psycholist

It says I'm borderline obese. It should be noted that by the BMI standard Brad Pitt is overweight and George Clooney is obese. The BMI has been pretty much universally disproven as a means of determining whether people are overweight or not, especially people with above average musculature, which most trials riders would qualify for...

Maxxis Minion DH. 2.35" front, 2.5" back in the supertacky compound ... Nothing short of awesome...

This is pretty much what industry 9 do in their hubs, the only difference being that the i9 hubs have offset pawls, so only half the pawls engage at a given point. This may seem worse, but it has the advantage that the notches for the ratchet can be made a lot deeper. I'd have to look at it more carefully, but I wouldn't trust that hub to take trials loads as it's too easy for the small ridges on the pawls to either get dirty and not engage properly or to round off and not engage at all. With Chris kings all 72 teeth on the drive washers engage every time the hub engages, so the load is transferred over a greater number of splines (And they're still only willing to put 72 engagements on the hub and still quite sensitive to contamination). I'd go with the i9 hubs over the ones shown, but Chris King is a lot more proven. If you want to try one get it on an XC bike first or preferably get someone you know who rides their bike loads harder than you to try it first and wait 6 months to see how they get on before buying one ... Do not buy 2007 XTR hubs (36 engagements) anyway - The previous incarnation (16 engagements) was indestructible used for trials or XC, I snapped the axle in a rear 2007 hub in under a year on an XC bike...

I had a great laugh today with a few pallets, a picnic table and a home made hopometer - this week is bike week in the university of Limerick, so they let me do a trials demo ...

I'm based in Limerick, but a friend of mine lives in Dublin near the city centre and rides trials. Register on the University of Limerick Mountain Bike club forum and ask about trials if you're looking to contact us for a cycle - mostly Limerick based XC stuff advertised there, but there are a couple of trials riders (And Ireland pretty much only has a couple of them). While I was writing this I got a text from Dublin inviting me up for a weekend's bike hoppery and possibly some Shenanigans, so drop me a line with your number and we'll find you...

Make damned sure you're covered against being sued by anyone who has an accident at the event...

Have a look directly opposite the hole where the cable leaves the shifter for a hole or a phillips head plastic screw. If there's a hole there put the shifter into top gear (hit the forefinger lever until the shifter stops changing) and stick a new cable in through this hole and out the cable exit hole. If there's a plastic cover unscrew it and then stick the cable in. Getting the cable out the other side of the shifter can sometimes be a pain, but it usually only takes a minute.

That's about right - even though nominally Hydrogen and Oxygen share electrons (Covalent bond), the electronegativity of Oxygen (3.44) is a lot higher than Hydrogen (2.2), leaving the covalently bonded molecule with a slight negative charge on the Oxygen and a slight positive on each Hydrogen. These charges allow adjacent H2O molecules to bond weakly to each other, making it harder for the water to vapourise (It takes more energy as it's a more tightly bonded liquid). All I've ever used in Maguras is Citroen LHM Fluid (It's for the hydraulic suspension systems and is probably chemically identical to Magura Blood). The compressibility of water is 2.3GPa - what this means can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_modulus - what it effectively means is that you're not going to notice the fluid being compressed compared to the other sources of sponginess in a brake system.

The easiest way to convert units is to multiply the unit you have by a mix of units you know to be equal to 1. In the case of mm2 to m2, the conversion is done by multiplying by (1m/1000mm)2 as 1m = 1000mm, so the term you're multiplying by is equal to 1 (And remains equal to 1 regardless of the power you raise it to). You then cancel the mm2 you have over the line with the same unit under the line and are left with a value in m2. Simple enough really, and it works with all units. This means that 1mm2 = 1/1000000m2.

For hydraulics you assume the fluid is contained at a constant pressure. If the master piston has a 16mm area it will apply 0.76 times the pressure a 14mm piston applies (For a round piston cross sectional area is proportional to the piston diameter squared), making the brake lever feel harder at the bite point at the expense of clamping pressure produced by the slave cylinders. Have a look here for more information on how hydraulics work: http://science.howstuffworks.com/hydraulic1.htm A longer lever blade or shorter distance between the lever pivot and the pushrod to the lever piston could compensate for the difference in piston diameter between levers.

My green cranks had scuff marks from my shoes after the first or second cycle, so the green isn't the most durable... I'd still get them purely because green cranks are mad looking ...

Using a rear hub on the back of your bike? That's what The Man wants you to do. Fight the power etc...

... unless it was Christmas, then it would be called seasonal ...

Only downside is the bearings aren't as far apart as with a standard back hub, so there will be more bending in the axle. Given that I had an axle fail in a 2007 XTR rear hub (On an XC bike), shimano aren't doing great on that even with the hubs they've designed for rear wheel use...

ZeroMatt: As soon as someone comes up with a method of extracting that 3.3e-9 kg of Uranium from a kg of seawater to make a net energy/value gain that idea might make some sense... It's not unlike filing down 10p coins to make 5p's with the processes currently available... Though at least Canada and Australia seem to have the big reserves, so there would be less volatility in the supply.

There are BMX coasting hubs available that will allow you to roll backwards without the pedals being driven backwards. The pickup on them tends to be crappy though, making them useless for trials.

That's how I'd have described the correct way to fit a disk too... Most disks are set up with non radial spokes linking the rim/braking surface of the disk to the area that bolts to the hub. Since the spokes dont extend radially from the hub of the disk, a braking force applied to the rim of the disk will either have the effect of pulling the braking surface towards the hub or away from it. It doesn't really matter for most setups in trials though. Especially for back disks where the brake will get loaded hard in both directions anyway - not the front brakes have it particularly easy on trials bike either ...

One method is to let go of the back brake and kick the pedals forward just before you take off - this is probably easier to pick up than hopping forwards without using the pedals. You weight has to be forwards in order for the pedal kick not to send you off the back of the bike. Timing is everything for this one. The other method is to drop the front of the bike slightly and move your weight forward before take off and then pull the bike more vertical while it's in the air mid hop. This should allow the back tyre to come down forwards of where you took off. This is great for fine adjustments going towards the edge of drops (Pedal kicking is more efficient if you've to go a long way). With practice it's possible to climb steps going forwards on the back wheel without pedal kicking, but this is more of a training exercise than something very useful, though being able to hop forwards without pedal kicking has saved me on a few occasions where I land too nose heavy and something is in the way of the back tyre, making pedal kicking awkward or in natural riding where a rock has a steep slope towards it's peak and you're not able to pedal kick or gap cleanly to the very top - there's a rock like this in my local supermarket car park which has been amusing me for a while with this sort of hop.

An inverted bike in an inverted picture looks the right way up... That was a Haiku No ideas on colours, I went for green, silver (Like white but nicer) and orange with my bike as a vague tribute to the Irish flag - blue, white and red for the UK? It's a handy default if you can't think of anything else anyway...

Just cut slots for about 10 to 15cm along the length of the tube and flare it wider than it needs to be. Then it'll definitely hook into place behind the headset cups when you're using it to take headsets off.

The people who keep telling you to grow up and stop doing stuff you like are trying to impose their standards on you as an attempt to make everyone as miserable as they are ...

How good is your front brake? The brakes on my last bike were very poor to bite when I pulled the lever, so I wasn't able to dump the bike nose first into anything without the brake slipping on me. On a freshly ground rim with trials brake pads there's more than enough hold to give confidence though. I've only been doing front wheel to back wheel stuff for a month or so and it was changing the brakes that made all the difference.

Having ridden a DDG Shooter belonging to a friend of mine I wouldn't consider the geometry particularly good for trials. It's much more BMXy than most trials bikes... I'm a big fan of the Echo frames for proper hopping around on the back wheel trials, I've owned a Pure and bought a Control last Christmas and it's even better...

I'm 28 and have been riding trials since about 1997/1998... I have no plans to stop, though if I bothered listening to what other people say I'd never have started... I know quite a few people my age who are already effectively middle aged - Most of the people I hang out with are 4+ years younger than I am thanks to the people I know that are my age not being interested in getting out and cycling anymore. How old is Hans Rey at this stage? Incidentally I already have a mortgage, could afford a car (But haven't bothered since I cycle everywhere). There's no reason you can't do all of the above. Doing things because of outside pressure from those around you is not a good reason to do them...

Sometimes you have to give them candy... Pull harder. You can try taking the cassette off and taking the end cap off the hub first as moving them one by one may be easier...