isitafox

It's all personal preference mate, just depends what feels right for you, I run a front disc and rear maggie on my mod and dual maggies on my stock. Some people will swear by V's and others who use discs will swear by cable operated as opposed to hydraulic, once you get into the swing of things you'll be able to make your own mind up. It's like the whole grind your rim/don't grind your rim debate and what's the best pad, something that works for one person might not feel so great to the next. Just a pain in the arse waiting till you that setup that feels good!

TGS can still be part of pure trials, last round of british champs last year at Shipley is a good example. One section on a banking had the elite route going up an obscenely high and very steep angled rock with no run up, the only solution was to sidehop. And to be honest I don't even know if all the elite riders that day attempted to get up as it was MASSIVE! Another section on the top had a large climb onto a rock, think I remember watching one of the elite guys attempt it a whole different way to everyone else and gap across (which was also massive). Comes in handy everywhere, it ain't just a street thing.

Round where I live we're still on the oldskool style of half pedal up wall, backhop down off wall. Mainly due to there being sod all to make a decent line to ride!

Ah but had you not started this topic you'd be on a lot less! The question now is how many people replied on this topic to try and get some rep points??

You wanna start reading back your posts before you hit that button and fill in the blanks!

I'd stick with a phase personally, the one on ebay thats linked above is a perfect starter and a great price. As for doing some recreational riding your better off sticking with a proper trail bike.

Am I the only person who thinks you look like Owen Wilson in that pic?!

If you get the right v setup you'll probably have no need to upgrade the frame anytime soon. Just get some tnn lgv pads an the brake setup well and it should perform as well as if not better than a magura, as I said before it's all personal preference.

The only thing to think about with a 1.3 is I'm pretty sure they run a v brake on the rear instead of a magura so you just have to decide what you'd prefer to use yourself

Gonna stick oven on shortly to knock up some turkey pittas with nando's hot sauce, followed by a brew and some chocolate brownies the wife made earlier!!

Aye the very same

Next question, fitted to rim or not??

Can't specifically target fat areas to get rid of weight, it's a whole package deal so just try and lose fatty foods and carbs after lunchtime and drink plenty of water (pref about 2.5l a day). Oh yeah and exercise!

Going off the measurements on Tartybikes, says the Der Kaiser will come up about 4mm wider which is gonna be more than enough to cause me some aggro!! Gutted cause I'm so happy with my Because Simple but it's little things like this that let it down!

Cheers for the tips lads, will half inch some snips from my dads garage tomorrow!!

I've got hold of a Der Kaiser cheap (cheers Rob) and I know it ain't gonna fit in my frame as the tryall thats currently there is tight as f**k already, so it's gonna need trimming down beforehand. Has anyone done this before and if so have you got any tips other than use a sharp blade and don't cut yourself?? Gonna be one of my missions on nights at work this week when my new stand arrives!

Good to hear, might be worth a look at the MAD teams homepage here http://s295835280.initial-website.co.uk/ as they all ride the Phase just with different components.

Do you still get a paper counterpart with your drivers licence? Last time I changed address you just filled in the form on the back of the counterpart and sent it off with your licence to the DVLA and they sent you a new licence and counterpart with your new details on. That way if you fill in the address by hand they should just type it straight on to your record, might be worth popping a note in as well to say its a new build property just in case they need to check it out. Should really do mine, the wifes and the car as we've been moved 4 months now an not got round to it yet!!

A 17" frame is gonna be far too big to ride trials on, years ago when you could only really adapt a mountain bike I was riding a 13" Specialized Rockhopper and when I look back at pics of that now it looks huge! I definately agree with the comment about the MAD Phase 1.2, for £250 it's a great bike to start with, decent enough geo (the team riders use the same frame, look for some vids on their website) and is a good enough bike to look at upgrading. If you end up buying a £200 2nd hander off ebay and decide you really wanna give trials a go and progress your most likely gonna have to go out and buy everything all over again to build a "proper" rig whereas with the 1.2 it's not much over your budget, perfect for learning on and suits high level riders with a few choice upgrades.

Nitromorse the forks until you've got 95% of the paint off then get the remaining few bits and smooth the forks off with some wire wool, then send off to be anodised!! Mine cost £30 including return postage, absolutely great job and top service and it shaves a few grams off the weight as well. Think I posted them out special delivery on the Tuesday and got them back on the Friday off a guy called Steve Barry who Adam from Tartys hooked me up with, would highly recommend it!!

Mod for mucking about on, stock for real trials!

To be honest if your improving and see yourself riding trials for a while I'd hang on and splash out on a new rear wheel build with a fixed hub and get some new cranks and run a front freewheel. It'd cost around the £200 mark but I personally think it'd be a much better investment than spending £45-50 on a single speed setup then changing to FFW later on.

You'd need a set of cranks which are threaded though this all depends on if you've got a fixed rear hub or not

Assuming you have a rear freehub and are running an 22t sprocket up front you'll need a spacer kit, 18t rear sprocket and as for the tensioner you will be ok with a single wheeled one but I'd go for a sprung setup to save hassle with setting up the correct chain tension. Something like http://www.tartybikes.co.uk/sprung_tensioners/4jeri_tensioner/c48p10179.html would be fine for the job. You can put a freewheel on the rear if your running a fixed rear hub but personally I'd stick with running one on the cranks.