Martin Direske

Arrival will be in the early early Friday morning as our ferry is supposed to arrive at about 1.30 am on Friday in Dover.

...straight outta the BMW. We now only need some shorts, white socks and sandals to fully keep the shit real BTW: Is there anybody out there with an active Dartford Crossing Account? If so, I would really appreciate someone covering my car for 1x Crossing next week (arrival will be after 10pm, therefore I only need it one way). Due to me not having a creditcard and those retards not accepting PayPal it's kinda tricky.. Will, of course, cover any fees plus bring a few german beers for that particular nice guy on radfest

EU-members incoming!

It actually sounds very mich like Hope as they sorted me out with a new axle and bearings.. can't say anything bad about them. What actually is pissing me off is me not being able to keep shit together.. such as bills. Especially when it comes to a 200€ hub. I never had to send something in as I usually fix things myself. I would have done that as well here, but there were no advance warning before the damage.. Just imagine what happened here: <hub blows up> Me: Oh hello there hope support. I bought a hub of yours like 2 years ago and now it suffered a collateral damage. Hope: Yeah sure no problem. Just send it in with a proof of purchase. Me: Uhh.. Their support is dope as f**k, I wrote with like 3 technicans who really tried to help me but having no bill or something was tricky, plus 2 years or something is bit off regular support I guess. I was trying to get some proof of purchase by looking up my email-inbox from two years ago, even contacted the shop I thought I bought it off.. no chance. In the end I was given the axle and bearings for free, which, having pointed out my stupidity, is a really really nice gesture from hope. A lesson was learned that way.

Litteraly destroyed my Hope Pro2 40T Evo Trials a few weeks ago.. axle, hub shell and bearings within a few minutes. I bought it new like 1 1/2 years ago and of course couldn't find the bill when Hope asked me to send it to them. After loads of emails I finally recieved a new axle as well as the particular bearing that blew up - which, to be fair, is a huge support by hope. Gutted, though, having to go on riding with a damaged hub shell as it's now weakend right next to the disc mount, which, of couse, is in use ..

I can't help but like the look of those Spank logos on these rims when spinning. Not going to get them though.. long live the anti-mainstream Nice riding style as well.. !

Almost shit my pants at the ´clean´ one

*germanz. We're in as well, as Elias said. Might as well be interested in some local pubs... ähh.. culture

It's lovely to hear that people are still looking forward to our vids even though It's been a while (again..) and there hardy are any improvments when it comes to certain street-specific-skills haha haha well.. Fabi, in fact, edited the clips before he found a suitable track.. which is exactly what you've been thinking I think it's nice though, for I'm a huge fan of listening to freewheels and the noises tires make when touching something. Especially when there are no noises coming from the bike which are not supposed to be there. Let's say I haven't been much on the "seated" bike lately as I was more into "real" trials with my 24" Because, so I went for change in january (pay attention to the helmet as well, I used to have the same for almost 8 years now (since I never fell on it and it was quite comfy) and decided to do a round-house-kick in all my equipment haha). Plus putting on the MT7 on the back wasn't such a good idea in the end as I now need some fixing done on the frame which most likely resulted from me being stupid. I wasn't actually expecting it to work either haha. We went to this spot and Fabi thought it could be cool as we filmed there before and needed fresh ideas... Then Rage-Mode happened

Using human obstacles got nothing to do with this. One who knows how to ride trials properly and keeps his bike in fully working order won't ever get into a situation like that. I could vomit watching people gap off from like the middle of an obstacle rather than using the edge.. it's just like trying to snap the chain on purpose. This implifies that the rider is nothing more like a rookie and should never be allowed to involve a human being in his actions.. Sorry for the hate, but those are just my thoughts. And yeah, we involve people in our demos as well - of course it's always someone of our team and not a stranger, though, and we just do the "Star" and not some drop/gap/whatever actions which, once failed, could lead to a serious injury.

This. I went for the standard Storm rotors in the beginning as the brakes came with them but they didn't really develop a decent hold.. as if you needed to bed the pads back in every time you ride. The choice of rotors was taken off me since I once accidently pulled the lever when landing a rather big abubaca, which led to the rotor being kinda bulged in the rear. I then went for the old SM-RT66 I used to have with the Saints.. works perfectly well. Any infos on those Trialtech pads, though? I remember someone mentioning them but couldn't find them on Tartybikes or something back then. Martin

Is that a 74Kingz booster on the front as well? Holy cow

Yeah. It's just like saying "I don't trust in this HS33 stuff.. I mean, pumping oil through a tiny plastic hose hoping it won't popp? Nooo way!"

Trialsy stuff on a streety bike - I do like that quite a lot. Bring back sidehops to the street corner!

Indeed. If only it was just a matter of season.. It's was all the same in the summer. I don't mind people getting into other sports but at first it's kinda sad when the last of the active riders start cancelling rides because they rather do other sports. Bouldering seems to be the most attractive over here.

haha sorry for that. Marino shared the last video Fabi and I did back when we had more time. I'm currently re-posting some older vids on my FB-page which could have led to confusion as well. I'm trying my best to keep Fabi from his new boulder-fascination and don't let him forget his bike and camera. Jesus, boulder(ing?) is taking over over here.. it's kinda pissing me off seeing more rocks than bikes on my FB lately.

Le update. The Because is still going strong.. I don't really know how since it's pretty lightweight and it gets its beating on a regular basis. I went for a lower stem and quite a wide Trialtech rim in der back. I love the way a wider rims comes in handy in natural sections with just a small amount of tirepressure The Marino got some Inspired Team Forks as well as some MT7s and a set of green subrosas. Originally, I was looking for just a decent, black front rim as I got tired of the RhynoLite which I used to ride like 6 years in row lol. I might as well give it to my grandchildren sometime I grabbed myself a bargain off an online shop which actually sold a brand new set of these Subrosa rims for 20€ including shipping. I had to read that twice to get it Even though I'm not a fan of coloured rims I rebuilt my wheelset und it turned out quite nice. I've never had a matching rim set in my whole life so far and really like the fact of having two rims of the same weight. Subrosas a are quite narrow but I haven't had issues in any way so far.

I'm not built to go 9Epals. Simple as that.

Hey there! I'm about to get fit on the bike again as I started working out over the last few months (due to some stressful time, not much spare time for the bikes in the daylight) I also seem to finally get some practice in those Bunnyhops.. (A)

You'll go straight to hell for the disappointment I just experienced by your choice of title!

Why is it that you always have to argue? DOT is DEFINATELY more corrosive than mineraloil. Period. It is recommended to wear gloves when handling DOT since it is slightly acidly to your skin. Period. It clearly wont rip the flesh of your hands, but you shouldn't bath your hands in it for longer than necessary either. What Adam wrote is what I was summarizing under "cryptic bleeding instructions/procedure". It's just another method, I'm fine with that and it works for sure. I just had a bad time with my V2 back in the day

Really? Name an advantage that actually counts in trials use?! Please don't argue with boiling points. This is what comes to my mind spontaneously: DOT... ...brakes are usually harder to bleed (especially when they have no reservoir [avid] and/or you follow the cryptic instructions [Hope/Avid]) ...brakes seem to suffer more from defective sealings inside the system than mineraloil brakes [long term use = increasing spongyness, shitty feeling] ...is corrosive to both, the system and your skin [+ your bleed-kit when you don't care enough.. which sucks even more]. I service DOT brakes on a regular basis and what comes out of older Avids (for example) is stunning. You can see tissues floating around in the old fluid which was once DOT and you even struggle to get the old shit out of the system. Older style Maguras (Clara, Louise, Julie), on the other hand, seem to just run like they should (even though the fluid turned grey as well). I banned DOT brakes from all of my bikes. The only adavantage I ever stumbled across is/was the fact, that a freshly serviced Avid, for instance, has a nice pressure point. But since the latest e.g. Shimanos got the same advantage but with less effort/struggle.. I really don't bother geeting hold of a DOT brake ever again. P.s. I don't say Mineraloil brakes are free of maintenance, of course not. But they suffer from fewer problems and services are really easy/fast/less likely to require replacement parts

Very same here