scary_jeff

They are available, but that's probably just stock left over from their last order. Every place I contacted who had or had had some Alex rims in stock told me they wouldn't be getting any more, and/or that they were discontinued I just ordered a Fire Eye rim from CRC, it's pretty wide, but it's not really a trials rim, and apparently it's heavy (I couldn't find the weight listed anywhere but will weigh mine when it arrives). CRC also have a 'Spank Stiffy', which is wide, but expensive and again, not designed for trials. Onza have replacement Ronnies if you don't mind sticking with those, they only had 36 hole for 24" but they might have 32 hole for 26".

According to my research, DX32s are discontinued. You can still order from Alex rims Europe, if you make an order for 30 or more of the exact same rim (the factory will then run a batch). If you need 36 hole, try emailing 24seven bikes to see if they have any. I only asked them about 32 hole, which they didn't have.

So it's not looking like I'll get 10 orders together for DX32 rims, so I'm down to two options to finally get my bike rolling. One is a Spank Stiffy rim, the other is a 'Fire Eye Excelerant'. I would rather not spend £50 on the spank, as with spokes that takes me up to £60-£70 including spokes (depending on whether it's worth getting anything more than 'DT champion'?). Has anyone heard anything good or bad about the Fire Eye rim? There's nothing on the forum about them so I guess it's a fairly new product.

I'm stealing this idea from someone else, but get a couple of cable ties, one round each fork leg, then trim them so they can be rotated to rub against the rim like a brake pad would. The only disadvantage of not using a proper stand is that the rim can end up off centre from the hub, but I don't know how much that matters, and it's pretty unlikely if you are just correcting a mostly-ok wheel.

I think he means it goes loose, then goes tight again. Could be a bent axle? If so, not much you can do apart from push harder. If you really have to get the cranks off and don't mind risking something breaking, you can stick a metal pipe over the end of the Allen key to get more leverage.

Not sure what the price would be. Looks like they retailed for around £25, so say £30 by the time I've posted them out to people? This is just a guess as there's no point me going into all the detail of it if there's just no way I'm going to get ten orders together. I would do the whole thing at cost.

Hi I just got off the phone with Alexrims europe. I am looking for a 32 hole DX32 black undrilled 24 inch, and the guy said that if I could get an order for maybe 10, I might be able to order in this quantity. I would want two myself; is anyone else interested in trying to make up 10? It's not certain that this is even possible, but if there's no interest in the first place, I may as well give up now! I'm after this specific rim because it seems to be well liked, and it's quite cheap for a rim of this width (38mm).

If the bolt is really tight, the flat screwdriver might just mangle the slot you create. Then you have to drill a 1 or 2 mm hole through the bolt; when you rewind the drill, the bolt might come out. If not, go 0.5mm bigger bit and try again. Ideally you would use a reverse drill bit, as this is much more likely to work first time as you drill into the bolt (in reverse)... but it's unlikely you will have one. The other approach I've seen work is to drill a hole in the bolt, then use a 'weld' adhesive to fix a small allen key into the hole, and finally undo the bolt with the welded in allen key. This is a bit of a last resort if you have reached the max drill bit size that won't damage the hole that the bolt is going in to, and the bolt still hasn't come out.

Well I'll steer clear of the actual content as I know this video isn't supposed to show ground breaking riding, you just want to practice some editing. These are just my opinions, I've not made videos myself. I actually thought the slowmo bit was OK. Also I thought the yellow flower to the goldish rim was a nice idea. Since I'm guessing you're using a digital camera for the video, without auto macro, only move the camera as close as it will focus.. it may seem like going out of focus would look the same as bluring, but it doesn't seem to work like that. Go in as close as the camera will focus, then do the rest of the zoom/blur in the software (digital zoom won't look bad when you're producing a low res video), then quickly ramp the gamma/hue across the transition to the next shot, so that it actually blends in smoothly. As it stands, the abrupt jump to the rim spoils the effect a bit. Sound: wind noise really spoils the immersion because unless it's very very windy, you wouldn't hear that if you were actually stood there watching as opposed to watching a film. It should be possible to remove this in the editor, but you might need plugins and it would be very hard if you want to keep the bike noises. You could try and reduce this by taping a folded up sock over the mic of the camera or something, if you're not worried about how the camera looks! If you want more footage, you could always film more of those guys in the background of that brick pyramid thing, if you're just practising editing then it doesn't really matter who is in the video. If there's someone doing the same thing over and over, you could try getting the same move from a few different angles - when edited together you could make it look as if it was all the same attempt (provided you don't show a clip looking back at where a camera guy should have been stood ). Lastly, put in some very quick transitions between clips to smooth them over a bit. You only need literally a few frames to go from one shot, optionally to black, to the next shot, to really smooth it over. Does the software have a steadycam simulator thing? This would reduce the video field of view slightly but I think could be worth it. Someone mentioned VirtualDub, this sounds like a good idea if you are trying to upload videos that are 400mb for just a couple of minutes. Save from vegas in whatever the best quality format is, then open it in virtualdub, and you should be able to export very high quality video into only 10s of megabytes.

I spent ages getting onto the back wheel the 'endo first' method, then just randomly trying every movement I could think of and throwing my weight in any direction until eventually I got it. The one thing I would say extra to everyone else is that to do some small hops on the spot, your arms shouldn't really be doing much, somewhere around 40 degrees from straight. Then like Redneck said, it's really just jumping with your toes pointing downwards to grip the pedals. When I was learning I was trying a lot of stuff involving my arms, but that turned out to be a dead end Since you say you're just starting out, I thought it's worth mentioning that you must have the ball of your foot on the pedals. You almost certainly knew that so sorry if this was obvious! Lastly, I think it's worth just leaning back too much, so that you actually fall off the back of the bike on purpose a few times. When you can happily do this, you won't have the fear of falling backwards that seems to stop a lot of people from finding the balance point when they are starting out. Probably the easiest way to then do a hop is to hop as you start to fall back; you still have momentum from the pullback, so you shouldn't fall sideways, and since you know how to fall off backwards safely, your brain will have more confidence to put more energy into it all.

Pretty good show, why only BBC Scotland :/ I can understand why, but it seemed a bit weird having as much time devoted to one guy as to the whole competition side of things!

I think the effect looks good, but why no 4bolts when the Justice does have them? Is there any disadvantage to having disc and 4bolt mounts (other than a tiny bit of weight)? I just hope people won't assume they are the same quality as the plain Diamondback frames.

Hah, no it's not that bad! That was just some random picture I found on google to show nichols_sam what the forks were. I included a picture of my bike this time, although I've accepted now that a trials bike will help me... I've just sort of hijacked my own thread to ask questions about learning new stuff. I have actually had a go on a mod a few years ago, but it just feels too weird for me, and at 6'2" I felt a bit stupid on it (no offence to any tall mod riders intended! ). Thanks for the reply though. btw, those noname V8 copies have lasted over 10 years now

Excellent, thanks for the advice! The forks aren't the drop offs, they were more expensive I think (back in 2000)... they are Z1 CR. Not my bike but I found a picture here: http://www.bikenews.it/mercatino/FSR1.jpg . Hah, that bike looks SO old! I couldn't really try the sidehop wall today because there were 30mph+ winds in that spot (well I did try but I got blown over). However, someone put a pallet in these ww2 ruins I go to, so I tried putting the pallet against a wall to try and get up the wall. I managed it after about 50 tries, really pretty rewarding learning the weight transfer and ending up being flung into the air If I want to eventually get up the same wall without the pallet, I guess I need to make the pallet steeper and steeper? I would say I had it at about 15 degrees from vertical, and the ground slopes up towards the wall at about 15 degrees as well. Next question, when I get a trials bike, will the rigid forks make this sort of thing easier or harder? I couldn't tell if my forks were just absorbing energy, wasting it, or if they were recoiling and helping me out. Also, I'm definitely taking some chain links out. My chain either came off at the front, went up a few gears at the back, or (usually) both, pretty much every time I tried the wall :/ The rear mech is a bit stiff as well, so I'll try and sort that out to.

So, anyone got any tips for me? What can I try to not end up leaning too far over once I'm up the wall? Could the problem be caused by me not starting by hopping on the back wheel, and instead trying to do the whole thing on one movement?

I think this is a great idea!

I think form a legal standpoint, you have to have a fixed and not-flashing front and rear light, pedal reflectors, and wheel reflectors. But realisticly, if you have any light on the front and back, the police won't say anything to you. If you have additional lights on your wheels or wherever else, this doesn't make any difference from a legal standpoint, but only having lights on the wheels is the same as having no lights at all as far as the police are concerned.

Yeah, they probably base the whole thing one what we say here

He did leave it submerged in cola. It mostly just made me wonder what it's doing to my teeth if it can turn some metal object into... nothing.

Yea, a guy at work tried to use cola to clean some metal thing for his boat, got up the next day and there was nothing left!

Well, while spending half the waking hours scouring the forums/ebay/local classifieds for an inspired, I've also been trying to get out on my current bike. Just had a bit of success with trying to transfer from front wheel to back without both wheels being on the grrund inbetween (if that makes sense, it's practice for dropping off things starting with front wheel pivot), and some sidehopping. What am I doing wrong with sidehopping if I always end up having to put my left foot down (I can only really do it to the left)? If I don't lean as much to the left, my back wheel doesn't make it sideways enough to actually land on the wall... I'm doing it all in one motion, as I can't seem to stand on the back wheel doing little hops like people on youtube; I either end up going miles backwards each hop, or have to pedal, which isn't great when trying to line up for a sidehop. I can bounce on the spot fine on the unicylce... I guess it's a lot easier when your feet are at axle level. One more question, everything from my finger tips right round my shoulders to the other fingertips is now aching, so in 'problem page' style, 'am I normal??'

This could be nonsense, but weren't Martin Ashton and and Martin Hawes two of the biggest names in trials in the early days? Having two top riders, both British, in MBUK all the time, and doing demos around the country, must have helped popularise the discipline in the UK. I think I saw them in Plymouth at Newham park in 1999 on a Volvo Canondale demo rig, I remember being very impressed. Looking back at it, tons of people can now do the kinds of tricks they were doing back then! The only other name that springs to mind from back then is Hans Rey, I think at one stage he was the only guy who could do the trick (I don't know the correct name) where you do a stoppie in reverse, pushing yourself along with your foot on the front wheel. But I think the two Martins were younger than him.

Hi. I did a forum search for this, and only found something from 2 years ago that I thought best not to resurrect. Anyway, My current bike (DMR Trailstar, Z1 forks) is the only bike I've really tried any 'trials' on. I would say I can do most tricks on a micro scale.. anything over 18 inches high/wide is too big for me to get up/across. The forks weigh 5.5 pounds, the frame weighs 6 pounds (according to google, it's not one of the newer lighter ones), and I weigh less than 12 stone at 6'2". I just had a go on it for the first time in a few weeks to try and copy some techniques I saw on youtube, and it all feels like so much effort. I probably haven't got any better at trials for at least two years. OK I only ride it once every few weeks, but that's mainly because trying to do any trials on it doesn't end up being that much fun. I'll happily keep trying the same obstacle for 10-15 minutes, but all I end up with is aching arms from yanking on the bars, having failed to do whatever I was trying So I was thinking of getting either a stock or 24" trials bike. I'm just really wondering if I can expect to be able to improve that much. I plan to ride it a few times a week as an after work activity making the most of the sun. I don't know anyone with a trials bike to have a go on. Basically, does getting a proper bike sound like a giant waste of time for me given that I don't seem to be able to improve on my current bike? Or is my current bike such a complete disaster for trials that it is clearly holding me back?

This thread reminds me, 24" needs a name. I was thinking either stod or mock. Obviously I expect £0.1 in royalties every time anyone uses those names.. I'll be rich! Rich!!

That bike is amazing! Did it actually survive serious riding? I'm imagining trying to pull a stoppie, and the brake bosses just ripping off