11D.6 Medium Lines and Automatic Easy Line Points
Comments about this discussion:
Started
The current rule states:
“All riders that successfully ride 100% of the Medium lines will automatically receive the points from all the Easy lines, without having to ride them.”
This rule is generally beneficial for high-level riders. However, in practice, it often disadvantages female competitors. At many competitions, Medium lines include jumps that exceed or match the female world record – sometimes even without a pedal grab option – making it nearly impossible for female riders to complete all Medium lines. As a result, they are unable to benefit from this rule, despite having a high technical level.
To address this imbalance, I would like to propose two possible options:
1. Restrict Medium Line Difficulty:
Medium lines must not include gaps or jumps that are longer or higher than, for example, 5 cm below the current female world record, or such lines must offer alternative landing spots or easier versions to accommodate female riders.
2. Adjusted 100% Threshold for Female Riders:
For female competitors, lines that exceed a defined limit (e.g., 5 cm below the female world record) should not count towards the required 100% Medium lines. In this case, 100% completion would mean all reasonably achievable Medium lines, excluding those that are disproportionately difficult.
I personally prefer Option 1, as it promotes more inclusive course design without changing the logic of the 100% rule.
Let’s discuss how we can ensure fairness in Trials competition while maintaining the competitive challenge for all genders.
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I agree that it is much more difficult for female participants to complete the 100% medium lines and that this rule therefore comes into effect much less frequently for them. At the same time, however, there is no joint ranking between male and female riders, so I find it difficult to say that female riders are being disadvantaged. If there were a joint ranking, it would of course be a clear disadvantage for the female riders, but with separate rankings, the conditions within each ranking group are the same and that is primarily decisive for a fair competition.
However, apart from the mentioned rule, I think the point you raise is absolutely valid: If medium lines are often built in such a way that they are not at all doable for female participants, then this is frustrating and not supportive of the sport. It is therefore essential to ensure that lines are available for both female and male riders and that they provide a competitive challenge for both.
For me, as a male rider who is not particularly good, it's also unfortunate when the easy lines are all extremely easy and the medium lines are practically impossible - so there are practically no lines at my level. In my opinion, the problem is not so much the rule mentioned above, but rather lines that simply don't take certain levels into account.
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TL;DR:
Good point and good idea. I don't agree with Option 1, but Option 2 would work well in my opinion.
Details:
I understand your point, and it is a fair view. It is true that many of the medium lines are harder (both in technical difficulty and required jump height) than some of the Female Finals lines - so it is nearly impossible for even the best Female competitors to Finish all Medium lines.
First of all, the main reason of the introduction of this rule was that high level riders often had to cue up at Easy lines to earn points - which was a lose-lose situation for beginner riders (as they had to wait even longer at the easy lines) and for high level riders too (since they had to wait a couple of minutes to clear some lines that possibly consists of 1-2 pallet high jumps). With the introduction of this rule, the focus shifted a lot on finishing all Medium lines, and we witnessed an ease on the traffic of Easy lines, especially at the beginning of the competition. So we can assume that this rule does the job it was introduced for.
However, it should not be too easy to finish all Medium lines, as it is supposed to be a threshold. In my experience, in recent years there is a huge variety on Medium lines. Some are close to being an Easy line, and some are almost harder than some Hard lines. In my opinion, and according to my experience competing, organizing and watching competitors (male and female competitors, juniors, adults and seniors too), it is nice like this.
The only group of people who can't really benefit from this are high level female riders, and you are very right to highlight this.
You used the word that this is an imbalance. In my opinion, your option 1 would resolve this imbalance by creating another one: making it way too easy for Male / Open category competitors to finish all medium lines. It shouldn't be easy to finish all medium lines. A good course setter knows that medium lines should represent many different skills: technical riding, accuracy, balance, jumps (both high and long, up and down). To finish all, you need to be a skilled all round rider. And I agree with you that this advantage should be accessible for high level female riders too.
That is why I think your option 2 is a great idea. We maintain the competitive threshold for male/open category, while opening it for Female category too.
Another note on restriction on line difficulty: in my opinion it is not a good idea to put physical dimension / technical restrictions in the Rulebook. There are fragment rules like this in the UCI Biketrials Rulebook, and it is bad. Also, the sport is evolving, so these would continuously had to be reviewed and updated (this didn't happen with the UCI Rulebook, and there were competitions where this caused problems). Also, a good course setter / event director is able to create lines that's difficulty is in line with the competitors riding level. I would just leave this to the hands of the event director.
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Jan, your comment arrived while I was typing mine, so let me reflect to your points too.
That's a fair point too that since there is no ranking between Female and Male/Open riders, this is not crucial. However, taking inclusivity into account, I think it is a nice idea to make this more accessible for Female competitors.
Regarding riding levels being represented, you are very right to mention that. I once again don't think that putting dimensions / technical restrictions in the rulebook is a good idea - at least not mandatory ones. Guidelines could work perhaps. The reason why I think this way is that these rules usually don't age well, and require a lot of maintenance, and can differ from competition to competition, even in the same year. This is something that really depends on the Event Director's / Course setter's experience too. I think this point deserves its own Discussion and I don't want to draw away the attention from Evelyn's point in this Discussion.
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Let me also share my thoughts on the discussion.
Overall, I agree with Jan that there is no real disadvantage for female riders.
In general, a competition consists of 50–70 lines, typically split roughly as 25/25/15 or 20/30/10, or something along those lines. Since women are not competing against men, this rule doesn't create any disadvantage in the results. Some might argue that female riders have to climb more lines in qualification than men—but I actually disagree.
Let’s take the 20/30/10 split as an example. To get 20 easy lines, you'd typically need to ride at least 30 lines, ideally a few more. On the other hand, top-level female riders usually manage to complete about one-third to one-half of the medium lines, which leaves them with 20 easy plus 10–15 medium lines in total to ride during qualifications.
So, whichever way I look at it, I don’t see any real disadvantage caused by the current rule.
(The only exception is when a medium line is misjudged and ends up being super hard. Then you're stuck trying to finish 20 lines in the last 15 minutes… but that mostly affects male riders who are on the edge of qualifying for finals.)
I think the rule should stay as it is. Lowering the "medium" level wouldn’t be fair either—it would only disadvantage medium-level female riders who are just managing to qualify. They’d end up having to ride significantly more lines than others, which would leave them more exhausted for the finals.
Comment
Additionally, regarding level standards, I think it's impossible to enforce strict definitions in the rulebook—doing so would place too much overhead on the course setters.
Instead, I’d lean toward including guiding statements in the rulebook to help event directors ensure there are no significant level gaps—not between easy and medium, and not within the medium category itself. That said, I’m not exactly sure how such guidance could be formulated, to be honest.
I believe that if we want to create inclusive events where beginners, intermediates, and pros can all ride on the same course, our current rules are already doing a good job.
Of course, if there's a competition specifically focused on top-level riders—like the best female and male athletes in the world—then it could make sense to have fully separate courses, with their own medium-to-hard difficulty splits. But as long as everyone is riding the same course, I don’t see the need for any major changes necceary in the near future.
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I (as female rider) do agree with Jan here. Men/open does not compeet against Female so it does not make sence to let Female riders also take part of this "finish the medium line and get the easy lines rule" + the level of the men/open riders is way higher (body based) so they just need a bigger challange.
BUT I would love to see more female option lines in qualifications. last euc there where a lot lines over the limit of female riders so the options of lines for us was way lower what ends up that a lot of female riders get the same scores. if we then go to finals they kinda alwayse under rate us. (then the lines are build to easy) the past years I tried to help creating harder lines for finals (also lines which are not an option for me but maybe for the other girls becuase I want to push the limit of the girls hehe) it did work out well from where we started but i dont think we are there yet. I can defently understand its hard for a men to make a female line but maybe we can say all finalst make there own line or something? (thats an other discusion anyway)
as solution for the female medium lines I thought maybe to have half of the medium lines in the limit of the max of the female maximum hight or lengt. (so what evelyn said but not all because then its to easy for the men) other option is to have a female option to clear the line and a men option to clear the line but this might not be usefull because it gets difficult for riders and judges (and maybe not so fair for men riders who arent on a high level)
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I totally agree with Roos—building enough true "medium-medium" lines is super important, but it's a challenge.
As for finals, I also think it helps that the overall female level has risen a lot recently!
I’ve also been riding a lot with Evelyn and Lea lately, which has given me a much better sense of the current level.
So for the upcoming EUC, and hopefully UNICON if everything works out, I’ll make sure there’s a proper challenge for the girls 💪
Yet, I still don't see any rulebook change needed here.
And please be aware that it's really hard for trial directors to build a smooth level ramp-up. Were trying our best
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@Roos: the all-finalists-make-their-own-lines can easily not end up well, as it can create a very imbalanced competition, since there is no overlook on all the lines together. The best is to have a qualified course setter / event director who is aware of both male and female levels and can create a nice and fair competition for everyone.
@Chris: There is level guidance in the Rulebook. It is section 11D.9.3 Assigning Di fficulty Ratings to Sections, and it uses Kris Holm's U-system as a base.
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I think if we summarize this discussion in essence, it seems to be most important for the aspect of inclusivity that the lines at the competitions really take into account all levels of riders and that there is a smooth and continuous increase in level between the lines and the different categories (easy, medium, hard). I would agree that it would be extremely difficult and probably not useful to try to solve this through concrete and mandatory requirements in the rulebook. Experienced and good directors are the key here I think, but for inexperienced directors e.g. especially at smaller competitions, guidelines could indeed help. But I don't know whether these guidelines really need to be in the rulebook or whether it might be more effective to create a separate document for this purpose, which can then be used to specifically address the target group of events/event directors.
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I agree with you Jan.
There already are guidelines in the rulebook on this exact topic, in my opinion we don't need more text there about this.
I could see an additional rule for Female category that they can get assigned all Easy lines upon completion of 70-80% of all Medium lines (either [x]% of all Medium lines, or the Trials Event Director chooses ~75% of the Medium lines that has to be completed for Females, but option one is easier and doesn't put an extra responsibility on the already task heavy position of Trials ED).
I can discuss with Chris Eder about the possibility to test this at the upcoming Summer EUC in Hungary (I am the Main Organiser and Chris is Trials ED). Then we can see if riders take advantage or not - just a thought, but needs to be confirmed with Chris too. He is the ED, I don't want to take decisions on how to do the Trials comp without him.
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You are right that the rulebook already contains some guidelines - I would not go into more detail about this in the rulebook. The idea of an additional external document was meant more in the sense that if the majority sees a need for additional guidelines, I would personally suggest putting them together in a separate document.
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I completely agree, good point! :)