spode@thinkbikes

I know what you mean. Trials has come SO FAR. When I first started, we were making our own rock rings because we couldn't buy them! We were riding generic aluminium unmarked frames and riding mainly XC/DH parts. It was a lot harder to learn too, as there was no-one to teach us. Someone can pick up an entire trials bike for £300 now and develop more in 3 months than we probably did in 3 years. Street Trials is quite a new sport really...

I heard, but don't hold me to it, that the freehub on the bulb was considerably weaker than the XC because the teeth were smaller?

Quite wierdly, I can actually 180 gap hop (i.e two wheels on a line, one kick across the gap while 180ing and land on the other line) further than I can gap hop! I think 7-8ft for both. I've never bothered measuring.

Well you COULD turn them upside down. Not tried it myself mind you...

I find the technique changes depending on the size of the object. On a small object, say below 2 feet, you almost place the front wheel on and just roll it on to the back wheel. In fact, at this height, I often just kick straight on to it (the same method you are using now). With something a little higher, you are tapping it on the edge of the top. This can be done from close to stand still (i.e one pedal rotation) With something higher still, you are tapping BELOW the edge. I usually find for this I need 1 1/2 pedal rotations. I will say though, I do run quite a light gear (22/21, just changed to 20/19 which should be close to the same but I haven't tested it yet due to injury). For the last week I've been experimenting with 22/19 which is considerably stiffer than I'm used to. At this ratio, things felt different and I was more inclined just to kick straight on to things (except on the big stuff) or required a slightly longer run up. Hope this helps. But riding with people that do it, and/or watching people do it in videos really does help. I hear a lot of people suggesting it's a difficult technique to learn, but tapping is the way I've ALWAYS backwheeled things, so I find it hard to relate to that.

I've got a perfectly working rear M4 I might be interested in selling... (I'm not sure, but the KOT MS2 I want can't accomodate it?)

I remember once seeing these two stunning girls walking down Tenterden high street. And then I looked at their shins and what did I see ------ the signs of severe pedal bashes! I almost stopped and asked, but I was young and still learning the ways of the Spode. I've known a couple of women who've tried to learn it, but they were all a little shy of "going for it". Just needed a little more aggression. In saying that, I've seen the same with men. I think some people have it and others don't!

There's absolutely no need to talk to me like that. It was quite obvious my post was in jest, so take it that way.

Last time I checked, colour coding doesn't stop you being a good rider :D

What wheel base frame is that? the 1065 or 1099? And what does it measure in at with your forks? I assume that has a little less rake than the ones used in the KOT estimations. That rear cog does look pretty sweet - who makes it?

Cripes.

Meh, looks like I'm not coming anymore. Just spent the morning in A&E. I'll be lucky if I'm walking by Sunday let alone riding (Y)

I think it's probably overkill too. I run a mini on the front and an M4 on the rear (all pre-mono etc). to be honest, even the M4 on the rear is possibly overkill. My friend runs a mini on the back as well and it's just as powerful.

Mine is packed with blue grease. It's damned silent, and I don't think I've had any skipping. Personally, I liked it before. Noisy freewheels rock!

Editing was good though and the inclusion of the jumps etc. was nice.

Well, I had a look, to be honest I found it a little boring with a lot of the same stuff and nothing particuarly unique. Or would you prefer it I hadn't said anything? (Y)

I should be up for this.

You don't even want to know what graphics cards I have lying around my room at the moment. LOL. And I don't even play games! Although I did enjoy playing Quake 4 for a bit the other day. Ok, now we are just nit-picking!

I have a Peugeot 405 1.9TD with full MOT for sale if anyone is interested :lol:

If you get lucky on the LE's they are nice. I've got 500GB in my server and I filled that up in NO time. I've had to start backing stuff up on to DVD. So I can understand how 1TB will come in handy. Especially with MS trying to push towards downloading media from now on.

He hasn't added tyres in to his measurement has he? (I thought wheelbase was axle to axle - could be wrong)

Whether or not it's from Overclockers or not, it's still right (although a UK person saying "term paper" and $75 did confuse me somewhat..). Basically, the earlier three legged race analogy is incorrect, RAID 0 (striping) won't slow you down, it's supposed to speed you up. * I don't think this thread needs closing at all! And how is this a bitch fest?? Personally speaking (can't speak for anyone else), I'm trying to get behind the logic of having more a few 250GB drives is worse than having 2 500GBs! (there are reasons, but I've not heard any sufficient ones yet..) And just a side note on mirroring - most people lose data due to viruses, stupidity and general software failure. Something that mirroring won't protect against at all. So it's not the be and end all.

I'm interested too. I sent you a PM earlier today.

They should do. Most most marketable versions come with a battery pack that can keep it alive for up to 12 hours or something (in case of a power failure). But it can use the 5V stand by voltage to keep it alive even when the pc is turned off (as long as it's still plugged in to the mains). I think we are going to start to see more of these...

Well that's more like a response! Personally, I'm not a big fan of RAID. I had one of my drives die on me and I lost a lot of data. And I didn't notice huge improvements in performance (unless you count theoretical benchmarks). The only up side to it, is it essentially joins the drives, so you have a single drive. But this CAN be done in software without comprimising your data's integrity. I've always felt those Raptors were a bit of a fad. IIRC, the tests they did in CPC showed little improvement with them. However, your suggestion of a few 250GB drives instead of 500's basically agrees with me. You'd get better value for money. Big price ramp when you get to 500GB. Now if he's REALLY throwing money around, how about a solid-state disk drive :- Get an 8GB model just to keep Windows on and then some storage drives :lol: That would be my ideal setup. People don't realise how much hard drive performance affects the rest of your PC. How was his analogy good? Running two drives striped doesn't SLOW things down, which is what he suggested. And I'm not just a CPC man. I write for lots of different mags :P And I've only mentioned that once, and that was only because someone was commenting on a review I'd written - which I found a little amusing (Y)