psycholist

Taking payment for the event in advance like was done for the first Tartydays would at least give an idea whether the event can break even before the money is paid for the event facilities. Maybe find a serviced campsite near a good trials area and get a group deal for that. Once people are close enough to the trials spot and the campsite rules are followed it could be a goer with a lot less organising headaches. Somewhere coastal with rocks and street stuff could work well provided there aren't too many people on the urban stuff. There are a couple of places in Ireland that could fit the bill for this, so there must be plenty in the UK...

It's only the folks from the south east of Ireland that have this problem with their th's, and as far as anyone living away from the east coast they're practically west britain anyway ... I enjoyed Tartydays a lot this year. Great to see so many people riding so well. Got a few lines I was pleased with myself too and the atmosphere and the banter were great. Much more stuff to play on than last year and while it was raining in the mornings I got to have a good look around the other displays at the event too - some fantastic stuff there and at the risk of sounding middle-aged, the standard of carving and woodwork on display were exceptional, especially given that most people involved were amateurs. The guy at the wood chipper stand was a bit of a legend too (Turns out he's a mountain biker as well) - we now know what the best chipper for (hypothetically ) disposing of a body is this one: http://www.timberwolf-uk.com/Templates/350infopg.html One thing that was a bit disappointing was that both burger stands I went to for food during the day were not only poor value for money, but the standard of the food itself was very poor too - the burgers we got on Sunday at the BBQ were absolutely amazing though. Huge thanks to everyone involved! I'll hopefully be able to make it again next year.

Hopefully hitting the road to Dublin in the next hour for the ferry...

Spot on with the meaning of cock fart . It's what the rooster does before getting out of bed to wake the rest of the farm ... 66 hours to go...

Just read this whole thread from the start after ages away from this forum - can't wait . The same Irish contingent are heading over as last year for a second helping of trials, pyromania and talking shite . We're sheduled to roll off the ferry around 5:30 am in Holyhead. We'll probably try to sleep somewhere if we can keep the adrenaline down and hit Tartydays as it opens on Saturday morning ... For anyone looking for me, I'll be on an all disk braked blue 26" GU riding everything under 2 feet high ... Is the location in the map linked below correct? Just want to make sure because we'll probably be navigating by it http://tartydays.co.uk/event-information/location/ Will there be Woodfest/Tartydays signposts up by cock fart on Saturday morning from Abergele or Bodelwyddan?

I'm about 90 kg and have no problems with a 108 click Echo freehweel and Trialtech cranks on an ISIS BB. The good news on the front freewheel cranks is that they're a pretty soft grade of aluminium, so they'll tend to lose threads rather than snap suddenly. Previous to that I ran Middleburns on an ISIS BB (I ran Middleburns on a square taper BB before that until I started snapping BB axles, I've never had an ISIS axle fail on me), but this was before the Hope Pro II trials hub was on the market in a reliable form, so the rear hub (Shimano XTR) was the weak point (I hadn't the cash to go Chris King and anything from Shimano short of XTR would fail at the freehub in months - the real problem was it was a 16 click hub, so crappy pick-up). If I was building a bike from scratch right now I'd go with the front freewheel setup I currently have - the pickup on it is better than any other setup I've seen that's strong enough for the job. Superstar and Industry Nine have 120 click hubs, but I broke a Superstar one riding XC (Their warranty support is excellent and I was told it was only the second of these hubs he'd ever seen fail, but they're definitely not up to trials use), not sure about Industry Nine, but they're not enough cheaper than Chris King to justify them over King hubs...

I've a Louise on the front and a Hope mono trials on the back of my 26" bike. The Louise feels great up front, but it definitely doesn't have the bite or hold of the Hope. Both are 200/203 mm. On the front the Louise is a good choice though because it bites and holds well without being a completely on/off brake like the Hope.

I'm liking the feel of Tha Goat's Avid arms with XTR lever and Nokon cable outer... Not as much as I like the Hope Mono Trials I'm using on the back though ...

Check the barbs on the ends of the crossover for damage - if you put notches into the edges of the barbs while cutting the old hose off them you've probably created a path for fluid to leak out.

What I've found is that the riders I've met who are genuinely good at national/international level tend to be a lot more encouraging and less judgmental than the ones who are second or third best in their local riding group and feel a need to lord it over someone after getting their asses handed to them by obviously better riders. I know I'll never be desperately good on a trials bike, but that doesn't stop me riding or take from the buzz I get from nailing a line that I could never do before. The only people that get abuse out of the trials riders in my area are the ones that don't go out riding and the abuse they get is for not being out and has nothing to do with how good they are...

The kgf unit was made up by Americans who didn't understand that the units in the SI unit system defined mass and force as separate entities right from day one. The pound was originally a measure of force before it was understood that a mass in gravity exerted a force which could be measured and mass was invariant with gravity. I'd avoid using the kgf unit at all costs - Newtons are the correct units of force.

I'm a very regular solo rider. Solo riding is a great time to practice the repetitive stuff and mess with new lines. I also find it very relaxing to stick in headphones and enjoy being alone. It's also a much higher intensity as there are no stops to see what other people are doing and I tend to cover ground a lot more quickly. Much less organising needed for solos rides too of course. Group rides are great for the chance to push yourself knowing that if you crash there's help at hand. Watching how other people tackle a given line is a great way to learn new techniques or even to see lines you never thought of. If I did all group rides I'd definitely not get out riding half as often and would probably be less fit, though I may well be a slightly better rider in terms of trying dodgier lines.

I've seen a good few people say there's nobody in their area to ride with, so they go trialsing alone, other people get out on rides with groups, so here's the inevitable survey. I reckon it'll be interesting to see what the results are like. Are the same people at every ride or is there a lot of variation? Does who comes out vary depending on where you're riding? How regularly do group rides take place? Is your riding group growing or shrinking? Why you prefer to ride solo or in a group? Are there advantages and disadvantages to solo/group riding etc.

Does this mean that to be a trendy sport trials riders need to learn to hate people who do other sports? I think those who gravitate towards trials tend to be less trendwhoreish about their sport. Half the reason lots of people run the same setups is because there are so few decent products available. Unless you're pulled in to trials by a big group of local riders (And I'm guessing very few people are what with the shortage of big groups of trials riders in most places), most people ride trials because they have chosen to, not because their friends do it. As a result of this you're guaranteed to meet a very varied range of people because riding trials is what unites them and that's enough.

If you spin the cranks does the chain get the tension you set it to at one crank position? If this is the case nothing's moved and you just need to set the chain up with slightly more tension (Just make sure the cranks don't seize part way around if there's a big difference between the max and min chain tension over a crank turn). If something's moved then you need to tighten the hub more or to roughen the surfaces where the hub touches the frame. Degreasing the surfaces is a good first thing to try.

11.1 kg for my stock bike... Could probably knock 1 kg off with an aluminium fork, Echo SL cranks, CF bars and stem and lighter wheels, tubes and tyres, but the bike works way too well for me to consider changing anything to save weight and I could lose more than the weight of the bike in fat and see a much bigger improvement ...

Really not somewhere to try saving weight. Only thing you could do without compromising reliability is remove any brake mounts you're not using (If it's a disk and V fork and you only use a disk for example) or drill the dropouts if they're plates. Also, as soon as you leave an opening in the paintwork the fork will rust, so it'll need painting after drilling. You can save way more weight by getting an aluminium fork, but I trust my steel Onza fork a lot more than an aluminium fork, even though I could save almost 400g over the current fork by fitting a trialtech one...

I wear swimming shorts (The more garish the better ) and a T-Shirt unless it's freezing outside, in which case I'll put a hoodie on. I do find that to give my legs free movement for tucking I have to go a size or two bigger than my waist size, but the drawstring sorts out the difference ... I usually carry keys and a phone with me and a set of bluetooth headphones to play music from the phone if I'm out on my own. I bring water in the car and park somewhere around the centre of the area I go riding in so it's reasonably handy. I never wear jeans at all because they're too hot even in winter. But then again I sweat like a pedophile in a Barney suit once I get going...

I'm pretty sure I'm a lesbian ...

I was away on holidays for the past week and a bit, so only reading this thread now. I reckon the event couldn't have been a whole lot better run in terms of the facilities. Camping, catering and showers were all spot on. For anyone not interested in what was available on site from the catering, there were shops very close by anyway. I was expecting to have to sort out all my own food and it was brilliant to get food cooked for us. As for the course, it was very much a case that the riders with the sidehopping skills almost exclusively stayed on the trailer and the logs near it, while very few made any use of the balance beams, the logs around the back of the water gap and the digger tyres standing on edge, so a lot of the demo course doesn't seem to be what people were looking for (Definitely too big for me to try anyway). I don't think beginner obstacles are what people are looking for either, more stuff to ride that doesn't involve taking a big fall if it all goes wrong. I'm not a beginner on a trials bike, but the stuff I like is definitely more difficult than dangerous. As an example, make a whole pile of awkward balance beams a foot off the ground and I'll ride the shit out of it, put the same thing 3 or 4 feet up and there's no way I'd risk it... As for the location - I think it was excellent. The full way across Ireland plus 50 miles from the Holyhead ferry for me to get there. It would have been a lot more traveling for me if the event was in the South of England - I'd probably still have gone if there was less than 4 or 5 hours drive from the ferry. The location, manageable numbers and distance from houses meant we could make noise and have a laugh without annoying anyone else. One thing I noticed the second night was that the bonfire used for the BBQ was put almost directly under some electric wires running across the field, so that's something to watch for next time.

Having the front wheel spinning while going across stuff looks slightly cooler ... No difference really unless you're willing to argue for the spinning front wheel adding slightly to your stability through gyroscopic forces... If you've got a really heavy front wheel, movements that change the angle of the bike such as when you kick onto the back wheel from flat ground may be noticeably easier with the front brake off.

I've got one and it's a great fit for me at 5' 11". Built with an Onza Tuf Guy fork (Because having snapped an Echo urban after about 8 months I'd be very slow to trust Aluminium forks at that price again, the Trialtech fork is the only one I'd trust, but it's silly money - I've snapped a load of steel forks too, but they all cracked slowly and bent instead of just letting go without warning like the Echo fork). I run a Tarty forged stem and Trialtech risers and the bike is awesome on the front wheel. I run dual disk on it and wouldn't go back to Maguras either.

If you put the cassette back on you can usually get the freehub off by putting a bar through the spokes and tapping the back of the cassette...

Back home in now after a 2:30 am ferry and a drive across Ireland and not quite enough sleep. We found some really nice trials riding in Holyhead while we were waiting for the ferry too... Great lines on the rocks near the port and we found a skatepark as well though didn't get to ride that. We got a few funny looks from the locals when we decided to have a picnic in the corner of one of the car parks though - possibly lounging around in deckchairs looking like you're enjoying the view only looks normal if you're not surrounded by brick walls... Huge thanks to everyone who helped with the organising, the legendary level of the catering - we even got given food for a picnic when we left after mentioning we had a half day's wait for the ferry. Big thanks to Netty and the rest of the first aid crew for sorting Tha Goat out after headbutting the tyre on Friday and to the folks in the hospital for sorting him out quickly. Also thanks to the guy (Who's name I don't remember) who sorted the Skodamobile out with a jump start after I left it charging stuff all night and killed the battery . Thanks to the youngsters who kept the bonfire fuelled all evening so all I had to do was sit around and chat. Definitely the best atmosphere I've ever seen at an event and the best weekend's biking I've done in ages. Roll on next year ...

If being able to do the stuff the pros can do was a requisite for trials riding I'd have given up a decade ago... Thankfully there's something about bouncing bikes around on (small) obstacles that still obsesses me even after 14 years of being shit at it...