or thighs or something that--

 I don't know how we're doing on time. I didn't look at my watch whenever we started.

 I think we've got like 10 minutes left.

 That's okay.



 Yeah, where else do we wanna go?



 Spectators. Yeah. I mean, we kind of talked about that before. And I think from a, you go to hair scrum, obviously a super cross, motor cross, it's really spectator friendly. But you go to a hair scramble and it's eight, 10, 12 mile loop.

 And you're watching one section.

 Yeah, every 45 minutes. Unless you're hiking the whole day. Unless you're bouncing back and forth, every 45 minutes you see whoever you're looking for.



 And that's TKO. You find the one hard spot, you stay there all day, but it's a 10 mile race. Yeah, they stay in the creek or whatever.

 If you're there with a racer and you're wanting to watch them, it's really hard.

 Yeah, absolutely it is. The, the, where.

 And then you go to the next section and you're like, okay, where you at?

 And you really get, where are they? You really don't know. But yeah, with the trials events,



 maybe not at trials training center, like at a night, cause it gets pretty big.

 I mean, if, if it's, but they're still a lot close to the pits, usually half the sections are then walking.

 But like your, your place, you can be from the, the furthest two sections apart from each other in, yeah, in 15 minutes. Not even, you know, not even getting a hurry.



 So, um, It is

 very spectator friendly.

 Point being like, look at, look at the calendars, look at the, the events pages and, and go to one and check it out. Yeah.



 I think, I think the nationals, sometimes they charge for spectators, but the locals it's always free from spectators.



 Especially, and even, even my house on Thursday night, if you don't want to commit to riding, come watch.

 And you're probably not going to be expected to catch any bikes like you are at a hair scramble or hill climb.

 We, we specifically have people for that. There you go. You know, they, they ride with you to the sections and they're the only person that's supposed to touch your bike and only when you're crashing.

 (Laughs)



 So we've talked about like how little space it takes. What do, how, how big is your property?

 Mine's only 25 acres. Yeah. So it really goes to show you, you can put a lot in a little area.

 I'm really amazed that your 25 acres is, it's packed in there. Like I don't expect to see that 25 acres there.



 If you, if you're- Yeah, yeah.

 Subdivisions on all sides.

 Yeah, subdivisions on all sides.

 Dad wouldn't sell the phone.

 Exactly. Right behind you.

 Yes, I love that on, you know, on Thursday nights where we don't have enough burgers. All right, let me run to Publix real quick.

 But yeah, so you just, you're just actually way too much space. Like as far as, you don't need all that space to do a trials of it. You gotta have it. Yeah, absolutely.

 There's a little buffer.

 If anything, you need it for parking. Like that's- Yeah, which we have.

 That's what we're facing. We have about a half acre field to work in. And I've never, I've came close a couple of times. Some of y'all's demo days, we came close to filling it up. But most of the time it's-

 How many sections have you got? I mean, I know it varies, but eight or 10?

 Oh no, I've- You have more than that? We, you know, on a typical trial, we'll do nine sections a day for two days. And so that's 18 right there. Cause we never use the same sections two days in a row. I'd say we probably have 30 to 40. Okay, yeah. You know, we just, we add two or three a year. We're getting close to having like all the fun usable stuff. You know, we've got some topography at my house. I've got some hills and stuff. The, there's flat spots in the woods that we've kind of looked at and they're like, "Do stuff there, just a lot of work." And we've got 30, 40 awesome sections. Let's ride, you know? So I always joke about it. I'm like, I think by the, by the day I dial, my entire property is just one big section where you can go one into the under. I'll be too old to enjoy it, but.

 But it's really cool that you are open to having people out there. Just like Seth, up on the mountain.

 Lucky to have it, I want to share it, you know?

 Yeah, and that's one of the cool things about the trials community is, everybody is willing to share. We talked about that earlier, so. We want it to grow, you know, we want it to get advantage of it.

 Yeah. That brings up, so the reason I was talking about that, is that if I get one of these Enduro bikes out here right now, you're like you were saying, I have to have acres to ride it on. Yeah.



 If I get a motocross bike, I have to.

 Find a track. Find a track.

 For fewer and further bitches now. Really hard to do in Chattanooga.

 For me, an hour. Drive an hour to that track and, you know,



 have everything with me, obviously.

 The one day a week that they're open, hopefully.

 The one day a week. They're free that one day. If they might be practicing on Thursday night, they might be racing on Saturday. They may have a practice on Sunday. I think Calhoun had a practice holiday Sunday this week.



 So you're trying to like schedule around them. With trials, it's a completely different thing. Like you're talking about your early days, you just got a few tires, tractor tires.



 I have two acres at my house. I could get a couple tractor tires.

 It sets you half a dozen sections up over at your house. No problem. Yeah, absolutely. Your neighbors may not like you, but.

 (Laughs)

 Well, I mean, they don't now. Like you said, it's not right.

 Nobody don't like him, it's all right.

 My neighbors are still up. It's all like grounds keeping, you know?



 My neighbor's building a new bridge for me.



 (Laughs)

 He has a bridge going over his creek and he was tearing it down the other day. And he said,



 my wife, his wife was asking,



 what are you doing? He said, I'm building a new bridge so Jeff can get over here. And he said, she goes, what about me? He goes, what about you?



 (Laughs)

 But anyway,



 you're talking about your neighbor's liking you. It's not even noisy. Like, it's not a problem. I have neighbors, I have a neighbor that's a customer of ours. And he wants to come over and ride, like, let's do it.

 You know, the thing I'll say about trials, like, honestly, I can't think of one motor sport that's cheaper than trials. Like, you know, you look at it and it's like, yeah, like if you come to the showroom here and pick up one of these gas gases, yeah, it is an expensive purchase. If you've got that kind of wallet, you should. I mean, they're great bikes. But you know, you can also get into the used market.



 You can get bikes cheaper than 2000. I don't recommend it. I think I'd get one that's 2000. Probably buy it from an old man, not a young kid, you know, because old men, especially in the trials community, you're probably gonna get some guy that probably changed the whole every time he rode. You know, like,

 but-- And it comes with a notebook.

 (Laughs)

 This is my service reference. No, but like $2,000. And then the biggest thing I recommend is an open face helmet. Those closed face helmets, they really affect your riding. So you can pick those up for like a hundred bucks, you know, maybe.



 And then boots, you know, I have friends that, you know, they've come and rode with me and they do motocross boots and they get trials boots on. I mean, you've ridden both instantly. Like you're probably gonna progress 10%.



 What's the difference in a trials boot? They're a lot less stiff. So motocross boots, you know, they're made to where when you wreck, your ankle doesn't stop around. On a trials bike, you need to be able to control that. Right. You need to have the ankle speed to move, to work the bike the way it needs to work. Ah, here we go. We got a demo here. You can see it's, you know, they.

 So it's closer to my like adventure boots.

 And I actually wear these sometimes as adventure boots. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it's a. Hiking. They're pretty comfortable. Yeah. Hiking, well. Yeah, I mean, it's a lot better than motocross boots.

 I've got the Forma adventure. Is that like something that would?

 I'm not familiar with the boot, but I'm sure an adventure boot would definitely be better than that. It's like an ADV boot. You started on adventure boots, I think. When the first time you came riding with us. So yeah, if you're really.

 Got motocross boots. I hate wearing motocross boots. They're so stiff. That's the worst part of riding a dirt bike.

 You have no fratula. Yeah, you really need to be able to fill the pegs in the rear brake and like on a.

 Started on work boots.

 On a motocross bike, your ankle bones, if you will, are always against the frame. And on a trials bike. Outside. It's out so that you can, you know, manipulate the bike underneath you.



 But it's for.

 But all I have to say, you can get in this for 2000 bucks. What other motor sport can you do that? Right. You know, there is, I can't think of one. Yeah, yeah.



 Cool.



 Well, I wanna say like, if you wanna learn how to static balance a bike, we can help you here. Absolutely. If you wanna learn how to ride a trials bike, Alan can help you. If you wanna take it a step further, do a day at the trials training center.



 If you wanna get into competitions, there's stuff locally that's happening.



 More and more is happening as the sport does grow in our community and I think it is. I think I've seen that upward trajectory.



 But yeah, there's a lot of opportunities to get into it.

 And just like anything with motorcycles, you like use us, leverage us.



 We're here, that's what we do. That's what we love doing. That's what we, you know, make a living doing because we love doing it. So stop in the store and say hi and ask questions and yeah, go to Alan. Throw a leg over one of these things.

 Yeah. Thursday nights, that's what we're there for.



 You call it throwing a leg over, stepping through.



 I think I've always heard throwing a leg over.

 Okay.

 Yeah.

 It feels like it's more just a.

 It is just a little step. I mean, it's not like one of these big bikes where you can't put the ground.

 The throw is less. Yeah.

 Little throw.

 That's why the older guys do it.

 (Laughing)

 You can actually still get on it.

 I don't have that hit mobility anymore.

 Those old guys will embarrass you if you're not careful.

 I've been embarrassed by a lot of old guys on two wheels.

 You're talking about, you don't have to spend, you know, 10, $11,000 on a brand new 300 GP. Obviously that's the most expensive one we have.



 I have a guy that's coming Saturday and he is expecting to buy this as his first trials bike. And I have more power to him. I encourage it. He says, you know, if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna be all in.



 You will notice a difference, you know, especially me. Like, you know, like when you get to the higher levels, you do notice the difference. But for somebody who's never ridden,



 you know, just getting that first bike is important. Cause it kind of tells you what you like, what you don't like. You may want to try some brands. I obviously I've ridden gas gas for 15 years. I'm always gonna plug gas gas. I love them. I don't, none of the other bikes feel as good to me, but that's personal preference. A lot of my friends that are better than me, ride other bikes, you know, so it's.

 And if you're talking about like, we obviously have the assets here now. If we're talking about getting kids into it, like a lot of people, I have a kid that's seven. I have a choice right now. I'm gonna get him into motocross. I'm gonna get him into Enduro riding, or am I gonna get him into this? If you're one of the parents who's afraid your kid's gonna hurt himself.

 Listen, mom, he's gonna be going three miles an hour.

 Like this isn't gonna hurt him at all. And he's gonna learn some valuable skills. Slower than a bike. Slower than a bicycle, later in life.



 Injuries I've ever seen in trials are always at the top level or somebody doing something stupid. One of our pro riders broke his clavicle on the loop. It wasn't in a section, it wasn't run. He was hot dogging on the loop and went over the bars and went in the woods, you know, and hit a tree, you know. And that's the tree's fault, Les. Exactly.

 They do jump out in front of you.

 I don't know. But no, it's, I've, we have a youth program. And just another thing I should plug here is Randy Sharp, he's in our club.



 He's got the Mark Moon Youth Program. Oh, wow. Phenomenal, they have a ton of these little assets.



 You know, anybody that wants to get their kid on a bike, they'll do it. But I'll tell you that to say that he's been doing that for about 10 years and I've never seen a kid get more than maybe like a scrape or a bruise. And that's just, that's building character. They learned something, you know. Never, not once have I seen a broken bone or, you know, any, anything like that.

 And just because you go by an Aussie and it's fashioned after a trials bike, doesn't mean you have to ride it. Like you can just ride around in the back yard.

 Or that I stand on it.

 Yeah, for sure. You know, maybe once you get to the bigger one, the 24, but the 12s, the 16, I mean, you don't, you don't necessarily have to use them as a trials bike. It's just a great learning tool. Kind of like a Stasek or a Strider or whatever is a tool. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

 Yeah, a lot better than the gateway drugs they're gonna give you if your kids not into something.

 Yeah. My mom used to always say, "Hey, get your kids into motor sports. They won't be able to afford drugs."

 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you don't need them.

 That's right.

 But-- People ask me why I don't drink. Yeah. I have motorcycles.

 I have another habit. It's more expensive. Yeah.

 As we kind of come to a close, y'all have anything else we wanna grab a trail off on.



 We have, follow us on Facebook. We have the new Pandora's European Motorsports Customers Group on Facebook.



 So if you're not part of that, go ahead and join that. That's kind of where we're gonna share rides that are going on and things like that. This will not quite make our March 8th ride because we're gonna publish after that.



 It's not ride, sorry. The VDR movie presentation. We do have a ride going on at the end of March. Just riding out to March Moto Madness.



 For those who want to go out and participate, they do have a gate fee.



 I think it's $60.



 So if you're going out there and you wanna spend some time there, great. Otherwise, I'm coming right back to the shop.



 You could ride with me. But, so you can join us there.



 Otherwise, just follow the podcast here. It's the Autistock Moto Podcast on YouTube. It's also on Spotify.



 And Apple and all of the

 other-- We're on TikTok now, aren't we?

 We're on TikTok, yeah. They got TikTok videos.

 Jeff got us a TikTok going. I should've known.

 Yeah, we have a TikTok.

 Sorry.



 (Laughing)

 You'll wake up one of these days and you'll have all kind of text messages. We'll have one video that goes viral.

 I feel like I'm gonna be TikTok famous in bad ways. In a focus hard.

 Look at this idiot on the podcast.



 I'm calling you out TikTok. I get videos uploaded and I get one view on it. And then I get other ones that are 800, 900 views. I don't know how that works.

 Yeah, they're algorithm. Some kind of algorithm we don't understand.

 They don't like how I'm uploading it. Like it's seriously that simple. But anyway, I'll let you close us out.



 All right, guys. You wanna shout out your Facebook page one more time for people?

 Yes. So I'll shout out a few. The Mark Moon Youth Trial, they're on Facebook. If you got kids, they'll get you in. The Chattanooga Trials Club. We won't turn away kids. The Mark Moon Trials are part of ours. But we love y'all to come Thursday nights, ride with us, just hit us up. Then I'll plug my stunt team on the Edge 2 Will Action Shows. We're fully insured and everything now. And we're operating in the Chattanooga area, but we'll do wherever y'all want us to go. So give us a shout out there and yeah. Awesome.

 All right, we'll let you join in on the sign off. So thanks for joining us again on the Throttle Stop Moto Podcast. I'm Justin.

 I'm Alan.

 Matt. Yeah.

 See ya. Thanks.

 (Rock Music)