What is the first thing that comes to mind at the mention of Trials riding? Probably one of those guys wearing the tight outfits who do all the hopping around on the back wheel, going up and down rocks, all the while not touching their feet to the ground. These guys are highly skilled... and as accurate a description as this may be for Observed Trials, it's not what we are here for. Our goal is to find a bike we don't have to cart out to a riding area to use. Something we could ride around and have fun with in our driveway or the parking lot next to the EDM offices. One of the great things about these bikes is, it’s not about going fast, so you really don’t need tons of space. A 30 feet by 30 feet square will suffice.

You may not be aware of this but, there is another sort of trials riding that we just found out about called Urban Trials. And it’s cool, very cool. It consists of riding on curbs, walls, stairs or anything else you might find in an urban environmnet. It's more like skateboarding than motorcycling. It's fast paced, challenging and fun, big time. While developing the skill set required to balance sitting perched on a rock will certainly improve your clutch and throttle control, we were for more interested in the fast paced riding, something that would help with skills required to navigateigate tight turns on trails and help to keep the front wheel up while skimming a whoop section.

Trials riding as we know it requires serious dedication to acquire the skills need to jump from rock to rock on the rear wheel.  We were not looking to take up a new discipline, we want to hone our skills. Urban Trials is the perfect supplement to Off-road riding with it's mixture of street skating and motocross. You can do it in your driveway or find an area with concrete obstacles, it could be a set of stairs, a banked curb, or railroad ties. You are only limited by your imagination and common sense. Don’t pull up to the local park and think you are going to be able to ride all over the place and not get into trouble. Please remember to be considerate of others.

Continued