duane

Hi All, I have only been riding since April and live in Dubai where thereare no other riders, so I was never going to be able to come up with a master peice, but at least I got the ball rolling. My own bike is a Base TA26, so only scores on the V-Brakes, disc cutter and liquid metal, hence a bit of a bias to V-Brakes that work. I am also old and realy wish I had been into trials when bikes were steel and had seats. Anyway thats just me and my limited experience, so come on lets have some more categories from some of you who 'expect more' How does trials forum feel about after market anodised components ? Bottom bracket rise ? Stickers ? DIY Polishing DIY Paint Jobs, Replica bikes Positive points if your bike is in X video, negative if its in Y video Positive points if its from X Shop, negative if its from a catalogue Second hand components, Drilled rims Anything shimano etc

Hi, I liked this old article on BMX Basics - http://www.bmxbasics.org/new/bmx0698.html How about a trials version, heres my starter - If you current bike is over two years old gain 10 points If the company that made you frame no longer makes trials bikes or parts gain 50 points If your actually any good on your old, out of date, obsolete bike, add another 100 points, but only if there are real people that your friends can also see that are telling you this 10 points if your bike has a seat and a proper seat post 20 points if you have a quick release on your seat post allowing you to raise and lower the seat to get around 50 points for having this quick release and never ever using it, If you have ever, ever ridden your bike with the seat up loose all your points and kindly join another forum somewhere else. Gain 50 points for front and rear v-brakes Gain 150 points if you can set them up so they work Add another 50 if you did it without a grind Add 50 points for a steel frame Add 50 points for a frame marketted by a European company Loose those 50 points and 50 more if the frame was welded in an asian sweat shop If you have used a dremel, disk cutter, drill or hack saw on your frame gain 50 points for each If you have used liquid metal to repair your frame add 50 Loose 200 points if the liquid metal repair was a direct result of your dremel, disk cutter or hack saw Anymore , anyone ? so far I score - 310

Hi, I was lucky enough to have a VIP pass for the FIA GT Race in Dubai at which Thomas did the show. I met Thomas just after his demo I even had a sit on his bike for a picture. As far as I know I am the only trials rider in Dubai and so was amazed how light Thomas's bike was, I bought mine mail order never having seen another trials bike in the metal. I think Thomas might have done some better demos elsewhere around the track where on the way out I saw some graffitied old cars and palletes which I assume were for Thomas not the skate boarders that were also doing a show. Dubai has a great climate for winter trials, but most of the terrain is sand based, however, there is a growing adventure racing scene based in the Hajar mountains which look perfect for trials, they are about an hour outside the city, I will post some info for anyone looking for winter training once I have had a look myself, - 25 degrees and guaranteed sun when you Europeans need it most. Regards Duane.

In the end my crank came off easily with a new crank puller, without knowing it I had lost the little plunger that used to fit in the end of the bolt on my old one. Without this inplace, the hollow bolt collapsed and ended up getting threaded right into the BB Axle. Thanks for all the responses Duane.

Hi, I am having a really c5ap day, as I was getting my bike out the house, I noticed that the slap from the rear mech has started to wear a hole in the chain stay, then the creaking noise my bike has been making for weeks started to really get to me. Anyway I am certain the creaking is the bottom bracket not the chain stay, so I tried to take the cranks off to sort out the BB, but one of the cranks is stuck. Worse than that I used all my tarzan like strength and seem to have threaded my crank puller all the way into the BB Axle. Am I really as strong as 'Tarzan, lord of the jungle' or did I do something wrong ? Please help me before I ruin more tools Duane. PS I did a search and WD40 and a hammer seem to be the way to go.

I think you all missed the point, If I look at the last things I have spent money on - cassette spacers, Surly sprocket and hope skewers - 60 quid or so and none of it will make any difference at all to me or my bike. Ok i will have fewer sprockets on the back and one of them will be fat, but its all fashion more than function. Me and my legs certainly won't notice the difference. Hope Skewers, '22 quid, they must be good', but come on realistically its 20+ quid for nothing, i dont need new skewers and if I did and saw a set for a fiver I would think 'they must be c5ap' and no sale, but hey these are 22 quid they must be great and I want them, I even bought them knowing full well I dont need them. So its either me turning a blind eye to economic parts and throwing huge amounts of cash at stuff I don't need and single handedly proping up an entire industry of over priced nik naks that nobody needs or we are all mugs, bike tarts, gear heads, call it what you will. I may have more money than sense for the moment, but I find it hard to beleive that I could be single handedly proping up an entire industry of needless bike tat. Does that come in purple, Duane.

Hi Yesterday I cleaned up my rims with a sweat towel I got free with a six pack of sports drink. I put the towel between my brake pad and the rim then dragged the brake while rolling the bike back bakwards and forwards to clean the rim. To clean the pads, leave the towel in place then grab hold of it above and below the pads and saw the towel up and down across the pad. Takes two minutues and very little elbow grease, would probably work even better with one of the cleaning products already mentioned applied to the towel beforehand. Duane.

Hi All, Thanks for the replies, as suggested I finally got around to taking my shimano 8 speed cassette apart and moving the sprockets around, I now have 12,13,15,*19*,14,16,17,21 which puts the 19 where I want it for better chain alignment. The gear shift is okay so far. The next plan if tarty every get back to me is to replace the unused 14,15,16,17 and 21 with spacers and change the 19 for a wide based surley. Cheers Duane.

Hi All, I went skiing this morning and was c5ap at that too, my legs were all over the place, going to take a few days rest then its back to the fakies. Tomm's answer is basically what I am looking for, but I was expecting the answer to be the opposite - ie. if I am falling to the right shouldn't I pull the left hand in towards me - ie do the opposite to normal riding because I am going in the opposite direction ? Then again Eskimo is probably right I should stop thinking and keep practicing I could probably use a bit more speed to. For what its worth it was 45 degrees here today so an hour of fakies or doing six back hops in a row is probably the same effort as running a personal best 5k road race in UK weather. At least the snow is cold http://www.skidxb.com/ Cheers Duane.

I want to try and avoid hopping and just steer to stay up, so if I initiate the move with a straight endo which comes down straight, I roll backwards for at most a bike length before the bike keels over to one side or the other, I could learn to hop the bike back under me, but surley there is a way to steer it back under or something else cleaner than hopping ?

Hi Eskimo, At the moment I am not worried about turning back out of fakie, I can pretty much 180 from static so that should be a problem. I just want to be able to roll backwards for more than a bike length, but can't due to falling to one side or the other, how do I counter falling to the left for example ? Cheers Duane.

Hi Craig, If you have lost your punch and can't sleep it is possible that you are suffering from overtraining, which is a bit of an inaccurate term 'over stress' is more accurate. All of us can only stand a certain level of stress, for any length of time, go over this and some of the most immediate symptoms are lack of enthusiasm, lack of pep (punch, kick, call it what you will) and an inabilitiy to sleep, you might also notice your breathing rate is slightly increased when your not riding and that you perspire more when you are riding. Riding more than your current level of fitness will sustain is one sure way to over stress yourself, but physical exertion is only one component of the stress level your body considers itself subjected to, other contributors will be mental stress such as work, exams, people etc, another will be whether your quality of nutrition matches your exertion and recovery needs. Heat is also a massive contributor, there is less oxygen in the air and your body has to work much harder to shed the heat generated by working muscles. In case you think any of this applies to you the best thing to do is leave the bike alone for a week or so, its sometimes amazing how much better you can ride and how much more enjoyable riding is after a week away from the bike. Duane.

Hi All, Thanks for all the previous replies, I have been trying to fakie off and on since my original post. I can now consistently get enough momentum out of an endo and about 200 times too much momentum out of a front wheel stall on a 1 foot curb. The problem now is that I dont know whether I should be turning the bars in the direct in which the bike is leaning (and ultimatley falling) or the opposite direction, I have tried both but can't see any difference ? Thanks for any suggestions, Duane.

Hi, I have a base 26 and find that moving the riser bars back and forth massivley changes how big the bike feels. For moves where you are using the drive train to kick the front wheel up or need to shove your weight over the front wheel, its fine with the bars rotated forward, but for street moves like manuals and bunny hops and wheeling off drops its a gamble unless I rotate the risers way back, so that I can get my short arse over the back axle. So go stock, but make sure you initially get very a short stem and bars with a good amount of rise, this will give you a few inches of reach adjustment just by rotating the bars back and forth until you get the feel you want. Regards Duane.

Hi Joe, Yes, that will fix the aligment but I am guessing it will be asking too much for the rear shifter to cope with a single jump from 9 to 24, I would really like to keep some ability to shift for hills, roundabouts and sand. Having easy access to a sand gear while ridding around is really very important to me, I live in Dubai. Anyone have any experience of something similar to Joe's suggestion, or what is the maximum increase betweem cogs, ie. can I get away with shifting between 9, 16 and 24 and then just use some washers to move the chain ring in a bit ? Regards Duane.

Hi, I have a Base TA26 with a 28 tooth chain ring and an eight speed cassette with a range from 9 to 28 tooth. The problem is that the chain ring is positioned for perfect chain alignment with the second sproket in on the cassette, this causes real trouble when I have the bike in my trials gear (seventh spoket in) as the chain meets the chain ring at a noticeable angle which I beleive is the cause of the chain dropping off the inside of the chain ring every five minutes. Obviously there are lots of ways I can fix this by loosing some of my gears, but I find them essential for getting around espcially as I live miles from anywhere, therefore anything that involves loosing either the 9 or the 24 is not a solution. One bodge I am considering is to put an additional 28 on the front using longer bolts and spacers, I can then shift the chain manually when I get where ever I am going. It might not sound it, but this will be considerably less hassle than having to putting the chain back on every few minutes. Has anyone tried something similar, is it strong enough ? or are there better solutions that will enable me to keep my current ratios ? Thanks for any suggestions, Duane.

Thanks all for the suggestions, I will have a go tonight and let you know how I get on, Thanks Duane.

Hi, Any tips on how to fakie, however high or low I take the endo, I come down with no backwards momentum at all. I have tried using a slope to help, but the I still come down and stall on the spot, help ! Duane.

Hi, I am stuck out in the desert in Dubai and just like the other poster with a 'wobbly freewheel' mine is about to die. The difference is I am out in Dubai where there are no trials specific parts available and given the unique conditions I ride in - 50 degrees, 85% humiditiy and sand, dust and more sand, I don't want to spend 100+ quid on a hub that is not designed to cope with a constant onslaught of fine dust, sand and incredible heat. So what are my options, is there anything is the Shimano range that will work for at least 6 months ? Or, for some reason ("the kids like them" - I asked) there seem to be a lot of dirt jump bikes for sale in flat sandy totaly jump free Dubai, will a dirt jump hub work for very long ? Or lastly, would a BMX hub fit and would it be any good for trials - I dont really want to go this route, I need my gears to get around. Thanks for any help, Duane.

Hi, I hope the frame is an 05/06, I bought it a few months ago. I haven't been in to trials long, but from what I have seen the earliest Base 26 looks like this http://img94.exs.cx/img94/2528/Picture757.jpg then there are models you have which have a top tube which flares towards the head tube, and has the darker red finish like this http://bikes4trials.com/smsimg/17/148p1010087.psd.jpg Then there is mine which has a constant profile along the top tube which you can see in my previous pictures and here http://www.bikedock.com/posit/images/products/0000012576.jpg Mine is 'Gloss Red' I think the others were some other colour Duane.

62MPH is possible I am the guy that originally mentioned the figure, heres how and why its possible - 1) Gwent has some very big hills, there are at least half a dozen hills I can think of that are around a mile long and have sections with a sustained gradient of 1:6. 2) Roadbikes are massivley more efficient than all types of knobbly tyred bikes, all that road noise you hear is your bike over coming rolling resistance, on a road bike all you hear is wind and not mcuh of that becuase you would be wearing lycra which again has a massive effect on how fast you can go. If you can hear or feel your clothes flapping thats the sound of you slowing down. 3) Rotating weight - gravity which we know from 1) above is doing most of the work is a constant force of acceleration, the less rotating weight there is the easier it is to accelerate, again light road wheels are a massive gain in any acceleration or rolling contest. 4) The lead out man - ever watched a finish line sprint in a mass start road race, the speeds get up over 45 MPH and thats at the end of a 150 mile or more of racing - in the case of the tours its often at the end of three weeks of daily 150 mile races. How can it be possible to go that fast when in a controlled track racing environment with less wind noise the fastest sprint is slower ? Well its all down to the lead out man or men, these are the guys whose only job in an entire race is to be at the front about 400 meters from the finish and pull over with about 100 yards to go and eventually finish in about 80th place. What these guys are doing is a horrible job where they have to ride as hard as is physically possible to stop anyone jumping ahead of thier sprinter who will be sat in thier -make a note of this - 'slip stream' fresh and ready to sprint for glory in the final 100 meter sprint. To hit 62mph you need all of the above so - Get yourself a very big hill with a 1:6 gradient, a light wheeled road bike, ordinary roady gear of head to toe lycra and most importantly a mate with similar set up that you trust and is capable of riding down a hill at 50+ mph. Now if you have all of this gear you will propably have ridden in a few road races or with a club so you will know all about sprinting for spot prizes and sprinting for 30 mph signs on b-roads, these are all out roady ego bashes, you get good at exploiting slipstreams and punching out from behind other sprinters who already going flat out. Now you and your mate are taking turns on the front as you build up speed down this 1:6 hill, when your mate is in front you will pick up speed because he is overcoming the wind resistance and gravity is constantly accelerating you, you will need to break if you don't want to pass your mate, but as your taking turns you coast pass and have to start pedalling as you pass out of his slip stream and into the lead position. Initialy your still a little faster than he was, but unless your stronger the wind will slow you back down quickly enough, you are now pedaling while he may be able to coast. Eventually your at the back again and you know that the hole in the wind behind your mate is about 3 bike lengths long, so you drop back a few bike lengths past this distance and start sprinting into the hole which is where you go mental at the same times as gravity is helping to pull you through that hole in the air you mate is making. Glance at your clock if your not doing 60+ find a bigger hill, a faster mate and train some more. Its not easy, I was a competitive road racer riding with equally competitive racers all of us training in excess of 20 hours a week just to get faster on bikes, not to side hop, not to track stand, not to bunny hop, just to get faster, 20 hours every week for 3 years. If you have never combined all of the above, you will never get near 62 mile an hour and it will seem as unreachable or - bollox - as the fairly ordinary amatuer road racing stats in the next paragraph. Now if your still not convinced you might be suprised to know that the first goals for a competitive road racer are completeing a time trial against the clock with nothing to slip stream over 10 miles in under 24 minutes and then same again over 25 miles in under an hour. Thats right 25 miles an hour for an hour on ordinary roads like the ones with hills you ride every day with ordinary weather like the head wind you hate. Those considered a competitive entry level performance, the british record for 10 miles is 18 minutes 48 seconds thats around 32 MPH on the open road for 10 miles - now thats what I call bollox, great big hard arse road racing bollox. See here - http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/news/2004...ngerfield.shtml Duane.

Hi, I deliberatley didn't take a picture of the whole bike because I hate the saddle, it came with a union jack saddle which would be bad enough if i was actually living in the UK. I though the graphics looked better before i removed all the masking here - http://83.170.72.216/~trials/gallery/11476...27_34_77936.jpg As I didn't prepare the factory finish first, the graphics will wear off fairly quick, then I will have a proper go at something a bit more ambitious with fades or some 'real fire' see here - http://www.airbrush.com/how-to-guide.aspx?...wtoDetail&id=33 I got the red base from Bike Dock, they did a fine job taking my order from Dubai and shipping the bike out to me with no hassle at all, they don't have a picture of the red bike up at the moment and its dark here so I wont be able to take one till tomorrow, Regards Duane.

Hi, My bike and helment have just become victims of my new airbush, nothing too serious just a quick skull and a gold pinstripe flame long the top tube. Both graphics were pre cut vinyl masks from a radio controlled car shop spayed with a mix of Tamiya Acrylics. See what you think, http://83.170.72.216/~trials/gallery/11476...27_34_38210.jpg http://83.170.72.216/~trials/gallery/11476...27_34_29820.jpg Regards Duane.

Hi, If my maths is right, anyone that can hit 16 mph in trials gear (assuming 22/18) is pedalling at around 180 RPM, probably best to try on a bike with a high seat and toe straps. Any volunteers ? Duane.

Hi Paul, I have never ridden on rollers, but they always looked unstable to me, so I wouldn't be first in the queue to try and prove my point by riding rollers. I have however had a good look around the internet for credible evidence of someone exceeding 180 RPM, I found this 'I know that Outchakov clocked 114 Km/h = 71 Mph in a Giro de Italia downhill' here - http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-52177.html, assuming that the guy was using normal road gearing this would be welll over 180 I have also found some posts on other forums by guys claiming 200 RPM but offering no other evidence. The lack of evidence is probably because Max output is reconed to be at about 90 - 110 RPM so a track sprinter or any other rider would gear the bike to hit max speed around that RPM. Some of us freaks may be able to pedal almost twice this fast, but power output will be way down, its only possible with a very big hill to back you up as demonstrated by my empty trophy shelves. Anyone who has been riding trials for a long time may stuggle to spin really high RPMs because the muscles have been repeatedly trained to hold a position and then punch through a fraction of the pedal stroke, just about as far as you could get from a fast and fluid pdealling style. You also need clipless pedals or toe straps to keep your feet on the pedals. Looks like for now we will just have to agree to disagree, Duane.