psycholist

I wouldn't trust a Hope QR to keep the wheels on an XC bike to be honest - an exposed cam surface makes them very sensitive to damage from the odd crash (And contamination), so as they wear, the force you'll need to close them can end up quite high, while at the same time, the clamping force they provide can be dangerously low. If you want a QR go for a Shimano as the enclosed cam design they use stays smooth forever... Otherwise try the anti-theft bolt through style skewers. Get ones that take a 5mm allen key though, the ones that take 4mm allen keys tend to round really easily.

To favour mod bikes: Since 20" bikes are shorter, a course that requires lots of turns in confined space might favour them. A mod can be theoretically sidehopped higher thanks to the back wheel getting in the way less at the peak of the hop and them being inherently lighter. I'm guessing this isn't a big deal given how high 26" bikes can be sidehopped - most people are tucking to the side of the back wheel to make the room anyway. Climbs with lots of short steps on them should be easier on a mod as there's more space for the back wheel to stand and roll - provided the line can't be ridden as sidehops. Think of trying to pedal kick forwards up a flight of stairs on a mod vs. a 26" bike - as the flat part of each step gets shorter the 26" tyre starts touching the edge of the next step, eliminating runup for the next hop and throwing balance off, before the same happens on a mod. In marginal stuff the skid plate on a mod bike is a more stable/pleasant place to touch down than the cranks/bashguard on a 26" bike. I wouldn't like to see loads of bashguard based stuff being required though it's nearly becoming a lost art some people are so clean through things - half point for bashguard only dabs might leave it as an incentive to not put feet down instead... Sections where you can't really roll or take a runup to anything and so have to hop all the time will lend themselves to the lightest bike, which should be a mod... Are trials courses being designed with more flow in mind (Looks better to onlookers) these days compared to a decade ago? Is this change the reason 20" mods are not offering any advantage? I'll be interested to see how the season works out though - first event isn't enough to make an objective judgement anyway...

22:17 or 22:18 would be more popular I think. 22:16 is probably a bit high. Depends what you're used to though. I ran a 22:17 on my last bike and it was perfect, though other people would consider it a bit high...

If you're looking for suitable oil for bleeding Maguras (And any other brake with mineral oil), head to your local motor factors and get some Citroen suspension fluid (LHM). It's a slightly different colour to Maguras blood, but feels, behaves and smells pretty similar, so I reckon it's the same stuff. I've been using it in my Maguras for years (And in various mineral oil disk brakes) with no issues... I think I got half a litre of oil for about a fiver and I've still got 2/3 of it left many years and many bleeds (Mostly on other people's brakes) later. Thankfully since mineral oil isn't hygroscopic it doesn't deteriorate with time like DOT fluid, so there's no problem storing it for long periods...

Have a look for a well hidden 2mm grub screw near the lever pivot - I think Maguras of this type have a reach adjustment there...

Turns out the board was cracked near the centre bar already, but the nails were holding it in place, so as soon as I put the bike on it to gap to the line with the pipes it snapped... Weather is holding dry too, so more trials tonight ...

Chances are you need a brake adaptor to take the caliper out the extra centimeter it needs to get from fitting a 160mm disk (Standard size) to fitting a 180mm... They're under a fiver a go, so no big deal.

The XTR BB tool available off most online bike shops will fit that BB. Buy one and use it. Otherwise you'll just chew it up hammering at the notches, so it'll be unmovable even for people with the correct tool for it afterwards.

I wasn't riding trials today, but I had a good play in my back garden yesterday... Today I cycled my XC bike 8 miles out to the local forest I first forest rode an MTB in (About 12 years ago) and the trails were beyond perfect. It's not like the trails there are fantastically difficult or somehow better than everywhere else, but these are the trails I've helped build for over a decade and the day cycling them in perfect condition was more than payback for all the time I've spent digging, draining and minding these trails ... I was with two great friends I've known for at least 5 years and met through MTBing, so no huge fitness range like we'd have if beginners turned up (Club Sunday spin is open to everyone), so we were able to cycle out and back - pure pleasure to not have to arse around with cars for once. Nobody out to prove anything, no rushing to get home, no sitting around waiting for people to finish trails, one puncture (It's not a full cycle unless this happens ) and it didn't rain once the whole cycle (Even though it lashed rain earlier in the morning). Where I live (West of Ireland) the weather has been mostly wet and crappy for almost the past year (Though I think everyone got a crap summer last year, we had 3 months of almost non-stop rain from November), so understandably my enthusiasm for cycling was waning somewhat. Today will be remembered as one of the best days MTBing I've done in years - it's certainly recharged my trail mojo .

If it's designed for cleaning paintwork/metalwork, it's pprobably oil based or containes wax. Degrease or regrind the rims and it'll be fine... Sand the surface of the brake blocks too just in case they're at fault (Pretty unlikely to be a problem for long on a ground rim though).

I've got a block of wood that I drilled a hole slightly bigger than the steerer tube through. I slide the crown race on first, then the block of wood and then hit the wood each side of the steerer with a hammer to seat the crown race...

The Louise I think is higher pressure than HS33's, but that's irrelevant to what fluid to use, all common liquids are pretty much incompressible at the pressures they're used at in brakes. The problem with disk brakes with low boiling point fluids is that the disk gets a lot hotter than a rim in use and there's a lot less insulation between the brake fluid and the disk than between the rim and the HS33 cylinder, so the chances of boilng the brake out while dragging it down a hill are much higher with water.

Try walking around town and asking local businesses/passers by for signatures. I reckon if most of your signatures come from addresses near where you want the facility you'll have a better chance of success.

I wonder how many people are in to trials for the 'only gay in the village' effect ...

It's a good idea to point out that there will be a benefit to the local economy thanks to more visitors to the area if this is built. If you petition local hostels/B&B's/Hotels on this you might even get some corporate interest. Mostly work on the basis that even though trials riders are a very small percentage of the population, they have been proven to be willing to travel long distances to ride trials. Adding a park will lead many trials riders to end up in that area (An opportunity to legally ride your bike on custom designed obstacles) - how likely are you to go to Hampshire to ride trials knowing loads of the locals are being fined for doing so? That's a loss in income in food, drink and accommodation to those providing them in the area. The potential income they could make from those who want to stay overnight is considerable - all they have to do is offer safe, secure bike storage.

The less leverage you have the more solid the brake will feel at the lever and the less clamping force will be produced. If you're after a solid feel at the lever try setting the pads absolutely parallel to the rim (For normal use it's recommended to set the front edge of the pad to touch the rim first to stop them squealing). As the pads wear the brake should feel more solid thanks to there being less pad material to squash as the brakes are applied. To improve brake feel without compromising power try getting a better cable, shortening the cable outer as much as possible and making sure the brake and lever pivots are free from excessive drag and fitting a brake booster.

My bike was built by Tarty last December and I have yet to find fault with any of the assembly work. Most bikes you buy from bigger dealers will need to be pulled apart and greased etc. before use, but there was copper grease in every bolt thread I opened - fantastic attention to detail, definitely not seem in volume manufacturers . There are factors to consider other than price when you're looking to buy a bike.

If your spokes keep snapping then you're probably not stress relieving your wheels properly. Look up stress relieving on pretty much any bike forum or Sheldonbrown.com and you'll get decent instructions. A wheel is a pre stressed structure. This means there's stress in the structure before any working loads come onto it. To carry a load the spoke pointed towards the ground loses tension while the rest of the spokes gain tension very slightly (Tension lost in spoke pointed towards the ground divided by the number of remaining spokes). Doing up a wheel slack will not make it more durable for this reason. Using double butted spokes will make the wheel more durable as they stretch more for a given tension, so at high loads the rim will have to deform more before the spoke becomes slack. So - to summarise, slack wheels are not more durable, double butted spokes are and stress relieving wheels makes them far more durable than any other change you can make.

I can't get the link to work. If you want you can email it to me and I'll host it on my web space. I've already done it for another guy's thesis on MTBing... http://www.skynet.ie/~ceason/MTB_Thesis/ - No annoying cookies or arsing around with it, just right click the file and save it .

We ride first what we see every day... (Fans fo silence of the lambs will appreciate this one). I rode street only for years because that was all that was available locally. Recently a pile of rocks were dumped to stops cars parking near one of my favourite street spots, so I've finally got some natural stuff now (And it's great fun). As for competition riding - None at all in the Republic of Ireland AFAIK... Not why I ride bikes anyway, so not a worry for me .

Looks nice, pretty neat solution - I'd worry about fatigue cracking in the steerer around the hole you've drilled though. Make sure you've left as clean a surface as possible on the inside of the hole - any sharp burrs or gouges will make it easier for a crack to form. If you can polish or shot peen the surface that'd be a good plan to reduce crack initiation. In a flat plate with a hole in the centre loaded in tension, the peak stress at the edge of the hole is 3 times the average stress over the remaining area - this could amount to a thousand fold reduction in the number of stress cycles required for a fatigue failure (Thanks to the exponential link between peak stress and number of cycles to failure in modeling fatigue), so I'd inspect it pretty regularly for cracks... If I have the time later I'll slap a finite element model together to compare the stress in the steerer before and after the hole is drilled...

You only need to take one cup off to fit the BB. If there's no flange on one side of the bb, thread the BB in to the frame at that side with the rest of the BB hanging out of the frame and you'll have a bit more leverage to pull the cup off. Stick up a photo in case people have specific issues with that type - if what you're describing as an external bearing BB is of the same style as Hollowtech II/X-Type/Whatever Truvative call theirs, this solution won't work, but this system usually only has a plastic tube joining the bearings on each side of the frame.

It's all down to material hardness. The issues with most hubs are not bad design, just bad implementation. Here's another option: http://www.trueprecision.net/c_products_mountain.html - It uses a sprag clutch, which basically means instant engagement and silent freewheeling... The sprag clutch is described here - once again if the sealing and materials are good it'll work perfectly: http://www.gmnbt.com/freewheel_technology.htm

It was a star drive hub. He tried fixing it after it failed the first time by recutting the teeth in the star drive with an angle grinder and it worked for about 10km of the next cycle he was out on ...

Pedal bearings or crank flex putting the chainline out would be my top two ideas...