Steve-A
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Posts posted by Steve-A
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Cheers guys. I'm glad its fun to watch.
Zhi nuts, I don't quite understand your post? The only thing I can think of is that someone else made a vid at that last spot? It used to be a doctors surgery, but the other spot was outside focus.
ilikeriding, Malvern's pretty rubbish really. Seeing as you live in Worcester, like 6 miles away its worth a shot one day, but I'd never suggest anyone travels to ride here! haha
Simps, the bike is pretty much as you left it. I've got my old yellow pedals from my last mod (only 6 years old those pedals plenty of life left!), got some new grips, new chain, set the brakes up a bit better
and coke can on the isis splines to make up for rounding cranks.Finally Skoze, I rode like that before I got a 24, this is more coming back home.
As I said this was only very quickly made and once I've learnt to ride again I'll make a proper vid.
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So its saturday afternoon. There's no-one else riding, its grey and looking likes its going to rain. I went for a quick spin in the link (area of Malvern) on my new-ish bike. I took the camera out, so I could watch back a few moves to see where I was going wrong!
In-fact once I'd finished riding I was still bored, so I made the clips into a mini vid. A few people have liked it on msn, so I thought I'd shove the link up here too. Proper vids are in the pipeline...
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I think it was great to see top gear pushing into new boundaries. I think they've made the right move to head towards vehicle based entertainment, and it looks like this season might include boats, and scooters from the trailer. Its entertainment aimed at blokes, but women to a lesser extent too, primarily in their 30s. Its almost filling the place of the videos we get in the 'best of the internet thread' for those who are less likely to be on a forum such as this. Thats a recipe for a great entertainment show.
I do think it 's a bit too cheesy sometimes. I think the lorries thing would have been better if they had all had a cake, and there was no need for the leg to fall off the piano. I also like that the constantly evolve their video production methods, with different shots and editing techniques in ever series, some work bette than other, but overall its on the cutting edge of TV editing. If you look back a few years no one would have dared use as many jump cuts and sound effects, but top gear pushed it and now you see it in many more shows.
5th gears is good sometimes but I feel they should stick to proper car reviews of cars average people buy, as thats the hole in the market. When they try the silly stunts side of things it just comes off as a poor mans top gear.
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Yeh, I knew it wasn't allowed for outdoors, but I'd still not seen it indoors either. Though its been quite a while since I've seen any moto trials, its probably come along way.
As for moto gp, Eurosport always used to (and I believe it was still the case this year) show qualifying and practices for all the rounds for those sad ones amongst us!, where as the BBC only show some of them. They also head better coverage of the 125s and 250s, which are faaar better than the 800s to watch. Eurosport wont have any moto gp next year thuogh, so its BBC all the way.
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Wow, thats some skill right there. It all looks a little sketchy, but its just all about the fact thats he's doing it!
Theres another video on thats guys Vimeo, thats of indoor moto trials LINK and the rider tries an up, and then bubacas back and tries again, which in itself is something pretty mental and something I've not seen moto trials riders do before.
One thing I miss since we stoppe getting Sky is watching Eurosport for its moto trials/moto gp coverage
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Cheers.
Looks like Try-All front for sure, and either Try-All or Monty for rear. I shan't be ordering till next week, so maybe I'll get chance to check out someone's bike with either Try-All or Monty rear tyre on saturday ( presuming the weather's not too horrid!).
I like the sound of the Monty rear being lighter, but at the same time 50g isn't much. Not like the difference I found on my 24" going from 1100g Maxxis to 400g Tioga!
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I'm looking for some info about mod tyre choices, I've had a search with little success and also checked the FAQ. Now I'm presuming this is a topic thats been covered lots in the past ,so if anyone cant point me at a similar topic thats great.
I've recently bought a second hand XTP short 20". Its currently fitted with Maxxis Creepy Crawlers but they are long past their best, so I'm after some new tyres. I've had a quick look and I can see there's Echo, Koxx, Maxxis and Monty tyres available that all look like they might be worth while.
How do they compare? I ride street most of the time and I prefer a lighter faster rolling tyre. I just prefer the way it feels for bunnyhops/spins/etc. I can see the Koxx and Monty tyres are lighter than the Maxxis and Echos, is this noticable? I'm quite tempted by the Koxx tyres as I've never had any, how do their rolling resistance compare to the others?
At the end of the day although I'm after a light free rolling tyre. If, for example, the monty tyres gripped much better and had better spring, then I'd probably go for them. But if everythnig is much of a muchness then I'll go for the lightest fastest tyre.
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Err, I think so.
I rode 24" for 4 years, and before that I rode 20' for 2 years. Over the years I have tried to ride a proper BMX, I never really felt at home. On my 20" I was managing to ride in a 'street' style way, but it wasn't always particularly pretty/smooth. The moves were all possible, and the mod was light and the small wheels meant it could spin well. But the long stem putting weight forward meant it was sometime hard to do things well. For example landing a fufanu to two wheels cleanly was hard, landing to back wheel was easy. It was all too easy to push down to land to two wheels and just smash into the floor all off balance. Once I bought the 24" I did find it easier to land tricks, the bigger wheels were more forgiving, and the shorter stem set-up of the larger wheeled bikes meant my weight could be in a more bmx style rearwards position. So landing tricks to wheels was much easier. That said physically spinning the bike was harder, it feels more clumsy and cumbersome.
I've now gone back to 20" and I can still do all the same stuff as on my 24" AND I'm landing smoother like I did on the 24".
I think what I've found, and this could well be just the way it works for me and not anyone else, is that once I've learnt the skills on one bike they are transferable. A mod IS hard to learn ride 'bmx' on but once you know how to do a proper bmx style 360 bunnyhop ( just to give an example) its not too hard to do one on a mod. Obviously this has limitation, a python is never going to be as good for street as a monty or short koxx frame, and like wise a short echo pure or equivalent is going to be much better than a Gu with its super high bb.
If you already ride bmx, then I'd say stick with a fairly short trials bike. Learn to transfer the skills, you'll know the feeling of how far you've gotta be leaning/weight shifting, it transfers quite quickly really, and you'll still have a true trials bike thats fun if you end up on a ride with some TGS boys. If this is going to be your only bike ,and your intending to learn to ride in a BMXy manner then definitely get a 24". When set-up well they can be almost as good as a true trials bike for trials and they ARE the easiest trials bike to ride in a bmxy manner.
Sorry lots of waffle there, but its not the sort of question with a direct answer. To throw a final spanner in the works.... You've gotta want to ride it and be comfy. I don't get on with stocks, I'm much more at home on 20". So even if stocks were the best option for street, I wouldn't buy one as I'd never be able to ride it as well as the technically less suited 20".
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Personally I never trust the hold the brake and do the bolt up method for BB7s. The rotors are quite flexible really ,and I often find that as I tighten the bolts the torque of doing so can twist the caliper.
I think its easiest to put the bike upside down on something fairly bright, like a light grey paving slab, then loosen caliper off, and you should be able to look down between the rotor and pads and see a glimmer of the bright background the bikes sitting on. Then I normally do the bolts up bit by bit whilst holding the caliper so the torque of doing up the bolts can't twist the caliper.
Sometimes I find it easiest to wind the non moving pad in a bit further than I want, then alight caliper up touching this, then wind it back a notch or two. Its always going to take a bit of playing.
If you want to use the auto aligning style method then why not just set it up on a part of the rotor thats not bent? Spin the wheel and using a marker pen move slowly closer to the rotor, as you just get close enough the pen will mark the rotor on its high spots where its bent out, and you can work out which bits are bent and which way. Then just clean the rotor off afterwards.
At the end of the day its never going to align 100% perfectly. The best thing you can do it get it set-up as good as you can then leave it. And the pads will wear to suit its position, the brake will feel stiff and work very well.
Finally, when you put the rotor on the hub did you cross torque the bolts? screwing them all in loosely then tightening the first bolt up medium tight, then doing the one directly opposite it, then going back to the one beside the first bolt and doing that one and its opposite one, and so on, then going round again and doing them all up properly tight? If you tightened them up following round the circle, and didn't do them up in increment,s just loose to full tight this can often cause parts like disk rotors to warp. Its worth a shot to take the rotor off, make sure there's no crap between it and the hub and then doing the bolts up in a cross torquing pattern before writing your rotor off.
Edit: Damn i took so long to post some one beat me to it about the bolts....
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Good luck if you can get it to work, I've been there and tried this.
An old fashioned mod frame, i.e. old monty, isn't far off a bmx for geometry. Its not perfect bmx geo but I was working on presumption that I'd be better of working from trials bike towards bmx, rather than from bmx towards trials, for ease of sorting brakes/bashguard etc. The problems I found were all to do with the bar and stem choice.
With a BMX bar and stem it pretty much rode like a bmx, not quite right but certainly not far off. With a mod bar and stem it rode just like a normal mod. Both bar and stem combos resulted in about the same sortta bar height, so its all down to the reach the stem gives really. The short bmx style stem was great to spin and bunnyhop to wheels, but it was horrible for trials, the bike was really difficult on the back wheel, nigh on impossible to gap any distance. And surprisingly I could never bunnyhop it that high to backwheel, wheels yes but not up to back. And obviously the mod reach stem rode just like a mod...
Edit:
I also bodged a 100x35 stem onto some old mtb bars that had a 3" rise and ended up with a similar bar height and a stem length somewhere between bmx and mod. I found that i was too far over the front wheel for bmx, suffering the same flaws as trying to ride a normal mod. And it was still rubbish at trials.
Basically the conclusion I came to was that I'd just keep riding my mod in a streety manner. It was probably only 4 or 5 months later when I got my 24", because I was still looking to ride a bmx and trials combo really. I found it much easier to learn the bmx style moves on the 24 than on the mod. But interestingly enough I've recently got back into riding and gone back to mod, and I can do all the same moves on my XTP as on my 24".
I think once you know how to do the moves its not too hard to transfer them to a different bike. Obviously my XTP is a short one, so a bit better suited to spins etc than a long python or something, and I'm not running a super low stem and I've got a few more psi in my tyres than most mod riders.
A mod frame with sus forks, a modified mtb hub, gears and a seat, now that was a whole different matter
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Monty hose splitter, and same sided pistons (M6/M6) would do the trick. The pads would move in more uniformly?
The hose routing has nothing to do with the pads not moving in together/the tpa not adjusting both pads properly. They should both move uniformly anyway, but dirt/lack of lubrication in the slave cylinder seals and air bubbles cause one pad to move more than other. Normally a good clean out of the pad that doesn't move right, maybe lubricate the piston a bit and they move together
As for new parts, I think 1.5" steerer is a good plan. I'd also like to see some new tyre designs, loosing roational mass is the weight saving that matters the most, and tyres are the heaviest thing about wheels. In the ultimate case something as light as an XC tyre (400g for example)but that has the sideways stiffness of a maxxis would be amazing.
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Make sure you know what brightness your zebra lines are set to come on. Most of the cameras I've used that have zebra lines you can pick if they come on at 100%, 90% or 75% brightness. So if you expose thinking they show over exposure and they are set to 75% it'll be rather under exposed. Most camera men I've worked with use them at 90% so you want some zebras in just the brightest part of the image, and once you've got a few zebra spots no the go your about right. With them at 100% you don't know if your underexposed so easily.
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If its a .fcp then its a final cut project not a video file. Final cut doesn't have its own video format, it purely uses quicktimes. That said it often doesn't use file extensions, so files might be .dv, .mov or have no extension.
You'll need to go file>export then either quicktime movie or using quicktime conversion. Using export as quicktime movie will give you a full quality full resolution video file, that will probably be too big to transport easily( 4mb per second, 250mb per minute ish) and may or may not play in windows, depending whether you have certain codecs or not. It all depends what your sequence preset is. On the other hand if you use 'using quicktime conversion' then you can choose a codec, and compression settings, frame size, audio quality etc, and your more likely ot end up with an easily transportable file, that if you choose your codec right you can play and edit on a windows machine.
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I've got Original prankster, I'll upload it to trials tube when I get the other off Matt. I wouldn't be surprised if he had Worcs Spots too. Janson uploaded shamriders in weymouth, so check the link in earlier post. I used to have all the old evesham vids; sham riders, sham2, shampoo, the lot. But they've all got lost along the way.
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Dan, every single vid I ever made is uploaded to my youtube account. Youtube videos list HERE
For general old vids Janson uploaded 245 old vids to trials tube HERE and Tomturd uploaded 94 old vids to trials tube HERE
I'll get Matt to upload this vid to trials tube or if he sends it me via msn then I'll upload it.
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Matt Burrows has confirmed hes got the vid we were after, hes gonna send it to me via msn, or upload it or something, Either way video found, job done.
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Your doing the right thing by learning to get it right in the camera, rather than just sorting it all in post.
Cool to know your thinking about the camera angles. The experience you've had is I think the way the video learning curve goes. Find something new/have idea, do it to an extreme, have mixed response, tone it right down, then slowly bring it back into the videos at a tasteful level.
I always used to use loads of effects and transitions, various different types of dissolves and stuff, on my old videos, and like your camera angles I got mixed response. Then when I started working with video I went back to basics and learnt to cut with no effects and not even a single dissolve through. Now a couple of years on I've learnt how to do both sides of the coin and can find a tasteful compromise depending on the individual video.
I'm sure your camera work will do the same. After getting burnt by over extreme angles from before you've gone right back to basics, you did well to keep the rider as middle of frame as you did. When you feel the time is right to do more adventurous shots again your experience of learning simple shots well will help and the finished result will look better for it
I look forward to the next vid!
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Nice riding, some huge moves in there. Though music fitted well too, was aggressive enough to emphisise the size of the moves you were doing, yet not so aggressive that it distracted from the riding or put me off watching.
The only thing I wasn't keen on was that there were a few too many failed attempts in there for me. Some bails are allways good, and the odd failed attempt, allways followed by sucess, but I just felt you could have left some of those out.
The other two vids,that you said were older, weren't as good for me. They were entirely single moves, and I felt the music didn't help as it didn't 'fit' with the riding as the track in the new video did.
Anyway nice one, and I'll look forward to your next vid
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Nice video. Riding was good and varied, and I thought the music went well. Nice subtle editing feel, just calming down in the middle as the song broke down, then bringing the action back up. Just pleasant to watch.
How a trials video should be
One thing I did think is maybe you could try some shot variation, most of the shots had the rider pretty much full frame, why not get in really close sometimes, or get right back and get an overview of the whole line, I think it might make the video feel a bit more dynamic?
You and Ben mentioned colour correcting... Learning how to read a histogram is well worth it, that way you can easily see how bright your image truly is, whether the blacks are dark enough, whether the white is bright enough, and how bright the main portion of the picture is. Then using levels as opposed to brightness and contrast controls gives a bit more control of this. When your happy with the luminance then look at saturation, its likely to have been altered when changes to luminance were made. Finally go on to the colour balance. I quite often find using an application like the digital colour picker in OSX that gives me an RGB readout of the colour that the mouse is pointed over, helps with this. Using the colour picker I look at white portions of the image to see their true coluor, it would well be technically a pale blue or yellow, its normally worth adjusting colour balance till this is true white, to see how it effects the image, more often than not it looks better. Then its upto your eye, and the 'feel' you want the image to have. Often its to adjust the colour balance of the lights, mids and darks of the image separately, if your shooting on a dull day then adding a bit of yellow to lights and blue to mids can make the picture look closer to one shot in hazy sunlight. Its very much one of those black arts, you just gotta play with it.
Another thing to try is to adding gradients in post (on the computer), obviously a proper filter in front of the camera lens works best, but its surprising how effective a gradient in post can be. A subtle dark blue on the sky of a shot which is maybe sunny but the sky has blown out can work wonders. Using a subtle vignette to draw eyes to the centre of the video. Give it a try!
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Hi guys.
On saturday Dan08 ( Dan from Evesham/Spain/Oxford) and I were reminiscing about old rides and videos. I've got all of the old videos I made, and some of Dans ones, but we both remember a vid Dan made of an oxfords ride, and neither of us know where we can find it.
Long shot I know but has anyone got it and can upload it to trials tube or similar?
Its a vid of an Oxford ride from probably 3 years ago. Music is Thrice - Unquestioned answers, opening shot is Matt Burrows doing a bunnyhop up the wall at the bottom of the university library steps in Oxford.
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Looking good
Good to see your making the bike your own, I think grips should be next on your list!
Yeh the chrome rim is ground, thats my fault. For trials I just found chrome a bit impractical. Pads were tricky, Plaz CRMs and other smooth rim type pads worked pretty well but not amazingly, cousts gripped so well they tore them selves apart. After 5 mins riding with cousts I had green bits all over the rim and big rips in the pads. Grind orientated pads like bloxx just didn't work. If it was a dry day the chrome got dusty and stopped performing to trials level of hold and bite. If it got damp/wet you might as well just ride death grip the brake was so poor. I then ground it, and it holds a grind like a Mavic rim, which is great, awesome brake ensued.
The rim on the bike is the second chrome rim I ran, the first I ran for longer but suffered same problems as that, and with trials use the chrome wore through to copper coating in 4 months or so, so I ground that one too. I bought the chrome rim no this bike to try chrome again, alas it was just not right for trials.
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Nice idea. Its nice to see someone taking a different approach to the usual ride vid. Some clips/sections worked quite well for me. I liked the little bit wit the guy doing that fairly large gap drop on his mod. saying that he though it was on, then showing how he was shaking afterwards.
Overall though I have to say it didn't quite work for me. There's a few contributing factors I think. Firstly I think it could have done with a slightly different structure. You had some nice varied interview clips, the guy talking about filming his vid for the internet, guys eyeing up scary moves and their feeling about it, and general people talking about group rides. I think they could have been possibly grouped together more. Maybe more of a mini section on the guy making his vid, slightly deeper into it, you can imagine him talking about how you have to ride differently when your being filmed. This way I think the video would have had a more organised purposeful feel to it. I also think you probably needed more covering shots for the interviews, and to sync the talking to the video, for example when that guy was talking about how scary the drop was, show the close up of his shaking hand then, or maybe a shot of him on the top before the move looking worried. Even the train section intro, if you'd covered some of their talking with a few shots of train arriving/the bikes stacked next to them ready to go etc, then you could have cut into their words and made their speech more concise, and generally given the viewer something to look at as well as something to listen to.
I think it would be nice to have had less of the person behind the camera talking. You obviously had a main guy you were following , why not get him to answer in full sentences and therefore there's no need to hear the camera man. He could act almost as a presenter, why not get him to ask the riders how the rides going. It doesn't have to be a formal presenter, it just has a nicer feel I think. Finally I think the video could od with editing down a little, I think you've tried to stretch the footage you've got too much, why not have the video a minute or two shorter, and cut it tighter, with more action.
Still good to see someone doing something different. I hope you understand my comments are meant to try and make the next video even better not to insult this one
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I disagree there.
The pure brakeless riding thats shown in this video couldn't really be used, but elements of it could be. There's a hypothetical section, maybe a roll down then a rock to get up, and its slippy and wet. Negotiating the roll down would be hard enough when the rocks/muddy bank have no grip, but if you were confident at riding with no brakes you could possibly spot a line to roll down and then lip up, similarly to some of the lines in this video. Thats just a very simple and obvious example, the point I'm more trying to make is that if you understand riding without brakes then you can be more prepared for any situation. Another obvious one is muddy comps where brakes don't work as well. If your capable of riding brakeless then the small amount of braking power you have left will be plenty to get you through the section.
I don't think you could turn up at a comp with no brakes on your bike and do well. I don't think most people could turn up at a street ride with no brakes and have as much fun as they could with brakes, but the video shows a new way to approach riding rocks, that can and will filter down in part to the general riding public approach.
Steve-a In The Link
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Ah I would have missed that one then. But yeh the second place is the doctors in Malvern Link.