Alex Dark

I believe the image hosting site went down / was bought leaving a lot of the forums devoid of pictures… so how-to guides and galleries were useless.

Steady decline since about 2009 or so. Street trials divided a lot of the riders , even more so than the comp vs street contingent. Seemed a lot moved over to street, then couldn’t find the same long term enjoyment out of it. Lots of new riders ( seemingly) got frustrated quickly when starting out on street bikes and didn’t carry it on. There was a flurry of innovation up to about 2016 or so, notably the echo 2011 range, crewkerz jealousy / cleeps and the first clean bikes. Most of the Chinese brands dropped out notably Deng / echo leaving only the competition brands remaining. Koxx overreached and went bankrupt, Hashtagg was their sequel but went almost entirely the same way ( only selling brake clamps and pedals etc now ). Monty seemed to take too long to adopt modern frame construction, when they bought out the m5 carbon not enough people bought them and they went down too. Onza bought out arguably their best parts / bikes then promptly went bust too. Ozonys got swallowed by crewkerz, Jitsie seems to be pulling back from biketrials steadily over the last few years leaving the two big C’s in competition trials to be the only options. Inspired seems to be doing well in street trials but its sister company trialtech isn’t bringing a huge amount of new parts out. Less people are buying frames to build… largely because they cant buy them anymore. There are less riders , but those that remain are the core people who really love it IMO. We also have 4 of the best riders in the world here that also actually for the most part, get out and ride and socialise with the mere mortals. There are group rides happening and a few have really tried to do a lot to further trials in the UK. It’s a mixed bag… but there’s still a strong , albeit considerably smaller populous scene in the UK.

Thanks Luke ! Maybe we should try and get a reunion ride on the go soon with some of the old faces ?

Quick video from a day riding plymouth. https://youtu.be/LUHXZdgyIjw?si=tyK9TC5l9ZArHH8j

Trialtech are still very much a thing… but stock levels are pretty low. Trialtech / Inspired had a stand at The Malverns Classic back in August so still have a presence 😊

Built up my k1.2 1065 finally. Frame is from Kovacs Peter, rattlecanned in the garage with some homemade carbon protectors 😊

To be honest I’m pretty sure all modern FFW use heavier springs so will be considerably more draggy than the eno you’re used to. For lower rolling resistance I’d definitely look at Freehub.

Really smart that , those Lewis brakes look great… never seen those before.

The pistons are hygroscopic, the nylon absorbs water. If you remove the seals, you can sand the of the piston down so it’s again smaller than the bore of the cylinder. If you get it to size with 120, then move up to about 600 it should work fine. You can test the fit in the bore whilst you’re doing it, it should drop to the bottom with little to no play in the bore.

For outright strength I think I’d go pro4. Hydras are very good, but the Freehub body is aluminium. The harder you can kick, the more the pawls dig into it and oversize the pawl seats / sockets.

Ha I saw this the other day on Cleans website and thought it was pretty shady. It’s certainly not POE, more degrees until engagement.

Love the look of this, looking forward to seeing the finished build!

Apparently he will be , but has to ride a complete clean setup so no hope hub on the trials bike…. But he’ll keep his hope MTB

Pretty sure these are recent ( ish ) echo lite 20" forks.

Thanks 😄 standard TGS vibe as usual 😉 Much appreciated ☺️ cheers!

Thanks mate Cligga Head , Wheal Kitty and Charlestown. Bits on the moors were Minions near Liskeard.

Finally got myself sorted with a laptop again to get some editing done, so here's my video from 2023 on the Clean X3. Highlights from Glastonbury Festival, Radfest and some classic Cornish spots. Would like to hear people's feedback as it's been a long while since I last sat down and edited a video properly. Cheers 🫠

Higher rise bar will just raise the front end, should make it easier to bunnyhop but probably at the cost of backwheel control.

Chris king ? I’m sure they’d have an axle option to suit.

I’ve only really had good results with Coustellier pads. Everything else I’ve tried has had a catch…. Good , but needs a sharp grind, good , but won’t work in the rain etc.

Shortening the pad prongs was something that was done quite a lot back in the day, I don’t remember any people having much problem with it. Might be an issue if you swap to a frame with a lot wider spaced mounts.

Over the years we’ve had a few indoor spots down in cornwall. We don’t have anything currently but we’re trying to sort something for this winter.

Pretty certain this would have been 128mm. Most front freewheel bikes run this length ISIS bb.

Thought the frame could do with a freshen up for 2024. Really happy with the colour, used some funky 2k aerosol lacquer on this too that seems to have come out really well. reworked the carbon frame protectors, skinned them again in plain black carbon instead of the green I had previously.

I really like these bikes, geo sounds really nice and they look solid.