psycholist

Fruitcayke...

When was the wheel moving in the dropout during the hook? I'm wondering because for normal use, having the caliper at the back of the fork leg leads to the wheel coming out of the dropouts during braking while rolling forward. Putting the caliper on the front of the leg means the disk pushes the wheel more firmly into the dropout during braking while rolling forwards. The peak brake force during a hook is presumably when the front wheel has hooked over the top of the ledge and you hang backwards off the bike by the front wheel before hopping onto the ledge. This loads the brake backwards (Which for a normal caliper forces the wheel more firmly into the dropouts). Based on this thinking, the caliper location on the Pashleys is better for every use but trials... Cotic also make a rigid fork with the disk mount on the front of the fork leg, but the reason they do it is to allow standard full length mudguards to be fitted to the front fork.

The RB one seems to be the worst of both worlds, namely a friction dependent roller for engaging drive combined with a notchy surface for it to engage in, giving a finite number of engagement points like a freewheel combined with a spongy engagement like a roller clutch...

Titanium is much harder to weld and harder to get someone with the skill and equipment to do the job too. I think the Monty frames are all Aluminium though.

No silent clutch picks up instantly - I'm pretty sure the LX one allows more twist in the freehub before it engages than the likes of Chris Kings. The sponginess of the engagement is the real killer for trials use though. Here's how a lot of them work: http://www.gmnbt.com/freewheel_technology.htm A Roller clutch arrangement is shown for comparison with the sprag clutch here: http://www.gmn.de/front_content.php?idcat=38&idart=94

That sounded a bit rude ... I posted a picture of the internals of a Pro II and instructions for opening it a while ago on this thread if you want to see what to expect: http://www.trials-forum.co.uk/forum/index....amp;hl=hope+pro

Don't put anything that dries as a thick grease near the ratchet pawls - it will slow their movement and make the freewheel more likely to skip. Light oil is best for pawls. Don't put too much grease in the bearings either as it'll migrate into the pawls over time as you use the freewheel, leading to future skipping.

Not if you take the freewheel off before building the wheel - you probably will have to unless you find a hub with huge flanges.

It's quicker and easier to build a wheel if you lace up the spokes that go from the inside of the flanges first, set them all as pulling/pushing spokes (Pulling spokes see increased tension as a result of pedalling), holding them radially initially, so you can spin the nipples on quickly by hand, then twist the hub and then lace all the spokes that go from the outside of the flanges. For added pimpery I like to line up the hub logo with the valve hole. This one is hard to explain and has to be set up by the first spoke you put in to the wheel. The best way to see how the hub and spoke interact is by drawing the lacing pattern for a wheel. This is surprisingly easy - To draw the spoke pattern for one hub flange, draw a big circle to represent the rim and a small one for the hub. For a 24H rim - i.e. 12 spokes per flange - put 12 dots (I use 12 because most people are familiar with a clock face) evenly spaced around the circumference of both circles (This is the way the spoke and rim holes will line up with each other regardless of how the wheel is built if spokes are the right length and correctly tensioned). To draw a radial wheel join the hole at the 12 o'clock position in the hub with that on the rim at 12, 1 o'clock position to the hole at 1 in the rim and so on. To draw a 1X wheel, instead of joining the 12 o'clock hub hole to the 12 o'clock rim hole, move 1 spoke hole over in the hub, joining the 1 o'clock in the hub to the 12 o'clock on the rim. Full lacing is (hub-rim): 1-12, 3-2, 5-4, 7-6, 9-8, 11-10 (Pulling spokes) and (hub-rim) 12-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11 (Pushing spokes). To draw a 2X wheel, move 2 spoke holes over in the hub, joining the 2 o'clock in the hub to the 12 o'clock on the rim, giving 2-12, 4-2, 6-4, 8-6, 10-8, 12-10 pulling and 1-3, 3-5, 5-7, 7-9, 9-11, 11-1 pushing. A 3X wheel starts with the first spoke offset 3 holes from radial, giving 3-12, 5-2, 7-4, 9-6, 11-8, 1-10 pulling and 2-5, 4-7, 6-9, 8-11, 10-1, 12-3 pushing - you'll see that this arrangement is about as far as you can go without the spokes crossing through the middle of the hub, which is why most 24H hubs are built to a max of 2X. If you do the same sort of sequence with a 16 or 18 hole arrangement you'll see what the layout for various wheels will look like with the different spoke lacings for 32 and 36 spoke wheels. The pattern from the flange to the rim on the other side of the hub will look the same, just with the holes used set half way between the holes used for the side you've drawn. Once you know this you'll not only be able to pick out where to put to hub logo to line it up with the valve hole but also to make sure the valve hole has spokes that are more or less parallel to each other on each side of the hole to allow easy access with a pump...

Later on the bushing that holds the red TPA cap breaks perpendicular to the threads, so the TPA knob unscrews off the bolt rather than adjusting the bite point. The brake still works, but you have to pull the lever apart to make TPA adjustments, which is a bit annoying...

Here's the best book I've read on the subject (And I've read everything I'm aware exists on wheel building including Sheldon Brown's site and Jobst Brandt's 'The Bicycle Wheel'). It costs £9 to download, but he emails you with updated versions as he makes changes, so you have every edition that will come out as well as the current edition (Which is excellent) for your money... http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php The main thing to do in building the wheel is understand how the lacing pattern is laid out, then wind the spoke nipples to the same point on the threads of every spoke, then gradually put tension onto the wheel, turning every spoke nipple 1-2 turns max at a time for a revolution of the wheel until you feel tension start to build in the wheel. For safety put the rim tape onto the wheel as soon as the spokes have tension - if a spoke snaps (Very rare) it will fire out of the rim and potentially into your eye. For each adjustment you're making to the spokes around the wheel, start at the valve hole, so when you get back to it you'll know you've done all the spokes. If you line the flats of the spoke nipples with the flats of the rim it's easier to count turns and you can visually inspect the wheel for loosening spokes while you're walking along with the bike too...

I'd go with stock purely because if you currently have a mountain bike you'll have a stock of spares already. Trials bikes these days are sharing less and less components with normal mountain bikes though, so it's less of a decision maker. Mod bikes look a bit weirder to the average person than 26" trials bikes, which might matter to you if you're out on your own. Mod bikes are a little easier to learn trials on, but not that much easier...

I think they sound great, but not as good as a King because the clicking isn't a constant volume/frequency as the freehub makes a full turn. If the one I have is still perfect in 4 or 5 years time I'll consider one on a trials bike. The freehub body is Aluminium though, so most singlespeed sprockets will chew it to bits in no time... The trials-uk webpage says the hub has 8 pawls though, so the internals may not be the same as the Superstar/Halo, but the external parts look so similar I reckon the page might be wrong. I'd buy one for the back of my hardtail right now if trials-uk didn't have such a bad reputation for delivering .

You should probably put in another box where you select which move (sidehop/back wheel/gap/drop etc.) claimed to be a particular size. A 50" drop or gap isn't that huge, but on a sidehop it is... Adding a convertor to go the other way would be useful too of course ...

Based on the look of the freehub and axle ends on this it may well be the same as the superstar or Halo 120 ep hub with a different body. It might work for trials, but I'll let other people try them first - the Superstar on my XC bike has been flawless since I fitted it in Feb/March...

Try The Four Seasons from Vivaldi - nothing short of fantastic, especially Winter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8dq9NodWDY - this must be played loud for best effect (Try to ignore the video though - the man can play, but has a face and demeanor for radio)... But then again I have a dance version of Grieg's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' on my playlist too, as well as surprisingly well fitted mix of Prodigy's Smack my Bitch up and Enya's Orinoco Flow, so I'll listen to almost anything while riding my bike except for whiny guitar rock which I'd just rather not listen to - is it just me or are there about 10,000 bands all producing whiny guitar based music that all sounds exactly the same except to the people who try and foist it on you as being brilliant, then when you say the song they've put on does nothing for you they switch to another track that sounds exactly the same but is from a different band, confident you'll like this new song... Almost every track on every album Muse have made since Origin of Symmetry is brilliant, as is almost everything from the Gorillaz (Except the remixes, which mostly come across as poor versions of the original songs). Korn and Lipsknot are also good listening to ride a bike to ...

Given mine snapped through both legs at the same time and the crack started on the back of the legs, presumably because the peak load on the forks was vertically from my weight rather than from the odd front hop or wheel swap, the disk mount design may not be what you need to worry about ... Other forks I've broken have also cracked at the back of the fork legs about level with the brake mounts though the brake mount location didn't act as a stress riser in the case of these forks - they also gave loads of warning thanks to being steel...

The BB shell or possibly chainstays would be the only places where the frame might be thick enough to take enough screw threads to hold a bash guard firmly. Putting a hole in a plate under tension roughly triples the peak stress (If I remember my stress concentration factors correctly) in the part even if the screw hole doesn't significantly change the area of material supporting the load. Jubilee clips are the way to go as these don't require you to modify the frame at all... Who'd have thought that this was a valid website: http://www.jubileeclips.co.uk/

I ran a 160mm disk on a set of echo Urbans and the fork snapped anyway after 8 months. I do weigh over 90kg though. The ones with the Magura mount on the back of the fork are very prone to failure, snapping through the top of the brake mounts on the back of the fork. If you're getting Urbans, get V mounts or no rim brake mounts at all (Not sure if that's available), not Magura mounts. I replaced with steel Onza forks, at least they'll hopefully give me some warning before snapping and dumping me on the ground.

I've never seen the freewheels skip - I have seen the drive rings spin forward though. A friend of mine has done for his second one since January this way ...

Check the chain for stiff links if it's jumping as it exits the tensioner. Check the cogs for burrs on the sides of the teeth too - they might lift the chain off the cogs momentarily. Also look for deformed chain links - if there's a bent link that can catch on the cogs and cause a skip.

B&Q would be one option, but if there's an engineering works near you you'll probably get it cheaper than B&Q (And possibly cut to size for you) if they have suitable sheets in stock...

0.5mm (ish) change per spoke - nothing I'd worry about...

Just spotted this in the Andrei Burton Photo Gallery - mother of ghod that's a big rock...

Turn the spanner the same way as the cranks turn when pedalling forwards. If the BB tool keeps moving use a crank bolt into the BB axle and a washer to hold the BB tool firmly into the spline - Those pressed steel spanners you get free with some bikes are ideal for this (Only place they should be used in bike maintenance). Get the longest wrench you can too, the longer the lever you're using the less force you need to apply to it, so the less chance of nasty accidents if anything does slip or break.