La Bourde

That is the way it should be to obtain the maximal leverage. I never owned a Xtr lever, but I had LX (with a 3 positions servo wave) and Avid levers (with a similar system). I never had problems. You will notice that the brake will feel more spongy this way, but this is to expect: applying more force leads to a higher deformation. That is why we recommended a better cable or the use of a brake booster.

Hello and welcome, Nice to see another trial addicted guy! Your setup is quite good:the lever is top and the brake arms good enough. You don't need to change something here. On the xtr lever, you can adjust the pulling ratio. The part holding the cable shall be as close as possible from the pivot. You can adjust this with a screw if I recall correctly. But consider changing the brakepads for trial specific pads. The compound is much softer and give much more bite and hold. It makes a huge difference! You won't have to grind the rim, as long as you ride only when it is dry. Grinding makes the brakes even more powerful, and it is the only way for rim brakes to perform in wet conditions. Another upgrade can be linear cables/housing like the Odyssey slic cables. They improve the feeling of the brake, the lever feels less spongy. It make a big difference too. A brake booster can also improve the feeling by increasing the stiffness of the couple frame/brakes. I don't know if this frame is stiff enough, it can be the case though. I prefer to have a slight spongy lever to prevent arm pump. But it is a personal preference maybe. Another small improvement: shorten the distance where your brakes arm is attached to the cable so that the adjustment dial of the lever is closer to the lever (one or two rotations could be left) Finally, you can buy better grips. Arm pump is amplified by shocks. Consider dual density grips. Edit: Ali C. already listed the most important changes

Were because and neon two different companies at all? Would be nice to know who was behind each brand...

I created a thread to share my experience: I used the version for tubes. Too sum up, I was quite happy with, but there was two major drawbacks: 1. I used a schwalbe tabletop to save some weights (to obtain with the insert a weight similar to the holy roller's one). Due to the stiffness of the insert, I had to reduce the pressure to get a good feeling. Else there was a dead feeling, the bike was like planted in the ground. But the thin sidewalls did not like this and the tire did not last long. The tire did also collapse during a manual in a turn, this was somehow difficult to control. 2. Due to the design and the low pressure, a lot of energy is wasted in the tire deformation. It is incredible how slower you get. I completely underestimated this. My bike used to roll as good as my comp bike with its new freewheel and the HS33 rubbing. I would like a street/trial bike that rolls well, so that I can go on the pumptrack or just roll :-)

Hello, After experimenting with the Taunus Armor insert, I would like to try a tubeless setup for my rear wheel of my street/trial bike. What tire do you recommend? Is an insert required? My rim is a DT FR 560. I was considering a Maxxis Ikon or Crossmark II. With my previous tires. (Tabletop + insert, holy roller), I often had problem with sidewalls getting open, cause I rode with low pressure and regularly on stones. On my comp bike, I have an old Maxxis DHR tubeless and the sidewalls are much sturdier (two ply). I don't get pinch flat either. Any recommendations?

Amazing video as always! Such a different way to ride, a great source of motivation! I really appreciate the precision moves (the side to side wheel displacement,the 180s), removing correction hops and being so well balanced on the bike give such a nice flow! It looks so easy to accomplish, but every experienced riders knows how many tries are required... That is why I like your edits. It is not everything about balls like some Austrian blond rider. It is more about creating flow using precision, on creative lines full of difficult and tricky moves.

Oh and there is this solution too: wolftooth roadlink https://www.wolftoothcomponents.com/products/roadlink This is like an extension of the rear mech hanger to allow usage of wider range cassette on a road bike. That shall do the work.

You can replace the upper pulley wheel with a smaller one: a 10t instead of 11t shall slightly increase the clearance.

I don't know how good is this Reverse tensioner. Did you consider the Rolhoff ? https://www.rohloff.de/de/shop/produktdetail?tt_products[product]=605&cHash=9ef08bf21b365a39a9d7503c8109781c It used to be the best chain tensioner years ago. The range of supported chain line is quite wide.

With a friend we train on a narrow curb, that is higher than the pavement on both sides. It is quite long, maybe 30 meters. There is a slight slope, so that one does not need to pedal in one direction. This is the easiest setup, the one you train on first. Going up is more difficult as you have to be able to pedal or at leat kick regularly while moving your knies. The most important is to lean your bike to the side you are falling off while you try to maintain your upper body at the same position. Do not try to turn the handlebar. Look at Ryan Leech, is upper body is always perfect above the rail and his knees and bike are floating around under him. Use your knees and lower slighty your hipps to create a space for the bike under you. I noticed, that when I have to lean the bike a lot, I pedal backwards quarter a rotation to make even more place...but then I have to switch once my feet back again. Sometime you will do a "dog piss" (removing one foot from the pedal) and in this case, dropping your chest somehow helps.

Hopefully with the upcoming bike industry crisis, the companies will focus again on niche products and passionate people instead of benefit. At least I think it will be easier for small brands to obtain production capacity. But maybe I am too naive.

Regarding the stem, you can use your smart phone to estimate the angle. The length is the distance between the center of both tubes (fork steer tube and bar). Take also in consideration the width of your bar: the span of your arms influence a lot the height of your chest. Regarding the freewheel, a good cheap one was the tensile with 60 clicks. Maybe you can find an used one. Other recent freewheels are quite expensive but the quality seems higher.

Welcome! As Ali said, you can learn trial basics on almost all kind of mountain bikes. But for 80€, you definitively didn't do something wrong here. The frame was repaired, right? Chech regularly the new weld, it is difficult to repair an alloy frame correctly. You can go with hs11 or 2005 hs33. They are quite cheap. But V-brakes are fine too, as long as you use good brakepads (dedicated to trial), cables and housing. For your information, Sunn had horizontal dropouts for this frame (and other of this area like forestjump, tzar, etc.). Difficult to find though. For me, the first upgrade will be the brake pads then the cables/housing of the rear brake and then a good freewheel (this last change being very expensive)

I think this bike could be a fun all rounder. As you said you can jump with, but also have fun at the skatepark or just during commuting or chilling through the city That is why I recommend you to go for a front suspension like a rock shox Reba or sector with a travel reduced to 80mm. The weight is close to a Rebate. The stiffness of the fork won't be great. Maybe you can buy an EC44/40 headset bottom cup to fit the tapered version of the fork. It makes a big difference.

Heal up soon! Fingers crossed for the surgery.

It is somehow funny that one of the best brakeless rider (if not not the best) recommends some brake pads (Don't get me wrong, I know he gives a lot of good advice. )

I agree with you. I think consistency in feel is more important that a solid feeling. If your bite point varies, it is really really annoying. The cable actuated disc brakes of my street/trial are a little spongy. The HS33 of my comp trial not at all. But due to some dents in the rim, the rear HS33 bites sometimes sooner as I expect. It makes manuals or rolling on the rear wheel more difficult. Too me, the solid feeling just allows you to be more confident - I admit I bought BMX cables and housing for my street/trial and it is one really good update, cause the rear brake was really spongy. I have the impression that having a too solid/too firm brake also increases arm pump. Basically you have to be able to hold the same pressure while your hands/wrists are moving. Any thoughts?

Hi, recently I was regularly trying to true the rear wheel of my stock comp trial bike. Unfortunately I noticed that the sidewalls are slightly bent at different spots. The wheel still holds, but I guess I will have to replace the rim soon. What rim would you recommend? My current rim is a Bonz Pro Light. I am a light guy (around 65kg, 140lbs) and I am not so powerful. I will describe my level as intermediate (my landings are sometimes far from smooth!). I think the Trialtech Carthy wheel is too strong/stiff for me. I am not obsessed by the weight of the components, but only if it makes sens. Does this rim ride much better? Can I expect the wheel to be longer true? I found the Hashtagg rim quite interesting. Any thoughts? Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate.

The videos from your trip are amazing... Hope some more are coming. Really like to see you ride boulders, it looks so nice. To answer your question: there use to be some Maxxis Minion SS (semi slick) 26" x 2.3 with dual down (120 tpi). Not sure they are still available though. I was looking for an alternative to the holy roller with thicker sidewalls but I never found a tyre that matches. Cutting down a DH tyre could be a solution.

It is a though question, hope I can help. First of all, a fork has two purposes: to delay energy of an impact to absorb energy of an impact The first purpose is achieved through a spring function and is the most important: without a good spring function, nothing can improve the fork overall function. The second is achieved using for example a hydraulic cartridge. The compression adjustments are NOT position related (how much you are in travel) but related to the wheel displacement speed. 3 domains are defined: low speed, mid speed, high speed Mid speed setting cannot be externally adjusted (only a few exceptions on the market) Most compression adjustments affect low and high speed simultaneously or only low speed. The rebound adjustments are more position sensitive. There are only a few suspensions on the market that allow to adjust high speed rebound - and 99.9% of the riders do not need it. Almost all forks allow only to adjust low speed rebound. Movements from you body like to push in a flat turn are mostly considered as low speed displacements. So I guess most load transfers like a pivot on the front wheel or some placement hops/maneuvers are low speed displacements. Getting an impulse for a bunny hop shall be mid speed/high speed (for sure high speed if you use a brick edge for example to kick higher) Dropping from a high wall will generates high speed wheel displacement. Hitting edges like to tap against a wall with the front wheel will be controlled by the high speed compression. You want to use all of your travel on the biggest hits so that a lot of energy is delayed/dissipated and the landings are not harsh. Most forks do not offer a high speed adjustment, this is done internally in the shim stack. But it is not a problem, most of the energy of a drop shall not be dissipated but delayed, i.e. will be temporary accumulated by the spring and released so that the fork can extend back fast enough (the end of the extension is controlled by the low speed rebound damping - this is the rebound adjustment on most fork, the high speed rebound is determined again by the shim stack). So the first and most important setting will be the spring function (either with a coil spring or air spring). When the compression adjustment of your fork is fully open (I.e. the oil can flow easily) it should be able to remove most of the harshness of the biggest impact. This can be achieved by changing the coil spring rate or the volume of the positive air chamber. Preload of a coil spring will NOT really affect this! Modifying the high speed shim stack will also have almost a negligible impact on this. Changing oil viscosity too. As a trial rider, you want your fork to transmit the energy when doing a tap. But it does not come for free: the comfort will be affected, hits will be more noticeable. It means the high speed compression setting is a compromise (I think one can rely on the energy delayed by the spring, but I don't know if a rider can really benefit from this) Now regarding the low speed compression: I guess a trial rider wants his/her forces to be transmitted to the ground and does not want the geometry to be too easily affected. So closing the low speed compression adjustment seems to be right. This implies here again less comfort, but not on impact directly more arm fatigue (arm pump), cause more forces act against your muscles/body. Regarding the low speed rebound: this difficult to say. I guess because there are no succession of impacts (at least in street), the rebound could be slow. But having it faster might help to get more energy on a tap for example. The preload (case of a coil spring) defines his much forces has to be applied to displace the fork. It means it can remove completely the small bumps compliance. This is not great, use the right spring rate. The sag shall be adjusted to obtain the wished geometry. Ideally, a trial fork should have a dial to adjust how much damping the high speed compression shall have. It will be nice to adjust slightly the low speed compression to match the current fitness of the rider. Maybe the low speed rebound shall be adjusted by the same dial as the high speed compression, but the opposite way. Unfortunately, on most dirt forks the adjustment are basic: low speed rebound, spring preload or sag. Sometimes there is a sort of lockout that impacts low and high speed compression (and rebound).

Thanks a lot Mark, will have a look and with this in depth explanation I will try again.

It is also a difficult one! I can manual, I can do a 180° but the manny 180° ... it seems out of reach to me! It is also quite hard to see a nice one to be honest. It seems to me to be particularly tough on a 26", even more without bitch crank. But I agree with you, the 1:45 line was a highlight too.

Hi, I have some BB7s on one of my bike and I am really happy with. The difference with the BB5 is quite small afaik, one can adjust both pads position on the BB7 but not on the 5. They require more forces to actuate the lever than hydraulic brakes, but they are powerful enough. I have standard brakepads on them. I have really good cables though: BMX Odyssey linear cables. It makes a huge difference in the feel. Be careful also with the rotors. Some take a long time to get bet in and some combinations of rotor/brakepads suck. I would not recommend Magura brakes due to their fragile levers. Shimano Zee are good enough with good brakepads like the trickstuff. But to be honest, in your case I will stick to the BB5, put some nice cables and brake pads. And if the power is not enough go for bigger rotors. What levers and what rotors do you use?

His last video is quite nice too:

I really enjoyed your two last videos. Thank you for filming your riding, it is so inspiring!