LEON

Cheers, yeah it is, 2006. It's my fourth, I keep leaving them (crap electrics, poor battery life) but I always end up going back, it's much less comfy and more track focused than the GSXR, and in general just feels much more special. It's not as fast in a straight line obviously but that gets boring after a while. Japan make great bikes but all the inline fours feel the same when you've had a few, just pick your favourite colour. The Aprilia just feels unique, the power delivery, the tall seat height, narrow overall width. If you have a good battery and keep it on trickle charge you'll never have problems. But Italian electronics will never compare to Japanese.

Cheers. Yours looks a bit more mental than mine lol! I think the rear end would look good chopped too.

Did some improving.

Well the later welded ones were crap so you're not missing out!

Nice! That's not the late one (too big) that Trialskings and Akrigg ended up on so might be a '98. I think you'd want the RC30 forks (not T), the later ones with the neater cnc crown. But be aware the legs are long! I cut a good 20mm off mine and they were lovely. These aren't as nice but might match the finish of yours better.... I remember Akrigg's one with an Azonic shorty stem and double wall bars. basically everything silver.

You can usually get a DMR dee vee in 36h on Ebay for £30 - £40, they're fairly decent. The odd Atomlab pops up now and then too.

Depends how you ride, I could never get away with 180 rotors. Ever done a gap drop to a rail?

Have you got big feet? I have mine in about the same place, if I have the pedals closer to the toes then on drops and stuff it puts a lot of strain on my ankles, although it definitely feels better towards the ball of the foot. A 13 year old photo, but relevant, never really noticed.

When backwheeling stuff with the back brake locked there's a lot of room for error, you can be pretty sloppy and get away with it because as soon as you hit he edge your job is done. But you'll need pretty good manuals to do them up stuff and hold it. As soon as your tyre touches down you need to know whether you're too far forward or back and adjust accordingly. Maybe the mod geo exaggerates it but you seem to sit quite high in a manual, try bending your legs and leaning back more.

Your front looks a bit high, you'll always have to adjust when you land on something but you're not really moving. That means you're not struggling with height, you just need to have the front a bit lower then if it drops just pump your legs a bit. You're basically approaching it like you're backwheeling it, but without a brake. You need to be more careful if you're manualling, especially on a mod where it's so small and twitchy. I'm assuming you can already manual properly, just move your weight about more to react to what the bike's doing.

That's surprisingly short lived for a Hope one, they can't be bad but it's still pretty machined out and light, can't beat a solid cast one.

He's obviously great and that, but why not just do it better on a more suitable bike? I think I've seen too many "wrong tool for the job" vids.

What's the frame geo anyway? Mine's based on a 26GHZ with a slightly higher bb.

Ahhh, your rotor arm is blocking it making it look skinny! You should be fine then. I can't help but panic and spread the word when I see a skinny adaptor. Saying that...those calipers are notoriously weaker than the older ones.

Hope are good, but I always get the fattest one possible, Hayes are hugely overbuilt, you'll never brake one of those.

Very nice, but that rear brake adaptor is gonna last you about 4 hours before it lets your caliper snap.

Yeah that Semenuk vid is ridiculous, I'm up for seeing the street trials equivalent.

Big balls, skills, but very cheesy, I guess that's the aim these days now there's money involved. Furthermore, why is he wanking in the street at 2.18?

Ah shit, I ended up changing adapters quite frequently, keeps them fresh. Yeah I grew a bit tired of rear discs, not a fan of them on 26" wheels so I didn't have a mount put on the new one. A HS33 is peace of mind if you get used to the noise. Yeah the bike's great ta, just starting to eye up stuff to film!

Good stuff, looks like you're getting along with it. I still miss that paint.

It looks like a Hope one. Don't know anything about mod stuff though. Looks like the next size up would push the pads way off the rotor. Dodgy fork mount? Might just be the clearance is too tight for a big caliper. Deng stuff probably wasn't designed with that in mind.

Looks like a tiny adapter. +20 fork? Small rotor? Your rotor is on backwards and it's eating away at me.

His crash vids are always great. I think he might be a bit big for a mod though.

Cheers, yeah I'll dust off the Gopro soon. It's about time.