psycholist

If it was my hub I'd clean it out and sell it to an XC rider who won't die if the freehub skips the odd time. Then I'd buy a new one and not have to worry about my hub for another 5 years+. You've got your value for money from it and half the time parts don't even do you the courtesy of warning you something is wrong. The brinelling on the axle is almost certainly nothing to do with whether the hub was used by a basher or not and more to do with the hub either being used with loose bearings or without oil. Brinelling is caused by metal surfaces contacting each other without a thin film of lubricant between them - that's why headsets in road bikes tend to pit more often than in MTBs thanks to road bikes spending more time pointed staight ahead (Giving the lubricant film time to be driven out of the contact point between the bearings and races) even though MTB's and trials bikes take higher shock loads. It's also why you can hammer the cranks off a BB and the BB will still run just as smoothly afterwards.

Dipping the front of the bike lower on take off will allow you to push harder with the pedals to gap further (If you pedal too hard with the front high you'll loop out). I'm pretty sure I don't gap any bigger than in your video myself though, but that's what physics says is required. My limiting issue is that I'm very slow to commit to anything involving a lot of airtime or momentum...

Are you running one gear but still with a full cassette or a singlespeed sprocket? If you've a full cassette that may be the problem. I'd check the chainline first and then look for stiff links and especially twisted/impact damaged links in the chain. If there isn't enough chain wrap, the chain/sprocket is worn, the tension is low or the chain/sprocket combination isn't ideal (BMX chain on 9 speed cassette sprockets isn't great, 8 or 9 speed chain on singlespeed sprockets will often jam) you'll get problems.

No freewheel at all in the hub - when you roll forward it drives the chain forward and the freewheel is fitted to the cranks (Or not at all for the fixie road cycling types)...

As far as I'm aware there is nothing like this on the market - most people looking to use two brakes with one hand stack multiple levers at one side of the bar. I use dual control shifters/brakes on my bike and you'd be surprised how hard you can push down on the brake lever. Tweaking the lever movement/piston movement ratio for the downward lever movement vs. the backward movement could balance brake power even better come to think of it.

Very nice setup - is the lever closed system only or is there an open system option. If it's closed system you're pretty much stuck with HS33's unless it's for trials only where brake fluid heating is less of a problem.

The best named shoes are the Shimano M075 shoes... Read it upside down and you'll see why the top of the range shoes aren't called that ...

I got 8 or 9 months from new out of mine before the same thing happened. Never noticed a crack though. I'll be on steel forks from now on as I've had plenty of them fail (After a far longer time) and almost every one of them bent or showed a visible crack in plenty of time to allow me to replace them safely...

Not if you're trying to work out what width a tyre will be when you move to a rim of a different width - some XC frames back in the 90s couldn't take anything bigger than 1.9" tyres, even on rims that are pretty narrow by modern standards (I had the misfortune to own one of them )... With Canti brakes the outside width of a rim is pretty irrelevant as they'll accommodate pretty much any rim width, and that was all that was available when the naming convention was devised.

SPD shoes are rubbish on flat pedals, the soles are too stiff to give you any feel and the rubber on them is too hard to allow the pedals to dig in well. I find with cage type pedals soft soles (Such as skate shoes) are best as the rubber of the shoe needs to deform a lot around the cages, while for pinned pedals like V8's a harder sole such as that on runners is best. As an example I bought Nike 6.0 shoes for trials on the recommendation of a friend of mine who was using them. He likes cage pedals and they worked really well for him, but they just slid off my V8's as the rubber was soft enough that the pins just raked through the sole rather than gripping. I wear Asics runners riding trials (And doing pretty much everything else too) and find they're fantastic on V8's, but they don't grip anything like as well on cage pedals. Stiff or flexible sole is more down to personal preference, though I reckon a slightly stiffer sole is better with V8's than with cage pedals, purely because (decent) cage pedals tend to have a slightly bigger surface area, so support the foot more.

Have a look on internet for ez-outs...

Here's some: "Bally Jerry, pranged his kite right in the how's-your-father; hairy blighter, dicky-birded, feathered back on his sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harpers and caught his can in the Bertie."

Fundamentally life is pain ... At least you'll have got something for it/be able to explain it if you're sore from messing around on a trials bike ... I love my Echo Control - it's the best trials bike I've ever owned, but then again I haven't owned a lot of 100% specific trials bikes - up till a few years ago I still used MTB's modified to be suitable for trials...

Hope XC rear hub from 2002 - used it from new on my XC bike for XC - when I went to change the cassette I discovered 6 of the 8 sprockets on my cassette had dug into the steel freehub spline so deeply the cassette had to be hammered off. Contacted Hope and they claimed (Rightly given it couldn't take XC use either) the hub wasn't designed for trials and offered me no support... The freehub bearings would also partially seize when I closed the QR thanks to the spacer between the bearings deforming over time too, so it couldn't be backpedaled, which meant technical climbs were impossible. In a word: Junk. The front hub is still running perfectly years later, but it's hard to screw up two bearings on an axle (Though based on the number of hub flange failures I've seen and heard about from Hope even this isn't guaranteed)... Shimano XTR 2008 rear hub - I was hoping it'd match the previous XTR hub, which gave me 6 years and thousands of miles of XC use with no servicing required at all (Bearings were still smooth when I opened it to replace the freehub body after some intermittent skipping - It's still running on my XC bike now over 7 years on). Axle on the new model fatigue cracked in under a year, bought on ebay, so no warranty ... Formula ORO K18 - leaked through the caliper piston seals within 2 weeks of fitting it brand new to my trials bike. Best items I've ever bought - Any Magura brake that wasn't very second hand by the time I got it - The set of HS33's I bought new in 2000 is still running (Used for trials since new). Any Shimano brake, especially the first XT VBrakes and 4 pot XT disks (Mine are still running 7 years on having eaten countless pads and had the oil level topped up about twice), I replaced the front disk this year - it was 0.5mm thinner than a new disk, so getting a bit dangerous... DMR V8 pedals - I've yet to have to do more than shove clean grease in through the greaseport every year or two on any I've bought. Sold on one set with at least 3500 miles - often in wet muddy conditions - on them and all they had was a bit of bearing play (Which can be adjusted out anyway). Just fill them with grease before fitting and they seem to run forever. Shimano XTR dual control levers - Flawless performance, unmatched ergonomics - they're still running as good as new after 1.5 years... ENO freewheel - beautifully made, almost indestructible and still 100% reliable after well over a year's trials riding so far on it.

The Hopes are phenomenal brakes when they're set up right - enjoy .

I'm just big boned you silly bunt... I've got a 4 bolt booster (Which I fitted initially to stop me from breaking off the crossover on the Magura). It didn't make a huge difference to hold, but the feel at the lever is much better with the booster - the lever comes to a much firmer stop without being wooden. The frame is an Echo Control, so there was a lot of aluminium stiffening the brake mount already... Strangely the brake felt a lot more powerful on my second ride on it after a fresh grind and sanding the brake pads - it barely felt any better immediately after the grind somehow. The hold is still not flawless though - the tyre has more grip than the brake has hold, which means it could be better.

I have one of the ones integrated with the hub on my bike - It's performed perfectly for well over a year now, still showing no signs of problems. Only thing approaching a snag I've had is that in wet weather the jockey wheel will squeak if the pivot isn't oiled. My one isn't spring loaded though, so you set the tension after fitting the hub.

I've seen a few disk mounts come with 1 long and 1 short bolt and you use the short bolt where one bolt hole interferes with the disk. Everything went together without the need for extra spacers to deal with long bolts in the disks I've fitted. If the only problem is a long bolt, then cutting the bolt shorter will sort that provided you finish the threads cleanly (putting a nut onto the bolt before cutting, filing the end of the bolt smooth and removing the nut to confirm the threads are clear is the best way I've found to do this) and use fresh loctite on the threads. Putting 2mm of spacers under the bolt head probably won't look great, but it's a much quicker solution.

One thing that's saved me a couple of times is keeping a few spacing shims under the bolt head for storage so I always have the option of adjusting the caliper position during a ride too (It's a rare event, but it's saved me a couple of times in the past 5 or 6 years and the weight penalty is negligible).

If you need to adjust the alignment you'll probably have to get some of these: http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=356 - I'd buy the thinnest spacers listed unless you can see a huge space between the caliper and the frame when you put the caliper on over the disk. Ordinary hardware shop washers are cheaper and easier to come by for use as thicker spacers.

I'm pretty sure no smooth rim gives braking acceptable for trials use in mud/wet conditions, so grinding is essential. I'm running a pretty harsh grind (When you run your finger over the rim you can feel sharp edges on the braking surface) and green magura pads from superstarcomponents.com. They outperform Rock blues by miles with the same setup on the same rim anyway, but in marginal stuff (Landings where the wheel hangs off the edge of a ledge with a lot of my weight on it for example) the brake will still slip on me, though that may have something to do with my 90kg+ weight.

Only difference between folding and non-folding tyres is that folding ones use a kevlar loop inside the tyre bead to stop it coming off the rim while non-folding use a steel cable. In many cases the side walls on tyres are made lighter to increase the weight saving for the folding version of a tyre, but that's not a necessity by any means. Kevlar and steel beaded tyres will both stay put on a rim unless you're running insanely low pressure, in which case they're both likely to come off...

Torsion springs like the one between the tensioner mount and the jockey wheel carrier can be found in a lot of cheap v-brakes or cantis. The ones in derailleurs have more twists to keep tension more constant as the derailleur cage moves through a large angle.

The temptation to buy a billion dollar note from Zimbabwe is strong though (Valued at about €20), just so I can claim to be a billionaire in any currency... Since I'm in the Euro zone in Ireland, the Irish government can't get away with questionable behaviour like deliberately overprinting our currency and hoping the markets won't notice and start devaluing thankfully (Mostly because I know they'd do it of they thought they could get away with it). One thing that will ease costs is the drop in fuel prices from the start of the year and the reduction in world wide demand for raw materials though. I'd expect stuff from the far east to get cheaper for this reason, but that's not really going to be much compensation for people who need the money they have for more fundamental needs like food and shelter ...

Looks like I was close then... Still a bizarre fault. Unless there's evidence the ratchet ring was forcibly bent out of shape then Hope's warranty should cover it. Best thing to do is phone them. If they ask if you're the original owner then it's usually better to be truthful - people in warranty departments don't like being lied to and they get a lot more of it than most people. Given it's not an old hub and was designed for trials they can't say it was misuse anyway. If you can get a photo of the damaged drive ring it'd be interesting (At least to me ).