Gibbon on an Orange 2

Helmet is a cert. Preferably one which comes down round the back of your head too to protect the base of your skull if you fall backwards onto something. Gloves. These won't prevent callouses but they certainly help to stop your hands slipping on the grips when you get sweaty hands. Shin pads are great for preventing the pedals mashing your shins, but some people find them quite constricting and hot, so that's up to you. Elbow pads will obviously protect your elbows in a bail, but you will rarely see them worn for similar reasons to the leg pads.

Lever has a much lighter feel, and if you bath bleed it's a lot easier to get a good solid brake as there's no chance of getting any air in the system like you can with a normal bleed since you can refit the plug bolts while submerged.

I had to claim through them my first year out there after a hefty off. They didn't even question the accident, all they wanted was a photocopy of the receipts from the medical centre and they sorted it all out in a jiffy. I can't fault them at all. If in doubt, pop them an email. I would think since it's not specifically covered in any of the plans that maybe 'Multi-Sport Bike and Climbing' might cover enough to sort you out.

Groves on motorsport discs are there to help de-glaze hot pads, but it also improves bite. As the pads are put under pressure and the pads leading edge reaches a grove, it deforms smightly into the grove. This amount of material is then skimmed off the pad (its only slight, but this is what keeps the surface of the pad deglazed). The material's resistance to the skimming increases the bite of the brake.

then making motorbike noises while ramming your bike against a kerb

Most halfords stores do an assortment of flouro spray paints.

I'm not sure if they'll cover you for Spain, but each time I've gone to France with the DH bike I've used Snowcard Insurance. They covered you for any personal injury while out the country, including any sustained through riding, and they will also cover your bike for any theft or loss. [edit] I've just checked, they cover 'Europe' rather than indivudual countries so you'll be covered for spain.

Let this be a lesson to everyone, a test fit never goes a miss...

Have you tried? If they were that hard, they wouldn't have rounded Get yourself a decent quality hacksaw blade and have a go and you might be supprised. I had to do it on my Mini lever and it worked fine, in fact, I'm still using the same bolt to this day!

Quite handy someone should post this question, as I've just asked Santa for some LGM's The thing is, what do people consider a 'harsh' or a 'light' grind? How would you gague the harshness without being able to compare it to someone elses rim?

I'm supprised after all that drilling and gramme shaving he decided to then add the weight of the paint...

This. An exterior/water proof paint will do your job. I've used emulsion before and that works well until it wears off.

For the bike, some TNN LGM's from my brother. Decided against getting some new forks from the parents.

That'll drop the whole bike, reduce your clearence and slacken your head angle (unless you reduce the PL on the forks too) and then you end up with a slack, sluggish bike that'll constantly bottom out. Their theory is nice, slimmer pedals = better clearence (the number of times i've been had off by the pedal just hanging up on a stump or a rock...) but I can't see it having any benifit on a trials bike other than maybe shedding a bit of weight.

Problems solved?

Cheers. Mine's the short as that's the only length that was left so I didn't really have a choice. I was used to the Zero though so this is a stretched Limo in comparrison! Hmm, seems like it's the Urbans then! Out of interest, does anyone have a pic of an 06 Pitbull with Urbans on so I can see the difference in fork length and offset?

I believe i've only commented on this video once. That's hardly repeated.

At a DH race, even if our helmet strap is left undone you're ejected from the race. I don't give a toss if they ride without one when they're out and about, but if they're doing an advertising shoot or sponsor orientated filming then it's not hard to stick a lid on. People had a similar opinion when Jackie Stewart was promoting safety in Motorsport. They're promoting an 'extreme sport' and if they're doing it minus safety gear then it's promoting it lacking safety. It's no wonder so many young kids go around without a lid on then wonder why they end up with a mashed skul

Seconded. To be honest, I'm supprised Mongoose don't put it in his contract that he has to wear one while he's doing a shoot. Brand image and all that.

They seem so: I'm thinking the beefier Urbans will be the best bet, just wondering if it was worth trying the curved style as I heard years ago that a curved fork gave more 'spring' when hopping, but I'd rather just lifft harder and not have my forks and up in bits mid section the Urbans seem to be one of the ones available with normal disc mounts rather than me having to run a 200mm rotor with my 180mm caliper.

Well it's coming up to christmas and I think it's time for some forks. I've recently got the Zoo finally feeling good with new bars and stem, but I feel the forks are compromising the geo. They're the old 2003 Orange trials forks they made for the Zero (which I ran them on), but I can't help but feel there's far too much rake so they look like they're sticking out the front like buck teeth? Does anyone know that the Geo of these forks are compared to modern ones? I seem to recall them being close to 1000g too so it would be nice to shed some weight from the front end, I like the look of the Echo SL and Echo Urbans, though at 16st am I a tad heavy for the lightweight SL's? Also, whats the difference in feel between the straight blade and curved forks? I mostly do comp style natural stuff, and ride smooth rather than bash. Needs to be suitable for a front 180mm Mono Mini caliper and disc.

7 year old King on the back of mine (Though it's only been used lightly the last 2 or 3 years as i've been mostly DHing). Still sounds as sweet as the day I fitted it and still completely skip free. I'd love to give FFW a go to see what the difference is but I can't justify replacing a hub that's still as-new. In fact, Just worked it out, at the price I baught the King for, it woks out at just over £25 a year. Coming from someone who used to pedal-torque the chain ring bolts clean out of crank arms, I'd say that's pretty good value.

Never tried inner tube, however we used to use a section of old tyre. Worked great for preventing scratches and has a tad more dent protection than a bit of inner tube.

Flip bike over. Rest rear wheel and bars on flat, level ground. Put spirit level accross dropouts. Look at bubble? Provided your bars aren't bent you should see if the dropouts are level with each other. Only other way i could think would be to take your wheel out and drop a plum line down your steerer tube and see if the dropouts are offset at all, though keeping the bike perfectly upright for this could prove tricky. Hold the bike upright with the front wheel in and measure from the ground to the dropout to see if one's lower than the other and is therefore holding the wheel at an angle?

That's stunning, dude. I've used Pro-Engineer, Alias and Solidworks and can't imagine how awkward that would be on any one of them. How are you building it? Are you photographing the frame and using the image as a base or are you measuring and building from scratch?