loffa

Spent a few hours trying to re-learn ups and taps again. I currently find this the hardest thing to get back to, timing is really off ...and thanks to Danny i got my old account back. Yay!

Why did you buy a 26" fork for a mod bike?

I've tried to master the G-Turn for ages and I can get the bike rolling backwards but I have no idea how you can get it to turn on the front wheel while rolling. Though I guess that this might help you a bit: Have you ever seen the squeakers style fronthops (the ones where you do backwards nosemanuals instead of hopping backwards) done? They can be seen in the coustellier nottingham vid for example. Or even better, can you do them? The body movement that you use to get the bike rolling backwards is the same as you do while doing these. The point is to keep your body weight on (not over) the bars and keep your arms straight during the whole move (!), otherwise you'll lose your momentum. When doing the pivot, release the front brake just before reaching the 180 mark and lean forward a bit with your hips and upper body and kindof pull the bike torwards yourself by bending your knees so that you push the front wheel to the direction you want it to go. (ie torwards the rear wheel) This should make the bike roll backwards on front wheel and put you into the right position for the whole move (arms straight, knees bent a bit). Though I can't help you any further because I have no idea what to do to get the bike actually spinning.

A smaller front sprocket WILL put a larger stress to the chain and it's explainable by pretty simple physics. Think about leverage. The closer you are to the pivoting point the more power you get and the less movement you get. Now let's take leverage to your crankarms: The crankarm is one side of the lever, your bottom bracket is the pivoting point and the radius of the sprocket is the other side of the lever sticking over the pivoting point. Just like shown in the pic below: Now, let's say that you put force X to the crank arm. With a 34t chainring you'll get force A at the part where chain meets the chainring. But with a 16t chainring you'll get force B with still using the same force X at the crank arm. Force B is much stronger than force A because the other side of the lever is shorter thus giving you more power and less movement of the chain. And now this has to be balanced with a smaller rear cog to get the same amount of wheel movement. The same thing works with rear cogs. One side of the lever is the radius of your rear wheel, the wheel axle is the pivoting point and the other side of the lever is the radius of your rear cog. But now you are operating with the smaller end of the pivot and you have move the longer one and the law works the opposite way: The smaller your rear cog is the more pressure and less chain movement you have to apply to get the wheel rotate the same amount. But you cannot compare a 20" and 26" bike with different sized rear cogs. On a 20" bike the longer side of the lever is much shorter and thus the shorter side has to be shorter as well. PS. Sorry for my terrible physics terminology, but hopefully you get the point

Thanks for the opinions guys, keep them coming I've also added a poll to make it a bit easier to reply.

So I've snapped my non-driveside Tensile crank arm and need something to replace them and I need them as fast as possible. I was thinking of getting some Middleburns because of their quality and long-time warranty. But the thing is that I haven't got a clue which bash should I go for. I tried searching but not much came up on the Cloud9 bash, probably because they are fairly new. The first place I looked was Tarty and I saw that both of the bashes have the same price. Then I looked around a bit and found that I could get the arms and 16t bash from chainreactioncycles for about 15£ cheaper, plus I'd save on postage (bearing in mind that I live in Estonia and shipping them here costs quite a lot) when ordering from crc because I can order them with a couple local freeride guys who are making a big order from CRC. And it would be a bit quicker as well. If I had to order them from Tarty I'd probably go for Cloud9 just to be sure, because I've heard some guys having problems with snapping chains with the 16t up front, but now that I have the choice of getting the 16t a bit faster and cheaper I don't know which option I should go for. Anyone who has used one of them, could you suggest something? Is the 18t bash worth more money and longer waiting time? (I can ride my bike atm, so it isn't that critical to get them soon, but I'd just feel better if I didn't have those tensile cranks on my bike any more . ATM I'm running two driveside tensile cranks(got the other one from a mate who has also snapped his left one) with two right side pedals) Cheers.

Thanks guys, I'm going for it then. Interesting.. Maybe you could get a pic of it?

I've been thinking of getting a Rohloff tensioner to replace my trusty old xtr mech, but I'd like to know wether or not it can handle the occasional hits from sidehops? It looks kind of weak from pics. I'm running a custom 6mm thick steel hanger and an old style XTR mech as a tensioner. And as I sidehop to the right I tend to land on it quite often, but it can take the beating just fine. So I'd like to know if the rohloff could handle it or should I stick with my XTR? And please don't tell me to get a 74kingz, because it's a way overpriced piece of garbage in my eyes

Yep, keep the disc mount and integrated brake booster! The disc mount is why I bought the frame in first place. I also really loved my Simtra but I found it just a bit too long, being only 170cm tall I find the Czar short much easyer to throw around. And reading that bigman found the previous version a tad too short maybe you could do two versions of the frame? One in ~1070mm and the other one in 1090mm+? But have you concidered having the seattube curved (bt style) or maybe pointing a bit more forward (Koxx Caisso style)? Right now it just looks out of place for me. Though that's just cosmetic and wouldn't affect the frame in any other way I guess.

So I've been riding this frame for about a month now. Loving every second of it. Though I do miss my rear disc on the Simtra. Czar 07 Zoo fork and bar Echo Control Stem King headset King ISO on ZHI rear (powdercoated white) Hope Pro2 on Mavic D321 front (drilled and powdercoated white) Tensiles and BT bottom bracket Wellgo Mg-1 pedals High-roller single ply front, Minion 2.5" rear XTR mech etc etc. Basically some of the lightest components out there without losing any strenght and the bike still weights a massive 11.4kg/25lbs. But whatever, it rides mint.

Seriously, get yourself a bleed kit. It's soo easy to make a DIY bleed-kit. Mine cost me 0.17£ to build. (the price of two 25ml syringes from a local pharmacy) What you want to do is go to the nearest pharmacy and buy yourself two syringes, I guess you can go for the largest ones they've got. Mine are 25ml and do the job fine. Then find yourself some hosing (clear is a bit better but anything will work) that will fit over the end of the syringe. (Inner diameter about 1-1.5mm I guess.) Again, you can get some clear hosing that is used for medical stuff at a pharmacy or you can go fully DIY like a friend of mine and use some isolation from a phone cable. Then fit about 10cm of hose to the end of each syringe (take the needle off ofcourse) and put a magura barbed fitting to the other end. And voila.. you've made yourself a magura bleed-kit that actually works and cost you almost nothing. Sorted.

I had the same problem with my 07 Czar. What you want to do is grind an L-shaped cutout into the silver aluminium washer around the bolt, so when fitting the wheel you turn the bolts so that the flange of the dropout will go into the cutout and then turn the bolt slightly so that it will kind-of roll over it. Hard to describe but this picture should say more than a thoulsand words: http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/5919/tsaar1sy2.jpg

I could do about 40-41" to the left side (being left footed) before learing the other way (that was at least 2years ago.). Now I can do about 42-43" to the right side constantly (45" is my record, did it over a year ago). So even though the height hasn't improved a lot I find that my technique is now much better. When sidehopping to your front foot side most people tend to use their front wheel way too much. It's cool for doing those front-to-rear sidehop 90degree thingies but it looks really ugly when doing a real sidehop. Though I've never fallen backwards when missing a sidehop to the left, I tend to stay on the left pedal just like when you've missed a bit crooked tap. Actually I think that it's good that I used to sidehop to my lead foot, because now I can sidehop both ways which is pretty essential when riding comps. But I can't sidehop for the love of god, I just can't understand all of you english guys doing those tucked 48+ inch sidehops to both wheels. I've been riding for 4 years and can ride pretty decently otherwise I guess, but sidehops remain a mystery for me. Some day I will make that 120cm/47" sidehop I've wanted to do for so long.. some day

You can try putting some grease on the bolts that hold the bar to the stem. They tend to creak when not greased. That or your fork/stem/bar is about to snap.

The adamant looks lush. But.. The rear cog looks huge. What's the gear ratio? 18:18? And what's with the dual front brake adapter? Edit: I can see that the first adapter is either a +20 or +40, but you could just get yourself a 203mm Avid adapter and throw away the first adapter? = Less weight and stiffer brake.

Actually I found that my 06 czar which I absolutely hated in every other way (too long, crap for taps etc) was THE gap-to-frontwheel monster? Because of the higher bb your body weight is more on the front wheel so it's easyer to land with your body in the right position? At least that's what I thought..

Noooo.. why did you grind down the frame? Theres a much better solution for it: You can see an L shaped cutout on the funbolt washer at about 5'o'clock. Other than that, nice looking bike you've go there. How's the rear brake? How does it feel when running boosterless? I'm running a Dengura on my Czar and the frame flexes quite a bit without a booster. And I have always thought that vees make your frame flex easyer than maggies..

No, not really. In theory longer stem and shorter fork will make your bike easyer to balance on the front wheel, but your setup is just fine for doing front wheel moves. It's just that you have to get over the fear and go for it.

Have you broken the bb7 in yet? How's the performance? Does it have enough power as a rear brake? I used to ride a Simtra with a rear Hope and I loved the disc's performance and everything, but the mushy lever feeling was something I couldn't stand. So a few weeks ago I got myself a new Czar with a Dengura but I'm slightly missing the rear disc.. And as I still have the frame I was thinking of getting a 203mm bb7 to the rear and going back to the Simtra, as I could sell the Czar for the same price I got it. Edit: Just noticed that... where is your rear valve?!

They look like the really old first model zoo bars.. '04-'05 maybe. The logo on them is different to the one on the newer bars (the new ones have a white 'zoo' writing, these ones have only the outer of the letters) Though they are the first snapped zoo bars I've seen as well. And loads of people ride them.

Estonia it is

Glad that you've liked the vid so far keep 'em coming.

I wish our import duty of bicycles was 14%, over here it's 48%

Hey. Me and my mate Karl haven't made a video in a while so we thought that it's time to bring out another one from the SBT series. Hope you like it. All comments are more than welcome. Riding: me on the Simtra and Karl on the Pitbull. http://tv.isg.si/site/filebrowser/loffa?so...&order=Name - sbt7.mpg about 90mb & 5 min. Sorry that it's on the larger side, stupid Pinnacle Studio wont let me compress it smaller without losing much in quality.

The geo should be 1080wb, +0bb, 380cs and 71,5 head angle. dont quote me on that head angle though. I have ridden a mk1 coust and I LOVED it. The frame was really stiff and responsible compared to the zoo boa that I had at that time. (not that the boa would be a good comparision(sp?) of a stiff frame, but you get the point).