Greetings

I avoided dentists for about 10-11 years. Recently turned out one of my friends is a dentist so I went to sort out a problem with my bite, found the courage to ask him for a checkup when I felt comfortable in the chair and it turned out my teeth were fine. He recommended de-scaling or whatever it's called, not the most pleasant thing because there was a lot of blood but I guess not the worst either. I guess the message here is, find out whether a friend you get along with is a dentist.

I agree, the reason I sometimes put too much power down is mostly because I enjoy fighting with the car but also to maintain at least some heat in the rear tyres. More clips of the Megane have surfaced, he's clearly a very skilled driver and definitely deserves 1st place but the driving looks so boring and the car has possibly the worst exhaust sound ever. So happy to be driving a RWD car. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1E6m4l-Fv0 And the onboard you were asking about: Perhaps I was a bit dumb yesterday but it took me a while to figure out he wasn't using an "intelligent camera mount" but that the camera was mounted to his helmet. The suspension is the worst thing about this car (no, it's not the gear lever), it's a D2 Drift and like all Chinese products it doesn't stand abuse. So the damping is all messed up, the spring rates I don't know about but rears are super soft despite them being dedicated for an M3 and my car being a whole lot lighter than stock. Front springs are high end KW's, they seem ok. The blue M3 from the pic above runs AST 5 series coilovers, it's amazing how flat the car is through corners and how compliant the suspension is on rough bits. But that's an expensive kit, definitely on the to-do list along with a dogbox.

Cheers man! The play is in the gearbox selector mechanism itself, I'm waiting with replacing it until it fails completely, so far no synchros on 3rd or 5th. When 4th fails I'll replace. The Megane looked completely stock, the suspension was definitely stock. In terms of power output I think his claimed 320bhp is possible, having played his http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBfzrEtrIsside by side with mine, his car is actually slower in a straight line. He's quicker through the corners which must be down to the proper tyres and he was a lot quicker on the slippery bits. This would also be down to the tyres, I was on completely worn 595's which on a wet surface at almost 0C do not grip well Top Gear are testing this car next week, looking forward to the lap time it posts around their track. Found a nice pic from yesterday, probably more to come.

First out of around 3 vids. What really shocked me was that a good driver in a stock Megane RS on rally slicks and boosted to 320bhp came along and finished 2nd overall. I'm deeply disappointed that a purpose built M3 wasn't a match for a cheap stock French runaround. Maybe if I didn't have completely worn 595's on the rear things would have gone differently. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBbB4c7MJBA

Is there something wrong with me that after three podium finishes during one event I would like a f**king trophy? Not only has the bloody entry fee risen this year, the club has also decided that they're not going to spend 300 quid per event on trophies. f**k me. I'm so pissed off, after 4,5 years of motorsport and probably about 70 grand spent, all they can f**king offer me for going quicker than 140 other drivers is number 3 next to my name in the general classification.

If Prawn is reading this, FYI the Tornado F1 soft tyre results in hopelessly inaccurate steering. I've never come across anything like it, it completely ruined my car when used on the rear. Can't imagine how bad it would be on the front wheels. The car feels like it's floating or riding on jelly, you turn the wheel and then wait for a response. It's literally that bad. I aimed a GoPro at the tyres to see how they behaved on cornering and they're stiff, it must be the thread that's moving about. Changed back to 595's straight away. I guess I misused these tyres, they're probably designed for heavy rain and dirty surfaces, tried it in the dirt and they are really good, very good on wet asphalt too under acceleration. Need to get in touch with Profil and ask about this.

Well, I almost gave up on 18, had to co a ctrl+f to find it, then I cheated my way up to 28, found 29 myself and the time was up.

Yeah, unless the old ones were worn so badly that they were knocking, you won't feel the difference.

Asked about wheel colour a few pages back. Found these wheels in the workshop today: I think they look great. They're going on an M3 too but a blue one.

That's very futuristic.

Well, a few days ago my motivation was 1 on a 10 point scale, now it's about 3. So some good has come of this discussion. I'm not convinced by street trials, I've tried various Inspired bikes and I thoroughly disliked them probably because I don't know how to ride them. The thing is that when your motivation is so low, you're not going to learn new stuff. So I should probably be sticking to the old perhaps on an updated bike. Been thinking on and off about a 24" trials bike. I remember riding a 24" Echo 2 years ago that I built for a customer, was given a free hand when it came to the choice of parts and geometry. It was an epic bike, not sure it was better than my current bike in the long run though. I spent 5 years riding a mod and that was wasted time, in the back of my head I still have this fear of smaller wheels no matter how fun a bike feels. Skoze, I totally agree with the social side of trials, it's something I wouldn't be able to give up. Worryingly, my best riding friends who are 200 miles away are giving it up slowly. Local riders are fun but I never felt a strong connection with them, we have very different backgrounds and cannot relate to each other.

Personally I wouldn't be worried about getting anything from TNN, they're one of the few companies on the trials market that actually test their products.

I totally agree, this is obviously biased but I believe I have a nice riding style and what makes me happy is doing things smoothly or in a stylish way. The thing is that there's only so many things you can do in normal trials, especially when you suck at half the techniques used to get up walls. Ok, you might not be a fast learner but you have something in you that has pushed you to the riding level you have now. The same goes for Mark although I'd hazard a guess that BMX riding has played a big role in the development of his current skills. My point is, that whatever you two have, I lack. And I'm sure many other riders who never reach your level lack too. It looks like I'm trying to justify not wanting to ride, the upshot of it is though that I've been fighting with this problem for a few years now and am slowly giving up. I'm going to edit a video from some clips from last year now, perhaps that will change my attitude.

Looking at some custom plates for my car, I should be taking mine off on each event but often forget or couldn't be arsed, this could be a solution. Combination is 3-5 characters, 2 last characters can be digits. Don't want anything gay, quite like the idea of 4-5 identical letters, like so: Thoughts? And yes, all the above are legal.

I'm sure there's some cheap motorsport available in the UK? Top Gear did a segment on that I think (rallycross?) and from what I remember it was pretty cheap, the only problem being that you might get ambitious and want to spec up your vehicle. A lot of people who take part in the events I do have virtually no disposable income at all - and by that I mean they probably earn about 700 quid a month tops. These guys drive around in 126p's or more commonly cinquecentos and seicentos because they have quite a lot of potential. Being British, you could use a Mini?

Taking part in a series called BMW-Challenge this year, 5-6 rounds in Poland with one by the seaside and one international round in Berlin. Can't wait, we're arranging to have an HGV transport our cars to each round of the season which means (if all goes to plan) that rather than pull a trailer hundreds of miles, I'll enjoy myself driving the S2000 to the comp without having to worry about anything related to the M3 - be it breakdowns or even loading/unloading. I'm thinking that the Berlin round could be connected with taking the Honda to the Ring. In the mean time, need to get ready for a comp on Saturday. Haven't driven the M3 for a while, my RWD skills are really rusty after hours spent in a 4wd car which became quite apparent yesterday when I took it out for a spin. Lacking a proper dry tyre set again, 595's are not going to last more than 1 round. I'd be stoked if it rained, got a really good rain set. I'm not fussed about this comp at all which on one hand is good because I can take it easy. On the other hand, I had an ambition of coming 3rd in the general classification for the 2013 season which would require 100% commitment on every round and perfect choice of tyres. While I don't much care for this at the moment, taking it easy this round could mean that I won't manage to collect enough points. edit: Prawn, shouldn't you install nozzles for your system?

Yeah, I think that if I got back to it, trials would become more "attractive" too. Perhaps the reason I'm hating it at the moment is because I'm out of shape and stiff. Need to give it a go!

26. I know you could be my granddad but please don't compare myself to you. You're a semi-pro (or a pro even?), this is different. I ride for the sake of riding if that makes sense. Cycling clearly comes more naturally to some people, I'm not terribly slow but I'm not a quick learner either. In 2008 my riding level was better than it has been ever since. Perhaps I'm better on natural now, but in other respects I suck and it's really frustrating when you try hard to do repeat something you did 4-5 years ago and fail. I've been thinking that maybe it's because of different gearing, might change from 17:15 to 17:16 and see if that helps. Sounds like an idea. I've been thinking about trying a 24" trials bike but I like my 26" Echo too much. Going with "if it's not broken, don't fix it". I'll waste stock on building a pimp 24" bike which in all fairness has a small chance of being better than my current bike. The problem I see with street trials is that I'd rather go to the dentist and have a tooth pulled than 360 or 180 off a ledge. I've never had the guts to do things like that, I'm not an adrenaline junkie which is probably why I ride trials and race around in a car which gives me a - maybe false - sense of security. Yeah I sound negative. I guess it's just a function of other stuff being more enjoyable now and me being a bit lazy. I hate myself for it. I've even given up martial arts for various minor reasons. Hate that too, it's an amazing sport, so good for your stamina, strength and speed. These are all very unwelcome changes, I really need to do something about it and just getting this off my chest could be a way of anticipating changes.

Actually more angry news. After 12 years of trials I don't want to ride any more. Genuinely. I've ridden my bike once in the past 4 months and that was a few days ago. Result? After 2-3 minutes on my small track I decided to go back home. Riding seems so pointless to me, it's just the same thing over and over again (and no, don't want to take up street trials, I'm too old to learn new stuff). Usually if in such a mood, I'd think of a new interesting combination on the track and that would get me excited enough to go try it out. Now, whatever I think of seems boring because it involves exactly the same moves, just at a different angle/height/distance. This is genuinely a problem because I run a trials shop and this requires me to be a rider. You can't help customers if you don't know your parts or you're not up to date on geometry and how it affects your riding. Furthermore, no physical exercise means I'm starting to get portly (well, just a little bit) and my muscles are deteriorating. The only way I think I could get back into riding is if I gained a lot of strength and started jumping up much larger obstacles than so far. But to do that, I'd need to exercise and I couldn't be arsed. Help...

Sucks man I've had quite a few friends/family members pass away in the last years, it makes one reflect on the uncertainty of life and appreciate people more. On an angry note, hate having a lot of work, especially when it involves thinking. You can say I'm self employed, when there's a lot of work I get the feeling that I need to get it done asap so I end up working 16 hours a day, often not eating because it takes too much time. Then when you think you've had enough, you go to bed and find you can't fall asleep because the mind is still active and thinking for "solutions". So it's 3:20am now, I feel tired but I can't fall asleep. And I just got an email which will require over an hour of work to respond to. Better get down to it I guess.

Yeah, this road trip lacked focus. There wasn't much information about anything, be it the location or the cars and them running away is getting a bit old. Also the news segment featured one car, the rest was just filler. At least there haven't been any silly episodes yet where all the three do is make fools out of themselves.

Hahahaha I can't stop laughing. http://www.wimp.com/onlyrussia/

Who here has seen Psycho from 1960? Watched it a few days ago and hand on heart had a nightmare that night. Can't remember the last time I had a nightmare after a movie, must have been when I was still a kid.

A LOT of great riders have left Koxx. Belaey, Serwin and Kumorowski just to name a few.

You need someone to do your plumbing