Types of off-road riding/competition

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Dirt riding appeals to people for many different reasons.

It is often a lot cheaper than fast road riding, as less petrol is used and tyres can be a lot cheaper.
‘Thrills’ can be got at relatively lower speeds, yet still often an experience akin to fast road or track riding.
Competitive and practice events tend to cost a lot less than their road equivalents.
Crashing tends to be safer and less painful, meaning you can more easily push the limits of traction. Because the surfaces tend to be less adhesive, you can also work with and get confident sliding much more easily.


Trail riding/green laning
Trail riding, which is often called greenlining is riding along general dirt tracks in the country side.
It’s considered good practice to stick to legal routes, which are relatively few and far between these days. There’s a good amount of information on this forum in pages such as this one.
Because legal ‘green lanes’ are also often used by walkers (often with dogs), horse riders and cyclists, consideration needs to be taken with observations and speed used accordingly.
Trail riding is generally done in groups; if going solo consideration should be taken that there’s the possibility of injury in a situation where no one is likely to pass for some time – just with road riding, as with the above, people tend to crash more often when riding off-road.
https://www.bikechatforums.com/download.php?id=74034 https://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t69/silky666/Bike%20Stuff/dogs.jpg
https://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t69/silky666/Bike%20Stuff/adamski2.jpg https://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t69/silky666/Bike%20Stuff/muddy-1.jpg
A quick video of a Hampshire lane.

Types of bikes for trail riding:
Anything can be used and to some degree it may depend on the terrain; for instance for some seriously technical trails in Wales, you may decide to use your light weight big motocross 4 stroke and ignore the harsh service intervals. Conversely, a R1200GS or Pan European rider may be the weapon of choice for some hard packed wide dirt trails.
Of course, popular choices tend to be somewhere inbetween, to cover a reasonable range of conditions.

Trials
Trials is all about following a marked route, overcoming obstacles without putting your feet down (known as a ‘dab’).
Basic trials courses tend to involve the side of hills, often with riders being required to ride very tight corners on off camber and uneven surfaces such as tree roots. Few trials are without some very steep up hills. Sections are layed out with red and blue flags – riders must stay between the marked course.
There are typically ten sections per trial, each of which will often have a time limit. Typically you may run through each section three or four times per trial.
Marking does vary a bit, but the basics are one point for each ‘dab’ of your foot, with a maximum of three. A total fail, such as falling off, leaving the marked track etc will get you five points for the section, which is the maximum possible.
The winner of the class/trial is the one who finishes with the least points, as you might expect.
As skill levels increase towards national and international levels of competition, the sections tend to move toward turns linked very closely to steep and varied rock sections.

Many (most?) trials have a timed section which is often used as a tie-break for people that place with the same points.

A club trial rider dabbing and someone probably at international level.
https://www.trialsinfo.com/events03/nktcr89.03/photos/bex6.jpg https://trialsusgp.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/best-trials-2008-14.jpg

Club trials on youtube.
Top level trials example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_trials
If you want to be really inspired about what else you can do, have a look at Julien Dupont’s Ride the World series.

Modern trials bikes feature no seat and an ultra-light design. Gearing is wide, but quite low still; speeds rarely get up at all.
Engines are designed to be have a lot of low down power, with a broad and predictable range; so there are no obvious peaks.

Older trials bikes tended to be more a minor modification of road/off-road models of the time
There’s a big ‘classic’ trials scene, partly because relatively simpler sections are still challenging.

Older trials bikes

Indoor Trials
Indoor trials is a top-level subgenre, which sees ultra technical artificial sections set up in an indoor arena.

https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2256/2257891405_e6cb50ff7c.jpg
A video of indoor trials at Sheffield

3 stage trials/Long distance trials

Long distance and three stage trials are a mixture of trials sections and trail ride ‘liaison’ sections.
Road books will often be provided for the contestants to navigate between sections.

Bikes used can range from trials bikes with seats for the distance, to large trail and dirt biased road bikes.
Low seat height light weight trail bikes like the Gas Gas pampera are popular choices.

The Gas Gas Pampera uses a trials engine in a low trail frame:
https://www.epfguzzi.com/gasgas/trail/pampera02.jpg

Time card Enduros / Rallies

Time card endures are based on time Special sections and Liaison sections.
The total time for all special sections is used to calculate finishing positions; these tend to have more technical and complex course layouts. While the Liasison sections are not timed, the rider must get to the start of the stage at a time they have been individually given – riders are usually started at one minute intervals.
Sections include a wide range of generally ‘natural’ terrain; following paths through mud, water hazards, hills and the like.

In some cases the entire route may be repeated more than once.
In the case of rallies, the event can span continents and take weeks in total....

More to come as I have the time!

Extreme Enduros

Hare and Hounds

Endurocross

Motocross

Supercross

Speedway

Flattrack

Grasstrack