Ali C

im not convinced, personally I always tie my shoes as tight as I can because I can’t stand any movement of my feet inside my shoe/on my pedal. I feel a floating pedal might feel similar to a less-tight shoe and take away some of the feel and feedback

I’ve dabbled with brakeless nose manuals but never got them dialled. My front wheel action is purely a stoppie

I’ve recently been doing some more diy adaptors, these were made with a drill, hacksaw and file and I like the idea of the adaptor extending down the inside of the mounts…this way it’s slightly braced against the frame taking a tiny bit of pressure off the bolts (in theory at least) but it also adds a lot of strength and stiffness in a high stress area (I hope). gonna speak with someone about bringing these to market IMG_8673.mov IMG_8623.dng IMG_8624.dng

Can’t comment directly about your case but I also had a wheel with a similar issue recently. I was fixing a wheel with a snapped hub flange, got a new hub and spokes and had planned on reusing the alloy nipples…weirdly they would thread in by hand the first few turns but just bind up after that…I tried forcing one but it actually snapped the spoke! I wasn’t aware spoke threads came in different pitches but that’s the only explanation I can think of. So yeah, best avoid forcing things, using the sapim nipples would be best but I can’t advise it that work with your rim or not (if it was my wheel I’d try it but its a tricky one when it’s someone else’s).

My turbolito tube lasted 20 mins the valve randomly snapped…maybe there was some twisting forces going on or something…if they do a metal one then that’s what I’d go for

I spent ages looking at different vans even doing polls on social media…I was expecting one model to come out on top but surprisingly there was equal amount of love and horror stories for the Transporter, Custom and Trafic. In the end I went for a Trafic as they’re galvanized so should resist rusting, have dependable engines and a decent loading area. I don’t think they’re the best looking but they are a lot cheaper than VWs. I’ve literally just had mine converted by The Ply Guys (I’m still sat in their office) and couldn’t be happier with the results. IMG_7738.dng IMG_7739.dng

I think we’re quite far apart in what our expectations and execution are for this concept

I’m talking about having the rear triangle acting like a spring when compressed, something along the lines of a leaf spring like the Lauf concepts (but obviously in a trials shape), you’d have it so stiff you wouldn’t notice it when hopping normally but when preloading it would be possible to compress it and use the rebound to hop higher. The Crewkerz looks like it has one of the stiffest rear triangles out there!

My 2 cents. ebikes: I can’t see this being a thing for comp style trials, maybe better suited to oldschool hill climbs but the extra weight would hinder the size of moves more than the advantage of extra power would help them in my opinion. disc brakes: never gonna happen for 26” comp trials, the extra weight, exposed fragile disc and spoke flex are way more of a handicap than the occasional rim grind. geo: not too sure if we’ll see that much change here but I am curious to test a frame with a much steeper head angle than current bikes have and combined it with a short stem (kinda like your idea but keep the wheelbase the same). Longer wheelbases might help with a couple of moves but it would compromise others, current wheelbase measurements are a decent middle ground. I do think having a shorter stem could make things like hanging hooks easier though as there’s less leverage in the stem wanting to twist whilst your weight is on it. Current bikes with their long stems put the bars so far out in front the bikes effectively have a 90 degree head angle anyway. tech: the biggest advancement I can see helping with comp trials is utilizing flex in frames to act like a spring and increasing height of moves. Frames are like pole vaulting with a stiff pole, imagine if you could preload the frame like you do with your tyre (and a pole in vaulting) and use that energy in a gap or sidehop…I’ve absolutely no doubt this will be the future but it’ll take a lot of cost and development to make it work

It would need a slight revision before it’s ready to be used fully, I think I can’t get these to work but it wouldn’t be possible to sell them as-is

Another vote for making your own, I made some with nothing more than a hacksaw, vice, drill and tap. i tried a few designs and even 3D printed some other ideas until I found one that seemed to work really well. The shape wasn’t ideal to machine though so Euan Beadon helped adjust the design slightly and then machined a batch for me (thanks Euan!), annoyingly even though everything worked well in the 3D print there were some clearance issues with the alloy ones, a spacer under the post would fix it but I haven’t gotten round to doing that yet.

Shimano calipers definitely seem to be some of the weakest out there, Magura, Hope and Hayes are stronger.

I use the original V1 and have had zero issues 👍🏻

I'll be there, might have a new bike to try out too