Jitters

Just my opinion, but someone pass the eye bleach please. I like the green color and can even live with the neon green pedals, but the gold? Not for me, but to each his own. )

Way to keep at it. Great to hear and congratulations! Hopefully I'll have good news to report soon too.

I just jam my foot in between the fork and tire to stop. Frame and tire on rear. Makes it interesting. On the mod, vee front and rear no booster. Moe greens. SD7 arms. FR5 levers. No juice, just cables. Light grind. Building the stock the same way except it will have a rear booster.

Sweet! Saw the snowflake wheel build in the road cycling thread. That's spectacular! I won't be doing anything fancy like that though. I'll keep it as simple as possible for now. Gonna run with 3x front and rear, as suggested. I have dismantled and relaced an old road wheel in my garage for practice a few times and finally figured it out, so hopefully that will help out. Gonna run 'em into my local bike shop where they'll teach me how to true them on a nice stand. Will post the bike build pics soon, hopefully. This is nearly the last step. Everything else is just waiting, but I'm not going to rush it. Thanks for all the great replies and advice. I will also be reading up on various sites like Sheldon Brown's and this site's wiki thread on wheel building. Cheers!

Ah yes, will be using vee brakes front/rear and 32 hole Echo hubs/rims front and back. If it makes any difference it will be fixed rear hub. Forgot to mention that. Thank you for the responses so far!

Hi all, going to learn/start building my 26" rims. Ordering spokes today with the help of my local bike shop so I get the measurements just right without hassle. Question is, can anyone direct me or tell me what patterns work well with the front and rear rims respectively? I was thinking a 2x up front and 3x rear. Nothing fancy. Could a radial setup work for the front rim or do you think a 2x pattern would be best. Please enlighten me with your infinite trials wheel wisomnessedness or direct me to such wisdom or just let me know what works for you best. Thanks!

hap-E belated birfday yo!

I ride alone only because I don't know of any trials riders near me in S. Carolina. I may go hang with some cats about 8 hours drive from my town as they have an annual competition of some kind once a year near West Virginia. They'd be way over my level though, but it would be fun to meet some other riders and learn from 'em. J trials on the forum apparently doesn't live to far away from me, maybe 4 hours drive. I might manage the journey one day. I suspect my biggest prob is one day I'll bust my arse proper on the rocks and it'll be weeks before someone finds my rotting bloated corpse. Then they'd lift my ride. LOL

I am getting the hang of it as well. I can sometimes hop about 7 or 8 times in place now - forwards and backwards a bit, just for fun and practice, but was stuck at the 2 or 3 hops for a while. The trick that helped me was not to think about the balancing part so much as keeping proper posture and setting up for the next hop. It seems to be working for me anyway. Good luck and keep practicing!

I'm still learning the basics. One of my favorite things to do is get up on some palettes or something a little high and then hopping off backwards. Kinda like a giant backhop (fakie). Forgive my lack of proper terminology. Took me a long time to be able to hop the bike backwards far enough that the front wheel would clear whatever I was on. Looking forward to learning wheel swaps. They look like fun! In time ....

I don't dive into the whole card/flowers/dinner thing. Definately avoid the commercial aspect. Getting some food is always good. you can talk and whatnot. Much nicer than a movie theater, as mentioned before. Although I thought the hole in the popcorn bucket was funny. May be too sappy for a first date, mind you, but I usually try things like setting up a bike ride (helps if she's into bikes, so ad lib here) Pack up some sandwiches drinks and treats. Roll out to a nice spot with a view and minimal people around and have a picnic. Oh yeah, make sure to carry all the stuff for bonus points. Works for me anyway. Good luck to you!

Hi all, It was definitley powder coating. The gasket cleaner/remover didn't touch it. That's what I tried first. Used my friends blasting cabinet with glass beads. Did the trick in a snap and left just enough bite on the aluminum for the primer to adhere perfectly. I think sand would have messed it up. Danny, as far as sanding the coating - that could totally work but wanted a nice shiny smooth finish. Thank you all for the suggestions.

Hi all, I am going to do the reverse from usual and remove powder coating from a stem so's I can clean it up and repaint it to match some other stuff. Looking for ideas, tips and tricks on how to do this. I tried a DIY method a motorcycle shop recommended with some aerosol gasket remover. Didn't work at all. I'd rather not remove it with a wire wheel, as I don't want to sacrifice any structural integrity. I have access to a curing oven (426C limit) if there is a chemical that can work in conjunction with heat, and can use a mediablasting cabinet if there is a particular media that will remove it without hurting the aluminum. Maybe a copper wire wheel? air chisel? dynamite? Any thoughts? Thanks!

"It's isn't that i'm not gaining valuable knowledge of the ones I've understand so far, it's more to do with 'a divide'." I see your point. I'm in the same place. Some stuff seems so simple and then other topics are still so far out for me. Like some others have suggested above - good suggestins there. Hanging out with some other riders is definitely gonna speed things up for you. Don't get discouraged. The terms and talk in between will become apparent as you look into relevant posts and glean bit of good info here and there. Just like it's starting to for me. Hope this helps! Oh, and get a trials bike already! Cheers and go get 'em!

Thanks Joe, Little more complicated than I had gathered, but looks like it makes sense. AS3.0 is kickin my arse, but I'll get it figured out. Thanks for sharing. -Cheers!

Thanks eskimo and sstein, I'll look into those. Checked with Tarty too. Definitely running with vees and gonna try something with a smooth rim/Plazmatic CRVs or Rocks first before I go grinding, otherwise I'll switch back to my Moe's with a good grind like on the mod. Cheers!

Glad you got it sorted. I'd like to see what you came up with too. You working with AS 2.0 or 3.0? I would imagine I would have used a mask layer to make a frame over your image/map and scripted an onCLICK or similar so you could move the map inside the mask with the mouse. Post the AS if you would. I am learning about all this stuff now too and I like to see how people attack problems differently. Cheers!

Hi! Great to hear about the guy coming in 3rd! That's awesome With racks too! Bonus points! I tried to hang with the racer types and it's not my style. I love solo self-contained semi-long hauls. Usually around 100 or so miles, just crank 'em out without worrying about who's fastest - not that I don't appreciate the fast crowd. So I was thinking of my favorite road bike and I keep going back to the one I got started on. Mind you, the frame was WAY too big for me. You'll see that by the saddle position. It was an 80s something Peugeot PZ. It was rusty and set out to pasture in my friend's yard for some time. Borrowed a book and rebuilt the poor thing from ground up. No upgraded anything. Rode the wheels off of it for about two and a half years and logged about 8,300 miles on that crappy plastic saddle. Smarter now ... Attached a pic of it. Don't have it anymore, as I am letting a friend borrow it indefinitely in hopes that he'll add some decent mileage onto it. I have since pieced together a nice titanium (unknown brand) frame with Campagnolo goodies and lots of mid-grade spec. Rides great, still love getting out for 7 or 8 hours at a time, but just not the same as the old steel frame. Also would love to do a 100 mile plus ride on a single speed. Maybe one day. Single speed riders have my respect. May take a snap of the new bike tomorrow.

Good info in here. I have scrapped my idea of running the Juicy Ultimates on my stock build for vees, as I turned those around for a mint on Ebay. I can use the money from that sale for more goodies. Also vee parts are easily available over here, and I like the on/off switch for braking. Sort of a hijack here, but are there some readily available (new) forks still around specifically for stock vee setup? I see lots of disc and 4 bolt ones available and am trying to avoid the adapters and extra parts as much as possible. Thanks for any input!

Internet confessions. I'm sure they're all for real too. Ok, I'll admit I read a few of them and laughed. Ooooh, I feel much better now that I got that off my chest.

No. Forteh and Frenchman are correct. I have seen lots of setups with a good shop vac and gravity return system for the media/sand. You can make something on the cheap, but it'll take some time and money. Do a bit of research if you're really interested, but on the spot, I'd say find someone with a good rig and hook 'em up with some beer. That always works for me. Good luck!

I left out the part about making the whole thing with nothing more than a nail file to cut the lumber. No screwdriver either, so I had to drive the screws in with my fist. Also took a few minutes to finish off a cup of coffee.

here's one o' mine.

Easy is no fun. I just throw this stuff together in my spare time anyway. Beats sitting around in front of a TV.

Don't sweat the small stuff, mate. There are idiots everywhere. They seem to get off on being pushy or intentionally irritating so they get noticed. They probably didn't get enough love when they were children. Cool to vent, but don't let 'em get you down! Glad it didn't get any worse for you.