psycholist

If your computer runs Windows you've probably got a free copy of Windoze Movie Maker. It's not brilliant, but perfectly competent for making basic video. The layout of most video editing programs is simple enough drag the video clips as files onto a timeline, where they take up space based on how long they are, cut them where you want them to be cut, slap on a soundtrack and a few captions and you're sorted... Unless you've got a very specific idea what you want to do, the easiest thing is pick a short song, set that as your video length and match your clips to it...

I'm 29, started MTB/trials when I bought a steel Raleigh at about 16 or 17 and discovered that the sport of biketrials existed a few years after that... If youtube had been around when I started I'd hate to think of the stuff I'd have been trying ...

Freewheels are the same whether you use them on the front or the back, they're all on 1.37" right hand threads, so the only problem you might have is if your BB axle is too short to allow clearance for the freewheel on the front when you change cranks.

The rear disk on my hardtail is gone pretty rattly and that doesn't get trialsed - just a few backhops the odd time ... Officially floating calipers allow the rim of the disk to expand relative to the disk spider for high temperature use (It reduces the chance of the disk warping). Shimano/Magura disks are riveted to the spider and so aren't really floating disks, but they get rattly just the same if they're used on the back...

Are you pumping water through the brake? Hold the whole brake under water, cover the bleed port at the lever with your finger to seal it, pull the lever, then take your finger off the lever bleed port and release the lever - repeat this a few times and it will drive water through the brake. Also check the orientation of the slave cylinders as you pump water through - if bubbles can sit in the upper corners of either of the slaves the bleed won't work either, so make sure the exit from the each slave piston is its highest point too. *edit* Beaten to it

You'll get a load more than 5 bikes into the van. If you take the front wheels off and pack them upright against each other with the forks turned 90 degrees so the handlebars are lined up with the frame you'll probably get 7 or 8 in a row across the width of the van. Put a sheet of cardboard (half a bike box is ideal for this) between each bike to protect against scratching and you're set (cut space for the pedals to go through the cardboard for tight packing, making sure the pedals don't hit the bikes each side). I've done this for a few MTB trips and it works very well (And is surprisingly quick to pack and unpack too. With trials bikes, there will probably be space to put a second layer on top even on a low roofed van...

Keep trying sidehops both ways - it gives you more options. I find sidehopping to my front foot still feels more natural, but it seems easier to get to the back wheel hopping towards my back foot. It also seems easier to land front wheel first and pivot the back wheel up when I hop towards the back foot, which does allow for higher hops.

The tool for it has been out of stock everywhere for the past year as far as I can see - I've been looking for one for about that long with no success ...

The suggestion above of putting a few holes in the steerer and welding through those is a good one too - it means that if a crack forms in one weld the fork should hold together and just get creaky/rattly to give you warning rather than just letting go. Steel is better at not failing suddenly and catastrophically anyway though, so it's not critical. Keeping the steerer straight as you weld it will take a bit of work though...

Mathematically you'll need a 208mm rotor to get the same hold on a 26" tyre as a 160mm rotor on a 20" tyre. I'd need to change frame to do it, but I'm giving some thought to dual disk on my next 26" bike too, having tried Hope trial disks on a friend's mod...

A bigger front sprocket will give a higher gear, a bigger rear sprocket gives a lower gear. If you don't get gear ratios try thinking about them in terms of how much chain the sprocket moves, so a 18T front sprocket in one turn of the cranks moves the chain forward 18 rollers. If the rear is a 12T then this sprocket has to be driven on 18 roller's worth of chain too. 12 rollers of chain moved will cause a complete turn of a 12T sprocket, so it makes sense that the gear ratio is 18/12 = 1.5, this means the rear wheel turns 1.5 times for each turn of the pedals. If you want a higher gear change to a smaller sprocket at the back, if lower use a bigger rear sprocket.

Ireland is on the list of places visited - where did you go? Dublin, Galway and Limerick all have 1 or 2 trials riders (And some very nice riding).

Very true ...

Given in the past few weeks there's been at least 1 or 2 posts on Avid bb5/7 brakes and the best people could do was describe in text how to go at the brake, something like this would be good: http://mbul.csn.ul.ie/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3572 It doesn't take that long either once you have a camera handy while you're pulling the brake apart.

Organic pads should get the disk hotter quicker as they tend to be less thermally conductive. Sintered pads have more metal in them and therefore conduct more heat away from the disk to the brake caliper. On my Shimano XT 2 pot brakes, organic pads give more bite, less life (Probably by about 1/3) and don't howl like sintered pads often do when the disk is running hot (And by hot I mean 40mph descents in the Alps, not dragging it down the local high street - mostly either pad type will be silent unless its contaminated with oil). Magura disks don't even come with a sintered pad option AFAIK as they reckon organic are the way to go (With mineral oil's lower boiling point compared to DOT 5.1, better insulating brake pads will reduce the likelihood of brake fluid boiling, so that might be part of their reasoning too (Shimano are also mineral oil though)... This is all monumentally irrelevant for trials of course as the disks never see that kind of heat ).

A friend of mine sandblasted his disk to roughen it. Made the bite a little better for a few hours, then the pads polished it back to normal. Don't think overall power was improved at all though. Disks with bigger holes tend to have more bite and hold thanks to them allowing the brake pads to flex into the holes more when the brake is pulled if you're unhappy with the brake you have.

Definitely don't send card data on an email unless you encript it. You'll see web sites that take credit card data use https:// instead of http:// at the start of the web address, which means your information has been encripted before sending to the website. It's relatively easy to scan unencripted emails looking for data that looks like credit card info, so the probability of your information being stolen is relatively high depending where the email is routed through. There is a possibility the email is not from who it claims to be either and is a phishing attempt. Before google checkout started taking my details correctly (It wanted a postcode and Ireland doesn't use them) I used to have to phone Tarty to give credit card details - this is almost always more secure than unencripted email. Of course getting through to them on the phone poses its own difficulties ...

Phoning CRC is a dead loss based on a few bikemagic threads and people I know personally who've tried it. If you need to phone try first thing in the morning or non-coffee break times during the day as most people trying to phone will try during break/lunchtime or on the hour - persistence seems to be the key...

Freewheels are the same whether they're used on the front or the back - the lockring unscrews clockwise away from the hub/crank it's been screwed onto on all of them I've seen (Necessary to stop thread precession from unscrewing them in use). The ENO freewheels a huge number of people (Including me) find excellent on the front of our trials bikes were designed to go on the back of BMXes.

That's a closed system brake (No reservoir, so all the fluid in the brake is pressurised when the lever is pulled). Bleed like Magura rim brakes rather than like you bleed most disks...

My urbans snapped without warning after 8 months through both legs at the top of the Magura mounts. Don't get the ones with the rear facing Magura mounts if you would prefer the front wheel to stay attached...

Pretty much every BMX does this and the Koxx Acidrop is an example of a trials bike with this setup (Though the geometry on my Acidrop is more street then trials)... No reason it can't be done. Using the freewheel on the front allows smaller cogs to be used, improving BB clearance and potentially moving the centre of gravity of the bike forward, which makes front freewheel worthwhile on a trials bike but not essential by any means...

If you like the way the bike currently handles steering wise, changing the handlebars or stem is the easiest way to raise the bars and a lot cheaper than buying a fork (And potentially having weird steering). The fork you have is a pretty normal length for a trials bike, if it's the length and offset the frame is designed for I'd definitely go the stem/riser bar route.

The pins aren't really the weak points in a chain, it's their fit with the outer plates - only way I've snapped chains was either through the side plates (Very unusual - fatigue failure in a 8 speed chain I'd used for about a year on my trials bike - see the picture below) or having the pin pop out of a side plate and the chain coming apart that way. I think the side plates on 1/8" chains are thicker, which means they resist the bending induced in them by the tension from the inner links not being on the same line of action as the tension from the outer links. If the side plates bend less there's less force inducing the pins to come out of the outer side plates. That coupled with the longer protrusion of the chain pins out of the side plates cuts the likelihood of the pin coming out. The chain will feel stiffer under power too - My bike only takes 1/8" chain, but it would be interesting to try an 8 or 9 speed chain and see if it feels stretchier on pedal kicks or just when standing on the front pedal with the brake on. The chain is far from the only part that flexes under pedaling loads though, so it might be difficult to isolate... The pictures shown in the post above don't show a bicycle chain at all (Or any bicycle chain that's been made in the last 20 or 30 years at least AFAIK). On a bicycle chain half of each bush that goes under the roller is forged into each of the inner side plates of the chain rather than press fitted into the inner links. Bike chains are known as 'swaged bushing chains' and are stronger for their weight because the inner link plates have a smaller hole in them as they only need to carry the pin rather than the bushing. The disadvantage is that oil gets washed out of swaged bushing chains much more easily than standard bushing chains.

I do the same to grind my rims - I find a thin cutting disk gives a harsher grind. Grinding disks give a grind with more modulation, but less hold...