psycholist

To get stuck between the frame and the bash ring the chain has to come off first - find out why the chain comes off and sort that. If it's sticking on the front sprocket as you pedal than the chain/sprocket is worn out and needs replacing (It's called chainsuck and a common feature of worn drivetrains used for XC).

My difficulty is levelling the bike in the air to get the back wheel to the same height as the front. I find that at the peak of a sidehop my front wheel is easily a foot higher than the back - that's potentially a foot more sidehop if I get the bike level...

If something like the 74 Kingz will fit you could use one of them - Tartybikes is inaccessible at the moment, but it's probably here: http://www.tartybikes.co.uk/product.php?id=10008 - Keeps the chain tensioned without having to keep moving the brakes around too...

If there's half an inch of movement in the rear dropouts then you should be able to get the chain tensioned with a standard chain. As for the links all going stiff - does this happen the day after the chain gets wet or dirty?

I'd be interested in trying dual Formula ORO's on a trials bike - their bite seems to be pretty fierce (Based on three sets I've tried on people's XC/DH bikes) - the ORO K18's are cheaper than Hopes too. The temptation to get a dual disk trials bike to try it out is strong - mostly because I occasionally ride my bike at weird hours of the night in built up areas and would rather not piss everyone around off by making noise...

I definitely agree with this. If you've got someone who's crazy enough to go for big stuff and take the crashes they're guaranteed to get a lot better a lot faster. On the other hand I've spent a decade iteratively getting better and better in tiny steps. I'm still amazed to get a sidehop over 30" (Though I discovered last week I could sidehop 26" over a bar in either direction) or when I make a gap more than 4 feet. Crazy people doing crazy stuff isn't as impressive as sane people doing stuff that looks crazy but they've worked out how to do safely through practice. Thanks to all that practice I now have a mean trackstand ... If things really don't work for you try changing to a bike with different geometry though. I got a new bike last December with more competition style geometry (Low handlebars, highish BB, very short chainstays) and I've progressed a lot more in the past 6 months than I did in the previous year because the bike makes certain things easier (front and sidehops to the back wheel, tapping etc., the previous bike was better on steep downslopes though - I have found a grand total of one line I could do on the last bike that I can't do on the new one and a huge number of lines I couldn't do on the previous bike that I can on the new one)...

You may have found the holy grail of trials brake setups - a brake that locks the wheel properly but doesn't annoy non-trials riders around you by making noise... Try other people's brakes and see if you're getting the same hold though. Maguras with normal brake pads on a smooth rim are silent, but don't have the kind of savage wheel locking power needed to not get you killed landing big gaps to back wheel.

Mmmmmm Jaffa Caykes ...

Speaking as a fatass with both poor coordination and very little bottle, I'm well aware that almost anyone who commits themselves to trials riding, especially if they have people to cycle with will be better than I am in no time flat. This does very little to dissuade me from riding though - it's still all about riding trials because I like doing it. It matters very little to me what level other people are at thankfully . It's still amazing to watch the likes of Hermance in action though ...

The strength of the wheel is if anything decreased by the interlacing of the spokes (Fretting between contacting spokes will eventually cause enough wear to reduce the spoke cross section enough to cause a failure - I've never seen this happen as it is likely to take several decades of high mileage use), the real benefit to interlaced spokes is that they place a side load on the spoke nipple, making it less likely to unscrew as it slackens. Don't forget to stress relieve the wheel after you've tensioned it. I've had one spoke fail in the wheels I've built and stress relieved so far. The wheel (A front wheel) was built in 2002 and has had over 10,000 miles XC/street/messing put on it. It also failed at the spoke threads rather than at the bend in the spoke where most wheels that haven't been stress relieved will fail, indicating that the stress relieving process was successful on seating the spoke properly into the hub flange. To stress relieve a wheel all I do is put on some leather gardening gloves and grab pairs of parallel spokes and squeeze them together hard enough to have my hands hurt by the time I've done a 32 spoke wheel, even with the gloves on. This will cause plastic deformation in the parts of the spokes that are close to their yield stress as a result of uneven contact pressure between the hub and spoke in particular. When the extra tension you have put on the spokes is released, the stress level in the spoke is now much less than it was before stress relieving, even though the spoke retains it's correct as built tension, keeping the wheel strong. Fatigue failure is the dominant form of non crash related failure in spokes (And pretty much all other bike parts) and fatigue life climbs exponentially as peak stress is reduced. This is why stress relieved wheels last longer and suffer far fewer spoke failures.

I'd guess the lever on the caliper is being pulled too far and it's either catching on something as has been mentioned already or the mechanism inside the caliper has moved past where it's designed to go because the pads are able to move too far. Wind the pads in more and the brake should bite earlier and not stick on. Failing that open the caliper and grease the internals...

Three things: 1. The spoke lengths look like they were chosen to be laced 4 cross rather than 3 cross. The end of the spoke should be flush with the back of the spoke nipple when the wheel is fully tensioned if the spoke lengths are exactly right. They should be within 2mm of this (Given spokes are available in 2mm increments). You'll never get tension on these spokes as they are. 2. Spokes from the left hub flange should be laced to the spoke holes offset to the left in the rim. Lacing them to cross over each other as you have (I think from the picture) will build a wheel with more lateral strength than standard lacing, but the spoke nipples are likely to bind in the rim as you try to turn them under tension as they're pulled at too tight an angle in the spoke hole in the rim. 3. Nice tablecloth...

Even if you have a bench vice, which is more preferable from a safety point of view - having to apply a large amount of force (Which will vary a lot depending on how hard the parts are screwed into each other, corrosion and the parts themselves) through a relatively small area (Freewheel tool/chain whip) or applying a smaller much more predictable force through a cassette lockring. I know which I'd rather have to do. It's been years since I've even skinned my knuckles fixing bikes and that's because I'm paranoid about the techniques and tools I use and avoid any job which involves nasty consequences from applying a lot of force to tools that may or may not slip and to parts that may loosen suddenly (Most dangerous repair jobs can be done safely by thinking more carefully about how to go about them though). A quick post-it page calculation here says the OD of a freehub spline is about the same as the 1.37" thread diameter used for screw on sprockets/freewheels (Not a big surprise since freehub splines were almost certainly sized to give the same sprocket size selection as existing screw on hubs), so there's no packaging reason for a splined freewheel to be impossible. If White Bros made splined ENO's I reckon they'd see sales of the screw on version plummet as compatible hubs and cranks are introduced. If I was designing it I'd use a symmetrical version of the freehub spline rather than the existing one which forces a particular direction and orientation for cassette sprockets (Very important for gear shifting, irrelevant for singlespeed) as this would allow Left hand side drivetrains to be easily accommodated as well. Having a disk mount available for the hub that fits the same spline on the other side of the hub would allow for a symmetrical hub that could be run as a flip-flop for singlespeeders wanting the option of two gears or to be able to change from fixed to freewheeling by running a fixed gear on one side and a freewheel on the other as well as allowing disks to be run for trials (Nothing to unscrew for backwards landings if you have a splined disk mount). You'd also have a symmetrical hub which should make for easier manufacturing and lower part count since both bearings and axle ends would be the same.

I'd like to see a Shimano style spline rather than screw on fittings for the sprocket. A standard for mounting single sprockets/freewheels that isn't screw on is badly needed at this stage (Though that mostly depends on freewheel manufacturers getting off their arses and making spline mount freewheels). The only reason screw on freewheels/sprockets turned up to begin with was because it was being driven by a 2:1 gear or bigger on ordinary singlespeed bicycles, before MTB/BMX/Trials ever existed. The change from screw on hubs was pretty quick once multi geared setups got popular and the inherent flaw of running the hub bearings inboard of the gear sprockets (Bending and breaking back axles) and using a screw on sprocket mounting when gear ratios were heading towards 1:1 (Not to mind the shock loadings from trials) became obvious. My guess is the only reason this hasn't been done already is because Shimano don't make trials specific drivetrain parts (Their DX BMX hubs use a splined sprocket mounting though)...

If they're engineering grade bolts they should have a stamping on the bolt head to indicate the strength of the bolt. 8.8 means the ultimate tensile strength is about 800 MPa (First 8) and that the tensile yield stress is 0.8 times this. The chances are anything around an 8.8 rating should be fine, though if you snap it, 10.9 and 12.9 bolts are available...

It's well known the world is controlled by an anonymous syndicate of freemasons, illuminati and the followers of the invisible flying spaghetti monster. What's less well known is that an obscure prophesy by Nostradamus in 1556, the quatrains of which were deemed too dangerous to be published officially even then, passed through history to us by a secret sect of blind, deaf, mute, quadraplegic, Zorostrian astronomers, predicts the downfall of this syndicate as the rulers of the world, unlocking long suppressed secrets held by the syndicate and used by it enslave the world including cold fusion, immortality, faster than light space travel and how the figs are got into the fig rolls, as a direct result of the appearance of pinned, welded, machined, trials specific rims. How this will occur can be illustrated logically in the following steps: 1. Welded rims appear for trials bikes 2. Something happens.... 3. The secret rulers of the world are destroyed So it's pretty easy to see why they're keeping a lid on it and of course why no trials specific rim of this type is available. It wasn't such a big deal for the first last few centuries after the prophecy was made where, in the learned halls of many universities it would be discussed at length as follows: Learned Academic 1: 'What is trials?'* Learned Academic 2: 'I don't know - What's a bike?' Learned Academic 1: 'Well that's settled then - Let's get some lunch...' Attempts to control society by suppressing this prophecy have been very successful until now. They even control the internet enough to prevent this information getting into general circulation - but they can't hold out forever - 'Eppur si muove'... *Translated from Latin, so it would have actually been 'Hat way 's iay rials tay?'...

Given that I work 2km from my house, it can easily take 15 mins to half an hour to find a parking space at work unless you turn up at cock fart in the morning (Which I don't) and walking takes 20 minutes, it makes sense to cycle for 5-7 minutes to get there instead... Also, given that the traffic leaving work at the end of the day can be so bad (Thanks to traffic lights to the main road) that it can take 15-30 minutes to get out to the main road at the end of the day, a car would again be a ridiculous waste of energy and time. Also given that on a bike I can cycle to the nearest city to me in 15 minutes from my house (Which you will barely match during business hours unless traffic is very light and you still have to park somewhere) and buses are scheduled 20 minutes apart at the very best, I'd be an idiot to drive or take the bus when I could cycle. Playing with the traffic through town is great fun too ... It cost me something in the region of €50 to keep my commuter bike running last year - and that includes fitting a new fork and stem to it... What will you get for a car with that much money? Why drive? - Makes no sense...

I'd go with this: http://www.tartybikes.co.uk/product.php?pr...p;category_id=7 combined with this: http://www.tartybikes.co.uk/product.php?pr...;category_id=48 if you're worried about the derailleur hanger or this: http://www.tartybikes.co.uk/product.php?pr...;category_id=48 if cash is an issue. Currently I run this fixed rear hub - http://www.tartybikes.co.uk/product.php?pr...;category_id=21, so I don't need a separate tensioner. I've got a KMC 710 chain and it's been perfect so far (6 months nearly daily use), though it's probably due replacement at this stage...

Half link chains will half the maximum amount of slack in the chain but will almost certainly leave the chain a lot less tensioned than if you're using a tensioner. The bends in the side plates of half link chains (Needed so that one end of the link will fit outside the end of the next link) probably will lead to the chain being springier and more prone to snapping. If you join it carefully and are not already snapping standard chains you're probably fine though. From what I've read on this forum every chain is crap and snaps in minutes before getting full of stiff links while at the same time every chain will also last the rest of your life and never break, so you'll have to base it on how quickly you've worn out/broken your previous chains...

I've been off my bike for the past week waiting for new cranks - They're expected to arrive tomorrow so I can have a serious weekend of catching up ... Not riding trials for over a week has made me seriously consider getting a second trials bike... That redundancy is what I've got already with my XC bikes - I've justified having two XCish bikes thanks to one being a hardtail (and 6 years old) and the other a full suspension one. Sorting the cranks has been the only proper mechanical I've had since I bought the bike over 6 months ago... That and two punctures, quite a few brake blocks and one Magura crossover (All fixed without outside spares/spares ordered in advance), so getting another trials bike involves dropping a lot of cash on a bike that will get very little use... And it'll impact my blackjack and hookers budget...

Nobody doing flatland or cycle touring yet... Extra points go to anyone who does both ...

Post your choices here too - I'm curious if there's a link between say mod and BMX riders as a path towards/from trials based on wheel size. Is there a similar link between stock trials and XC/DH. I listed just about all the types of cycling I can think of but feel free to suggest more options - the forum will take up to 30... Since the same bike can do several of these things - road cycling means cycling on the road without it being for the purpose of getting to off road bits, but you may or may not use a road bike for it, one BMX can do street, flatland and DJ if you can live without perfect geometry for each, for XC you might have a 29er, a 650C, a 69er, a 26" or a 24" bike and I know a guy who commuted to work by unicycle a few years back, so commuter bikes can really be anything... So what bikes do you have/use for each activity? I got into trials through XC type riding... Currently all my bikes are 26" and I have a trials bike, a rigid singlespeed MTB for commuting to the shops/work/town, a DMR hardtail with a 5" fork for XC/street/messing around and a 4.1" rear 4.7" front Giant Trance for comfort on the odd deathmarch/Endurance race and for light messing on DH tracks. I recently got a 1989 Specialized rigid to lend out to anyone that says biking was way better back in the day - it's great fun, but only because if you make a mistake at speed it will try to kill you ... I own a 20" unicycle, but haven't put the time into learning to ride it . I do the odd road spin and have road wheels (Road rims and 700x23C tyres on disk hubs to drop into the MTB) if I feel like going fast, but to be honest the lack of grip in the corners scares the crap out of me on road tyres, so they've stayed unused for a good while now...

Because you touch yourself at night? ...

Doesn't matter whether you have a front freewheel or a freehub. You still put power to the wheels the same way...

Check whether the cost of offset mounts might be better spent by getting a new wide rim. Narrow rims are a pain for trials riding because the tyre rolls off them too easily while you're hopping on side slopes (Unless you run really high tyre pressures). When I used Mavic D521's front and back every so often I'd land a sidehop drop a little too sideways and pull the tyre off the rim, allowing the tube to explode out the side... When I got my first Echo frame I had the same problem with fitting the brakes, bit the bullet and bought a wider rim - it made a hell of a difference - no tyre retention issues or tyre roll on side slopes... I wonder why Mavic hasn't released a trials rim come to think of it...