MSM

"Tricks and Stunts" was very entertaining and was pretty well thought out at the time. "Mastering the Art of Trials" is, IMHO, better thought out and somewhat more comprehensive, and is overall, IMHO, a better constructed learning tool. But you would expect that after the ~6 year gap between the making of these videos. Ideally, if you can afford to, get both videos. If you cannot stretch that far, I would recommend the ryan leech one as the better one to buy initially. It doesn't have the comedy story element that T+S has, but it does cover many more techniques and covers them in a consistent and thorough manner.

I'm interested to see the (alledgedly :angry: ) lightweight ISIS BB with large bearings mounted outside of the BB shell, and also the 72point rear hubs and the chain tensioner...hope the pictures are added soon. (Y)

Apologies if this has been mentioned already.... I just spotted that the www.echobike.com site has been updated a fair bit and now contains some a fair bit of detail (text only so far, pictures have yet to be attached) about a whole load of new parts that will apparently be available from october. Example of new parts... 2 more hifi stems... not sure if they will keep the original design as well. They seem to have forgotten to add tartybikes to the UK dealers list.

Hi Joe, How about riding a couple of days as is, to get really comfortable with the new lower bar setting, and then switching back for long enough to get used to them again... that will should help you work out if it's just a placebo effect or a genuine improvement in setup for you. (Y) MSM

It's just a personal thing, I guess. Maybe I should blame this on an engineering background, but I would want to keep the range of error I introduced to a minimum, which would definitely be less than the 15-20% range that you would apparently be happy with. Each to his own. :) As to your second paragraph, if I understand what you are trying to say, then again, this sleeved support arrangement would introduce an error to the measurement unless there was no contact between the inner and outer tubes, in which case you are back to the perfectly balanced item on the scales situation. :P sfboy, LOL :) Out of interest, how ripe do the apples have to be when weighing a mod bike on a tuesday afternoon if it's raining? :)

Mr Monkey, If you take some time to think about the physics involved then maybe you would understand how daft your statement really is. The only way that you could get an accurate measurement in the manner you suggest is if you manage to balance the bike perfectly vertically and let go of it completely and for the bike to remain in that perfect state of balance for long enough to get a stable and accurate measurement of the bikes weight. If you are in any way holding on to the bike to balance it on the scales, and you are not yourself standing on the measuring device, then you are affecting the accuracy of the reading. If you want a reasonably accurate measurement, you could make up some structure to support the bike on the scales, maybe just a cardboard box would do to weigh a mod bike, which could balance on its sump guard... weigh the bike on the support, then weigh the support on its own... do the maths and you have a figure. This method would be a bit more reliable than standing on the scales holding the bike as any movement at all whilst on the scales can affect results. MSM

Didn't Mr Ashton famously state that it was all about : 34% Practice 33% Practice 33% Practice :huh:

I'm getting back into trials riding after a 4 to 5 year break. I've switched from a pashley 26mhz to the Hifi. So far, I've found the Hifi to be leagues ahead of the pashley as far as geometry for trials riding goes. Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to try any other contemporary stock hardware to compare the Hifi with, but I do have a fairly recent mod bike as well, and the hifi certainly feels a lot more similar to the mod than the pashley ever did... and mod bikes are designed specifically for one purpose... so I would guess that is a good thing. (Y) Obviously, this is just another opinion, and I wouldn't want to suggest it should be anywhere near as influential as that of a previous brit's champion such as Ali C. However, from my restarting point of view, I have so far found the Hifi to be a huge advance from my previous stock setups (Pashley 26Mhx, Monty 26" ~1999/2000 model) , and I have found that switching between the Hifi and the Mod and back again is fairly straightforward. I haven't had problems with balance due to BB height... but this may be an advantage of having had to restart after the 4 to 5 year break (work, relocation and knee surgery related). I am 6'4" and fairly heavily built, which is, I suggest, worth bearing in mind if you are considering what I have posted above. For what it's worth, my mod bike is a 1003mm wheelbase, if that makes any difference. :D

You can buy it direct from Ryan's own site now. www.ryanleech.com

"personally i would ride that, gives a rougher surface, more grip, unless ofcourse hope changed it for free." So what happens when it subsequently cracks at the outside of one of these cracks and lets the now snapped disc catch the pad or caliper from the back rather than the pad contact surface, possibly leading to a locked wheel, probably leading to damage to the pads and possibly the caliper... I guess that would be fine as it had "more grip" in the interim semi-failed period? :- Sorry, but it would be fairly daft for Bigman to ignore the early warning this disc has given him. I suspect Hope will just replace the disc, probably FOC. (Y)

Just a thought... For those of you who have silent brakes, how heavy are you and are you running brake boosters? I wonder if part of the noise may be due to vibration caused as the pad's are forced out of alignment when the brake mechanism flexes and rotates around the mounting points... for example, front mounted brakes on a fork will try and rotate themeselves forwards and out when under normal forwards braking loads. A brake booster helps reduce this twisting of brakes around the mount points motion, which will help keep the pads aligned correctly and reduce vibrations.

Okay, I received my copy today. (Y) I'll post again when I've had the chance to watch it a couple more times. Initial impressions are that it is very well structured and thought out. :wink2: My copy (ordered from canada) is, as I had suspected, NTSC encoded. Not everyone in the UK can play NTSC discs on their DVD player/tv setup. Worth bearing in mind. I am sure that a PAL encoded version will be arriving in the UK not too long from now. I suspect DUKE video might be involved in sorting out a PAL version, as they seem to be the outfit providing the PAL encoded version of Manifesto. (Y)

It may be region free as far as region encoding goes, however, it is likely to be NTSC picture encoding rather than the UK standard PAL encoding, so it could cause problems for some who don't have NTSC capable equipment. IIRC, it was actionsportflicks.com or something like that. I would suggest that it might be worth waiting a few more days until I can confirm that my order has arrived without any problems before others go ahead and order form the place. I won't recommend them until I know they they have delivered the goods in reasonable time. Cheers, MSM

I ordered a copy from Canada a few days ago. I was quoted 14days delivery time, so I should be getting it mid to late next week. I could only find two places who claimed to have stock back when I ordered. I suspect I will be sent an NTSC version of the film, which won't be a problem for me but it is worth bearing in mind when you think about ordering this. I believe my copy of Manifesto is a PAL encoding. I suspect there may be a slight delay before the new DVD is available in PAL format.

Hi Mike, I was looking for the 661 4x4 guards too. There didn't seem to be stock in many places. I was surprised to find them in the cycle section of a local branch of Halfords! The price was pretty much the going rate too. :- Unfortunately for me, the largest size wont actually fit around my leg, so I had to return them, which was much more straightforward having bought them locally. What I would like to find now is something pretty much identical to the 4x4 shin and knee but in a big enough size (couple of inches extra diameter or so) to fit around my legs. Don't take this as critisism of the 4x4's though, they seemed to be spot on for what I wanted, except they were just not large enough to fit my abnormally large legs. Anyways, if you haven't already tried, maybe your local Halfords will have them in stock. :D Moray

I suspect the rockery came about because someone thought something like this: If the council put up any largish stuff then riders could fall off and hurt themeselves. Then the riders might take legal action against the council for having put the "trials park" there in the first place.

Sounded like bottoming out on steerer tube to me to. :shifty: One assumes that they have slackened off the stem to steerer clamp bolts before trying to adjust the headset preload. ;) If it is too long a steerer tube, then a spacer or two could fix it without having to resort to cutting tools. (N)

Thanks Nadine. :P

Has anyone spotted a release date mentioned anywhere yet?

Just a thought... It's good to see such a positive and proactive approach being suggested. (Y) However, playing devil's advocate here... You will have to be very careful with any name and address information gathered. If it were to fall into the wrong hands it would basically be an invitation to come and steal your expensive bikes. Personally, I wouldn't be happy to supply a council with such lists of details. I suspect they could be used to help the council crack down on your riding as much as it could be used to put forward a pro-trials riding case. When bits of street furniture start showing signs of damage, they would have a list of suspects ready to hand, even if it was nothing to do with anyone on the list. Being really cynical, it might give them the information they need to issue ASBOs to every self-proclaimed trials rider on the list... but that is taking it way too far on the cynical side... I hope. Moray

Ryan Leech seems to have been running some variant/s of marazocchi on his Norco trials rigs for years now. Hans Rey seems to like using suspension forks too. I'm sure that these guys would be able to run rigid forks if they wanted, despite whatever their sponsors marketing departments might want. ;)

Hi Iatola, Maybe I have missread your what you are trying to say here, apologies if this is the case, however it seems that you are suggesting that the stem has an easier job than the bars in terms of force transfer. Okay, the bars are longer than the stem, but how does all the force applied to the bars get transferred to the frame? The stem is the only route through which the forces you apply to the bar ends can be transferred to the bike itself, if you discount the forces that transfer through your body between your hands and the pedals. So when you suggest that each bar end has, say, 15" of leverage to work with, then surely the stem will be having to deal with the forces resulting from this leverage advantage multiplied by two bar ends, if that makes sense. Moray