sstein

Might be one or two of us riding london for a few hours tomorrow night but i am not sure yet

Speak for yourself. we dont all have to ride uci style. I personally love going to bash or to pedal, even if I can get up another way instead.

If you are using tektro calipers i will of course be a shite brake. whether they are usable depends on your style if you are smooth and do lots of sidehops rather than up to backs they will be fine. what rim are you using because the phase should be fine with a rim brake. perhaps post a photo so we can see?

I ride stock, i have one with maggie and one with disc. Disc on the rear of a stock sucks arse and I am getting maggie mounts brazed on so I no longer have to use it. So you know I am not saying that disc is unuseable, and with a decent set up it should actually be alright, but it is nothing compared to the bite and hold of a good rim brake.

Yeah it will correct your height and probably make you fall off the back, use chain tension or just balance to correct your height. Brakes are for stopping, the only way to learn proper manuals (going in either direction) in my opinion is to do them brakless.

I cant see how fakie manuals could be made any easier with a back brake. In fact i think using a rear brake would make things harder. Also I am not sure how fakie manuals are gonna help you get off anything higher than about 1' if you cant already clear the distance.

If you can do them on a bike that it is hard to do them on then you can do them on anything.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-2010-Onza-ZOOT-24-Trials-Jump-Tricks-Bike-RRP-529-/170544584351?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item27b53fd69f

Really? I find if you get the hop right, turn your body properly and tuck your legs you don't actually need to carve in at all. saying this i rarely do, i have more of a tendancy to three tap but still the only difference is the leg tuck.

spot on! I would say it has more to do with the axis of rotation, if you do a euro style hop for the 180 you rotate around the bottom bracket so the distance depends a lot on the speed you go, also if you try and do a bigger hop you have a tendency to go further up than forwards. With a usa style hop you rotate around the front wheel (normally) so you already get a greater distance. also the harder you pull up with a usa style hop the harder you are propelling the bike forwards as well as up. You can clear things with a euro hop, in fact with a euro 180 i can get down a long 4 set but if you get into doing usa style ones it is so much easer and you can clear further with less speed. they are also much easier to land smoothly.

I wanted to get insurance but I struggled to find any that would cover custom bikes without offering a halfords voucher (or similar) in the event of it's theft.

if i remember rightly you have quite a long frame so it not going to be easy to learn manuals on. the best thing i can say is try not to lift the front up, instead try to push the back through with your legs while keeping your bum low and your arms straight

With the right sort of surgery

go for phat phluid

Yeah I kind of know where Hertfordshire is, I mean I did live there for 18 odd years

where abouts in hertfordshire?

It should be fine. Chasing is not a repair by the way, it is just cleaning up the threads, you will still have damaged threads but the shell should still be useable

It really depends on how bad it is, but if only 1/4 of the thread is damaged then you should be fine with just getting it chased as has been said.

I might be wrong but one would assume that those are some sort of clipless pedals, so with the correct shoe and cleat they probably are more comfortable to spend a day on than with thin soled shoes and cages

might come out for an hour or two. I might fail my course if I do though

way ahead of you. Did that over 20 years ago and I am still getting the benefits today!

if you are riding street trials 18:15 would be fine, there is no way I would ever go lower than 18:13 for street trials so it should be fine in that respect. just not great because the cranks keep spinning when you take your feet off, the chain will drag your trousers in if you are not careful and it feels rank for streetier stuff

How long are the bolts you are using? also are they actually m5 bolts

I also find that if you tend to go for 180s with any sort of speed freewhweels dont cope nearly as well as freehubs. (though both will manage, just freehubs feel nicer for fakies and reverts in my opinion)