Tommy d

Ok. I am now about 15 minutes into my first visit to the gallery, and I'm finding it a bit confusing. The first thing I wondered is if there's any connection between the Gallery and the Bike Pics/Riding Pics parts of the forum but as far as I can see there isn't. Perhaps there should be? Or are they intended for different purposes? Maybe there should be a link from the forum to the gallery, like Trials Chat has the link to FAQ? As for the Gallery itself, it starts good with the screen of different categories like Full Bike Pictures, Riding Pictures etc, that's clear and logical (to me at least). After that it gets wierder... In Member Galleries, I'm confused by the fact that clicking on someone's name or on someone's picture takes you to two different places. Eventually I worked out that clicking on the member name takes you to a page where all their albums are visible. That's good, but it would be a lot easier for thickos like me to understand if there was a big title that says 'here are the albums of this user' or something. A bit like this: Once you're inside an album I think it's ok. You'd have to be even thicker than me to still be lost. On the page where all the different members are visible (i.e. just clicked on 'member galleries') could you put little buttons saying 'go to this user's albums' and 'go straight to this picture' or something like that? I think not knowing that that was where the links went is what confused me. In the Full Bike Pictures section, it doesn't seem right to me that you just get confronted by a whole page of pictures straight away, not even telling you who put them up. It makes it hard to find anything in particular if there are no titles or member names, especially if there's 23 pages! Or is that the whole point of the Gallery, as opposed to the media sections of the forum being for if you want to know a bit more about what you're looking at? Maybe it would help if there were more subcategories, like mod, stock etc? For the Gallery as a whole, just more titles or labels telling you where stuff goes would help. hmm I dunno maybe I just find it odd cos I haven't used it before, hope my jibberish was of some help anyway. My confusion at the gallery is nothing compared to my gratitude for the forum in general existing anyway

I liked that. Some good looking riding spots that these eyes will probably never see... I like their style, the only thing was the riding with feet switched round didn't really tickle my pickle.

Not bad, very smooth as usual. Good to see you bringing joy to the UK's disabled...

signed/bumped even if it's not exactly near me, it's good to have as many in the country as possible

What a great topic! I love the attitude lol

Usually I find myself just leaving things till I've improved. There's usually plenty of stuff near me that I probably could do, but don't want to scare myself trying. It never really seems to hold me back, because I always just go off and do something else, and when I come back in a few months I find the scary thing doesn't scare me any more so I do it no problem. And feel good. On the other hand, sometimes there are things which my friends say 'no don't be a fool!' to but I feel fine with and go for. It can even end up with me falling off and not worry me. These things tend to be the ones that involve going fast and just leaping... I think the first case happens more with static gaps.

Genuinely did not know there was a gallery. I may investigate and post more useful feedback later on..

Signed/bump

A little thing I have just noticed: When TF sends me emails to tell me a topic has new posts of whatever, it seems to come up with a random and unrelated topic name, and then after that it states the real topic name and shows you the posts. Bit odd... like this: Not exactly a problem, just thought you might want to know if you didn't already.

I play guitar and my left hand is wider, but I think that may be because I bonked my right thumb joint in a bit playing rugby at school a few years ago. I play piano too though, that ought to loosen both equally I would have thought...

Haven't read the whole topic cos it's long but mine is: Make my bikes last longer! In the last 12 months I had 2 stolen and broke 2 frames. Not good. Good luck with 'em all peeps.

MonsterJ, you blatantly googled Pete Wright. Saddo

It's new, therefore it seems alien to me. I gotta learn my way round it all again! I'll probably get used to it soon. One thing definately does need doing though, and that is when you update your profile, the little message appears to say it worked and disappears. It needs to say 'This message will self-destruct in 2 seconds' rather than auto-close or some boring phrase. Thought that would have been obvious!

I thought that was REALLY good. Well done! Loved the riding, editing was good - not too complicated, music went alright, I want to come ride there now.

Thanks for your replies guys. I'll make another one over the next few months in Southampton (i.e. universityville) when I have my new frame (and some good riding).

Music was interesting, I've never heard any Aphex Twin before but I kind of like it. I think. In a strange way it did go with the riding. The riding was all very good, as in I could never hope to do as well, but if I'm honest I was nowhere near as riveted as with an Ali C street video.

Hey not bad. You could give us a few more clues when you post a topic though! It kind of stops abruptly too...

I'm jealous, why don't I have a trials warehouse?

Really enjoyed that, nice one. Shame about the quality and the sound skipping about in the last bit, but the riding is the important bit and that was really good. I liked the editing in general as well. If you're after constructive criticism... the bit with the drive-by shot from the (unidentified) vehicle is a good idea but didn't quite work just cos of the camera missing you when it went past! And if the credits at the end were intended to be readable, they went much too fast for me! I can't think of anything else right now, generally pretty good anyway. Might edit if I find the time somewhere to watch the rest... So many good lookin videos seem to have just appeared...

Mixed response from me... I'm all for making videos interesting rather than just tricks from start to finish, but in this one there hardly seemed to be any riding! Ok bit of an exaggeration there but I think I just wanted to see a bit more. I did like the stuff with the Christmas lights round town and the music went well so can't complain, nice one. Merry Christmas to you too!

Link to download: http://tv.isg.si/site/filebrowser/tommydthatsme - Two Princes.avi File size 51mb, length 2' 52". Seems to play best in DivX player on my computer. Or, link to stream: Riding, filming and editing by me and Gilly. We were planning to film some more footage over the Christmas holidays, until my frame snapped, so we just edited what we had. Enjoy!

Ok thanks for replies people. I'll probably go for horizontal dropouts, I was just interested. Now to re-use the topic for my next little investigation: How long are chainstays generally? I really don't know too much about frame geometry. I know you get long ones and short ones, so how much variation is there? And somebody please remind me what differences chainstay length makes to riding? Thanks

I agree with what some people have said about trials bikes themselves being too specific for a lot of other riders to consider. A picture of a typical comp styled trials bike won't actually look much like a bike to most mountain bikers. Even I as a trials rider, when I look at a mod, find myself thinking it's hardly a bike at all, so for someone who just rides off road tracks on their mountain bike it's going to be pretty alien. The wheels are smaller, the frame looks like two poles, no seat, rigid forks, huge stem and bars etc etc etc. I haven't really considered it from this angle before, but maybe this is the reason why my personal idea of the best trials bike is 26", proper seat. I've always considered myself a mountain biker and not just a trials rider. That kind of bike is never going to be quite as capable at sidehops/gaps/comp riding as something long low and sticklike, but then my style of riding isn't exclusively about that. Maybe a way to help other people relate to trials bikes more easily is to publicise that end of the trials spectrum - 'street' style 'bike' shaped bikes. It seems to me that most of the high profile trials events are competitions, where the long low bikes are going to be found?

[background story: My frame snapped today, need a new one, considering a custom steel frame as an option for my replacement frame.] edit: Scroll down a bit, I'm just after some info about chainstay lengths in general now I'm in need of a new frame and I don't want to have the vertical dropout + tensioner setup that I've been running, because I keep on landing on the tensioner and breaking the mech hanger I could just get horizontal dropouts, but I'd rather not because of the fuss every time you take the wheel out/put it back in. My question is, is it a feasible solution to build a frame with vertical dropouts where the length of the chainstay is designed exactly so that the chain fits perfectly on the cogs without needing something to tension it? I know I'll be running 22t front and 18t rear so theoretically this should be possible? Anybody tried it? Does chain stretch mess it up or is that too small a difference?

[background story: My frame snapped today, need a new one, considering a custom steel frame as an option for my replacement frame.] I'm in need of a new frame and I don't want to have the vertical dropout + tensioner setup that I've been running, because I keep on landing on the tensioner and breaking the mech hanger I could just get horizontal dropouts, but I'd rather not because of the fuss every time you take the wheel out/put it back in. My question is, is it a feasible solution to build a frame with vertical dropouts where the length of the chainstay is designed exactly so that the chain fits perfectly on the cogs without needing something to tension it? I know I'll be running 22t front and 18t rear so theoretically this should be possible? Anybody tried it? Does chain stretch mess it up or is that too small a difference? edit: whoops this was meant to be in Trials Chat, not sure how it ended up here.