Alpinestars No-Stop Trials boots - US 6, EU 23,  US 8 Womens
White Boots in Excellent shape worn Twice.

$225 OBO

Call 541.four nine zero, seven, 2 eight, 8

We owe a big thank you to all those who volunteered to Marshal and set-up LOLO PASS especially Dennis, Zach and Kylee Sweeten and Brian Clark with their busy schedules along with Hank Wirth, Mike Mcduggal and Paul Endres and ALL those that helped with set-up on Friday and Saturday and Sunday. Everyones help made the trials marshals job much easier taking on the task to host an event and that includes all of you that cleaned-up sections after riding!

Mike Wirth for doing the Awards and driving up to deliver them - It's a task he has had for a Long time!

Thank you all!

Lastly I'd like to say that ANYONE can Marshal a trial, even if you have not done so before. Those of us that have experience are more than willing to help you gain experience so please start by helping with an event, then step-up to host an event in the future. As it stands, we only have a handful of people putting on trials each year and we need more people to step-up and take on the task of Trials Marshal. It's a rewarding job!  Thank Jay Lael and Duane Rinkes for stepping up the last few years as well as Jay Lael for doing the Trials Box responsibility of filling it with all the materials for the next trial and getting it to the next Marshall and Daniel Blanc-Gonnet for taking on responsibility of Secretary and keeping the points updated!

Please get involved so we don't burn-out those doing all the behind the scenes work.

We had fantastic weather for the LOLO PASS event!
Saturday had 20 riders and Sunday 19 riders on the course.
A huge thanks goes out to Nathan Fletcher at the MT Hood National forest Service for assisting in the permitting to allow us to ride at this fantastic venue. There is no other place like it in the NW that we ride and if you have not been here you are missing out! We will try and put it on the schedule earlier in the season next year so put it on your calendar for 2017!

Even though logging was going on and many camping sites were occupied, there was still room to camp, the logging crew was friendly and welcomed the influx of trials riders. A helicopter which lands at the staging area was moving logs from the cut site to the truck loading area and it was really cool to see it take off, land and refuel in such a small area - Awesome Piloting skills!

All the sections were in the shaded forest and a nice breeze was around both days to keep temps moderate.
The dry rocks were surprisingly slick compared to other riding areas and it kept ALL riders on their guard to try and keep their feet on the pegs.
A longer loop on Saturday tested fitness for all riders while Sunday tested how well riders recovered from the previous days competition with some challenging sections - some easier and some more difficult for all classes.

Hope to see everyone at the next event!!!

We do have final Clearance to Ride this weekend!!!

We are at IPFL 2. So open campfires and other things are NOT allowed as well as NO SMOKING unless your in your car or a completely open area such as the parking lot an not near any brush etc.

Spark arresters are needed. please bring one.

HOOD TO COAST NOTICE - this weekend!:
 Those of you traveling up highway 26 to the trial may be impacted by it. Look up hood to coast online to see start times and when it will be moving up/down the  mountain.

We are doing a final Check with the forest Service TODAY to confirm the event is still on - It has been hot so PLEASE CHECK THE SITE THIS EVENING/TOMORROW MORNING for any change in the event Status.

Thanks David

Looks like we have a GO for LOLO PASS this year so far as long as the weather holds and no fires appear in the area.

There are a couple of items to take note of:
1. Logging is taking place and they are staging out of the gravel Pit were we typically stage our event.
2. There is a fuel Truck and helicopter on the west part of the parking area  (near the rock garden) and tank trailer near the gravel pile.

What does this mean? We will have a more limited space to camp. Most of the shady places are being used by loggers already so we'll have to make due with what is left.
It may mean camping along the powerlines.  If you plan on bringing a big rig be sure to arrive early - there are a few spots but not many for larger RVs and please park close to allow others to have a place.
WE NEED TO KEEP CLEAR OF THE TANKER TRUCK AND HELI AND MAKE SURE THEIR TRUCKS CAN ACCESS THE TANKS AND GET AROUND TO THE HELICOPTER.

I'll add more info when I get it. Dennis and crew will be running the Sunday event and I'll be running Saturday.
Hope to see everyone there. David.

COTA round 2 is coming up next weekend on Sunday!
Looking forward to seeing everyone at this challenging venue - the link to the flyer is below.
Please remember there is no pit riding at this Trial.

The weather is looking to cooperate for the weekend of the trail so keep your fingers crossed that the rain takes a break!

http://www.observedtrials.com/media/download_gallery/COTA_Washougal_Trial_MARCH.pdf

Thanks for taking the time to put your memories down Jay. What a ride you had.
I got into this sport way too late and would have loved to have been involved in it earlier but it's all about choices we make along the way I guess.
It's great to hear about some of your riding history - Thanks for sharing!

We would like to thank the 38 Riders who showed to take a chance on the weather and Ride! Without you it would not be worth the work and we know many of you had quite a long drive to make the event. Thank you for coming!

It turned out to be a great day but started out a chilly 28 degrees and frost on everything. Even though it thawed prior to the start it made the first loop very slick making some of the sections a bit tougher than we planned mostly in the lower classes.
Of course the cows as usual tore apart 3 sections which needed to be rebuilt in the morning prior to the start but the really bad weather managed to bypass us thankfully so the day only saw a few sprinkles on and off!

A big thanks to Brian for taking the helm and making this event happen and to the riders who helped with section set-up on Saturday including Bill, Brett, Denise and Craig and all the riders who helped tear down sections after the event allowing Brian and I to get out of there by about 5pm. Also a special thanks to Pam for doing pretty much all the scoring for us! Everyone's help was invaluable and very much appreciated!

Hope everyone had a great time and we'll see you all at Washougal on March 20th which offers a completely different wooded forest terrain to challenge everyone!
Kirk and Ken always put on a fun and challenging loop with some great sections!

Information for the event can be found here: See everyone there!

http://www.observedtrials.com/media/Events/COTA_Rock_PILE_Trial.pdf

The Lolo Pass Ditmars Cup Trial has been cancelled.
Due to Extreme fire conditions from the drought, National Forest Rangers have determined the danger is too great to ride our August 1st event.

Later in September or October it might be possible to reschedule if the trials marshalls are able to find time to prepare for the event on a different date.

Thank you.

David

I have to agree - I only was able to ride on Saturday but the loop was super fun and well set sections made for a great ride.
The heat was a factor for the day that all riders had to contend with but almost all the sections were in the shade - Great time!

I did manage to participate in the vintage / fun trial in the evening and that was a blast as well - lots and lots of laughs as we all tried to ride the old bikes though some funs sections. It was fun as a rider or spectator - We should do these more often at events if we can get riders to break out the old bikes.

Thanks to Max, Paul, Mike the entire Sweeten Family (and others) for all your hard work - Looking forward to riding both days next year!

David

Due to the extreme heat forcast for the PNTA Trial this weekend the Trials Marshals have decided to do a group check rather than upper and lower classes observing one another as is typical.

This will allow all riders to ride in the somewhat cooler time of the day.

They are shooting at 8:30 for sign-up and hope to start the Trial at 9:30 probably with a split start.

If you have questions you can contact the trials Marshals.
Information is on the Flyers.

http://www.observedtrials.com/media/download_gallery/Hog_Hollow_Trial_PNTA_2015.pdf

Sorry for the late change but it is a safety concern for all riders.
Make sure everyone keeps well hydrated!

Glad to hear you are so enthusiastic (and most of us are by the way) about Trials! It sure would be great if you would offer up some ideas or suggestions on how things can be improved for both the Club and Trials in general. Even better, volunteer your time to help with the workload.

The website is a challenge to keep updated and managed at times, we could use help with it. If you don’t like something about it I would encourage you to make suggestions to how we can improve it or let someone know what you specifically don’t like - Just calling it Lame does nothing to make it better and frankly is offensive to those who donated their time to work setting it up. Is it perfect, well no it’s not. However, there was a lot of work done to get a website set-up in the first place to create a tool to for you to communicate to other riders. Keeping track of points and championship for the year is a very big task as well. Are you willing to volunteer with your time to complete one of these tasks?

It would be fantastic if you would help do something for the club. There are lots of chores:  Creating New Flyers or even just Printing the Event Flyers and posting them at motorcycle clubs in your area, sending them to fellow riders, offering to keep track of points for the year, organizing the trials box and making sure it get’s to the trials marshals so they can prepare for their event, making sure Marshal’s have the legal forms needed so you can sign-up to ride, ensure bathroom facilities are available, make sure the liability insurance for the different locations we ride is up to date and paid so we limit our exposure to a lawsuit, organize the annual banquet and most of all create the schedule for the year and encourage more riders to step up and be a trials marshall  - I’m sure there are other things as well. We could use your help - What would you like to do?

At the Annual Banquette for the past THREE years we asked for new officers to step forward to help run the club.
Not ONE person stepped forward to say hey, I’ve ridden lots of events and benefited from everyone else's hard work -  I’d like to help out and be an officer and participate in running the day to day needs to make sure we can keep having and enjoying Trials Events in the future.

We love having all the riders participate and it’s great that many of you can make it to all the events. We all do this because we love the sport and we do it during what little spare time we have available between work and family and current and new jobs and other responsibilities. Each of us also sets up at least one trial per year or helps other trails marshals with the task. All the current officers have full time jobs like you but are are making sure you can enjoy going to about 10 well organized trials during the year in their spare time.

There are many riders - not currently officers - that have also put in a great deal of their own time for the Club in the past years and we should all recognize that and thank them for their past efforts.

There are others that have yet to offer their time and or at least step-up and ask what can I do to help?
So ask yourself, what can you do to help the club grow and make it run better?

Maybe:
- Volunteer to do something to promote our club.
   Since you have a long lasting relationship with all the vintage riders, help us to know what they like to ride for sections.
   Educate us to include them in our events so we don’t make the sections too difficult. Maybe they will come ride with us.

- Report on events you go too. It's not the officers responsibility to do this, we often don't make every event.
- Plan vintage appropriate sections at your event this fall to include the vintage guys - we would love to have them.

- Help out a trials marshal. There is only a handful of us lately.  EVERYONE could offer to clean a few sections after an event to help them out, ride the loop for them to make sure it’s marked well and mark areas where you might think someone could get lost.

One final note to all Club riders. This is your club. It will only improve with your ideas and your participation to implement your ideas.

We look forward to seeing everyone at the next event!
Keep your feet up!

COTA Officers
Brian, Kirk, David, Max

Thanks Mike for giving us a heads-up!
Your help informing everyone is much appreciated.

dw