Jez

Lol, what are the chances... At least that narrows it down. You know that you're looking for a chav now (hah, like it was really gonna be any other type of person...) EDIT: Don't forget to check they haven't replaced your grips with burberry ones...

Look at most of the small print, and you'll see that almost all (yes, including trials bikes, all the frames and bikes I've had have had this) bikes & components have a disclaimer that says something to the effect of 'not designed for extreme street/off-road use' - even though it *blatantly* is. Therefore, it's always gonna be difficult to sue someone for bike failure while riding trials. Sure, if your chain fails just as you're crossing the road and you get hit by a passing rocket-propelled tank, then I'm sure you could sue for that, but trials? Forget it. Waynio's right though; you do trials, you expect stuff to break and you expect to fall off, and to sue for that would be ridiculous. For me to sue a company it would have to a) be a MAJOR (like, life-changing) injury, and UNDOUBTEDLY the manufacturer's fault (e.g. a manufacturing defect). If a Magura hose failed while I was attempting a huge drop and I broke my arm, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. I'd probably be more pissed that a) I didn't make the drop and that I wouldn't be able to ride for a while. I certainly wouldn't be thinking 'someone needs to pay for this!' 'Sh!t happens' has always been my motto. If there's nothing you can do about it, don't worry about it, let it happen, get over it, then get on with life. Stick to that and you save yourself an immense amount of grief. </wisdom>

ROCK N' ROLLLL!!!! As they say where I come from. Awesome, man, good to see that it IS possible to get yer bike back after some low-life nicks it. Here's hoping they catch the little git.

I'd just like to add that I can usually tell whether a gap/drop/whatever is going is going to work for me before my back tyre has even left the floor/object. Quite often I'll start to dip the front as I'm attempting a gap, and just as the pedal kick happens I think 'f**k', because my balance is a tiny bit off, which I know will be magnified loads by the time I'm halfway across the gap. This will force me to make corrections before I hit the other side, which may affect my balance the other way (back/forward as opposed to side to side)...which might affect how far I'm going to travel...which will affect whether I make the gap or not. But yeah, once I'm on the back wheel pretty much everything but the obstacle and my back tyre ceases to exist to me until the front wheel lands again. It's like when you're watching TV, even from a distance you feel like the TV is filling your eyesight after a few minutes - your peripheral vision seems to cease working. The other thing is that SO much of it is subconscious - the only things that I actively think about are a) where my back wheel needs to be and correctional hops. Everything else is just completely subconscious, which is why it takes me forever to learn techniques, I need to spend forever concentrating on them to get them into my muscle memory before I even attempt anything 'big' with said technique.

*eagerly awaits the video of jsutice being served*

lmao...another brummie who quit comes back to it (it's been 5 years in my case ) God forbid brum should have a trials scene again... And yeah, my whole body's been complaining since I started riding again last friday

Anyone know the legalities of a citizen's arrest? Get the little $hit. I have NO sympathy for these little gits (having had two bikes nicked that I pured my heart, soul, and a small fortune into).

Building a 26" multi-purpose bike is possible - I've had two in my time; but it WILL take you longer to learn stuff and you will end up eventually converting it back to either 100% trials or 100% jump/whatever. But then if you get *seriously* into it, you'll outgrow it and buy something better anyway. Best option is get a cheap mod, learn on it and try and keep it in good condition. Flog it if you decide you don't wanna do trials. T-Vee's and the like cost sod all these days compared to building up a multi-purpose job. And yeah, it's a pain getting to places in a spinny gear, but you get used to it pretty quick as long as you have a seat to sit on and aren't riding on the flat all the time. I used to ride 6 miles or so into Solihull to ride on my X-Lite back in the day. It was a long way in that gear, but I got used to it. Of course the other thing is that riding in a spinny gear makes you more tempted to ride on walls/benches/whatever on the way to where you should be meeting your mates for a ride...making you even later than you said you would be...

I seem to be landing back wheel first and having to swing the front around at the mo...but then I'm only practicing on tiny stuff

Agreed, I can always do bigger stuff when I have something to aim for. Purely psychological, I'm sure.

I'll throw my 10p in: I reckon that natural stuff looks good on vid as long as it's not comp or someone practicing for a comp. A good example is the last Sydneytrials vid - it's mostly natural stuff, but looks awesome (although the scenery is awesome which helps, and it was also edited in a kinda streety way - move, cut to next move, cut to next move, and so on) - but that's the nature of video. 'Exciting' stuff always tends to be cut fast; with street this always means cutting from one drop/gap/whatever to the next because the moves are relatively short in duration - it lends itself to fast editing. Natural however...I think to get it to work you might need multiple cameras - that way you could cut between the different angles according to what looks best for the next bit of the section. That'll give you fast editing, yet retain some of the flow of what natty's all about. Should keep the interest of the viewer too. Has anyone thought of doing rider's-eye-view vidz yet? Ok, so headcams are probably a bad idea, but somewhere up there with the rider maybe? I dunno, just an idea. And I would like to point out that there are some longish sections to be found on the streets...you just have to spend forever finding them (or find a decent skatepark) I agree that natural is more dangerous though. If you fall off doing street, you just hit the pavement, and there's always gonna be someone nearby to take ye to hospital if you stack it majorly. Not always the case with natty. Plus, how much moss/algae/other slippy stuff do you really encounter doing street? As for me, I'm pretty much 99% street, but I have massive respect for riders who can pull off the natural stuff well. Doing eneourmous gaps/drops on the street is impressive and skillful...but compared to doing comps? Child's play (Not that I would really know...). There's less pressure when doing street I think as well.

Well, I s'pose various trials related IRC channels will exist, but which one (if at all) do you lot frequent?

Ahah, just been spending some time trying to nail that one...I always seem to end up just backhopping sideways - is there more to it than that or am I on the right track here?

Are we talking about the backwheel-to-sidehop thing I see everyone doing nowadays? Or some specific variant of it? Sorry if I sound like a bit of a newbie but said move hadn't really been invented or used widely when I was last riding

Ah...the advantage of having pallettes at work, I can email/use the net in between riding sessions Having to take it easy, though, my back's still killing me. Anyway, it's good to see that there's some people around here - I haven't seen anyone out doing trials around here for years, I was worried that EVERYONE had quit And the blisters on my hands are coming back...something I'd forgotten about

Oh this sounds so familiar I've been in agony for the past couple of days because I've just started doing trials after 5 years of not...and as a result for the past 2 days my back, inner elbows, and even my arse (god knows why) have been aching BADLY (no jokes, please...). OK, so that's a bit different to what you've got, but I'm gonna use it to illustrate a point: the human body is capapble of just about anything...but you have to give it time to work up to it. You have to get the body used to doing it. SO, warmups/warmdowns, dude Stretch before and after you ride - most professional athletes do it, why shouldn't we? Think about it, if you spend a whole day hefting your bike over rocks/palettes/whatever, you're probably putting more strain on your muscles than certain forms of athletics do, yet athletes (even recreational athletes) do the whole warm-up/down thing. I've just made the mistake of not doing warmups after ages without riding, and I ain't gonna do it again. OK, if you ride every day of your life, then your body will get used to it and you might not need to do warmups, but if you ride maybe once a week or less and do BIG moves when you do, your body will complain. I see it so often with the drummer in my band - if we have no rehearsals for weeks, he's in shit state by the time he leaves and as a result has various back/neck complaints nowadays, let alone the problems with his wrists (the source of much amusement, of course... ). Maybe I'm just aimlessly ranting on, here...feel free to ignore me if this doesn't apply to your situation It's just something to think about. Even when playing guitar, I spend half an hour playing 'easy' stuff before I attack my band's songs just to get the muscles back into the swing of things - and with some of the stuff we play I'm amazed I ain't got RSI in my right arm yet

Probably BB. And for those of you who keep having to tighten yer cranks, have you ever considered that you may be OVER tightening them? (yes, it is possible!) I used to stand on the allen key to do it up tight enough, until I discovered that by doing so I was forcing the soft ali of the crank further up the taper of the BB, and as a result it was never gonna be tight and was just damaging the crank. So, I bought a new set of cranks and a new BB, did it just tight enough (but not forced on), and in 2 years never had to retighten. Maybe bike parts have moved on nowadays, but that's experience from way back when talking. Also, threadlock helps on the bolts, and a decent pair of cranks is always good. The other thing that's possible is that there may be a problem with a tooth on yer freewheel/front chainring that may be click on the chain as it picks up. Just some ideas.

Need some new V's for me new 2.zero (the Tektro's on it blow goats). Once upon a time long, long ago I had a set of LX parallel-push jobbies that served me well - are they still regarded as good these days? You can get a full F & R + levers & cables set for <£50 these days which sounds like a bargain to me...but is there better out there? I'd rather not spend more than £50 if I can help it. Also, what are regarded as the best (regardless of price) pads for V's out there? And can someone reccomend me a decent booster (and where to get it, they seem to be like rocking horse manure)? And no I'm not going Magura yet. I had a set once (admittedly, an old set), and although they stopped me on a sixpence I always preferred the lack of maintenance required on my LX V's Also I don't like disc brakes, so don't try and persuade me otherwise (I'm VERY stubborn, don't even think about trying!). Cheers guys.

OK, will do, but I gotta get used to riding again first. I've just spent 36 hours in agony after 5 hours riding Also, I suck at the moment. Plus my band is recording at the mo, so my time is pretty short (being the designated sound engineer). Gimme a few weeks, we'll organise a brum ride or something. Sundays are best for me.

For me it's big moves. Trials has evolved since the old days, but I still get excited seeing stuff I've never seen done before, or seeing HUGE stuff pulled off - e.g. I nearly shat myself when I found out that Ashton is doing backflips these days. The other thing that makes it for me is seeing a move executed flawlessly, even if it's not that impressive.

Haha sounds familiar I'm dreading tomorrow morning. I remember the last time I rode after months of no riding, my calves ceased up the next day. And in my infinite wisdom I decided to ride the 4 miles home on my mod instead of my MTB. I have to be in the studio by 3 tomorrow NOT looking forward to it (but worth it!).

On a similar subject, I snapped loads of chains on my mod, until I bought a BMX chain called the 'Motorbike Chain'...it lives up to it's name. It was huge, but I never had any problems with it and I ragged the hell out of it. It was a bit heavy though...and that was 5 years ago...

Oh yeah...I'm a Puppets-era fan (but you really should check out Testament to see how it's done properly) Anyway, the new bike came today. And after 5 hours riding over flightcases at work my back is now in agony. I guess I'm not in the shape I used to be Looks like I might have to take it easy for a bit and work up to longer rides. Damnit, I was hoping to be out every other night. AND to add insult to injury half the pallets at work have vanished. Ah well.

Awesome. Thoroughly. Gave me a good snapshot of what I've been missing. Must've taken you forever to put all this together. Serious effort, cheers man

Ah, that explains a lot Personally I couldn't care less. I've never done comp nor really wanted to, I ride for fun more than anything, so bashguarding stuff was just a step on the way to making it without bashguarding it if you see what I mean. I think ignorance is bliss sometimes It does explain why most of the recent vidz I've seen seem to have some sort of bashguard allergy, though...